The idea that we try to optimize happiness in the sense you imply is a simplification. Blissful ignorance provides happiness, but most people don’t consider it a worthy goal. Yet this suggestion is basically “try to achieve blissful ignorance, rather than not liking bad things”. It does not follow that because X is not possible without Y, and Y is good, therefore X is good. Trying to believe that X is good on these grounds is some variation of willful blindness and blissful ignorance.
Happiness is a state of mind, not a condition of the territory.
Blissful ignorance provides happiness
True by tautology.
It does not follow that because X is not possible without Y, and Y is good, therefore X is good. Trying to believe that X is good on these grounds is some variation of willful blindness and blissful ignorance.
I completely agree. But the following is correct:
X is not possible without Y, and Y makes me happy, therefore when I encounter X, I as a rational person who seeks useful emotions and wishes to raise my level of happiness, would benefit from being able to use the relationship between X and Y to raise my happiness even if my brain would lower my happiness if it encountered X and didn’t consider the relationship between X and Y.
No rational person (at least no rational person without extremely atypical priorities) “wishes to raise his level of happiness”. Few people think that an ideal state for them to be in would be to be drugged into perfect happiness. This suggestion is basically drugging yourself into happiness without the drugs, but keeping the salient aspect of drugs—namely, that the happiness has no connection with there being a desirable situation in the outside world.
You may be thinking your priorities are more typical than they are. A straight forward utilitarian might think its a reasonable view / goal. There are lots of people out there.
As a more general point rationality doesn’t speak to end goals, it speaks to achieving those goals. See orthogonality hypothesis.
Drugs reduce the amount of concern you have for the real world. Taking greater notice of necessary relationships between observations increases the amount of concern you have for the real world.
The idea that we try to optimize happiness in the sense you imply is a simplification. Blissful ignorance provides happiness, but most people don’t consider it a worthy goal. Yet this suggestion is basically “try to achieve blissful ignorance, rather than not liking bad things”. It does not follow that because X is not possible without Y, and Y is good, therefore X is good. Trying to believe that X is good on these grounds is some variation of willful blindness and blissful ignorance.
Happiness is a state of mind, not a condition of the territory.
True by tautology.
I completely agree. But the following is correct:
X is not possible without Y, and Y makes me happy, therefore when I encounter X, I as a rational person who seeks useful emotions and wishes to raise my level of happiness, would benefit from being able to use the relationship between X and Y to raise my happiness even if my brain would lower my happiness if it encountered X and didn’t consider the relationship between X and Y.
No rational person (at least no rational person without extremely atypical priorities) “wishes to raise his level of happiness”. Few people think that an ideal state for them to be in would be to be drugged into perfect happiness. This suggestion is basically drugging yourself into happiness without the drugs, but keeping the salient aspect of drugs—namely, that the happiness has no connection with there being a desirable situation in the outside world.
You may be thinking your priorities are more typical than they are. A straight forward utilitarian might think its a reasonable view / goal. There are lots of people out there.
As a more general point rationality doesn’t speak to end goals, it speaks to achieving those goals. See orthogonality hypothesis.
People who are depressed can quite reasonably want to raise their level of happiness—their baseline is below what makes sense for their situation.
There’s a difference between wanting to raise one’s level of happiness and wanting to raise it as high as possible.
I didn’t mean to imply that a rational person should be willing to pay any possible price to raise his happiness.
Drugs reduce the amount of concern you have for the real world. Taking greater notice of necessary relationships between observations increases the amount of concern you have for the real world.