Would you rather be right or happy?

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I agree 100%.

Thank God, my parents didn't tell me that moon was made of cheese or other stupid things like this. It's totally pointless and I can't find any logical idea in doing it.

Answer to question: I'm happy when I'm right or when I can find the answer. Lying to make somebody happy is pointless.

Woah... the poll is split right down the middle! This is very interesting.

I would rather be happy than right. Ignorance is bliss.

I just broke the split -- bliss had become too painful.

Hi,

I know how, when and why I can be right... I guess...
So, I would rather be happy than right. Because I simply don't know how, when and why I can be happy

Bye

I have been right and wrong many times in my life and I have also been unhappy. However, I have never been truly happy so far and I'd really like to know what it's like.

Also, I don't think there is a heaven, but I'd rather be wrong about it and be happy.

I'm like your sister. There are times when correcting someone's error would cause so much strife that it is far better for them to be wrong and me to be happy.

Long ago (highschool) I had a male friend who was starting to come to terms with being gay. He was out to me and a couple other friends but not to most people and certainly not to his parents. Sometimes when I visited his house his dad would make comments about how he had so many girlfriends (me among them, although it was entirely platonic and we were not romanticly involved nor was he with any other girls) and how he was happy to see his son was a hit with the ladies even though he was into theater instead of cars. Clearly he thought his son was straight and highschool girls were actually dating him rather than going shopping with him. He was wrong. Incredibly wrong. But I would just smile and agree. The damage I would cause by correcting his wrong and telling him what was truth would be so horrible. There is nothing that could justify it. Better for him to be wrong and me to agree than for me to correct him and bring strife into my friend's life.

I remember a song by the Music Group "Styx" called "Lord of the Rings", way back in 1978, that to me illustrates a difference in being right and being happy. The songs describes the legend of the "Lord of the Rings" and how it was only legend and fantasy. But, the song says the belief and hope the legend brought was what was real and important. I don't think this is just philosophy; whatever it is in life that gives a person purpose, belief, and hope creates the brain chemistry a person needs for survival.

Some people gain this through social relationships, some from work, some through cultural beliefs, and in my case it was mostly special interests.

I think each of our perceptions of reality and what we believe to be right can only be a partial representation of the "truth" of reality because of the way our minds work.

The way we perceive our own unique world is based on our experience. Our reality of the present is constructed by the mind, based on our experience, to reflect what worked in the past and is necessary for our well being and survival. The result, in part, is illusion. So in other words, sometimes what works (the thing that makes our brain chemistry good), even if it is illusion, can be the important thing for well being and survival.

I can easily logically come up with reasons why I am right that the "Lord of the Rings" is only fantasy and illusion. But, if the person believing this illusion, I am debating this with, maintains the same purpose, hope, and belief that gives them good brain chemistry throughout their life, and I on the other hand am not able to find a logical special interest that allows me a sense of wellbeing; who is doing a better job at survival, the one that was logically right or the one that used whatever adaptation was necessary for survival?

So, there may be some science behind the term "Ignorance is Bliss".

Last edited by aghogday on 20 Dec 2010, 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Interesting question.
Deeper than it appears at first glance.

I picked happy, but it was a close call.

Humans sacrifice alot of happiness in order to say "I told you so".

Some humans give up life itsself in order to be right.

Generally speaking, I would rather be right.
However, in the case given in the OP, I wouldn't make a small child cry just for the sake of being correct. Why not just let her be wrong? She'll find out the truth about the moon eventually.
This applies if it was just in the course of conversation; it would be different if I was teaching a class of children about outer space or something like that.

I have no control over correcting people, small child or not.
If I want to get happy I can make myself happy in other ways.
So does it really matter to choose whether you want to be 'happy' or 'right?'

I think a common question for many of us is what is happiness and how we can be truly happy. I think the experience of happiness is different for everyone. What I do believe most of us have in common is the biological mechanism of chemical reactions in the brain that we perceive as pleasurable, that have evolved in us to reward us when we do the things that are successful for survival. A problem is that the reward system has been designed for thousands of years to accommodate delayed gratification.

We perceive happiness in life when we are looking forward to something. After we do the something we are looking forward to we are less happy. Think of it this way, if a member of a Hunter and gatherer society went on a Hunt, was highly motivated and received a sense of pleasure in the anticipation of killing an animal and experiencing the opoid producing chemical reaction in the brain when he feasted on the kill, what would happen if he maintained this level of pleasure for several days?

It is likely he would starve to death because he wouldn't be motivated to take action to receive the pleasure again in a timely manner. I think the more we are in a state of looking forward to doing something the more we are likely to experience a balance of happiness.

I think the reason many people are discontented today is because of instant gratification. The evolution of technology has allowed us the ability to receive instant gratification. Since we and most other animals have evolved for delayed gratification, instant gratification changes the dynamics of our experience of pleasure. When reward is constant our perception of pleasure is reduced. A common example is: when the power goes out and you don't have access to all of the instant gratification producing devices (Heating/Cooling, TV, Computers, etc.) don't these things that normally give you instant gratification make you much happier when the gratification has been delayed?

For those of you that have had cats which do you think experiences life more fully: a housecat that receives all of the food he wants and succumbs to a life of leisure or one that regularly goes outside and experiences the delayed gratification of the thrill of the hunt? (I'm not suggesting it is bad to have inside cats).

Isn't life trickly? Seems like the more reward you have the happier you would be, but this is not in alignment with our nature. It is the looking forward part that colors our experience of pleasure, not the reward itself.

The experience of dread is a sure way of reducing and possibly eliminating the potential for happiness; the opposite of looking forward and hope. It evokes our fight or flight response, increases stress, and can ultimately shorten our life. The only way to fight it is to find something to look forward to.

The times in my life when I felt I had nothing to look forward to were quite depressing. I spent the major portion of my life having a balance of looking forward to things that were attainable but not excessive. I tried to focus on looking forward to experience rather than material goods After this I succumbed to instant gratification and lost the ability to enjoy the simple, less frequent joys of life. Dread has come and gone, but instant gratification lessened my ability to extinguish the feeling of dread.

I'd rather be happy than right.

Agreed and very well formulated.
But there is something missing here. There are more ways to experience happiness.
What about art?

I could make a hypothesis and say that we need art to survive because it activates our brain, so that we keep our minds working individually, which would be significant for creating new ideas.
The problem is that the situation of looking forward to something is irrelevant regarding art.

I mean all kinds of art, creating and receiving, and;
the moments where I slow down time and just enjoy the world with all my senses. I need no spesific task done before, and have no spesific plans to perform in the future. It is simply indifferent. I get there by activating my consciousness, and it can turn any situation (in nature or in the middle of the city, while being among people or alone) to my personal enjoyable experience.
I would call those moments "art" because its a reflection of reality.

I think it is close to meditation, as Im aware of my thoughts and feelings, and any (disturbing) thoughts turn into a realization of my existence. I would even say it is the best "happiness" I experience.

Last edited by Maje on 21 Dec 2010, 10:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That which can be destroyed by truth should be.

If I were the girl, it would be kinder to tell me the truth.

Happy. Let the girl believe in a mouse god if that's what makes her happy. It's not hurting anything. Until I've tasted the moon, how can I know for sure anyway?