This is pretty much a topic of discussion and I just wanted to ask this question. What is it about intelligence that makes humans more likely to be unhappy and unsatisfied than our dimmer animal brethren? This is presuming that other animals don't feel these emotions, because maybe they do and we just don't know it. But I tend to think that humans are a lot unhappier than other species.
Is it just that our more sophisticated brains allow us to feel a wider variety of emotions than other species? If so, what is the evolutionary point of these emotions? Or does our greater intelligence allow us to see and understand more of the pain and futility of life around us? Does our greater intelligence also allow us to gain greater happiness and satisfaction than other animals?
Just some thoughts.
--Edward
I'm sure there is some point, or at least some explanation out there from biologists (the ones specializing in evolution, whatever their name is) on the evolutionary significance of human emotions, but I do not know it. I also don't know if animals have actual emotions or have habits that and even facial expressions that make humans think they have emotions - most of the ones I'm thinking of are from dogs in the tail between the legs, the running around with a big open mouth that seems like he's grinning, or the pouty type face, just as a cat closes his eyes when he's pet and it looks like bliss.
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess this post goes more towards the ignorance is bliss theory, and I tend to agree with that, which makes me wonder if it remains true on local levels on the whole - are dumber people happier than smarter people. Or would it work even on the level after us, as in if there are beings even smarter than us and more advanced, would they be even sadder than us? When would it stop continuing on in that pattern?
I do think there are advantages of being smarter than animals, because we get to laugh at things that are dumber than us and feel all superior and crap (see any youtube of cats jumping into walls). Also, looking at some of the funniest figures, Homer Simpson, Frye from Futurama, Charlie from Always Sunny, Stan Marsh, Gob and Tobias from Arrested Development, and Celebrity Jeopardies on SNL, we get a huge kick out of people acting like idiots. Being able to laugh may not necessarily correspond directly with feeling smart, but it does seem to almost, in that we are smart enough to get the joke, smart enough to not be the joke, and smart enough to not take life so seriously that you really are just sad all the time thinking about all the smart and ultimately sad things we know about.
Someone at work sent this quote out today in regards to some document that an applicant submitted so incredibly dumb it had to be sent out to everyone, “Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd.”- David Lynch
In that sense, I do think whatever gives us the ability to laugh (because I'm not completely sure it's smarts in the traditional sense, but maybe a more open way of thinking that gives us humor), it makes life exponentially better.