DRFseven

Yes, that would work, too, in this theoretical question, but it's awkward because it's so hard to relate to. It's a lot easier to imagine being happy believing in something one, perhaps, used to believe in, like God or Santa, than it is to imagine being happy knowing one was responsible for the death of one's loved ones. The obstacles one would have to overcome in order to press the button would be, I think, insurmountable for most people in the case of having to condemn loved ones to death.

But this does remind me of another philosophical question that was brought up in a film during the "Rodney King-racial-strife era". If you could push a button and have a space ship come down and magically scoop up all black Americans and transport them to a paradise on another planet, would you do it? The question could, of course be asked of any culture regarding another culture with which it was inextricably bound in a problematic way.

Nope; I said you would be happier than you are now; not that you had to be a believer to be happy. The fact is, we change our minds all the time and never consider that we are not the same person. What if you didn't believe in Yettis and someone suddenly caught one and the world saw it and learned about the truth of Yettis? Would you consider your old self "dead", or that you were a "different person?" Of course not.

I don't think I could personally bring myself to accept it due to insurmountable prejudices, but that is one variation of this question. I hesitated to bring it up because I didn't want any believers to think I was equating religious belief with mental retardation. By not choosing this option if it were available, I'd be doing just what you are doing, Jamie. We'd be saying, "No, I wouldn't be happy being happier than I am now."

CX

I'm hard pressed to think how I could be happier than I am now, but assuming for the sake of argument that such would be possible why not push the button? It bears noting that I don't choose not to believe, but rather I cannot believe. There is no arrogant superiority about it or some kind of atheological holier than thou routine. All that is just so much posturing. Rather it is more like seeing behind the curtain and discovering the little man. One cannot simply close the curtain and pretend the wizard is still real even if one wanted to.

DRFseven

Then we'll build a little caveat into the button that promises you that you won't spread, what is, in your present perception, a lie. This is not about morality, it's not even about belief; it's about determining how we persue happiness.

Yes, I agree that this is a better answer; it's more honest. Voluntarily agreeing to changing our beliefs gives us the creeps.

DRFseven

Agreed, CX. Thanks.

DRFseven

Theli, I lost a response to you; it got eaten. But most of it is included in my replies to others anyway. Thanks for the response.

Theli

Not really. There are some questions that has gone unanswered (more or less).

1. What will I believe in after hitting the button?
2. Why is it called "free will button" if it makes you believe a certain thing?
3. Why would that belief bring me constant happiness?
4. Is constant happiness possible at all?
5. Where's my banana?
6. After introduced to this "new happiness", will I be able to feel fear, sadness, hate or guilt?
7. Is the happiness a direct product of hitting the button, or a product of the belief?

Oh, there's my banana!

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

daemon

No. If I were the same person other than that belief, then I would eventually doubt, then cease to believe again. Deconversion was hard enough the first time.

If you're saying that I would not doubt, and would always be happy, then I do not fully understand the obviously extensive consequences of pressing that button, so, again, I would not press it.

DMB

Never mind about buttons, it could be a psychotropic drug that wiped out your personality and made you a permanently blissful idiot.

Anyway, suppose that was what one pill did, but the other pill would turn any theist into a blissfully happy atheist. Would any theist take it?

Pomp

Interesting thread. I'm not quite sure this belongs in EoG, but I can see how it might be related, so I'll let it alone, unless one of the other mods comes along and disagrees.

Anyway, I would press the button, provided that a) I knew in advance that I really would be happier and b) that it worked simply by altering some portion of my mind so that I found the evidence for theism compelling, not by altering my meories so I forgot the evidence against it, or altering my inquisitiveness so that I wouldn't question my new beliefs.

Typhon

As an important disclaimer, I do not agree with this statement.

Human behavior is motivated by considerably more than "mental comfort." Many examples of human behavior are clearly motivated out of needs and desires that are anything but, comforting, but all the same, important to our species.

There are HUGE problems, in this hypothetical question. I would never push your hypothetical "happiness button" unless I first knew the following, and perhaps, as I'll explain later, not even then.

1. How do I know this really works?

Once I push the button, will I really be happy, or will I really be horribly un-happy, or even in pain, but only appear to be happy? Can the happiness be voluntarily turned off? Has anyone been able to try it, record what happened, and then reverse the effects, and explain how they felt? Is it repeatable? How many people have studied this effect? Is there enough evidence to suggest that something is really going on here, or just a placebo effect?

2. How do I know this doesn't have serious and negative side affects?

Again, I would never, ever push a strangely labeled button, that might change my brain or brain chemistry or even my ability to think rationally, without understanding exactly what was going on and what possibly serious detrimental effects might well be involved. What if I couldn't see the color red anymore, or do basic math, or my IQ dropped ten or twenty points? What if I was happy, but started believing in totally irrational and foolish things, like that the Easter Bunny really existed, or that I could fly, or that Christianity was true? I would be risking a lot, if I was happy but unable to tell reality from fiction. What if this caused brain tumors? Has the process been tested in laboratory mice yet?

3. How happy am I, and what sort of happiness is it?

Heroin makes people very happy when they are experiencing the effects of the drug. If you had enough heroin or say a trickle of low voltage wired directly to the pleasure centers of your brain, you could hypothetically, remain any where from incredibly, mind-blowing, blind, drooling at the mouth, ejaculating in your pants happy to moderately, serenely, detached, vaguely happy until you died (from say malnutrition, thirst, or infection). How happy does this make me, and does it put me at risk of just sitting blissfully in the corner with a bib? If it just makes me "happier than I am now" what does that mean? Sometimes I'm happy, other times I'm not. Sometimes I'm unhappy. Does this button just make me, at whatever point in the constantly osculating wave of my emotions, simply "higher" towards the happiness side of the line? What if I'm really, really unhappy, does it just make me slightly less unhappy? What if I'm already mostly happy, most of the time, does it make me too happy, say manically happy? In what way am I happy? I'm often happy, but not happy about all things at all times. I mean, I'm happy I'm drinking a nice cup of tea with a good cheese on soft white bread sandwich right now, but I'm not happy about having a poorly trained chimp in the White House pushing buttons and pulling levers. I'm happy when I'm with my fiancé doing, well, what people often do in and outside of the privacy of their own homes, but I'm not necessarily happy over the fact that our flatmates can't figure out how to use a sponge and washing up liquid in the kitchen to save their indolent lives. I'm happy that I'm moving soon to London, but I'm not happy that India and Pakistan look like they're about to start a bloody, potentially globe destroying rumble over a spit of land and differences of belief on religion.

4. Am I happy all the time, and/or can the effect be turned off/reversed?

How long does this happiness last? Am I happy constantly, forever? Can I turn off the happiness at will (am I even ABLE to turn off the happiness, or is the pleasure effect too strong)? How do I feel, provided I can, when I'm not happy? Do I feel lost? Do I doubt things? Is the world a more frightening and threatening place? Will for example, there be any withdrawal symptoms should I go off the happiness for a long period of time?

5. What do I become a believer in?

There are many things I could become a believer in, based on your description. Do I believe EVERYTHING? Do I believe that the IPU exists? Do I believe in ID? Do I believe that radio death waves are coming out of my neighbor's garage? Do I believe that up is down and down is up? Do I believe that fire is cold, and should be jumped in on a hot, summer day? Do I believe that Odin really hung upon the World Tree for nine days? Do I believe that the body of poor King Charles I is hidden under my bed, along with his talking, disembodied head? Do I believe that the earth is only 10,000 years old? Do I believe in the resurrection of Osiris? Do I believe that Noah put all the animals of the earth into a single wooden ship, two by two? Do I believe that the moon is made out of cheese? Do I believe that I can fly from tall buildings by flapping my arms? Do I believe that An is the father of the sky? Do I believe that Elvis is alive and well and working at the local Save-Mart? Do I believe that some dodgy, likely completely mythical Jewish rabble rouser was the son of some poxy god? What exactly DO I believe? I wouldn't choose even happiness if the belief I might believe in was patently false, dangerous, or just down right distracting and stupid. If the button turned me into a Scientologist, a Mormon, or a Baptist, happiness would not be nearly enough to entice me to dangerously take leave of my senses as such beliefs require.

6. Why is the button labeled "free will?"

Does this suggest something, or is just the random hypothetical name printed on the button? Before pushing said button, I'd want to understand why is was labeled thus. Does pushing the button take away "free will," does it turn it on, does it create it, or does it do something else entirely? What exactly is this free will thingamajig anyway?

7. Will being happy all the time mean that I don't enjoy it when I am happy as much as I do when I'm unhappy some of the time but happier, more so by contrast as well as the genuine article, because I'm happy only some of the time, but not all the time and not about everything, blindly?

Er, well, that's fairly self-explanatory now isn't it?

8. What happens if my faith, and happiness, come in conflict with what is demonstratively true, and untrue?

What happens if I believe in for example, fundamental, literal inerrant Biblical Christianity, but I work in a paleontology lab, or I have a PhD in biology from a scientifically accredited university, or I like to watch PBS or the Discovery Channel, or subscribe to Nature, or any other of examples where the reality of the world would clash explicitly with my illogical and artificial beliefs? Would I keep believing, even in the face of such illogical nonsense, in order to safeguard my happiness? Would my happiness be threatened by the truth? Would I feel compelled to speak out even though the facts were not on my side? Would I strive to remove learning and discredit science because they were an irritant or dangerous to both my beliefs and hence, my happiness?

OK, that’s just a few of the worries I'd have about this mysterious "happiness button" and its faith inserting properties. If you could answer these, then I might be able to move closer to giving you an answer.

.T.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>