The
Biology of Happiness When I experience pain I know that something has gone wrong in my
body. In short, pain is a warning
signal (i.e. a symptom, actually a highly complex syndrome) that tells me
that one or more of my bio-sub-systems (like a tooth or a kidney) is
underperforming if not defective. Pleasure
(i.e. as symptom, hence as signal) tells me that that one or more of my bio
sub-stems is outperforming. Likewise happiness. My experience of
happiness (i.e. its symptoms)
signals and so confirms (i.e. firms up via feed-back) that as a whole
bio-system I have out-performed. In other words, that in the given (or any)
situation (or world) I’ve emerged the ‘winner’ (to wit, ‘fitter’ than
before). In simpler terms, happiness tells me that I’ve solved a problem, any
problem. Unhappiness tells me that I’ve emerged a ‘loser’, i.e. that I’ve failed
to solve a (i.e. any) problem. Pain, pleasure,
unhappiness and happiness
and the sense of comfort (i.e. non-turbulence = nirvana)
are generic signalling devices. They serve as the basic self-regulation functions
(i.e. like traffic lights) of my biological Guide & Control System, and,
indeed, that of every other of the 7 and half billion humans alive today. Contrary to ancient atavistic
beliefs, still promoted by most religious and political activists, the above
experiences are not the reward or punishment for good or bad moral or ethical
behaviour. Nor are they, as the rather naïve fantasist Aristotle believed,
the effect of being possessed by a good or bad demon, nor, as the confidence
trickster St Augustine claimed, the personal experience of God’s grace or
wrath, nor, as others would have it, are they the result of good or bad luck. Discrete everyday observation will
invariably confirm that happiness
signals an increase in relative survival capacity (hence survival resilience)
in any situation (to wit, ‘I’ve won this one’) and unhappiness a decrease a relative survival capacity (to wit,
‘I’ve lost this one’) in any situation, whereby the situation may be either
real (i.e. actual) or virtual (imaginary). The shift into the bodily whole
system’s status survival capacity self-representation modes of either
happiness or unhappiness is instantaneous and momentary.
Both shifts are decided and executed by the Bio-Nav (i.e. the brain) dependent on the data provided
to it and which includes its preferences set.
For the happiness or unhappiness signal to ‘last’ it must be continuously repeated, and which requires
continuous survival capacity increases. Frequent if not continuous repetition
of either signal may be deliberately engineered. See: ‘How to make and
fake Happiness’ |