PhilosophicDiscussion24-Questionsthat tend notto Edification

[Symmetry]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

Bipolar people do not, of course, hence why it''s considered as a mental illness.

[BigBallinStalin]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

Bipolar people do not, of course, hence why it''s considered as a mental illness.

True, which further strengthens my position, but I look forward to nietzsche's answering the last question.

[nietzsche]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

The virtue would be to choose to be happy?

So far, when it comes to brain conditions like bipolar disorder and depression and the rest, I think the accepted notion among psychiatrists is that there's a genetic predisposition, not a genetic fate.

Furthermore, to think in a hard determinism way sort of leaves you powerless, psychologically speaking. If you think there's nothing you can do against bipolar disorder ties your hands a bit, for you think that no matter what you do you will always be sick. But if you think there's something you can do, you look for it, and you might find it.

At this point we are basically choosing our beliefs, if you wish to believe that way it's your right, and I can't argue with you. No argument will convince you. I like to believe we can choose happiness, or if not happiness some other positive attitude towards life.

And to go on a bit further, one can change one's mental habits, it's not easy for everyone and I can say that at first it's quite difficult if you are not used to look into yourself, but it can be done. The trick is to arrive to the belief system, and see belief by belief until one reaches the core beliefs, and once there sometimes it only takes acknowledging how the belief formed and why it not longer helps you to move on with more helpful beliefs. It takes accepting responsibility for one's life, and this is a bit saying stop playing the victim of the environment role we so much love.

[Symmetry]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

Bipolar people do not, of course, hence why it''s considered as a mental illness.

True, which further strengthens my position, but I look forward to nietzsche's answering the last question.

Please don't go with the lazy trope of "that only strengthens my point". You were wrong,

[BigBallinStalin]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

The virtue would be to choose to be happy?

With Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, one feels joy in acting virtuously. You choose the mean of a particular virtue not because "it makes you feel happy," but rather because "it's within your nature" or you've been properly educated and can emulate other virtuous people. Feeling happiness during virtuous activities is more of a byproduct and not the end in itself.

So far, when it comes to brain conditions like bipolar disorder and depression and the rest, I think the accepted notion among psychiatrists is that there's a genetic predisposition, not a genetic fate.

Furthermore, to think in a hard determinism way sort of leaves you powerless, psychologically speaking. If you think there's nothing you can do against bipolar disorder ties your hands a bit, for you think that no matter what you do you will always be sick. But if you think there's something you can do, you look for it, and you might find it.

At this point we are basically choosing our beliefs, if you wish to believe that way it's your right, and I can't argue with you. No argument will convince you. I like to believe we can choose happiness, or if not happiness some other positive attitude towards life.

And to go on a bit further, one can change one's mental habits, it's not easy for everyone and I can say that at first it's quite difficult if you are not used to look into yourself, but it can be done. The trick is to arrive to the belief system, and see belief by belief until one reaches the core beliefs, and once there sometimes it only takes acknowledging how the belief form and why it not longer helps you to move on with more helpful beliefs. It takes accepting responsibility for one's life, and this is a bit saying stop playing the victim of the environment role we so much love.

RE: last two paragraphs.
To summarize correctly(?): You're a describing a means for attaining happiness. Virtue ethics is one of many such "belief systems"

With virtue ethics, many are incapable of becoming the Perfectly Virtuous person, or even becoming the second-tier Virtuous Person, because it's extremely difficult. During the "learning stage," where one practices virtuous activity, one may not feel at all happy about it at times.

So, in "choosing" a certain belief system, do you mean that one is "choosing" to become happy?

[nietzsche]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

The virtue would be to choose to be happy?

With Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, one feels joy in acting virtuously. You choose the mean of a particular virtue not because "it makes you feel happy," but rather because "it's within your nature" or you've been properly educated and can emulate other virtuous people. Feeling happiness during virtuous activities is more of a byproduct and not the end in itself.

So far, when it comes to brain conditions like bipolar disorder and depression and the rest, I think the accepted notion among psychiatrists is that there's a genetic predisposition, not a genetic fate.

Furthermore, to think in a hard determinism way sort of leaves you powerless, psychologically speaking. If you think there's nothing you can do against bipolar disorder ties your hands a bit, for you think that no matter what you do you will always be sick. But if you think there's something you can do, you look for it, and you might find it.

At this point we are basically choosing our beliefs, if you wish to believe that way it's your right, and I can't argue with you. No argument will convince you. I like to believe we can choose happiness, or if not happiness some other positive attitude towards life.

And to go on a bit further, one can change one's mental habits, it's not easy for everyone and I can say that at first it's quite difficult if you are not used to look into yourself, but it can be done. The trick is to arrive to the belief system, and see belief by belief until one reaches the core beliefs, and once there sometimes it only takes acknowledging how the belief form and why it not longer helps you to move on with more helpful beliefs. It takes accepting responsibility for one's life, and this is a bit saying stop playing the victim of the environment role we so much love.

RE: last two paragraphs.
To summarize correctly(?): You're a describing a means for attaining happiness. Virtue ethics is one of many such "belief systems"

With virtue ethics, many are incapable of becoming the Perfectly Virtuous person, or even becoming the second-tier Virtuous Person, because it's extremely difficult. During the "learning stage," where one practices virtuous activity, one may not feel at all happy about it at times.

So, in "choosing" a certain belief system, do you mean that one is "choosing" to become happy?

You are losing me here man, I put it in the simplest words and you want to go back to the cryptic way Aristotle spoke. I once threw Aristotle's Metaphysics book against the wall because I couldn't accept why it had to be that confusing.

So what if you are incapable of becoming a Perfectly Virtuous person? Remember I'm parting from the existentialist point of "one's project", there's no established meaning, everyone chooses one's "project". If you want, I guess you can adapt virtue to it: i.e. virtue is being truthful to one's chosen project . But virtue carries a lot of meaning in itself, sounds like if you are not virtuous you are bad, judgement here doesn't help, when you are trying to be happy.

During the "learning stage," where one practices virtuous activity, one may not feel at all happy about it at times.

This is true, but once one has decided one's path one feels greatly better than before, even though things might not be as good as they could be at first. I think the feeling is integrity.

So, in "choosing" a certain belief system, do you mean that one is "choosing" to become happy?

Sometimes when you say "what the heck, I'm just going to be happy today, the f*ck with the world" you can actually make it, you start to see what normally makes you angry or upset, and you choose to ignore it and continue to be happy. But eventually it fades out, the energy, and the stuff starts to get to you again. William James spoke of this in his Principles of Psychology, he had a nice name to it but I just forgot, he said it was a fallacy. But I suspect that if you continue to make that effort day by day eventually happiness becomes an habit. It's just that it would require a lot of effort. And Kierkegaard would say one has to every day make the choice to be happy.

In any case, I've found the core-belief-changing/adapting way to be the most powerful. It's tricky, for when you want to establish your new core beliefs your personal habits sort of rebel.. "why tha f*ck i'm i going to forgive others, why tha f*ck am i going to let others get away with being assholes".. and you realize right there that it's your choice, you can continue to blame others or you can just decide to be responsible for your own life, including how you feel.

Coming from the most pragmatical culture ever, why do you choose to complicate things, my dear BBS?

[BigBallinStalin]

Regarding my interests, there are no simple answers. It's not like I chose things to become complicated...

RE: 3rd to last paragraph. Happiness on false pretenses doesn't seem to be sustainable.

[BigBallinStalin]

Nietz, maybe the source of our impasse is that you're primarily concerned with your own happiness; whereas, I'm trying to a practice a guideline which not only improves myself but also others.

[Nola_Lifer]

The ultimate goal in life is to be yourself. How you come to yourself is your own way or path. Normally, when you are being yourself you are happy. Right? But it isn't always easy to be yourself. If you go against society or not play the game correctly, you will find that it is hard and happiness difficult to achieve. Yet, happiness is still there at times. Happiness like all things are impermanent. It is fleeting. So to say that you choose to be happy is some what true, but you need to keep in my that you won't be happy all the time. This is impossible; however, you can be yourself all the time, which one can argue is better.

You can think of it as think of it as this: If your mind is like soil and emotions are like seeds then you'd want to sow and water the seeds that are desirable. While making sure you weed out the bad seeds. One cannot directly choose to be happy but you can make that you will be happy or can be happy by nurturing the seeds that lead to happiness or the seed of happiness itself.

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

Bipolar people do not, of course, hence why it''s considered as a mental illness.

True, which further strengthens my position, but I look forward to nietzsche's answering the last question.

Please don't go with the lazy trope of "that only strengthens my point". You were wrong,

Quit fucking trolling

[nietzsche]

Regarding my interests, there are no simple answers. It's not like I chose things to become complicated...

RE: 3rd to last paragraph. Happiness on false pretenses doesn't seem to be sustainable.

I assume here you are going by the belief that one has to earn his happiness. Perhaps one has to earn it by making the choice, but there's no meaning inherent in our reality that says who is to be happy and who isn't. Perhaps you want to look into what "false pretense" means to you. What makes something false? Who is the judge?

Looking for worthiness will confuse you. I think that looking to feel worthy begins by feeling unworthy. Happiness is not given by an imaginary judge who decides whether or not you are worthy of it, one decides to be happy. One simply knows one's worthy of it.

Nietz, maybe the source of our impasse is that you're primarily concerned with your own happiness; whereas, I'm trying to a practice a guideline which not only improves myself but also others.

Fair enough. But don't ask me to intellectualize it because I did read all I could find on the subject, and to finally arrive to a knowledge that was true to me, that I could relate to and finally get it I had to look into myself. True it helped me to know what wasn't going to work for me and got hints from every place, but I think I finally got it and I'm not going to confuse myself by trying to create a universal template that satisfies the laws of logic and at the same time satisfies every person's point of view regardless of their current beliefs.

Indeed, my knowledge on the topic is subjective. But what other type of knowledge there is? Words are mainly a way to transmit information, there's no meaning on a word other that the meaning we give that word ourselves.

All I can do is share the methods and realizations that worked for me. Maybe they are of help to others.

It is not my inclination to write a system of ethics. Nor I think I have a complete one. How many philosophers created their system, only to be debunked by the next philosopher? If you feel you will find that philosopher that had the whole truth you are headed for a disappointment.

What is your goal on this BBS? To understand it intellectually? Or to be happy? You can have a perfect understanding of every theory of happiness, of every system of ethics in the part that deals with happiness and still not get it. And you have to get it from within to actually apply such knowledge and be happy.

[nietzsche]

The ultimate goal in life is to be yourself. How you come to yourself is your own way or path. Normally, when you are being yourself you are happy. Right? But it isn't always easy to be yourself. If you go against society or not play the game correctly, you will find that it is hard and happiness difficult to achieve. Yet, happiness is still there at times. Happiness like all things are impermanent. It is fleeting. So to say that you choose to be happy is some what true, but you need to keep in my that you won't be happy all the time. This is impossible; however, you can be yourself all the time, which one can argue is better.

I find this to be very true, however I suspect that Pinche Nola has still some doubts about it. It requires boldness and inner truth, and I think Pinche Nola is shedding some doubt on whether it's possible or not.

Say there's a scale that goes from -100 to +100, and happiness is represented in the scale from +70 to +100. Perhaps sometimes you won't feel super happy, you will only feel that you are being truthful to yourself, although current circumstances aren't the best. Say you feel +40, still in the positive side, but you have the inner conviction that you will keep your "mental sanity" by choosing to be positive all the time. You also have the advantage that you've been practicing for long time, and habit is in your side.

By merely stopping the self-sabotaging, the blame games, the victim roles, you gather momentum towards the positive side of the scale.

Mind that my analogy is just that, only an analogy.

[Crazyirishman]

I think the Eastern Western dichotomy is causing the problem. Aristotle had his system of ethics and virtue, while Buddha's goal was to extinguish ones karmic connections with the world set oneself free. Trying to equate the two will cause issues because of the different trees of thoughts from which to two spawned from. the QTE's wont help one attain Buddha-hood because they don't extinguish those connections. While eudaimonia from what I understood is more along the lines of 'human flourishing' and as a line of practice to be used as 'practical wisdom'.

[Symmetry]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?

Bipolar people do not, of course, hence why it''s considered as a mental illness.

True, which further strengthens my position, but I look forward to nietzsche's answering the last question.

Please don't go with the lazy trope of "that only strengthens my point". You were wrong,

Quit fucking trolling

What do you think was trollish in my post? Having worked with a lot of kids with mental and developmental illnesses, I'm curious as to your take.

[BigBallinStalin]

I think the Eastern Western dichotomy is causing the problem. Aristotle had his system of ethics and virtue, while Buddha's goal was to extinguish ones karmic connections with the world set oneself free. Trying to equate the two will cause issues because of the different trees of thoughts from which to two spawned from. the QTE's wont help one attain Buddha-hood because they don't extinguish those connections. While eudaimonia from what I understood is more along the lines of 'human flourishing' and as a line of practice to be used as 'practical wisdom'.

Yeah, that's what's appealing.

I know what I need to do. Thanks, nietz and CIM.

[Nola_Lifer]

I think the Eastern Western dichotomy is causing the problem. Aristotle had his system of ethics and virtue, while Buddha's goal was to extinguish ones karmic connections with the world set oneself free. Trying to equate the two will cause issues because of the different trees of thoughts from which to two spawned from. the QTE's wont help one attain Buddha-hood because they don't extinguish those connections. While eudaimonia from what I understood is more along the lines of 'human flourishing' and as a line of practice to be used as 'practical wisdom'.

Well I agree and disagree. At that time East and West were pretty close. It is just over time that Western translation or interpretation of Aristotle and Socrates have been changed the meaning.