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LINK Should Reality Make Us Glad or Sad? - Scientific American Blog Network

Some sages say seeing things as they truly are should make us feel fantastic, but others demur

Matias 8 Jan 24
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A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts ;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky ;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !

~ Alexander Pope

skado Level 9 Jan 24, 2019

@Matias
I was trying to suggest that Glad or Sad might depend on whether your knowledge of reality is deep or shallow. My experience has been that ignorance is bliss, so to speak, whereas a little knowledge can make people miserable. It’s not until deeper knowledge is attained that bliss returns.

@Matias
Yes, it should be, but the proof is in the pudding. If that knowledge makes them glad instead of sad then maybe it is deep enough.

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IMO gladness and sadness are not opposites. A lake, normally placid, might be temporarily whipped into turmoil by wind, but it’s natural state is placidity.

Truth or reality does not cause anyone to become sad. It’s THINKING untrue things ABOUT that truth or reality that leads to sadness. Stop thinking negative, judgmental, untrue things and you will return to your normal, joyous state of being.

Garbage in, garbage out. Give a computer false data to work with and you’re likely to get chaos for the output. The computer has no conscious awareness and has no way to weed out untrue data. Same with our subconscious minds. Plug in a negative, fear-arousing thought and your body will be thrown into a nervous state of alertness, ready to do battle or to mourn. Fear will raise its ugly head, triggering more untrue thoughts, snowballing into guilt, tension, irritation, anger, loneliness, poor health, alienation, insanity and death.

Allow conscious awareness to correct those untrue thoughts and happiness will follow.

There are a few members I can identify by their comments--via erudition, writing style, and theme--before scrolling down far enough to see their authorship. You are now one of them. 🙂

@stinkeye_a Ha, Ha. So far as erudition I can sound a lot smarter’n I really am. But thanks.

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There is no state of affairs or situation that remains permanent and the wish for nothing to change is often the cause of sadness and frustration for many people.

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Another thought is of course that happiness and sorrow are only programs in our brains, put there by evolution to make us do the things required of us to survive and reproduce. And they are in balance. I pick berries because they have food value, and nature rewards me with a nice taste to make me do it. As the berries get fewer and I have to reach further the thorns prick me and the pain tells me to stop, because the damage to my body now outweighs the food value of the berries. The stick and the carrot if you like, and as you must know if the donkey escapes from fear of the stick, or gets the carrot, it stops running. And of course nature needs you to keep running.

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Freud/Lacan posit human drives as the source of our happiness and sadness, the death drive being a major drive/force in humans.

I think something along these lines is more successful than trying to pin it to some conception of reality. I tend to agree with Gilles Deleuze that the only reality we can know are the shadows that play on the walls in Plato's cave.

cava Level 7 Jan 24, 2019
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I prefer reality, but I do remember reading many years ago, (so don't ask where to find it ) that a medical study performed by a group in Oxford, found that, people suffering from clinical depression were much better at predicting the future than the average person. They asked a series of verifiable questions, like do you think shares will rise, will the war be over by, etc. and then checked them against what really happened. Which means that most people are deluded and the delusion is usually far too optimistic. Be happy.

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I've heard about studies showing people who lie less and are aware of reality are more depressed.

MsAl Level 8 Jan 24, 2019
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I prefer reality over fantasy.... You know what you're getting without any doubts or uncertainty...

I prefer reality too but don't find it without doubt or uncertainty at all. I've always seen reality ss much more complicated and uncertain. That's why people turn to religion and find comfort in fictional stories, much easier to wrap your head around when everything is simplified, right and wrong.

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