[drclau]

Every time I hear or read about happiness, I remember this quote from Thomas Metzinger. I hope you’ll find it useful, too:

“Evolution as such is not a process to be glorified: It is blind, driven by chance and not by insight. It is merciless and sacrifices individuals. It invented the reward system in the brain; it invented positive and negative feelings to motivate our behavior; it placed us on a hedonic treadmill that constantly forces us to try to be as happy as possible—to feel good—without ever reaching a stable state. But as we can now clearly see, this process has not optimized our brains and minds toward happiness as such. Biological Ego Machines such as Homo sapiens are efficient and elegant, but many empirical data point to the fact that happiness was never an end in itself.”

— “The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self“, Thomas Metzinger

[lukebuehler]

Well, if you want a really reductionist view of happiness, which also happens to be largely true, you could say: have children.

[refurb]

Not to be trite but I feel like a big part of the happiness that children produce is just a focus on someone else’s happiness other than your own.

It’s hard to worry too much when someone else’s existence depends on you. It’s incredibly hard, but like most things that are incredibly hard that’s where the contentment is found.

[taneq]

> just a focus on someone else’s happiness other than your own.

That's a pretty universal ingredient in any roadmap to happiness, isn't it? I mean that's basically the Christmas Spirit right there.

[d3ckard]

It kind of works, honestly.

Since my son was born earlier this year (first kid), I certainly see how he can effortlessly make me happy in a way I found hard to achieve earlier.

While I handled most of my depression-like issues before (mostly anxiety), he seems to have a great impact on making me feel fully recovered, motivated and wanting things from life again.

[Aeolun]

Depends on age, I think. At 3 years old mine is quite capable of invoking an anxiety attack at will.

On the other hand, you are basically forced to deal with it instead of running away, can’t leave the kiddo alone.

[lukebuehler]

Yep, I have many of them. It's hard, and and sleep deprivation is not the most direct path to Zen. But... behind it all there is this deep seated satisfaction and, yes, happiness with raising children.

[DecayingOrganic]

When you have children, why should evolution be seen as under pressure to make you happy? If the ultimate goal is to ensure that you will care for them for the time necessary for the offspring's wellbeing, there are various ways to do this without making the parents happy; in fact, making the parents happy may be counterproductive.

[kolleykibber]

Well, the parents are not happy all the time. But when the offspring are safe and happy, the parents will be generally happy. Should a threat to the offspring exist, the parents will not be happy. Seems to fit with the gene's plan.

[TaXaZ]

I think it BCZ actually doesn't stem from happiness or even lack of it (say hello to functioning unhappy parents). Children give strong "purpose" and hijack the dopamine circuitry which is the real driver behind human drive, evolutionary speaking (yes they also hijack some other circuitry as well, but the real drive is the dopamine system). TLDR, you're right, it works on another dimension which is even more fundamental than happiness dimension. The dopamine circuitry stems from lizard brain and quite old, evolutionary speaking.

[alexvoda]

Just a note, the Triune brain theory, implied by you saying "lizard brain", is not actually part of scientific consensus. It was incredibly popular (even being cited by Carl Sagan) and still retains a lot of popularity among the public, but it seems it is no longer regarded as factual.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420917687

[TaXaZ]

First thanks for this read. But yes and no.

- Yes, bcz this reptile models is not accurate. It's at best an outdated but very intriguing analogy (which I agree can be misleading) but not here.

- No bcz a bit irrelevant to the our argument above. You may refer to [this paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234157/) quoting:

> "The preponderance of the cerebral cortex (which, with its supporting structures, makes up approximately 80 percent of the brain's total volume) is actually a recent development in the course of evolution. The cortex contains the physical structures responsible for most of what we call ''brainwork": cognition, mental imagery, the highly sophisticated processing of visual information, and the ability to produce and understand language. But underneath this layer reside many other specialized structures that are essential for movement, consciousness, sexuality, the action of our five senses, and more—all equally valuable to human existence. Indeed, in strictly biological terms, these structures can claim priority over the cerebral cortex. In the growth of the individual embryo, as well as in evolutionary history, the brain develops roughly from the base of the skull up and outward. The human brain actually has its beginnings, in the four-week-old embryo, as a simple series of bulges at one end of the neural tube."

Despite what that paper says, the lizard analogy goes to this, and I agree it's loose, outdated and misleading one but doesn't change the argument we're discussing here.

[lukebuehler]

What alternatives do you suggest? Guilt?

[Kinrany]

> Evolution as such is not a process to be glorified: It is blind, driven by chance and not by insight. It is merciless and sacrifices individuals.

I don't think the author of the quote would agree that giving up and doing exactly what the system was designed to force you to do is the best solution.

[monkeybutton]

Evolution and my mother in law agree on one thing: the answer is have grandchildren.

[lexapro]

There are many studies on this; parents are less happy than non‑parents on average.

[j4hdufd8]

What does that mean?

[lukebuehler]

The quote in the parent comment says that the whole hedonic machinery within us is a result of natural selection, of which conscious happiness is just a side effect. Then why not just go ahead and do what that machinery drives you do to: go and have offspring. Chances are that this is the nexus where most happiness can be found.

[j4hdufd8]

Wow, that... makes a lot of sense. It's one of those things I already knew intuitively but couldn't formalize why.

[heresie-dabord]

States of satisfaction and euphoria are normal. Being good and doing good are fine objectives in of themselves. To be in a constant state of satisfaction and euphoria is unrealistic, unless it's an illusion achieved by a soma pill [1] or a hallucinatory sociological construct.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

[DerekBickerton]

> To be in a constant state of satisfaction and euphoria is unrealistic

I've read the accounts of near death experiences in The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying, and I recall many people being exceedingly euphoric, as if they have been freed of the grasping and attachments of life, like a river joining back to the sea if you will.

Temporarily we wear this meat-suit and then rejoin the spirit world / etheric world, and many people call this 'heaven' or other words. Imagine being permanently on MDMA or something.

[dandanua]

> happiness was never an end in itself

It's even worse than that. From an evolutionary point of view happiness is a dead end. There is no reason to evolve if you are happy.

[Communitivity]

You can evolve to bring happiness to others.