What is your IQ?

[Robert Jan]

like the IQ test, the EQ test is subjective.
emotional quota i think is the ability to be wealthy emotionally- a trait that might be worth more than knowing how to split gamma rays or divide by pi faster than a calculator.

Of course it's worth more, but intelligence can be measured and emotional qualities can't, IMO.

Wealthy emotionally... Do you mean happy or what? New Age lingo?

Even if this could be measured, it would be assuming that my goal in life is to be as happy as possible. If this were true, I'd be on LSD and a stack of anti-D's right now, not posting on some message forum.

 

[BradG]

Of course it's worth more, but intelligence can be measured and emotional qualities can't, IMO.

Wealthy emotionally... Do you mean happy or what? New Age lingo?

Even if this could be measured, it would be assuming that my goal in life is to be as happy as possible. If this were true, I'd be on LSD and a stack of anti-D's right now, not posting on some message forum.

I doubt that. YOu weight the consequenses of your actions and those consequenses are probably what keep you off those things because you realize that you would not be happier long term.

Happiness is the goal of every person/action, even those who kill themselves.

 

[Robert Jan]

I doubt that. YOu weight the consequenses of your actions and those consequenses are probably what keep you off those things because you realize that you would not be happier long term.

Happiness is the goal of every person/action, even those who kill themselves.

Much like Jesus (as quoted at least), you wrongfully assume people love themselves.

PS. It's quite medically possible to survive for longer periods of time on a thorough "happy-stack". You would not spend much money in this state, so it's not really unaccessable or unrealistic.

 

[BradG]

Much like Jesus (as quoted at least), you wrongfully assume people love themselves.

PS. It's quite medically possible to survive for longer periods of time on a thorough "happy-stack". You would not spend much money in this state, so it's not really unaccessable or unrealistic.

But do harmful actions make the self hating person happy? If they didn't why would they do them. It is really a philoshophical debate.

 

[Robert Jan]

But do harmful actions make the self hating person happy? If they didn't why would they do them. It is really a philoshophical debate.

Good question.
If anything I'd say it's a question of whether or not it makes them less sad.
I think it does, actually. At least on short term, in the act and the planning.
So you're right. Self hating people want to be happier too.

What about people who see their happiness as irrelevant and don't love or hate themselves?

 

[BradG]

Interesting....... I don't know about that one.....

 

[Ulcasterdropout]

But do harmful actions make the self hating person happy?

no

 

[pitbullstl]

I'm still waiting for a hero to come up and say he was IQ tested at 90 or so

Dude, did you miss Tiger's post??? He scored a 90.

 

[plornive]

Our brains have sets of recipes operating on our animal machinery, much like functions on a serial computer (although ours can run in parallel and with more flexibility). Although I will grant that it is conceivable for someone to learn, develop or have brain recipes (reasoning skills) more quickly and readily than others, these brain recipes (reasoning skills) are still generally developed with experience and education (learned). The idea that genius just happens without outside help has been around for a long time, so I thought I would mention that it does not happen that way. If you had never received education (had brain recipes "installed") from others, you would have weak reasoning abilities.

The idea that genius usually "appears" (by magic?) early in life is also a misconception. A child displaying genius is considered a prodigy, while genius has "appeared" later in many peoples' lives. Perhaps they didn't have opportunity for education when they were younger. Perhaps these slower geniuses finally found what they were interested in after much misdirection. Albert Einstein is an example (lets not assume his genius was simply not recognized early in life).

An interesting fact: People do better on games when there are some mock consequences. For instance, one person may do poorly at a logic puzzle dealing with "Objects with property A relative to Trinkets" but do well at a logic puzzle dealing with "People with the desire to steal Poker chips". Some very useful mock consequences are cheating and financial gain. People become better detectives when making believe they are dealing with consequential issues.

Some peoples' "brain recipes" work with certain objects and types of patterns more readily. There are certainly people with high social intelligence but low mathematical reasoning abilities, for example.

 

[plornive]

Happiness is the goal of every person/action, even those who kill themselves.

False. Nothing has shown that the "goal" of every person is happiness.

Happiness is an idea created by society. A very good idea, of course. Pleasure, on the other hand, often guides actions.

Addicticts follow addictive patterns involving short-term pleasure and inflict short-term pain in order to gain short-term pleasure later on. Or, a CEO may decide that happiness can take a back seat to his feeling of power derived from success - he may feel stress, pain and no stability, but he keeps going for some reason.

People often take actions for reasons outside of themselves - reasons from without that are taught to them somehow. For example, religion. It is a common assumption (especially among economists) that all of the actions of individuals are "selfish" and logical, but it is not an accurate assumption for all contexts. People may find ideas attractive, leading them to help the actual ideas instead of themselves. You may claim that they hope to find happiness in this way, but their reasons can include many things: fear, short-term hunger, anger, or other long-term goals not leading to happiness (that CEO I mentioned earlier) etc. To assume a mythical underlying goal of happiness is nonsense.