h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok here's another question for everyone.

What do you think you could do in your life time that would matter?
Or what would you like to do in your life that would matter?

ok, i'll be the first to reply

my top life objectives:
1. Propagate my genes [can't defy evolution ]
2. Propagate my ideas onto my gene packets [my kiddies ]
3. Propagate my ideas onto others [like i'm doing on h2g2].
4. Leave some kind of a mark such that after i die, something unique to me will remain. [i.e., art, etc.]

hmm i sound kinda selfish, huh?

what would YOU like to do what would matter?

peteY out

You are merely responding the the 'selfish gene' theory installed in your biological programming.
I'll have to think about mine for a while. I haven't quite decided.

very impressive, eloquent one!
i shall attempt to engage in more creative thinking
perhaps, i will be able to give you a "better" answer later

I think it would be really nice to have written;
The woman who helped us to understand , that there is enough of everything to go around and we don't have to keep arguing about who should have the most and who should go without.

Of course that's a really big thing and an impossibilty perhaps, but this is an imaginary thing anyway, so no boundaries.

Annie AKA as Hasselfree

Annie,

You really sound like you've attained enlightenment or something
you sound like someone with like 1,000 years of experience...oh wait, maybe you're drawing from your past lives better than i am...

oh, and what's hasselfree? like you want life to be hassle free or somethin'

PeteY out!

I picked the name, because whenever I log on and they ask for a used name, I'm usually stumped and the ones I pick are already used.

My dog is called Hassle and he was there, so I typed Hassle, then thought that looked 'agressive' or something and so added 'free.'
Mind you it's a state I'd like to be in.

I think a lot, I haven't worked in the last year, because I haven't needed to, and I'm currently thinking about what direction I should take next.
This is a luxury really.

I'm also working on the great unsolicited novel , you know the One everybodies supposed to have in them.
I don't know where it'll take me, but I'm enjoying writing it.

I think that I'd quite like to have been like Mae West in my moments of person fantasy.

so, is your a big hassle? is he/she a yellow Lab? i yellow labs
when i see hasselfree, i think of david hasselhoff [the guy who used to be Knight Rider a LONG time ago and then went onto the beaches of Baywatch].
i can tell that you think a lot. you present yourself in a manner tha shows superior intellectual functioning/information processing.

my problem is that i think alot but i'm supposed to be working
i find a lot of everyday things just too mundane and of seeming little importance.

i THINK. therefore, i am miserable.
AGREED?

Hmm the secret of eternal happiness is seeing and appreciating the detail in the little and mundane perhaps?

Oh
Hassle is a black and white patched mongrel, terrier/ god knows what cross

annie: Hmm the secret of eternal happiness is seeing and appreciating the detail in the little and mundane perhaps?

peteY: the secret to eternal happiness is to have the appropriate neurobiological/neurochemical milieu that leads to a positive HEDONIC SETPOINT, creating a stable and ongoing INTRINSICALLY "pleasurable" state of being "high".
you will be high on life, b/c mere existence makes you happy.

this state is necessary and sufficient to allow one to appreciate every detail of life, even the most mundane, like taking out the trash every week or taking the same f**king route home from work every day.

LACK of this state makes it impossible to appreciate ANY aspect of life, even the most seemingly wonderful.

IT IS NOT *WHAT* YOU HAVE IN LIFE OR EVEN WHAT "ATTITUDE" OR "PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE" THAT YOU ADOPT THAT DETERMINES YOUR HAPPINESS IN LIFE.

IT IS SIMPLY THE PHYSICAL STATE OF YOUR BRAIN. THIS CREATES YOUR MIND AND, THEREFORE, YOUR REALITY, INCLUDING YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE.

btw, despite the cold and harsh presentation of my ideas, i'm just enjoying our intellectual debates. and, like i said before, i really admire your thinking. it's not WHAT you think that matters. it's the process or WHY you think the things that you.

peteY out

THIS CREATES YOUR MIND AND, THEREFORE, YOUR REALITY, INCLUDING YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE.

Ah but you are supposed to be in control of this reality thing and like your route home you could divert and change it.

ANNIE--Ah but you are supposed to be in control of this reality thing and like your route home you could divert and change it

peteY--my thoughts:
1. You can control the way you choose to look at the world and, in doing so, you can choose what you consider to be "real".
like what we talked about, LOVE.
you can consider it a mind trick or something magical.

2. You canNOT control ongoing happiness in life. you can modify it a bit maybe, but your baseline state of happiness is pre-determined genetically. completely beyond your control.
2a. HEDONIC SET POINT DETERMINES INTRINSIC LEVEL OF HAPPINESS
2b. INTRINSIC LEVEL OF HAPPINESS IS CONSIDERED BY MANY TO BE THE KEY TO ONGOING HAPPINESS IN LIFE...appreciating everything in life...
disconnecting happiness from life circumstances [material possessions, etc...
i think it also relates to the cessation of "desire" as a means to reaching true happiness [isn't that in some religion?]

i contend that how happy you are in life is almost as much out of your control as how warm you are on a cold winter day when it's -11 F outside.

peteY out!

ps: here's my favorite poetic lines... and it is relevant to our discussions:

Auguries of Innocence
William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

beautiful, huh?

Yes it is beautiful
I have actually used those lines in another conversation on H2G2
and indeed they say what i am trying to say.

All life can be considered to be a mind trick, if you choose to believe that. What I am saying is who is in control of the trickery?

You are.
Hedonistic set point = happy ?
Continual happiness is neither possible or wanted.
Because if you were continually happy it would no longer FEEL like happiness. It would FEEL like being very bored.

We need UNHAPPY to know what HAPPY is !
Hedonistic pleasure 24/7 (gulp sorry to use that phrase ) is not the ultimate option
Balance between Happy and unhappy is the thing we want really.

Genetically base line happiness?
I don't agree.
Your state of happy/unhappy is owned by you and once you recognise that fact, you can control it.
dump the programming !

you---Hedonistic set point = happy ?
Continual happiness is neither possible or wanted.
Because if you were continually happy it would no longer FEEL like happiness. It would FEEL like being very bored.

me---AGREED that's why long vacations aren't as good as shorter, more frequent ones...

you---We need UNHAPPY to know what HAPPY is !
me---yup! that reminds me of my THEORY of EMOTIONAL RELATIVITY

you---Hedonistic pleasure 24/7 (gulp sorry to use that phrase ) is not the ultimate option
Balance between Happy and unhappy is the thing we want really.
me---what if it was possible to be in a state of orgasmic pleasure 24/7 withOUT degradation? would you reject THIS?

you---Genetically base line happiness?
I don't agree.
Your state of happy/unhappy is owned by you and once you recognise that fact, you can control it.
dump the programming !
me--- but how do i dump the programming?
i'm on celexa, an antidepressant, which makes me feel a bit better. it raises my hedonic setpoint slightly. but, i don't know how to CHOOSE to feel better
for me, it seems just as impossible as bending a spoon

peteY out!

"what if it was possible to be in a state of orgasmic pleasure 24/7 withOUT degradation? would you reject THIS? "

YES, it too would get boring.

Find out what is making you depressed, change it.
This is what I did;

I had some events in my past which were distressing. I couldn't 'get over it' 'under it' or 'around it.' I couldn't 'move on' as the world suggests, couldn't 'put it behind me'and all those other euphanisms people use when they get bored of others depression/sadness

so I placed myself in a sort of hypnotic trance and went 'back' and revisited and rearranged the experience, 'fooling ' my subconscious but not my conscious.
I choose to view my experiences differently, although they remained the same in reality.
Does this make any sense to you?

Sometimes when we are hurt, we choose not to feel the pain of it by becoming comfortably numb. Unfortunately this also excludes any other feelings which might be good and beneficial. We have to learn to take the risk of having feelings.
I read this once and it seemed to make sense.
Depression = anger you do not express and keep inside yourself because you don't feel you have the right to be angry.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2630869.stm

The thought that goes with my 'experiment' is;
that the conscious retains memories and the subsconscious retains the EFFECTS of those memories.

To me, it still seems that if you imagine an ongoing orgasm that RETAINED the same intensity forever, then this could not possibly be boring

Your explanation about how you changed your perceptions of your past negative experiences makes sense to me you should be a therapist. Seriously.
I'm not sure if I can do it, though
Poor peteY

I agree with your depression = hidden anger. I have a lot of anger that I can't do anything with. B/c I don't feel I have the right to be angry!!!!! [it's directed at my parents]

I like that link you posted, but I'm sticking with my
HAPPINESS depends 99% on HEDONIC SET POINT. Out of our control

And I totally dig your comment that "conscious retains memories and the subsconscious retains the EFFECTS of those memories."

PeteY out