/lit/ - Literature

opiates are a fine synthetic substitute for happiness, we can deal.

i'm not even going to sage since the front page is so shitty this is an improvement.

>>3231067
Oh really? Someone needs to re-read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
Also, it looks like you committed a logical fallacy.

I'm pretty close to both, but I guess that's only because I have lapses in my intelligence and I have a severe personality disorder. I highly recommend it and suggest you seek help.

>>3231073
>he translates εὐδαιμονία as happiness

>>3231073
>logical fallacy
How come ?

>>3231125
You need to be intelligent enough to recognize happiness, and to enjoy that which makes you happy. Or something.

>>3231067
yes you can; I'm intelligent and happy... and there is not a single fucking way to prove im lying (nor a reason to lie)

>>3231134
Now that's just silly.

Someone doesn't know the intense joy you get from studying, creating art, and improving yourself.

>>3231137
I don't know, I was just guessing.

I'd rather have happiness. If you're happy but ignorant, how do you know you're ignorant?

>obviously, the fact that my life is shit isn't my fault. i'm just too damn smart.
fuck off OP, you probably aren't even that smart

>>3231168
Probably by being self aware.

>he hasn't read Camus
>not even Kierkegaard

>>3231178
Do you see all the dudebros in clubs moping because they cannot into philosophy?

>>3231067
An intelligent person will realize that there is no point in being unhappy, as it is a lesser state of existence compared to happiness. That is, unless you are an emo faget

that's why alcohol exists

>>3231181
>Reading Camus or Kierkegaard

>>3231190
>a lesser state of existence

Justify this. I dare you.

OP can't into Nietzsche.

>>3231190
Except being happy or unhappy isn't always a voluntary decision, shithead.
I can say I'm happy because my life is better now, but there was a long time where I couldn't be happy, no matter how hard I tried.

>>3231138
I'm probably the most productive person I know and yet I spend most of the time utterly depressed

>>3231218
now you are just stupid

>>3231125
>How come?
False dichotomy.

you can also be a 4chan and have neither

You guys are all selfish fags who worry too much about "self-improvement", if things could only be seen as improvement any way.

Intelligence is a matter of potential, intelligence cannot be quantified or measured, it's not something that you have stored, it's something that only exists as it is put into use. Like having the fastest car stuck in a garage. Well, then it's not the fastest car, it's the most still car that ever existed. To wanting so much to be or appear intelligent is to give value too much attention to the car and not to the ride.

And happiness as we all know is just part of the whole thing, it's as temporary as sadness is. Happiness is not friend with desire, I'd say, once you are happy, you don't want, once you are not so happy, you want and you move. But we flow from one to the other all the time, we are never fully satisfied, but also we cannot cope with all desire and no fullfilment at any point.

That's why I see so many people agreeing that intelligence doesn't go with happiness. You think too much, desire to control things too much, you want to understand before you live, you want to know before you experience and that is just a recipe for disaster, for frustrating desires that never reach anything. That is, by the very fact that one sees happiness and intelligence as a black and white dicotomy is what makes the dichotomy true. If you take it lightly, it will be lightly. Only a sith deals in absolutes.

>you'll never be one of the Friends

>>3231138
I wish I enjoyed this shit. I do it, but it's fucking nerve-wracking and there's no payoff.

>>3231067
Actually, you can't have either.

>>3231125
>>3231134
>>3231137

It's called a bifurcation or false dichotomy, which is when one assumes that two categories are mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Why can't one be both intelligent and happy, or some other category?

Seriously, this is elementary logic.

http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/rgass/fallacy3211.htm

>>3231067
You haven't come to discover that rationality is limited and that one should recognise this. Then one can also accept the irrational aspects of life. Having done away with the idea that you somehow have to be logical and consistent in your doings frees even the most intelligent people from their intelligence.

If you don't think you're alright but if you think a little it can make you sad. The trick is to think through the whole of thinking right out through the other side, past the surfs and the reefs, past any idea of truth or right and plight, to be Dionysian beyond the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy, to see everything for the strange swarm it is, without justice except for perhaps pushing your mental "like" button and frolicking around it freely. Some might call this insanity but insanity is the only way out of the burden of intelligence without dying.

>>3231284
this

>>3231138
>not being intelligent enough to realise the futility of it

>>3231189
They don't have a problems with ignorance. Doesn't mean that they don't know they aren't smart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88jj6PSD7w

>>3231625
>feeling good about your life is less important than other people's opinion of you
Yup, sounds like Zizek.

>>3231625
That Henry Rollins video in the recommendations.

>>3232207
That's not what he says at all.

>>3232207
Watch the video you twat.

Everyone has an I.Q.

Maybe be lower than yours and you will consider them stupid, and those that have higher than yours who you may consider smart will consider you stupid and so on and so on and so on...

Being a pessimist doesn't make you a realist.

Life comes with the good and the bad,
The end.

It's too complicated to nail it down to that.

>>3232226
being a relativist does not make you a realist

spouting platitudes doesn't make you smart

sit on my dick

>>3232226
IQ means absolutely nothing, what the fuck are you even going about?

>>3232225
I did, it's shit. I do as I please and when I get what I want I like it and it makes me happy.

>>3232226

Who said anything about pattern recognition?

People who claim this fail to understand that stupid people aren't all happy either. Give your egos a rest for a second, you're not the only people in the world who are suffering. Suffering is a human universal.

>>3232300
Just because he said happiness is incompatible with intelligence doesn't mean he also states that the lack of intelligence implies happiness. Learn2logic.

As it's been said, happiness and intelligence and not mutually exclusive. If you have a lot of knowledge, you can certainly think of, and achieve ways of being happy and will probably enjoy that happiness more than a moron.

Similarly, stupid people are unhappy constantly. You could take a dumb person and make them unhappy and they'll probably stay that way forever

>>3232288
The video went way over your head.

>>3231067
I have a shitty life by a lot of people's standards, but it's because I'm more intelligent than you, OP, that I'm able to be happy.

>>3231611
>not being intelligent enough to enjoy life anyway

>>3232432

>thinks intelligence has anything to do with emotional base states

>>3232400
Nope. Way under. I've transcended such vain sophisms.

>>3232268
>IQ means absolutely nothing
Am I to believe that the strong correlation between mental retardation and low IQs is a coincidence?

>>3232443
Mental retardation is a social construct.

>>3232443
>Le rainman face

You don't choose how you feel. Some people here are pretending they do. Don't you have a single bit of self awareness?

>>3232434

>thinks an intelligent person can't think in and act in ways that influence emotional states

>>3232455

>thinks emotional states can't influence the ways we think and act

This is tricky territory we're getting into

>>3232443
Do you even read?

>>3232455
>>3232460
>Philosophically discussing something science could discuss better

>>3232467

Science can tell us hardly anything about how cognition, sensation and emotion play into biology

>>3232467

>implying I'm not a neuroscience major

>>3232467
This has nothing to do with science at all. What drugs are you on?

>>3232467
>muh science

>>3232471
Dude, it's simple.
You take a select group of people who are intelligent as determined by IQ or some other test.
You take a random group of people.
You give them surveys on how happy they are or something like that over a few years.
Calculate your results.

>>3232482
son

i have some bad news

that's pseudo-science

why don't you just determine their intelligence and happiness by measuring the shape of their skull?

>>3232486
Obviously this isn't a fucking lab write-up, you're just being inane here.
The only way you could ever possibly provide any evidence to support or deny this claim is to look at real-life results. What are your criteria for "intelligence"? There is none, really, some people agree with IQ's accuracy, some people don't. What are your criteria for "happy"? That is clearly entirely subjective and not even the best psychologist in the world can tell another person how they feel.

If you deny that there isn't some test of the population that can satisfactorily measure the correlation (or lack thereof) between intelligence and happiness, this post and all of its responses are utterly pointless. Exactly what end are you hoping to reach? Why are you guys even bothering to shitpost this terrible discussion?

>>3232503

Why is testing the only way we can think about reality?

>what end are you hoping to reach

The truth. That's what philosophy, what thinking, is about.

>>3232539
For you maybe. "Truth" is actually a rather dated concept.

>>3232545

I understand that.

I don't assume an actual 'truth' is something we can arrive at. Just something we can aim for, ridding ourselves of bullshit on the way

Intelligence is potential, it's not real in itself. It depends on the context in which it is used, nothing more. The IQ test measures the potential through quite bizarre pattern recognition tests, but you see, nothing was really measured. It's the analogy between the test and the use of the intelligence at other times that make the authority of the test, that is, one believes that one who does well on answering those questions at that particular day is called "intelligent", or in other words "capable of doing intelligent stuff". But being capable is not acting out your intelligence and what the test tackles is not really the intelligence, but the ability to answer those kinds of questions, which were assigned as a measure of intelligence for god knows what arbitrary reasons. It's not really a serious thing. And of course, the test survives because everyone loves to test themselves, it's good for their ego. The circlejerk of those who do well on the test perpetuates the idea that it is actually valid, but it's not.

>>3232503
>What are your criteria for "happy"? That is clearly entirely subjective and not even the best psychologist in the world can tell another person how they feel.
It's funny how you put it. I don't know of psychologists whose goals are to tell how others feel, but ironically, the very thing they could do is ask about your own criteria for happiness and work from there. I'm saying this because there is a clear confusion on what this is all about.

>>3231067
If you're an angsty teen faggot.

>>3231264
i know where youre coming from but its but you have to realise that for some people who cannot help but analyse this is absolute baloney. you follow what drives you whether or not they make you happy.

>>3232539
>>3232554
>>3232503
>Those in the lowest IQ range (70–99) reported the lowest levels of happiness compared with the highest IQ group (120–129).
http://journals.cambridge.org/action//displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8698047&fulltextTy
pe=RA&fileId=S0033291712002139
>Cognitive ability was not related either to happiness or to trait EI.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp/sbp/2003/00000031/00000008/art00008?token=004e11e9a5a666f3
a7b6c5f317b6f5747415d58702a49264f655d375c6b6876305021e3e5b6528
> We find that IQ affects health, but not wealth or happiness.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775797000642
>Studies among normal people show no correlation between scores on tests of intelligence and happiness. Studies among exceptional people also do not show the expected difference. Gifted people are not happier than average, but people with learning disabilities are.
http://www2.eur.nl/fsw/research/veenhoven/Pub2000s/Intelligence%26Happiness7.rtf

I can keep them coming. I understand that IQ is a polemical subject but if you want to throw IQ out then we have no criteria for measuring any correlation or lack thereof between happiness and intelligence. If that's the case, and if you agree, why discuss OP's topic at all? You have failed to answer this same question I posed to you earlier.

>>3232574

>if you want to throw IQ out then we have no criteria for measuring any correlation or lack thereof between happiness and intelligence

So what?

That we can't measure something doesn't mean we can't think about it.

>>3232579
Okay, if that's the position you want to take, then I am going to question whether you're really thinking about something at all, or if you're thinking about a unicorn.

>>3232589

Can we measure cognition? Ethics? Is morality as useless to think about as a unicorn?

>>3232595
A more apt example, I think, would be electrons.

Actually what I'm saying is that I think what you call happiness is in fact a unicorn. As in, happiness has four legs and a horn.

>>3232652

>A more apt example, I think, would be electrons.

Not at all, actually. I'll repeat the question:

Can we measure cognition? Ethics? Is morality as useless to think about as a unicorn?

>>3232656
According to you no, no and yes. Ethics only matters to the extent we all agree on it. The contents is simply irrelevant.

>>3232663

I'm not asking you to tell me what I think. I'm asking you to answer the question.

>Ethics only matters

So, yes. It matters. Things we cannot measure matter very much. Cognition, intelligence and happiness are among these

>>3232666
One can observe one's own cognition, intelligence and happiness. But for me to compare my cognition, intelligence and happiness to yours, which I can never (even theoretically) experience equivalently to as you experience it, is utterly outrageous, assuming we can't measure either.

>>3232682

None of this has any bearing on whether or not it's important to think about the larger nature of cognition and what it has to do with happiness - please don't tell me you think measurement is the only model we have for thinking about anything?

>>3232699
Ultimately these conversations are entirely subjective. Important or not they play on emotions, and not on good reasoning. I do admit we have tools to abstractly reason, but only the individual can observe them, and to me, your reasoning lacks little convincing force versus mine. My conceptual "tools" may behave fundamentally different from your tools, etc. Let me explain why.

I can say the happy man is a smart man, for he has the good sense to reason about the world and reason neutralizes fear of the unknown.

I can say that the dumb man is happier because ignorance is bliss and he doesn't have the burden of difficult questions in need of answer.

Perhaps reasoning of this kind does have some form of importance but is it really convincing to the rational mind? The answer is no. You are not convinced by the reasoning but by its concordance in regard to your personal experiences with your own cognition and your own emotions.

The original poster stated, "It's either intelligence or happiness. You can't have both." For us to try to reason about it may "matter", but his claim certainly will never EVER be affirmed or denied. And, if we're to take this as our guiding point of adjudication through our discussions, we will arrive at vague ramblings and unmoving rationale.

>>3232766
>reason neutralizes fear of the unknown.

Hilarious.

> doesn't have the burden of difficult questions in need of answer.

tenuous

The fact is, philosophy and thought isn't limited by reason and language - the idea is to get at what's behind these tools, what makes them move, why they work and where they don't.

Saying we should stop thinking about something because it can't be measured or held to account by language, logic, or reason is absurd

>>3232778
Did you even read the post, or is one of your hobbies making strawmen to attack with your transcendental philosophies?

>>3231067
You are a man after my own heart OP, don't stop walking.

>>3232778
>keep pushing the agenda, guys
>maybe they won't notice

>>3232574
>cite scientific papers
>refuses to read actual books and doesn't have a basic grasp of philosophy

Jesus, are you really defending IQ tests? Are you dense?

>>3232830
>"I understand that IQ is a polemical subject but if you want to throw IQ out then we have no criteria..."
>Jesus, are you really defending IQ tests? Are you dense?

Doesn't sound like a defense to me.

Actually it's either intelligence or more unhappiness for me. I can't be in "ignorant bliss" no matter how hard I try. I feel disconnected, not myself, incomplete, etc.

There's no alternative.

Unhapiness leads to ponder, which leads to intelligence.

And happiness comes way more from basic human interaction than from pondering. But when it's a part of who you are, you are eager for learning and reading than for going out. Thus, you cultivate both intelligence and unhappiness.

I think I would have been a lot stupider without my loneliness.