Just wondering...
As I told you, this journal will contain some of my weird ways of thinking, some wondering that bothered my mind. That's the first one.
Before summerholiday in Germany began, I still had Latin. And we were talking about philosophy, especially about platon and his cave-allegory. (If you don't know it, I can explain it, if you ask me. Don't hesitate!)
We read it in a book, and it was a very long discussion... Which repeated itself all over again and again.
Soon I didn't listen to the discussion anymore and started to read the next page of the book. There was an article that made me think a lot.
The article was about the sad and happy sides in live. A scientist said, that, although everyone's goal in life is to find ultimate happiness, if it was for a little experiment, everyone would refuse.
The experiment was: getting a human being into a deep sleeping state, then connect his brain to a machine that will stimulate it so that the human will feel only joy and happiness. After two years, the effect would wear off and the human would die a peaceful death.
It would be, objectively speaking, exactly what a human could wish for in his life, as if all of his dreams would come true at once.
So why did nearly everyone, who was asked, decline? Why did they prefer a hard life full of uncertainty and worry over two years full of happiness?
Well, for one the first question we have to ask to receive a final answer, is, what is the goal of a human life?
Yes, a human wants to be happy. Find his personal happiness.
This throws up another question: what is happiness?
Let's look at it in a scientific way:
The feeling of happiness is inducted by endorphins. These hormones are spilled by certain endocrine glands after those received a signal from the hypothalamus, which is located in the diencephalon. The diencephalon receives sensory perceptions and combines them with feelings, and sends certain signals to the hypothalamus so it can again send the right signals to the endocrine glands.
So, for a human happiness is when those endorphins are in the blood. Consequently human beings search for situations that are able to keep the endorphins in their blood. (In our experiment, the machine would have inducted the signals to the hypothalamus.)
The following question that has to be answered now is, what does keep our endorphins in our blood?
This is a question no one can actually answer correctly in a whole. Why? Because for every person in this world the answer would be something else in detail. In general, one could say, that living a live without worry in which our needs are fulfilled completely is the answer to that question. (In our experiment the brain would add those pictures, because the body feels that happiness without receiving any sensory perceptions, which for our brain is impossible, so it fills the emptiness with fake images.)
Now, why do people choose "harsh reality" over "ultimate fake happiness"?
This depends of course on how people think. I'll try to elaborate every way of thinking and find a summarising final statement.
The fist kind of people would feel like it's just not right. They would feel like cheating, gaining happiness without doing anything while other people would have to go through hardships to be at least a little happy. These people are often very social and compassionate.
Second would refuse because they think that there is a sense behind life, other than just finding your own happiness. They think that every living in the universe has a sense, something deeper than a human mind can understand, and that, if they would jump out of this net, they could endanger everything. (To those people I will also count all of those who are very religious and think that an experiment like that would be against the will of their god(s).)
Third people are people who want to be pride. They do want to find happiness, but they want to be able to say 'I have gained it with hard work. Everything I have I gained with my own hands, I deserve it.' These are people for who social status is important. For them, having something to be proud of is already making them happy.
Maybe you noticed, that those there points I mentioned are sometimes pretty similar to each other, but sometimes also pretty harsh summarised. There are many shades of people in this world, and it's absolutely impossible to mention them all or to put them into groups like what I did to be able to show you the answer of our question, which is pretty simple:
For all those people, the way to their aim is actually the aim. In general all of those people want to be able to look back at their life and say 'Well, although I made many mistakes in my life, although not everything went well or the way I wanted things to go, but in general I did everything right in my life. I had a good life.'. This is the goal of a human live, this is their ultimate happiness, and this is why they chose reality or their lives over fake happiness.
Note:
I don't know if anyone is really interested in this, or if anyone read this. Thus, I plead you to leave me a comment and say your real opinion about the post or about the topic itself! This is something I'm often wondering about, and it's the first time that I'm actually writing it down, and sharing it with others. I hope I didn't seem to judge anyone or anything in this. If I did, I'm sorry! Everything I mentioned in here should be neutral and not judging.
I hope to receive some comments!
~Yaya