[S3raphymn]

To be more explicit, I will state that happiness is the result of some action and/or condition, such that that 'action' correlates directly with the amount of happiness it results in. I also define global human society as the system, and all members as actors within the system. Finally, happiness is the 'positive' direction, and unhappiness is the 'negative' direction.

Do you believe that happiness in the world is zero-sum?

That is, if something good happens to someone, something of equal magnitude but reverse directionality ('bad') happens to someone else, such that when you sum up all the happiness and unhappiness (specifically, all events/situations/conditions that result in happiness and unhappiness), you would end up with an equal amount of each and hence, an overall value of zero.

Why, or why not?

[TheLastMohican]

Consider the following actions:

• A financially secure person drops $20 in a Salvation Army bucket, and consequently feels good about shimself.
• A lonely man and a lonely woman meet, fall in love and are thereby made happier.
• An exceptionally rotund man and an exceptionally thin man in ill-fitting clothes swap outfits, to the satisfaction of both.

I could also list actions that net no happiness for anyone, so it is possible that, on the whole, people's actions do not result in an increase in global happiness. But I do not think that we have any basis for believing so, and certainly not with the assumption that every positive effect is accompanied by a negative one.

[Anhedonic Lake]

Sometimes it seems to be zero sum but it's not always as such. So no.

[Kisai]

How does one summate without mensuration?

[Synamon]

As TheLastMohican pointed out, some acts that result in happiness for the act-or also bring happiness to others. The reverse is true and one person's happiness can come at the expense of other people. Any individual act that results in happiness (or for that matter unhappiness) can be a net positive, a net negative, or a net zero. I have no idea what happens when you count them up, assuming you even could.

[Freedom Geek]

No. There is no reasonable mechanism for this to occur and without one, Occam's razor. Our technological advances for instance have probably greatly decreased unhappiness.

[ElstonGunn]

If you're saying that it's universally zero-sum, then no. It's already been pointed out that you'd have to willfully delude yourself to believe that every instance of creating happiness results in making someone else unhappy.

In an aggregate sense, I think it's still a pretty dumb idea. There definitely are some situations in which only one person gains happiness while another loses it-- competition on a job interview, or multiple suitors fighting over the same person, for example-- but there are too many variables to bother thinking about this. Define "happiness." State the method of measuring it. Explain how you normalize those results so that they can be compared to each other. State how close to an exact net gain of zero you have to be in order to count it as a zero-sum situation, and then explain why a non-zero result can be considered a zero, rather than a coincidence.

[MartinH]

	Originally Posted by Freedom Geek To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	No. There is no reasonable mechanism for this to occur and without one, Occam's razor. Our technological advances for instance have probably greatly decreased unhappiness.

Discomfort rather than unhappiness. Happiness doesn't particularly correlate with available technology, certainly not at the country level.

[Aronnax]

	Originally Posted by MartinH To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Discomfort rather than unhappiness. Happiness doesn't particularly correlate with available technology, certainly not at the country level.

A large part of happiness is your state of mind. If you become acclimated to a particular level of comfort and don't make a mental effort to appreciate that comfort, baseline expectations are increased and that comfort no longer increases happiness.

However, a high level of discomfort can prevent you from finding happiness in situations that normally would make you happy. In itself technology does not increase happiness but it provides greater opportunities for happiness.

[S3raphymn]

Originally Posted by ElstonGunn To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

If you're saying that it's universally zero-sum, then no. It's already been pointed out that you'd have to willfully delude yourself to believe that every instance of creating happiness results in making someone else unhappy. In an aggregate sense, I think it's still a pretty dumb idea. There definitely are some situations in which only one person gains happiness while another loses it-- competition on a job interview, or multiple suitors fighting over the same person, for example-- but there are too many variables to bother thinking about this. Define "happiness." State the method of measuring it. Explain how you normalize those results so that they can be compared to each other. State how close to an exact net gain of zero you have to be in order to count it as a zero-sum situation, and then explain why a non-zero result can be considered a zero, rather than a coincidence.

I'm not so sure about the first point. While it seems like a rather simple statement, something about it feels wrong. Take for example, you walking out of a bakery with a delicious-smelling bagel that you're happily eating. The bagel is giving you happiness. It would seem that there is no 'detriment' being caused.

But suppose you walk by a person on a diet for two weeks, and the smell (and sight) of your delicious bagel is causing them some small amount of inconvenience; they are becoming unhappy by function of your action, not by function of intent. I know the example is somewhat silly, but at the same time, we've all had moments where we've felt unhappy or uneasy for reasons just like this.

Obviously, it would be somewhat silly to consider this in everyday decision-making (which isn't, ironically enough, the point of my question). However, I would argue that the possibility of actions always containing a net detriment towards another party is not considered as a function of our perception. Essentially, we simply don't notice it past a certain degree and to many people, choose simply to ignore it even if it is visible to another person.

The second portion is much more valid in a logistical sense, and thus, I will have to define 'happiness' at this point as 'the feeing of elation, contentment, at ease (ad nauseum) in respect to a particular person.' In other words, I cannot state you are happy. Only you can state whether you are happy. There is, unfortunately, no raw quantitative measure (serotonin levels in the brain? But that doesn't make sense!), and thus, it will have to be semi-qualitative at best. Your statements on normalization are ones I cannot answer off the top of my head, and I will have to give them some more thought but, I would agree, that it is difficult in the very least to determine a factor of normalization.

However, and perhaps I should have qualified this earlier, I am posing the question more as a thought experiment through our own models of the world around us (perception-relative) than as an experiment to be performed (which, unfortunately, is improbable).

Returning to the idea that there are actions with a net-gain in happiness, I would like to question the limits of our perception, much like the bagel situation. Suppose the man who dropped $20 dollars into a pot was seen by a beggar, with no money, and the function of seeing that action (correlates with the action occurring, therefore, by function of the action itself) makes him upset because, well, he doesn't have 20 dollars to just give away. It seems absurd but, as I've said before, we've all been the homeless guy before in some fashion or another from what I've observed.

I challenge the assumption that net-gain in happiness can exist given the statements as detailed above this post.

[Aronnax]

Notice how you always have to insert an additional agent, that may or may not actually exist, to force happiness to a zero sum. You simply cannot expect that this third agent is always present, or even present half the time. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been just me and a small group of people, who were all quite happy.

The primary flaw in your concept is you're assuming happiness is entirely reactionary and uncontrolled by the individual. Happiness is in part due to external stimuli but the largest part is related to your state of mind and that is something you have influence over. How you choose to focus your thoughts and what you dwell on determines how open you are to small bits of happiness that come into your day. Mindset also shapes how resilient you are to unhappy moments, or how unhappy a bad event can make you.

[daydreamer]

do i believe happiness in the world is zero sum? no. i think there is an imbalance towards unhappiness. whether caused by a state of mind, or by actions - the circumstances in which a majority of the world's population find themselves on average is more consistently miserable than not. this is not to say that they do not experience happiness, just that much of their lives they do not. i think the unhappiness that the majority of the minority of us (lol) deals with is even difficult to gauge on the same scale.

[tp6626]

I'd also say no. For this to work, one of two possibilities would have to be true:

1. There would have to be a causal link between 'events of positive / negative happyness'. I.e. Every time an event occured of whatever magnitude positive, it would have to trigger a negative event of the same magnitude, and vice versa. People have already posted contradictory examples tackling this point.

2. There would have to be control over human behaviour in order to ensure the balance of events (in a karma or ying & yang sense).

So, I think to satisfy your conjecture you would have to assume there is a higher controlling power, and no free will in human behaviour.

To me that is not a possibility. I've already debated a lot about my views on gods and higher powers, and the verdict was that they almost certainly do not exist.

[S3raphymn]

Originally Posted by Aronnax To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Notice how you always have to insert an additional agent, that may or may not actually exist, to force happiness to a zero sum. You simply cannot expect that this third agent is always present, or even present half the time. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been just me and a small group of people, who were all quite happy. The primary flaw in your concept is you're assuming happiness is entirely reactionary and uncontrolled by the individual. Happiness is in part due to external stimuli but the largest part is related to your state of mind and that is something you have influence over. How you choose to focus your thoughts and what you dwell on determines how open you are to small bits of happiness that come into your day. Mindset also shapes how resilient you are to unhappy moments, or how unhappy a bad event can make you.

Good point. However, I stated in my opening and second post that I'm considering this from almost a wider perception; so this 'additional agent,' as you call it, is always intrinsically inside the system. I would argue that so long as you consider happiness in a smaller system, then it is much more difficult to state zero-sum in all cases (essentially, your viewpoint).

I can tell you that I don't assume, however, that happiness is entirely reactionary and uncontrolled. It seems that way because, as I said before, I am considering a system of people, multiple individuals, and it is unlikely all of them are capable of viewing happiness the rather neat and eloquent way you have described. I'm trying to account for all (if not, then an appreciably good estimate thereof) views implicit in the system.

Originally Posted by tp6626 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I'd also say no. For this to work, one of two possibilities would have to be true: 1. There would have to be a causal link between 'events of positive / negative happyness'. I.e. Every time an event occured of whatever magnitude positive, it would have to trigger a negative event of the same magnitude, and vice versa. People have already posted contradictory examples tackling this point. 2. There would have to be control over human behaviour in order to ensure the balance of events (in a karma or ying & yang sense). So, I think to satisfy your conjecture you would have to assume there is a higher controlling power, and no free will in human behaviour. To me that is not a possibility. I've already debated a lot about my views on gods and higher powers, and the verdict was that they almost certainly do not exist.

In response to your first point, I argue perception (as I've done so before). Perhaps the triggers are simply those we are not aware of, or can ever be aware of. I don't think I've seen a contradictory example that takes into account all possibilities and states that there is a net-gain in happiness.

As to your second point, that's not a corollary. I do not predicate involvement by another being; in fact, I state that happiness/unhappiness is a function in part of the action causing the emotion. So no, I do not believe that statement applies.

[tp6626]

Ok, going down the route of my first point, you are inferring that somehow, somewhere in the world, that an event here is balanced by a counter-event there.

We need to first think a little about what exactly 'happiness' is. I'd suggest it is a humans reaction to an event - should be sufficient for this subject. It is a subjective reaction, though. You can't really know whether an event will make one person happy or sad.

Now, as a thought experiment, assume that everyone learnt simultaneously that the universe was about to end. You'd suppose that most people would think that a bad thing that would make them unhappy. But we can't really guess exactly how it would make people feel.

The only way your conjecture would hold in this case, would be if there is as much happiness at this news, as there is unhappiness.

There's no way of proving this due to the subjectivity in knowing peoples reactions, but I would assert with reasonable confidence that there would be a net unhappiness at this news, and that your conjecture does not hold.

[Aronnax]

Originally Posted by S3raphymn To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I can tell you that I don't assume, however, that happiness is entirely reactionary and uncontrolled. It seems that way because, as I said before, I am considering a system of people, multiple individuals, and it is unlikely all of them are capable of viewing happiness the rather neat and eloquent way you have described. I'm trying to account for all (if not, then an appreciably good estimate thereof) views implicit in the system.

Your system is the summation of all individuals. Since it is possible for the sum of an individual's happiness to be increased, without subtracting happiness from other individual, it follows that the group is capable of increases or decreases in happiness as a matter of total perspective. Thus happiness is not a zero sum function.

[Kisai]

As an example to illustrate how silly this concept is.

Let's take a prostitute, her name is Annie.

Annie 'sells' happiness at $300 each. She is visited by two gentlemen.

Gentleman A prefers women of Annie's type greatly. He is greatly pleased by his experience and gains an arbitrary Five Stars of Happiness and would easily pay double Annie's fee.

Gentleman B visits Annie, but discovers that he doesn't care so much for the exact same experience, only gains an arbitrary Two Stars of Happiness and would only consider visiting Annie again if she offered a discount.

Annie is a bit jaded. She doesn't get any Stars from her experiences with either gentleman, but gets Three Stars of Happiness each from her fee, for Six in total.

So, how should the 'Chequebooks of Happiness' be balanced?

[Delarge]

Imagine that only two humans exist in the universe and are capable of interacting. Can you not think of scenarios in which both individuals would experience a net gain in hedons and/or happiness?

[S3raphymn]

Originally Posted by Kisai To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

As an example to illustrate how silly this concept is. Let's take a prostitute, her name is Annie. Annie 'sells' happiness at $300 each. She is visited by two gentlemen. Gentleman A prefers women of Annie's type greatly. He is greatly pleased by his experience and gains an arbitrary Five Stars of Happiness and would easily pay double Annie's fee. Gentleman B visits Annie, but discovers that he doesn't care so much for the exact same experience, only gains an arbitrary Two Stars of Happiness and would only consider visiting Annie again if she offered a discount. Annie is a bit jaded. She doesn't get any Stars from her experiences with either gentleman, but gets Three Stars of Happiness each from her fee, for Six in total. So, how should the 'Chequebooks of Happiness' be balanced?

My response is scope.

Gentleman A, after walking out of Annie's place, sees a camera in the window of a store that costs exactly the amount of money he paid that he gladly would have purchased. He loses an arbitrary Two Stars of Happiness, and then proceeds to lose the additional Three-and-the-some when his wife spots him walking out.

Gentlemen B has a hot date later that evening but, by function of his spent money, is broke and forgot to go to an ATM. He loses all stars, and then some more when his date leaves him for the hot guy at the bar.

Annie gets beaten up by her handler for not making enough. End of story there.

My point is that if you take happiness (or, shall we say, the events and actions that cause happiness) in small, limited scopes (isolated situations), then of course you can make the case that there is a net-gain or a net-loss. I've never really disputed that particular fact.

My contention is that that view on happiness starts failing when you apply it to a bigger system involving multiple actors and indirect secondary and tertiary effects. If we can correlate that each action has some consequence X, and that consequence X provides a factor to cause unhappiness, then each action causes unhappiness. Perhaps not directly, but I've never stated that it had to be direct; that was an assumption made by other people.

In your scenarios, as you've put them, you're correct. However that's not the scope I'm speaking of. I think the situation I'm working with is pretty much what Synamon said; what happens when you sum together everything?

I'm speaking less of an individual case in the manner presented so far, because those are limited a) by scope, and b) by direct consequence rather than a combination of direct and indirect, short and long term consequences.

	Originally Posted by Delarge To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Imagine that only two humans exist in the universe and are capable of interacting. Can you not think of scenarios in which both individuals would experience a net gain in hedons and/or happiness?

Now this is interesting. I'm not sure if in a two-body system, there can be enough interactions to cause emergent properties to be demonstrated and, to me, the idea of 'universal happiness meter being constant' and therefore, no change (zero-sum) is an emergent property based on human interaction with one another.

Good point, though. I'd really have to give this one more thought. Preliminarily, I have two responses; a) there exists a possibility as you stated, but this does not work in a larger 'more-than-two-human' system and thus, demonstrates the emergent property, and b) there exists a possibility as you stated, but is somehow 'impossible' to be realized (for example, if both humans thought exactly alike, which would cause any action done by either to result in net happiness gains across the board, but the system is reduced to a one-human system and becomes silly).

[Aronnax]

So your argument is since it's difficult to calculate the sum total of happiness, due to the level of interaction, it must be zero sum? That's an absolutely horrid postulate; zero sum is a special case and to stumble upon it though random, independent events is effectively impossible. The most probable result from a series of independent events is a variable, not a constant. If you must guess at the results from a complex system the best choice is to select the most probably event, not the special case.

I'd appreciate a response to my previous argument (post #16).

[S3raphymn]

Originally Posted by Aronnax To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

So your argument is since it's difficult to calculate the sum total of happiness, due to the level of interaction, it must be zero sum? That's an absolutely horrid postulate; zero sum is a special case and to stumble upon it though random, independent events is effectively impossible. The most probable result from a series of independent events are variable functions. When you're guessing at the results from a complex, randomized system the best choice is to select the most probably event, not the special case. Read my previous argument, it does a pretty good job explaining why it's possible for happiness to increase or decrease dependent on internal, individual choices.

That's not the postulate, no. Before that, I would address your previous argument; you give a very succinct view on how happiness is determinant on internal factors. However, the missing variable in my opinion is how much control a given individual has over those internal factors. It is in my experience that few people are capable of 'controlling' their happiness (or to be more precise, their reaction to outside events and actions) the way you speak of. Thus, within a larger 'sum of individual system,' it is unlikely that they are not affected by outside forces to the degree which would cause the system to fail.

You go on to state that because you can increase the sum without detracting from the system, therefore it cannot be zero sum. However, this is the point of contention throughout the topic. Therefore, if we simply go by your first point, because it cannot be applied in my view to the population as a whole (I'd state that your view on happiness and similar mechanisms aren't present in the majority of the population), the system remains stable.

You make a few points and assumptions in this paragraph I would like to address. First, I never stated that the system is zero sum because the total sum is difficult to calculate. I'm not sure where this idea even came from. Second, you state 'random independent events' which I refute with perception bias. What we perceive as 'random and independent' at first glance is perhaps predicate upon many factors and thus, events become 'dependent' on one another.

We may stop the discussion here if you wish. I am a determinist, and 'free will' is a functional definition and nothing more in my views. This is a fundamental difference in opinion that is out of scope of my question.

Happiness being zero-sum is not something I can conclusively state is true or false; nor can I say I believe in it strongly or weakly. It is, to be clear, a possibility I am entertaining to ascertain the validity thereof.

The basis of thought is on possibilities. When Action A makes us happy, Action A will preclude an infinite amount of actions from occurring in that point in time. Out of that infinite amount of actions (let's call it X), some of which will make other people happy, some would differ in magnitude of how happy it makes people (Stars!), and some would cause detractions in happiness. In addition, Action A has a set amount of consequences that also all do the same thing. In order for the system to demonstrate a net-gain, preliminarily, Action A must create a) a set of consequences in which, through direct and indirect effects, the amount of happiness gained is larger than the amount of happiness lost and b), the actions Action A preclude from occurring do not have a significantly larger amount of 'happiness' that can be obtained from the consequences that occur.

[tp6626]

You didn't answer my post no. 15 either.

Also, as you mentioned scope, what time frame are you talking about for the zero-summedness to be evident over? In all the examples you've given thus far, you've countered with secondary events which occur shortly after the primary event, which balance out the zero-sum.

[blueback]

	Originally Posted by S3raphymn To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Do you believe that happiness in the world is zero-sum?

No. Happiness can't be measured objectively; it's inherently subjective. For something to be zero-sum it has to conform to rules (there is only one team that can win the football game, there is only so much land in the world, etc) and happiness doesn't conform to rules. No one can impose restrictions on happiness on anyone else, so it can't possibly be zero sum.

[Syntax]

VCRs were nearly $1,000 when they first came out. Now you can buy a DVD player for a fraction of that. Everyone won, because something new was brought into what you've mistakenly defined to be a closed system; a bunch of ideas.


Happiness can be created. It grows on trees*.


*minds

[jndiii]

Happiness is not quantifiable, therefore it cannot be zero-sum. One might as well assert that happiness is pink.