Humanity has sought a better life and happiness through the advancement of science and technology, but true happiness is not the same as momentary emotional pleasure, so we need to carefully examine whether scientific advancements are contributing to our ultimate happiness.
As humans, we all probably want to be happy. That’s why we’ve built so much of our civilization around happiness since time immemorial. Our instinctive desire for a better life drives us to seek it, and this desire has fueled progress and led to countless innovations and discoveries. In particular, people generally assume that advances in science and technology are for the good of human happiness. The advancement of science and technology is driven by humanity because it improves our quality of life by making our lives easier, and science is something we will continue to strive for in the future. We want a better environment, a safer life, and longer-lasting health, and we believe that all of these things lead to happiness. This belief stems from the expectation that science is not just about technological achievement, but also about human happiness as an end goal.
As science has been a constant endeavor throughout human history, there have been many attempts to verify that it is indeed on the right track. Since the ultimate goal of scientific and technological advancement is human happiness, it may be natural to compare the level of happiness of past societies with the level of happiness of current societies to verify the legitimacy of scientific advancement. Especially with the increasing complexity and stressors of modern life, the question of whether technological advancements are making us happier has been raised, but can we really put an objective number on happiness and compare it?
I believe that happiness is not quantifiable, so we cannot compare the happiness of past societies with the happiness of the present. It’s also impossible to measure and quantify the happiness of an individual or society as a whole. The main argument for this is that it is self-evident that happiness cannot be objectively measured. The inherent difficulty in measuring happiness is that the very definition of happiness differs from person to person. Given the complexity and subjectivity of happiness, summarizing it into a single number will inevitably lead to distortions.
However, those who argue that happiness can be quantified might counter that there are already ways to measure it. In fact, surveys that ask people whether they are happy, hormone measurements using human biochemical systems, accelerometer sensors, and happiness indices that indicate how happy people are in different countries already exist. However, because happiness is not quantifiable, these sources are not adequate. So why is there no objective measure of happiness? The answer to this question leads to the question of what is the nature of happiness?
Everyone wants to be happy, but it’s hard to define and agree on what exactly happiness is. The question of happiness is as old as science and as old as humanity itself, but it’s hard to come up with a clear answer. Ancient philosophers saw happiness as the end goal of human life and emphasized a number of virtues and virtuous qualities to achieve it. In the modern world, happiness is often seen as more materialistic and instant gratification. However, most people define happiness based on their own subjective feelings. A pleasant feeling is considered happiness, and the opposite, sadness or pain, is considered unhappiness. Happiness is a subjective mood or feeling, not an objective measure. This idea that happiness is a subjective feeling is based on liberalism. Liberalism says that how we feel determines what is good and bad, beautiful and ugly, etc. Liberalism leaves most of the judgment to ourselves. It lets us decide whether we’re happy or unhappy based on our subjective feelings, without anyone else’s intervention, by listening to our own inner voice. Because of this, we all generally believe that we are the best judge of whether we are happy or unhappy.
What if happiness is actually the same thing as pleasure, a subjective feeling? Take, for example, dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes us feel good. It’s known that dopamine is mainly released when we make love, especially when we have sex. That’s why we generally say we’re happy when we’re in love. However, dopamine is also released in other cases. This is when we do drugs or consume alcohol. If we take this at face value and say that pleasant emotions and happiness are the same thing, the question arises: is the core of happiness present in drugs like heroin? I think this is a clear example of how subjective feelings can be unreliable.
Most religions and philosophies have very different views on happiness than libertarianism. They all distrust subjective feelings, especially Buddhism, which has systematically studied happiness. Buddhist happiness is completely different from subjective feelings. People try to feel happy through the fulfillment of desires, but Buddhism teaches us that this feeling of pleasure is actually very transient, changing from moment to moment. In the end, the more we seek pleasant feelings in order to be happy, the farther away from happiness we become, which is the source of what Buddhists call dukkha. Buddhist doctrine aims to realize the impermanence of emotional pursuits through meditation and to stop craving them. The Buddha emphasized the pursuit of the ultimate happiness of enlightenment rather than the pursuit of pleasure, which is a finite and insignificant form of happiness. According to him, true happiness is found in observing one’s body and mind through meditation to see all emotions arise and pass away, and in doing so, realize the impermanence of emotions. Once we stop chasing emotions, Buddhism argues, we will soon achieve inner equanimity, and that is happiness.
In the end, the Buddhist theory of happiness suggests that the pursuit of happiness should not be equated with the pursuit of pleasant emotional states, and that true happiness lies in knowing who you really are. Emotions and happiness are two completely different things. Emotions are temporary and changeable, while happiness is a more lasting and internal state. In the end, because it is wrong to measure “emotions” when measuring happiness, the things that have been presented as measures of happiness-surveys asking people if they are happy, hormone measurements using human biochemical systems, accelerometer sensors, and happiness indices that indicate how happy people are in different countries-are not really measures of happiness from a Buddhist theory of happiness perspective because they are just quantifying how we feel in the moment. We can say that happiness is not quantifiable because its essence is not an emotion.
Of course, this is not to say that the Buddhist theory of happiness is the only correct answer when it comes to the nature of happiness. However, since this is one view of happiness that humans ultimately seek, and since arguments that do not equate happiness with emotions exist in other religions and philosophies other than Buddhism, it seems difficult to accept that happiness can be quantified. The form of happiness we ultimately seek through advances in science and technology may be more than just emotional pleasure. Therefore, it is difficult to avoid the criticism that measures of happiness that focus on momentary changes in emotions are not comprehensive enough.
In conclusion, it is my contention that happiness is not the same thing as a fleeting emotion, and as a result, it cannot be represented as a distinct indicator of happiness. Since the essence of happiness cannot be quantified by chemical or physical measurements, it is impossible to objectively compare happiness in the past and present. In this respect, we need to think more carefully about whether the advances in science and technology are bringing us true happiness. A broader and deeper exploration of the definition of happiness can only lead us to a better way of living.
