The Ontology of Happiness

Hell Is other People - Jean Satre

So says Jean-Paul Satre.

Satre explains his oft-quoted statement thusly:

Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us".

It is ironic how the French always touch on the deepest of truths without interpreting them in the proper way.

Satre saw how human beings are a necessity for our own selfhood, but, like other existentialists of his era, he was prone to interpret matters in a more lugubrious light.

Perhaps, one wonders, if the general French allure with individuality might be a plausible explanation for why Satre, suffocated by a society which put the sensual above all us, failed to see the most wondrous thing of all:

Happiness is an Emergent Property of Human Relationships

Yes. Ontologically speaking, happiness depends upon other people.

We do not need to imagine what happens to a human being born without contact with other people because we have plenty of examples. The infamous Romanian babies left without human contact developed without developing affect, that is, the capacity to feel. The nurses at the hospital couldn't understand why the baby's were becoming ill. They fed them 3 times a day. What more did they need to do for them?

It took sometime before those whacky communists remembered what communism tried to squash out of human beings: the reality of the necessity of warmth and love and connecting with other human beings.

By ourselves, negativity emerges quite on its own. The first affect (emotion) a human being experiences upon being born is negative - distress - and we likely cry. If another human being isn't beside us, comforting us with a soothing and soft voice, holding us softly, close to their heart, which can be heard rhythmically beating the love of its mother, happiness, comfort, peace, well-being, laughter, joy, all those feelings we live for, would not develop.

So next time you curse human-kind, remember, happiness is something which emerges from the whole of us, not anyone of us.

*Sartre

True, but there are other states that are only possible for the individual, one of them is achievement, when an individual accomplishes something by themselves it boosts their sense of self-worth.

In this sense there are emotions that only function when there are two or more parties, however, there is also another range of emotions that occur as a result of the individual's actions.

In both cases, these emotions can be positive or negative, there are plenty of negative emotions that only operate when there is more than one person interacting, and there are other negative emotions that occur to individuals only.

If we are going to go any deeper with this, we can look at our emotions as mechanisms and we can see that we are all "wired" differently, compatible on different levels.

When we look at the differences between the happy and the unhappy and correlate them with principles of "good" (affection/caring) we start to also develop a sense of judgement, something that we do not want. Thus, instead, we are just machines that have different interaction programs and according chemical states.

Lastly, we can even say that without our machine bodies, we would all just be consciousness, one and equal.

Hell Is other People - Jean Sartre.
Happiness is other people - Astrocyte?

Is crying negative though? Is any emotion or feeling or expression negative or positive? Can't emotion and feeling and expression be neutral? Whatever is arising is what there is but there may appear to be someone who is judging and wanting to get to some other feeling or emotion - this is the division.
Believing in good emotions/feelings/expression and the opposite (bad) is the conflict which is the human condition of suffering........ which is hellish.
The belief in other is hell. There is what there is and what there is is constantly changing.


There is only ever what is arising.......... even seeking other is just arising.

a reply to: SystemResistor

True, but there are other states that are only possible for the individual, one of them is achievement, when an individual accomplishes something by themselves it boosts their sense of self-worth.

In this sense there are emotions that only function when there are two or more parties, however, there is also another range of emotions that occur as a result of the individual's actions.

I agree with your point about states which build upon certain states, but I sort of want to avoid a banal nomenclature like "emotion" and "achievement" in that they can obscure the sheer facticity of positive emotions vs. negative emotions.

In saying that happiness is an ontological property of the interpersonal field, I want to make a basic distinction between what life is like when the self is considered alone as an 'individual' (and hence terms like "achievement") and what life is like when the self is a part of a larger network of other selves.

Primarily, my concern is with the ontological status of the "individual" verses the "whole of humanity". In the west, the relationship is inverted, where the individual is treated as the primary standard - and, paradoxically, "happy" motivations such as liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc are treated as if they don't derive their value from the larger network of other people (referring to the split in the political sphere between 'individualists' and 'relationists')

In thinking and reflecting on this fact, some people with an already existent attraction to 'individuality' will tend to acknowledge what they're hearing (its impossible to deny) but will again, unconsciously, invert the relationship between the self and others by emphasizing terms and words that privilege the individual over the community (this being an example of how language conceals affective strategies)

In both cases, these emotions can be positive or negative, there are plenty of negative emotions that only operate when there is more than one person interacting, and there are other negative emotions that occur to individuals only.

Of course. Positive emotions and negative emotions have many permutations; shame, for instance, is a negative emotional experience (perhaps one of the worst) that only makes sense in an interpersonal context.

But this is besides the point. If you were to place a newborn baby in a room by itself and limit interpersonal relations to impersonal feedings, the baby will NEVER develop positive affect. Negative affect (emotion) will invariably develop as a consequence of our inborn need for attachment: the infant will look around searching for stimulation (of other people) and in doing this it a) experiences anxiety. If stimulation does not come, b) depression follows. Ultimately this will result in dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization.

Thus, the very emotions we live to experience, happy and good ones, have their ontogenetic source in the process of relating with other people. Self - the very thing that can get us hogtied to grasping for positive emotion - paradoxically, if not seen through (that is, understood as an emergent property of human relating) will actually invert the relationship between itself and other people.

Until human beings correct this ontological confusion, negative affect (anxiety, shame, and the manner in which they organize psychological processes) will always cause us to run into each other.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Living requires discrimination.

The world you imagine would be a world where suffering is ignored. And injustice goes unacknowledged.

It's a shame you've come to deal with your life issues with this extreme non-dual non-responsiveness to what life confronts you with.

Instead of working with the modes life confronts us with, you run away from it.

Nobody, no-one in government, university departments - in other words, really intelligent and self aware people - would agree with your strategy of approaching the world.

Doesn't that beg the question: why don't people agree with me?

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Living requires discrimination.

Because concepts and words are at the forefront (mind) it may seem that living requires discrimination. Life is just happening. The realization of this does not stop life happening.

Instead of working with the modes life confronts us with, you run away from it.

Life does not confront me. Life is happening - that does not mean that this body does not move and it sure as hell does not run away.
Not noticing that life is just happening one may identify with the concept of good and bad.

Nobody, no-one in government, university departments - in other words, really intelligent and self aware people - would agree with your strategy of approaching the world.

Do you know them all and have you shown them what I have written?

Happiness, sadness, anxiety, confusion - are all just words that try to capture a fleeting feeling or thought. Can one ever be pinned down and examined?
Life is happening in the moment but some how words and concepts seem to solidify the flow.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

As always, i have to disagree, you can be pinned on a table and be sliced in pieces. It happened before. I know i am missing your point, but maybe that is because you are always repeating instead of saying something explanatory. Just try to formulate better and maybe you wouldn't always be so wrong it is almost silly. Slapstick-philosophy.

a reply to: Peeple

As always, i have to disagree, you can be pinned on a table and be sliced in pieces.

Can a feeling be pinned down and examined? Or are feelings and sensations fleeting?
What is it that never changes?
If one can find that one is just the observer of the fleeting sensations and feelings then one is free.
One does not suffer when it sees that all phenomena is fleeting.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Can a feeling be pinned down and examined?

Yes, I can tell you exactly what a feeling contains: It is the reaction to surrounding influencing forces, hormoones, all environment attributions really, other people feelings included and how they affect the brainwaves of you and whatever result that has when your personality makes it judgement, or assessment of the situation=> decides if it is afraid, or curious. Then of course it also depends what the frame is, i.E. what section of your needs gets adressed.
But i don't expect you to understand, has a lot of science in it. for someone who doesn't even grasp the concept of time...

a reply to: Peeple
Can you actually pin down a feeling right now? Can you take a feeling right now and look at and examine it?
I am not asking for an explanation of what a feeling is or what it contains.
I don't expect an answer or any understanding from you - just look and see for yourself - can you capture a feeling or sensation and put it on the table and slice it up?

a reply to: Peeple

But i don't expect you to understand, has a lot of science in it. for someone who doesn't even grasp the concept of time.

Yes - time is a concept - an idea. Do you grasp that?
Do you understand the concept of 'concept'?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Oh my... It's okay, got a nice little circle for yourself, keep it, I don't mind. If you one day want to break through, you will remember the feeling you have when you read this: indignant.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Oh my... It's okay, got a nice little circle for yourself, keep it, I don't mind. If you one day want to break through, you will remember the feeling you have when you read this: indignant.

Why frame a feeling with a word?
Can you not feel without words?

a reply to: Peeple
Why do you assume that I would be feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair treatment (definition of indignant)?
I share what is seen here and you are the one who does not like it - not sure why my posts offend you - maybe because they go against what you believe.
It makes no difference to me.
As you have already stated - 'I know i am missing your point'. If you know you are missing my point - what is the point in disagreeing?
Maybe conflict is your bag instead of clarity?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

in-dignant. Has the word dignity in it, means actually: injured your dignity. And your answers proved me right.

Of course you always have to relate what you experience to a frame, for orienatation and stuff, otherwise it happens what obviously has happened to you: you get entirely lost and lonely.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Itisnowagain

in-dignant. Has the word dignity in it, means actually: injured your dignity. And your answers proved me right.

My dignity is not injured - that is in your mind. How has my answers proved you right? Again that is in your mind.

Of course you always have to relate what you experience to a frame, for orienatation and stuff, otherwise it happens what obviously has happened to you: you get entirely lost and lonely.

More of what is arising in your mind.

Do you really think the words on this screen can injure me?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

your writing felt like you were catching your breathe a little. And funny enough, it really arouse in my mind. So that is exactly what I am trying to tell you: Wake up! You got the right words, but it is obvious it is not experienced, but just empty accepted beliefs.

a reply to: Peeple
More assumptions and judgements about what?
Why are you fighting? What are you fighting?