Let's engage in a bit of an exercise. I am a thirty year old man. I have never in my life experienced happiness. I have no prospects of becoming happy. Everyone I have ever seen who was happy seemed, in many fundamental ways, contemptible to me: they were complacent, they were 'satisfied'; they settled and lacked any driving ambition or devotion to achieving the uttermost limits of what they could achieve or become. They did not utilize the maximum of their potential to impact the world, and instead... seem less.

Explain to me why I should want to be like that. What is useful about this? Why is it good?

I am open to total revision of my worldview. I come to this dialogue with a history that I relate only to reveal my preconceptions; that they might be accounted for.

So to hug the hypothesis: "What's so great about being happy?"

Comment author: adamisom comment score below threshold [+] (27 children)

Comment author: Logos01 24 April 2012 11:04:44PM 1 point [-]

Emotion dressed up as pseudo-intellectualism. How do I know that/ Because the answer is so supremely obvious.

... Is there maybe some other manner in which I could explain that I was revealing my emotional biases in order to get them out of the way of the dialogue that would be more effective for you?

... What exactly is so baffling? People want to be happy for it's own sake

Why? The position is alien to me.

but in the end you're going to be faced with the fact that it's just a terminal value and you're going to have a hard time "explaining" it.

Handwaving is non-explanation. You might as well say "because magic". I was opening myself up to the dialogue of perhaps exploring mindspace alien to me -- and giving others the opportunity to do so in kind.

P.S. The specific use of the word contemptible is what tipped me off to the fact that you're not emotionally prepared to ask a good question here.

:-|

That's all I got. Maybe someone better suited to the dialogue will come along. Thanks for your time I guess?

Comment author: wedrifid 25 April 2012 02:10:43AM 2 points [-]

... What exactly is so baffling? People want to be happy for it's own sake

Why?

The only useful answer here seems to be giving a causal explanation for why humans have the preferences that they have. Something to do with the folks who have different preferences not living long enough to get laid a lot. There isn't any reasoning that people need to execute based on more fundamental principles of what to desire. This is just what they happen to do.

The position is alien to me.

It is rather common to you fellow humans.

Comment author: Logos01 25 April 2012 02:52:56AM -1 points [-]

This is just what they happen to do.

This is nonsensical. Do we always conform to patterns merely because they're the patterns we always adhered to, unquestioningly? The question is being asked now.

If there is no decent answer -- then what justifies this article?

Comment author: adamisom 25 April 2012 03:21:00AM * 2 points [-]

(Apologies for my earlier comment. I've been in a negative emotional funk lately, and at least I am more self-aware because of that comment and its response. Anyway---)

I'm a little confused about why you think it's hand-waving or question-begging to call happiness a 'terminal value'. Here's why.

Your utility function is just a representation of what you want to increase. So if happiness is what you want to increase, it ought to be represented (heavily) in your utility function, whatever that is. As far as I know, "utility" is a (philosophical) explication - a more precise and formalized way of talking about something. This is a concept I learned from some metalogic: logic is an "explication", see, that hopes to improve on intuitive reasoning based on intuitively valid inferences. Logical tautologies like P-->P aren't themselves considered to be true, they're only considered to represent truths, like 'if snow is white then snow is white', all of which is supposed to remind you that just because you dress something up in formalism doesn't mean you don't have to refer back to what you're trying to represent in the first place, which may be mundane in the sense of 'everyday'.

So of course you can call happiness a terminal value. Your values aren't constructed by your utility function; they're described by it. In my opinion you're taking things backward. Or, if maximal utility doesn't include increased happiness, you're doing it wrong, assuming happiness is what you value.

[Note: was edited.]

Comment author: Logos01 25 April 2012 06:26:42AM -2 points [-]

So of course you can call happiness a terminal value.

I can call my cat a Harrier Jet, too. Doesn't mean she's going to start launching missiles from under the wings she doesn't have.

Or, if maximal utility doesn't include increased happiness, you're doing it wrong, assuming happiness is what you value.

You're confusing abitrary with intrinsic. To qualify as a terminal value a thing must be self-evidently valuable; that is, it must be inherently 'good'. More of it must always be 'better' than less of it. I know this to be false of happiness/pleasure; I know that there is such a thing as "too happy".

I know of no such thing as "too useful".

Comment author: adamisom 25 April 2012 06:32:03AM * 0 points [-]

I think you're still missing the point. You can call happiness a terminal value, because you decide what those are.

I think you are confused here; what do you mean by inherently 'good'? Why must more of X always be better than less for? Does this resolve it?: yes, happiness =/= utility. I never claimed it was and I don't think anyone did. But among all the things that, when aggregated = your 'utility function', happiness (for most people) is a pretty big thing. And it is aggregate utility, and only aggregate utility, that would always be better with more.

Then, I suppose happiness isn't a terminal value. I think I was wrong. The only "terminal" value would be total utility.... but happiness is so fundamental and "self-evidently valuable" to most people that it seems useful to call such thing a "terminal value" if indeed you're going to call anything that.

P.S. I think you think you're saying something meaningful when you say "useful". I don't think you are. I think you're just expressing the idea of an aggregate utility, the sum. If not, what do you mean?

EDIT: This threw me for a loop: "I know this to be false of happiness/pleasure; I know that there is such a thing as "too happy"." Obviously, if happiness is a terminal value, you're right you can't be too happy. I think I'm either confused or tired or both. And if it so happens that in reality people don't desire, upon reflection, to maximize happiness because there's a point at which it's bad, then I understand you; such a person would be inconsistent to call happiness a terminal value in such a case.

Why do you think you can have too much happiness? (Think of some situation.) Presumably there's some trade-off.....
Now consider someone else in that same situation. Would someone else also think they have too much happiness in that situation? Because if that's not the case, you just have different terminal values. Ultimately, someone may judge their happiness to be most important to them. You can say, 'no, they should care more about (whatever tradeoff you think there is, maybe decreased ambition)'; they can simply respond, 'no, I disagree, I don't care more about that, I care more about happiness', because that's what it means for a value to be "terminal": it means for that value to the ultimate basis of judgment.

To make it clearer: you seem to think that different people's terminal values must be the same. Why do you think this?

Comment author: Logos01 25 April 2012 07:11:56AM * -1 points [-]

I think you're still missing the point.

Which is funny, because I am increasingly coming to the same conclusion with regards to your integration of my statements as you respond to me with essentially the same "talking points" in a manner that shows you haven't contemplated that at the very least merely repeating yourself isn't going to cause me to consider your old point any more relevant than it was the first time I offerred a rebuttal with new informational value.

At some point, I have learned that in such dialogues the only productive thing left for me to do is to simply drop the microphone and walk off the stage. I don't think this dialogue has quite reached that stage just yet. :)

You can call happiness a terminal value, because you decide what those are.

A rose by any other name. My pet; a harrier jet.

Declaring a thing to be another thing does not make it that thing. Brute fiat is insufficient to normative evaluations of intrinsic worth.

Obviously, if happiness is a terminal value, you're right you can't be too happy.

You somehow read the exact opposite of my meaning from my statement.

Also -- if you accept the notion of wireheading as an existential failure, then you acknowledge that happiness is not an intrinsic value.

Comment author: adamisom 25 April 2012 07:23:17AM * 3 points [-]

Good point. And I think I'll have to exit too, because I have the feeling that I'm doing something wrong, and I'm frankly too tired to figure that out right now.

Just one question. "Declaring a thing to be another thing does not make it that thing. Brute fiat is insufficient to normative evaluations of intrinsic worth." Among other things I may be confused about, I'm (still) confused what intrinsic worth might be. Since I don't (currently) think 'intrinsic worth' is a thing, it seems to me that it is just the nature of a terminal value that it's something you choose, so I don't see the violation.

EDIT: Edited statement edited out.

continue this thread »

Comment author: wedrifid 25 April 2012 03:46:27AM 0 points [-]

This is nonsensical. Do we always conform to patterns merely because they're the patterns we always adhered to, unquestioningly? The question is being asked now.

Right now some people prefer happiness. Many of the people who prefer happiness also endorse desiring to be happy and as such they right now prefer not to self modify away from desiring happiness.

then what justifies this article?

No justification is required for preferring one's preferences. That's the default. If you keep asking "Why?" enough you are bound to end up at the bottom level terminal goals from which other instrumental goals may be derived. Agents don't need to justify having terminal goals to you.

Comment author: Logos01 25 April 2012 06:20:50AM -1 points [-]

Right now some people prefer happiness.

This is handwaving. That is; you use a description to fulfill the role of an explanation.

Many of the people who prefer happiness also endorse desiring to be happy

This is also a description, not an explanation.

No justification is required for preferring one's preferences.

... I cannot help but find this to be a silly assertion. "That's the default"? That's just... not true.

f you keep asking "Why?" enough you are bound to end up at the bottom level terminal goals from which other instrumental goals may be derived.

Absolutely. And those terminal goals are those which are intrinsic in nature.

If you are claiming that happiness is an intrinsic good -- please, explain why. Because I for one just don't see it.

Comment author: aleksiL 03 May 2012 03:51:42PM 1 point [-]

It seems to me as if you view terminal goals as universal, not mind-specific. Is this correct, or have I misunderstood?

The point, as I understand it, that some humans seem to have happiness as a terminal goal. If you truly do not share this goal, then there is nothing left to explain. Value is in the mind, not inherent in the object it is evaluating. If one person values a thing for its own sake but another does not, this is a fact about their minds, not a disagreement about the properties of the thing.

Was this helpful?

adamisom comments on Be Happier - Less Wrong

Article Navigation

Comments (273)

Nearest Meetups

Virtual Study Room

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Recent Rationality Quotes

Recent Wiki Edits

Top Contributors, 30 Days

Recent Karma Awards

Comments (273)

Top Contributors, 30 Days

You'll need to login or register to do that

(Don't worry, it only takes a few seconds)

Create

Login