By: David Fono

David Fono — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 15:37:19 +0000

My partner wrote an article about why Kingwell’s students at U of Toronto hate him. Apparently he’s a bastard.

By: Redza

Redza — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 00:13:26 +0000

Hmm.. on the question what is happiness? Read somewhere that “it is having enough time and resources to do what you want”. Resources in terms of health and money, I suppose. I find this to be the best definition or articulation of happiness so far.

By: David Johnson

David Johnson — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:36:46 +0000

Interesting stuff, as philosophy often is, but I think defining happiness is beyond philosohy now. In many ways I view philosophy as a way to get our heads around something we cannot yet understand scientifically. I believe happiness is something we can, and are getting a grasp of scientifically.I think science is starting to get a good grasp of what happiness is, or more precisely what causes happiness. We have determined that people feel ‘happy’ when certain chemical processes occur in our brain, just as we feel depressed, sad, surprised, and other emotions through a variety of chemical processes. So the real question for me is what causes those chemical processes and the answer is a scientific one, not a philosophical one.The answer is also fairly individualistic in nature and relates to a person’s personality. An extreme extrovert might go skydiving to get the boost he needs to be ‘happy’ while an extreme introvert might find sitting at home reading a great book as something that makes him happy. The introvert would probably be frightened skydiving while the extravert would be bored to death reading a book. Other things, such as stress, are happiness killers to almost everyone (which would explain why children can be happier than adults).I suspect when Kingwell said he wouldn’t trade his ability to think to be permanently happy because to him, he gets a certain amount of happiness out of thinking. Personally, I see where he is coming from. For you Dave, you obviously do a fair amount of thinking as can be seen through your blog articles, but I get the feeling you also generate a lot of happiness, and probably much more, out of other more artistic things such as nature, art, beauty, etc. which are more observational, or feeling in nature than thinking.But maybe the philosophical question in all of this is that, if you are always happy, and never experience sadness, fright, shock, depression or any number of other emotions, would you no longer be able to relate to happiness? Do we need sadness in our lives to be able to enjoy happiness and without sadness as a reference point, happiness is nothing special?

Comments on: MARK KINGWELL ASKS ‘WHAT IS HAPPINESS?’

By: David Fono

By: Redza

By: David Johnson