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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
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Too smart for our own good?
#26677477 - 05/17/20 06:52 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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Or not smart enough?
What part does intelligence play, if any, in happiness?
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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TheStallionMang
Do U know who yur fuckin with?


Registered: 10/18/17
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Rahz]
#26677504 - 05/17/20 07:01 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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There is much truth in the expression "ignorance is bliss"
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
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I find things like that to have a certain angle of truth, but in contrast one could say ignorance is the cause of most ills. Everyone seems to have deficiencies of sight, both by bias and general ignorance. Nobody is really all that wise. Ignorance is bliss for the unassuming but for everyone else it's part of the complication.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Rahz]
#26677601 - 05/17/20 07:49 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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this thing has been totally falling apart since it started.
some people may not see it that way, but does that make them stupid? they're falling to pieces too!
falling to pieces is kinda pretty sometimes
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Rahz]
#26677781 - 05/17/20 09:30 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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I have always thought that, in general, our species is smart enough to get ourselves into trouble, but not quite smart enough to get ourselves out.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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The Blind Ass
Bodhi



Registered: 08/16/16
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Loc: The Primordial Mind
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Intellect Only, or Emotion Only, can be like a Chinese finger trap
-------------------- Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps
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Ancient Mariner
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I think there are many factors that play into happiness. Intelligence can have a positive or negative impact. The kind of intelligence and how one uses that intelligence seems to me to be the largest factor in the resulting happiness.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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intelligence is like resonance and reverberation awakening to issues: whatever you point yours at becomes the central theme.
choose your topics artfully and resonate with something worth while.
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Yellow Pants



Registered: 05/14/17
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A significant part. Two ways to slice it. It plays a practical part in the sense that people require iq to get what they want or to simply advance in life in a way that they can realize their goals or adapt to difficulty. The other part is a more recreational maybe spiritual kind of iq that can lead to happiness. Where there isn’t a specific end point in a mind or a material outcome but just pursuing some kind of intelligence for its own sake.
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InnerWisdom



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in either case, personal happiness or the collective happiness of all humanity, the answer is no imo. That is, if smart means everything from wisdom to intelligence, then the smarter we are the happier we should be, eventually at least. Ignorance is bliss is a good point, but if we think about our species and our lives, in the end if we were smarter than we have been, there would be more happiness for all I think. And intelligence and wisdom are especially important for making a happy future for all.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger

Registered: 01/05/15
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Rahz] 1
#26680219 - 05/19/20 03:07 AM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rahz said: Or not smart enough?
What part does intelligence play, if any, in happiness?
To me it's sometimes like with every piece of knowledge gained, a little piece of the blindfold I was born with is torn away, sometimes I see the skeletal face that burns around us, and at others the golden webs that join us together.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: sudly]
#26680397 - 05/19/20 05:39 AM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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cool
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Yellow Pants



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Idk that ignorance is stupidity or that’s it’s the opposite of intelligence. Is stupidity bliss?
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
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neither ignorance nor stupidity are blissful or pleasurable in their own right. I think we say this when we see unfortunate creatures having fun at the most meagre stimulation.
Usually informed or complicated creatures take no pleasure at all - by virtue of knowing what they lack and being restless to seek more of something.
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
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Ignorance could be simply a lack of exposure to information. You can't worry about something you don't know about. But it can still bite you in the ass later.
Willful ignorance could be seen as a kind of stupidity.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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Yellow Pants



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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Rahz]
#26680846 - 05/19/20 10:50 AM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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I was also thinking that. Ignorance as in an absence of information or a willful deliberation. Which is to say that intelligence, the presence of information, can certainly be unbecoming so long as intelligence doesn’t mean the positive application of information. Some may say an intelligent person would be aware that he or she is overthinking to a fault, for example, and would correct course.
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
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I am highly ignorant of what is out of sight, out of hearing, and both of things in unread books as well as of things happening that have never been written. I am a little bit stupid, and lazy, but, work at keeping open and aware.
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laughingdog
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. Where I used to live, the grocery stores sometimes, hired kids with Down's syndrome ("It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual disability, and characteristic facial features."...."The average IQ of a young adult with Down syndrome is 50, equivalent to the mental ability of an 8- or 9-year-old child"...), and it is said they have a personality style that is..." pleasant & affectionate,"... . I observed this to be true.
. On the other hand testosterone is associated with aggressive behavior, which is not associated with happiness.
. So it seems intellect is no guarantee of happiness, and lower intelligence is no guarantee of unhappiness. Many smart people are mean.
. Other aspects of biology, our habits, & circumstance/ environment seem to play larger parts in our emotional life.
. Perhaps this is partly why 'wisdom' is often contrasted with "intelligence", although those with Down's syndrome would seem to also lack 'wisdom'. Yet at times they cheer others up. Part of joy, is of course sharing it.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: laughingdog]
#26681139 - 05/19/20 01:16 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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is it good to be happy all the time?
if someone is happy when others are bummed out, is that person wrong or doing something wrong, or are they just on a different complex wave of consciousness with happiness to spare.
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Yellow Pants



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I’ve heard various professional scientists of one category or another say that we did not evolve to be happy all the time. Which makes sense as if I was happy all the time, genuinely happy, then that would be unbecoming, confusing maybe a bit sociopathic. In a way happiness isn’t necessarily the goal although one should expect it if given the right formula.
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest


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Intelligence is a strange one, tricky to define. Some people who don't seem traditionally intelligent are much more intelligent that they seem by cultural standards, but there is a type of intelligence that often seems to spawn neuroticism.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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redgreenvines
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Grapefruit]
#26681309 - 05/19/20 02:46 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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associative cognition is basic, what you experience basically elicits memories that have similarity - I think intelligence is the effort to table memories that have been elicited and then select among them for more subtle matching by increasing the context beyond the moment and situation.
That means an intelligent being reacts not just by recognition, but by allowing for longer term concerns that are not obvious in the situation, by having an expanded awareness, taking in the moment in a transcending context, but not losing touch with the moment, this corresponds somewhat also with wisdom especially when the larger contexts are truthful, social and moral.
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Yellow Pants



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People are definitely playing their own game. Down syndrome people don’t often tax themself with complicated intellectual problems that may deflate or uplift them. “Mental disorder” probably follows the same pattern.
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laughingdog
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: is it good to be happy all the time?...
Crying with upset folks rarely actually helps them, hence they often pay good money for good therapists, as we already know.
Also as some may already know, the Buddhist goal as regards emotional states is equanimity, not a state of continual bliss. Bliss states called jhanas are acknowledged, and are considered perhaps stepping stones, but of course attachment to them is considered another error, so one ends up with equanimity. Which makes sense if one thinks about it. Actually coming to abide in such a way, most of the time is another matter.
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laughingdog
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Quote:
Yellow Pants said: People are definitely playing their own game. Down syndrome people don’t often tax themself with complicated intellectual problems that may deflate or uplift them. “Mental disorder” probably follows the same pattern.
Nobody holds Downs syndrome folks as ideal, they are just an example of the fact that IQ has little to do with disposition.
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Yellow Pants



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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: laughingdog]
#26681643 - 05/19/20 06:34 PM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
laughingdog said:
Quote:
Yellow Pants said: People are definitely playing their own game. Down syndrome people don’t often tax themself with complicated intellectual problems that may deflate or uplift them. “Mental disorder” probably follows the same pattern.
Nobody holds Downs syndrome folks as ideal, they are just an example of the fact that IQ has little to do with disposition.
Of course. Although something could be said about that. Ime mentally challenged folk are often happy go lucky and affectionate because they are being cared for often by a helping soul. Without which the affection would quickly vanish.
Not to say that they can’t be, but there’s nothing especially affectionate about people with severe mental disorder.
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laughingdog
Stranger

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. I'm no expert on the subject but , autistic people by contrast with Down' s syndrome folks are often rather non-relational. Perhaps it varies by illness as well as the caregivers. . In any case once again staying on topic with the OP's question, I suggest that IQ does not synchronize with happiness. Although if already happy, higher IQ is most likely a bonus. But not necessarily, as I am reminded of (from wiki) : . "Cassandra ... was a priestess of Apollo in Greek mythology cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate someone whose accurate prophecies are not believed." . Which actually seems a common fate, of some of the brighter folks. As the history of theories in science history shows again and again.
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Ferdinando


Registered: 11/15/09
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: laughingdog]
#26682550 - 05/20/20 04:51 AM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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it's good to be happy
it's not wrong
who knows how happiness may affect the future
it might be infinitely good in long term we can't see that far
it's not a negative time when we are happy
and we deserve that
we didn't choose to get born
so sometimes I even think we have the right to get stoned because there has to be something good
of course you're not allowed to do wrong like chauncy says I am allowed to wear any of the old man's clothes so it's like there is something about it there that's like you are allowed to do it only if it's not negative
there is also a joke inside when one is happy about it's not negative when I am not happy
the thing about stoned is an answer if we all understood it
happy is not as good as not suicide
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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Ferdinando


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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Ferdinando]
#26682553 - 05/20/20 04:53 AM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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happiness is damn good
like looking at a garden that is beautiful
you deserve to always be happy
you should be
-------------------- with our love with our love we could save the world
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redgreenvines
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Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: Too smart for our own good? [Re: Ferdinando]
#26682612 - 05/20/20 05:58 AM (3 years, 8 months ago) |
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I agree it's preferable and positive
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Moses_Davidson
Non-Prophet



Registered: 05/21/20
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I've always wanted a bumper sticker that says "I've been much happier since the lobotomy."
This is anecdotal... but before I had my stroke, my IQ had tested above average. Today, I'd be lucky if I could reach an average score. I can no longer do big equations in my head... can no longer solve "impossible" problems at work, I can't think anywhere near as quickly,... and lost large parts of my vocabulary which was... ehh... what's the word? Yet today, I am far happier than I was before.
Being too smart for our own good is perhaps like having a computer that is too fast to work properly. It might not be the hardware causing the problems... but the programming within the CPU.
On the other hand, there always seems to be a balance. If we were smarter, maybe we would not wrestle with all of these concepts, and the ability to put ourselves in a state of happiness would be as simple as stretching to avoid tight muscles. Perhaps it is hubris for us to even think of ourselves as smart (or aspiring to be average, in my case) at all.
-------------------- "In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable." --Sir Winston Churchill "The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose." J.B.S. Haldane "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." Mark Twain
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The Blind Ass
Bodhi



Registered: 08/16/16
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See how the lilies toil not getting ahead of themselves, or out of their depths, just Goldilocks all day.
-------------------- Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps
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Moses_Davidson
Non-Prophet



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“When we hold joyful pure thoughts, our gladness will never leave us.” - Shodo Harada Roshi
I don't think he's trying to say, "just think happy thoughts, Peter Pan" but rather that the subject matter of our focus is what we become. Or, that the program we run in our CPU will determine, well... GIGO for those of you old enough to remember that one.
-------------------- "In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable." --Sir Winston Churchill "The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose." J.B.S. Haldane "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." Mark Twain
Edited by Moses_Davidson (05/23/20 11:13 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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the more you see the more it hurts so you have to be able to accept that and move on or dumb down
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