Frenchy,
Thanks for your replies.
Is happiness merely a state of contentment wherein one is not troubled by anything
No, is my answer. Happiness is a positive, rather than the absence of something. For example, the fact that I am not being ill treated does not make me happy. In fact the thought of existing in an untroubled state fills me with horror. I am lazy enough at present, but I what would I do if I was fully and perpetually content? Nothing. If one definition of life is movement, I don't see how achieving contentment will do anything but bring me a dead stop. When I get back from a long swim, I sit and relax feeling contented, sometimes happy, but I wouldn't want that feeling to last forever as I'm certain I wouldn't bother to go swimming again. This is getting a circular argument, except for this: I don't go swimming for that feeling I get afterwards, I also go because if you gave me gills I would probably never return to land, and there are other reasons.
We must be hardwired to enjoy certain stimuli as babies. From there on, I think we subconsciously refer back to these emotions when things are going well in life. We also learn new emotions, or perhaps we just learn to blend the primary emotional colours (you'll notice I've never read any psychology!). So emotions come from 1st) the human body 2nd) nurturing, 3rd) society and everything else. The idea that emotions are learned is supported by cultural anthropology, for instance even the seemingly simple emotion of disgust varies widely in its objects when diverse cultures are compared. All this in included in your 'contamination'
Is happiness the absence of sorrow or is sorrow the absence of happiness?
Well, I prefer to talk about happiness and unhappiness, as bringing in sorrow complicates things. To answer your question I return to analogising, I used matter v space, you used light v darkness, fine. In the 'real', material world there is no such thing as space or darkness, these are absences of matter/light. So I see happiness 'materially', it is either present or absent.
Voltaire's Candide:
Work keeps away three great vices, boredom, vice, and need."
Stephen20:
Philo,
if you want to be HAPPY, REMOVE human thinking. In ~IT~ remains the FLAW
Non Human thinking has worked in the past and
GOD uses it everyday
I did what I could with your syntax! This retort seems appropriate.
Master, we have come to ask you to tell us why such a strange animal as man was ever created.Also from Candide.
"What are you meddling in?" said the dervish. "Is that your business?"
"But, Reverend father," said Candide, "there is a horrible amount of evil on earth."
"What does it matter" said the dervish, "whether there is evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he care whether the mice in the ship are comfortable or not?
philo