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Jake discusses the 3 definitions of happiness that have been discussed this semester, as well as warming you up and getting you ready to take an in-depth look into happiness.

Previously, we asked you to think about whether or not you would want to live forever. Now, we want you to focus on your current life, and think about the following questions: Are you happy? Do you think your life is meaningful? Does the meaningfulness and the happiness go hand in hand? A lot of philosophers have explored this concept. Like Joseph explained in an earlier post, Bentham and Mill think happiness is the most important thing. Mill believes that not all pleasures are equal, and happiness the highest pleasure. On the other hand, May believes there needs to be a combination of active engagement and narrative values. Narrative values include things like spirituality, sincerity, creativity, courage, generosity and personal integrity. He thinks happiness is great, but not enough, and your heart needs to be dedicated to your project. Wolf also believes in active engagement, but puts more emphasis on successful and valuable projects.

To help you think about whether or not your life needs to be happy, meaningful or both, here is a list of movie characters who are also exploring this concept. You may relate your life to Iron Man or Sister Maria, or simply take comfort in that fact that people are trying to answer this complicated question everyday.

Iron Man
Throughout the Avengers movies and Iron Man franchise, Tony Stark, who’s alter ego is the superhero Iron Man, should be happy because he is saving the world, helping people and is a billionaire. However, he is very dark and sarcastic, and does not seem happy to the viewer. Despite having the qualities that someone like Wolf thinks is important to have a meaningful life, he is not happy. Do you think Iron Man’s life should equal happiness?

The Sound of Music
Sister Maria struggles throughout this movie to commit to her relationship with God or to her relationship with Mr. Von Trapp. She wants so badly to be a good nun, but after she takes time off and falls in love, it is clear she is not going to return to the convent. It would be interesting to see what a philosopher like May thinks of this because he believes in both active engagement, which means your heart needs to engaged in your life, and narrative values like spiritually. Maria did not have it in her heart to be a nun, but May thinks spirituality is very important. Which life do you think is more meaningful? Does Maria’s happiness with Mr. Von Trapp and his kids mean more than her relationship with God?

Eat, Pray, Love
After a divorce, Elizabeth quits her job as a successful travel writer to find herself and see the world a slower pace. She visits three different countries and lives in each one for four months. She spends time eating in Italy, finding her spiritually in India and looking for balance in Brazil. Elizabeth has a failed marriage and is not doing any work or projects other than working on herself, so many philosophers would not consider her life meaningful. However, Elizabeth finds happiness throughout her entire journey. Do you think happiness is or can be the meaning of life?

It’s A Wonderful Life
An angel visits George Bailey after he wishes he had never been born because he is poor, stuck in his small town and his house fill of kids is falling apart. George thinks his life is meaningless, but the angel, Clarence, shows him how life would be different without him. After George relives saving his brother, taking over the business for his father so his father can retire, his worried family and the affects of his loans, he realizes he has a lot to live for. George is then happy and proud of himself. Wolf would not call George’s life successful because his business is currently failing, but his past and his family make George happy. Do you think happiness is enough to outweigh the bad in your life? Or George’s?

We can talk to you all day about different views philosophers have on happiness and meaning, but is this really relatable?  Sure, we have the common denominator that we are all living lives here on Earth, but these philosophers we’re talking to you about have spent countless hours thinking about and analyzing this topic of happiness.  We’re not trying to disprove the value of the work these individuals have produced, as they give us a great baseline to form our own thoughts and feelings on, but learning the ideas others like us (who have not spent so much time thinking about this material) have about happiness and meaning could be very interesting.

It is this thought process that led us to distribute a survey asking random people questions about happiness and meaning with some regard to religion.  Now you’re probably wondering why religion suddenly popped up.  We included questions on religion, because we thought there might be a positive correlation between religion and happiness, and we wanted to see if we were correct with this assumption.

The survey was given through SurveyMonkey.com.  It was composed of 10 questions (8 multiple choice and 2 ranking questions).  We had 100 respondents.

The first question we asked was about age.  We wanted to get an idea of who we were talking to about this topic.  As you can see from the chart below, the majority of the respondents (37%) were aged 18-24, with the next highest portion (22%) being between 36 and 45.

We then asked everyone what their gender was, and these results were surprising.  A whopping 78% of the people who took the survey were female!  We’re not really sure why this happened, but it’s good to keep in mind that most of these responses are from women.  We’d be interested to see how the results would look if most of the responses were from men.

Like we mentioned before, we wanted to look at religion in relation to these questions, so we asked a baseline question of whether the individuals we were surveying were religious or not.  The majority (61%) were religious.  Only 17% of people said they weren’t religious, leaving 22% somewhere in between.  It would be interesting to note the individual religions of each respondent in relation to their answers to questions, but we wanted to keep the survey relatively simple.

We wanted to delve a little deeper than just asking whether people were religious or not, so we asked a follow-up question: “Would you say your religious affiliations (or lack thereof) are a large part of your personal identity?”  61% of people responded “yes” to this question, which is interesting considering the fact that 61% of people also answered “yes” when asked if they were religious.  This similarity led us to look at the individual responses people gave, and the majority of the people who answered “yes” to the first question also answered “yes” to the second, which leads us to assume that those (in this study) who consider themselves religious believe this to largely identify them as individuals.

In an attempt to gather an idea of what people were talking about when they referred to activities that make them happy, we asked a question with four options that respondents were to rank in order of what made them the happiest (1) to what made them the least happy (4).  Most people ranked “spending time with family” as what made them the happiest.  This was followed by “leisure activities” which was then followed by “religious activities”.  “School or work” was ranked the lowest by most respondents.  These results did not do much in supporting our hypothesis that religion and happiness are positively correlated, but it did give us insight to the fact that most people care about relationships over accomplishments (family and friends matter more than work).

We also wanted an idea of what people valued as meaningful in their lives, so we asked another question like the previous one.  Respondents were again asked to rank from 1-4 what was most meaningful to them to what was least meaningful to them.  Most respondents ranked “quality time with loved ones” as the most meaningful, which makes sense considering “spending time with family and friends” was ranked highest previously.  Next came “doing things you love to do” which corresponds with “leisure activities”.  “Accomplishing goals” was ranked third, and “praise from others” was ranked fourth.  It seems that most people can find both meaning and happiness in similar activities.

After we asked the two ranking questions, we assumed respondents would then have some sort of basis on which to decide which was more important to them between meaning and happiness.  Two-thirds of respondents chose “happiness” as more important to them, while the remaining third of respondents chose “meaning” as more important.

We wanted to focus again on the religion aspect of our study in the following question, so we asked whether or not respondents thought religion could provide someone with happiness.  The majority (63%) answered “definitely yes” to this question.  The rest of the answers ranged from “probably yes” (19%) to “might or might not” (18%).  The most surprising detail that came from the responses to this question was that even though there were options that said “probably no” and “definitely no”, none of the 100 respondents chose either of these.  This leads us to believe that even those who are not religious have little doubt that religion can provide people with happiness.

The following question was built off whether or not individuals thought religion could provide happiness.  We simply asked who was happier based on people respondents had met: religious people or nonreligious people?  The large majority (79.8%) said that religious people were happier, which makes sense considering the majority of people thought religion could provide happiness.  

The final question we asked was about the personal happiness of our respondents.  The majority of people (64%) said they were happy.  26% said they were somewhat happy.  The remaining 10% fell somewhere between “not really happy or unhappy” and “unhappy”.

From this study, it’s pretty clear that happiness and religion are positively linked.  When asked who was happier between religious and nonreligious people, religious was most often chosen.  Those who identified themselves as religious also chose happiness as more important than meaning and later decided that religion could provide happiness.  In other words, religious people (in this study) value happiness and believe that it can come from religion.

Even though our results display this correlation, they beg another more specific question: can religion alone provide happiness?  From the results of this study, the answer seems to be no.  Respondents most highly valued spending quality time with friends and family for both meaning and happiness.  If individuals did not have this but still had religion, would they remain happy?  The answer is probably no, but this is a question for another time.

So, how would you answer these questions?  What brings you happiness?  It might be compelling to try to consider whether you side with the majority or whether you choose differently.

Avoiding all things based around “professional” opinions, it seems as though we need to look at things from a personal perspective to really get a feel on what “happiness” is. Happiness, for the purposes that we’re looking at it in, is a very subjective thing. Something that makes one person happy, may not necessarily make someone else happy, so it is hard to even put a definition on what we’re talking about here. This being said, there seems to be an understanding, even without a strict definition, of what happiness is to people.

This personal touch can be seen nicely when looking at the poll that is shown below. When asking about happiness in this way, we were trying to see if there was any obvious correlation between whether or not a person is happy and if their lives are religiously based or not. While the answers here are obviously not a great way at looking at lives having meaning, it is a good bridge between happiness and meaning through religion. 61% of the respondents claim that their religion plays a large part in defining who they are as a person and 16% say it might, so using the information from the question above that, EVERY person who claimed that they were religious says that it at least might make them who they are. It is hard to make a connection with religion and meaning without going into detail what we have discussed in the earlier parts of class and even in other groups’ projects, but what might be the most shocking is what people actually find to be meaningful in their lives.

When asked what makes people the happiest, the largest response numbers came from those saying that spending time with family and friends. On the same lines as that, ‘quality time with loved ones” was ranked as the most meaningful by the respondents. The fact that the thing that makes people the happiest and the thing that has the most meaning to people were basically the same thing is a hard thing to ignore. It is understood that the pool of answers here was limited to only 100 responses and makes it hard to draw conclusions, it seems that there is a connection between the two.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that came from our survey is the 7^th question: What is more important for you to have in your life? Even though humans have been looking for the meaning of life since the beginning of our existence, more people in our survey answered that they would prefer happiness over meaning. This response was shocking in numbers, but not necessarily in the realistic sense. When it comes down to it, human lives are so short that it makes sense for people to desire happiness over meaning because it makes them feel better. If it happens to be religion that provides the reassurance that our lives are meaningful, then it seems as if happiness comes along with this.

Immortality is one of the major topics that accompanies the question: What is the meaning of life? When discussing immortality, it seems as though there are as many views on this as there is on other large topics like politics and other social issues. Our group has decided to take advantage of this and has looked at different sources and opinions in order to gain a more in depth knowledge of who believes what in certain circumstances. We have used people of different religions, different ages, and even a few movies to see the differences in thoughts. To determine who picked what topics, we each chose what interested us each the most and who had easy access to different sources of information. The following part of this website that discusses religious views on immortality was conducted by a student with friends of different religions and the section of age groups was conducted by a student that interviewed many different people to see if their views change with age.

In lecture, we spent about two weeks discussing various philosophers and their thoughts and opinions on what immortality would do to humans and if they would be changed if they knew that their lives would never end. To avoid the monotonous ‘reading an essay’ feel, here are the basic views of a couple of the more influential ones, followed by fun graphics:

Schoeffler: assumptions and thoughts on what a “doomsday” scenario would do to the human race.

• Almost all activities would have no importance
  • Music
  • Art
  • Philosophy
  • Every-day tasks
• People would care for each other more
  • Taking care of other people would be more important than ourselves
• Nothing would be enjoyable
  • Even the REALLY AWESOME stuff
    • Fine cuisine
    • Adrenaline-inducing activities
      • Roller coasters
      • Sky diving
      • Bungee jumping
      • Scuba diving
    • Even sex!

Susan Wolf:  It might be all gloom-and-doom for a while, but soon we would realize that maybe it’s not so bad. She had SOME of the same views as Schoeffler, but not as terrible.

• We would inititally freak out! (as would be expected in this situation)
• But then it’d be ok!
  • It would free up time to do whatever makes us happy
    • Art
    • Science
    • Performing
    • Gardening
    • Reading
    • Video Games
    • Other hobbies
  • We could be VERY wasteful with:
    • Time
    • Money
    • Resources
      • Because it WOULDN’T MATTER!
    • In a direct quote:
      • “the sorts of activities least likely to be affected by the doomsday scenario are those that are explicitly focused on the care and comfort of others.”
        • Helping others be as comfortable in their final bit of time
        • Everybody else is in the same situation, so why fight?

In light of the recent political tensions and presidential candidates, I thought it’d be fun to make bumper stickers for these two, as if they were running for office:

In order to get some of my own feedback, rather than simply depending on the writers’ whose information is included later on, I conducted a survey of my floor of my building on campus to see what people thought about living forever. I simply made a post on my floor’s “GroupMe” page that there was a survey near the elevator that I’d appreciate their participation on. I purposely didn’t disclose any other information because I wanted to see what people thought of the idea of immortality without the influence of my thoughts. From the results, while disappointingly lacking, it seems that people don’t like the idea of living forever (or at least the small sample size that I used). I think this might because there are too many open ended questions that need to be answered. Some of these that come to mind for me personally are:

• Will I retain my mental capabilities?
• Will I remain physically capable?
• To what point will I progress? (mentally and physically)
• Can other people I care about live forever with me?
• Can I choose those people?
• And SOOOO many more with time to think and contemplate the decision.

In the remainder of this blog, please keep an open mind and think about what your answer would be if someone were to ask YOU if you’d like to live forever.

“Do you want to live forever?” “Do you believe in Heaven?” These are heavy questions that require a lot of thought, honesty and reflection. For example, while it is unclear what happens to us when we die, if you do not have faith and believe in Heaven, you could fear missing out on it if it does exist. If you do believe in Heaven and it does not exist, you could be wasting the life you do have waiting for something that will never come. If you do not want to live forever, you might reflect on your live and realize there is something missing and that is why you do not want to be on this planet forever. If you do want to live forever, you have to consider the circumstances and how the other people in the world affect your life and decision.

Credit: Buzzfeed

Answers to questions like these could also be affected by a lot of individual characteristics. Things like religion and gender could have an impact on your response, but I choose to explore age. It makes sense that someone 10-years-old has not put a lot of thought into the afterlife, while someone who is approaching 70 can have a well-crafted, thought out answer to questions about immortality and death.

I interviewed different people from ages 10 to 65 about what happens after we die, the possibility of Heaven and if they would want to live forever. Overall, the younger people that I interviewed were interested in the possibility of living forever and less concerned with Heaven or anything equivalent to it.

“I don’t think anything happens after we die, we’re dead,” Laura Cardi, 14, said. “It’s sad, but I just don’t think Heaven exists.”

While Cardi does not believe there is anything after this life, she would consider sticking around forever under a few conditions. “I would definitely live forever if I didn’t age and no one around me aged. I don’t think everyone should be immortal, but if I don’t get a disease or hit by a car, I shouldn’t die from old age or just because it’s ‘time.’”

Cardi’s view on life is unique. She’s so content with the life she’s living that she would live it forever if the world let her. Even younger than Cardi, 10-year-old Faith Heffron would also live forever.

“I don’t know… I guess. Yeah, why not?” Heffron, who was giggling and thought talking about death seemed awkward, said about whether or not she would want to live forever. “I believe in Heaven because my parents do, but if I got to live forever, I could go everywhere and do everything that I want to.”

Credit: Behance.net

Heffron presents a good point. If you are alive forever, then you do not have to worry about running out of time. However, as 18-year-old MaryKate Boylan pointed out, if you know you’re going to live forever, the risk, and therefore the excitement, of life is gone.

“I feel like if I knew I was going to live forever I wouldn’t take any risks or live on the edge because I would have the weight of knowing I’ll have to live with it forever,” she said. “At least we know now we can be risky and rebellious because everyone is going to be gone at some point, so why not live to the fullest in this moment.”

Something that Boylan and 22-year-old Claire Hale, who initially thought living forever would be great because she has a lot of different career aspirations, can agree on is the idea of Heaven is a place “with no fear and no evil.”

“I think it would be so cool to live forever like the Cullens in Twilight,” Hale said with a smile. “It sounds silly, but thinking about traveling to different places, getting different educations and starting different careers would be great. I’m indecisive, so knowing I could be a doctor for 50 years, then a horseback rider for another 50, and then traveling the world for another 50 would give me comfort.”

Credit: Tumblr

After bringing up the idea of Heaven, Hale’s face dropped. “I just realized if I live forever, then I never get to go to Heaven. I believe that Heaven is a place without problems and drama. It’s just bliss, and you feel so loved by God and everyone who came before you. Now, I don’t want to live forever.”

Hale was the only person who changed her mind after our discussion. It’s possible that because Hale is at a transition in her life, preparing for graduation, applying to medical school and giving up on her dream of working with horses, she grasped onto the idea of being immortal and not having to make permanent decisions.

31-year-old Katie Esler had her own vision of Heaven, even though she does not believe it exists.

“When I think of ‘heaven’ I imagine a completely different world than we are in now, but with the ability to still watch over those that are still living in today’s world. It’s a nice thought, however, I do not think it exists,” she explained.

Esler continued to say she did not want to live forever because it takes away from the idea of accomplishing goals.

“I would not be motivated to do the things on my bucket list that I want to do at some point in my life,” she said. “If I think about living forever, its hard to picture completing certain milestones in life such as going to college, getting married, having kids, retiring, etc.”

Credit: WordPress

Similar to Boylan, 18, Esler, thinks living forever would affect how she lives her life and does not think there are circumstances that would make it possible or desirable.

On the other hand, 49-year-old Debbie Baunchalk who already accomplished everything on Esler’s list of basic life goals besides retirement, would live forever if her family got to stick around as well.

“I would want to live forever if I had my husband, my heath and my kids,” she said. “But because I know that is not the case, I take comfort in the fact that my soul goes onto Heaven and I can look over my family until they join me.”

65-year-old Robert Isabella agrees. “I would love to live forever but only if I was healthy and my family was with me with an unlimited supply of money. Living with a debilitating disease i.e. Cancer or Alzheimer’s, or being broke is not really living in my book,” he explained.

Isabella changed his tune a bit with the idea of Heaven. He would like to continue his life with his family and funds, but if there was less conflict (and annoyances like traffic) and more happiness (days off), he would like to “try it out.”

“If there definitely were a ‘Heaven’ type of place, I would like to try it out. After all it’s supposed to be the ultimate place to be so, why not? Especially if there is no work or traffic…” he said with a smirk.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery from these interviews, is the youngest, Heffron and Cardi, and the oldest, Baunchalk and Isabella, people I talked to would want to live forever.

Both Baunchalk and Isabella have children and a spouse, and made sure to mention them in almost every answer. I think the idea of living forever takes on a new meaning when you think about being around for your child’s entire existence, and having a partner to live forever with adds another layer.

Credit: Tumblr

On the other hand, Heffron and Cardi, would want to live forever for different reasons because they obviously do not have children or a spouse, at 10 and 14, respectively. Perhaps they want to live forever because they have not experienced great loss or suffering yet, or a less serious reason like it’s a cool idea and gives them a super power like they see on TV. The reasons could vary, but regardless, it appears that younger and older individuals consider living forever a good thing compared to middle aged people.

However, while the idea of immorality and Heaven seems to be affected by the idea of age and experience, it also appears to be too personal and individual to make hasty generalizations about.

Challenge Yourself: Consider your age, and what you think about living forever. Then consider how you think you felt or how you would feel at 10, 14, 18, 22, 31, 49 and 65.

Credit: Hollywoodassistants.tumblr.com Visit

The following video consists of various answers to five different questions about immortality.  The participants were given the questions to consider before being filmed and were then asked to answer them to the best of their ability using religion as their basis to draw answers from.  All five individuals are currently enrolled in college and are between 18 and 20 years of age.  The goal of this video is to illustrate the effect different religions (or lack thereof) have on opinions people hold about the topic of immortality.

Below are just a few movie reviews regarding immortality taken from major movie productions. We can consider the unique set of circumstances, and challenges these different conceptions of immortality carry and the impact they would have on our own lives in regards to meaningfulness. As you watch these video clips and read the synopsis, ask yourself, “What kind of effect would this immortality have on my life.”

Groundhog Day (1993)

In the movie Groundhog Day, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a caustic weatherman sent to cover the Groundhog Day ceremony in Punxsutawney much to his own displeasure. After a terrible day, Phil goes to sleep and much to his surprise, wakes up on groundhogs day again. After spending some time trying to figure out just what is going on, Phil tries to end his life.

In this particular case of immortality, Phil is stuck reliving the same day over. Unlike some other concepts of immortality where the immortal lives on throughout time, Phil lives on in the same segment of time, over and over. While Phil does take some time to have fun and learn new skills, he ultimately ends up depressed and tries to kill himself. This illustrates a common idea that if we were immortal, life would become boring and dull; a life not worth living.  After attempting suicide over and over, Phil comes to the conclusion that he is a god. It is interesting to note in the video clip that this is not a happy concept in Phil’s head. Phil isn’t thrilled to believe he is a god because he has come to see the endless torment immortality would provide him with.

This existence for Phil seems to have little happiness overall, and no meaning. The only meaning in Phil’s life is to break the cycle, to end his immortality.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

In this clip, we see Indiana Jones come upon the ancient hiding place of the mythicized Holy Grail. Here he meets a knight who has been guarding the Grail for over 700 years. While this scene makes few explicit statements about what it is like to be immortal, we can infer a lot from the demeanor of the knight. The knight is tired, downtrodden, and very happy to see Indiana Jones. He is presumable tired from his seemingly eternal wait in solitude. It is interesting to note the role of solitude in all of these movies. That immortality would carry a certain amount of loneliness. The knight is seemingly elated to see Indiana Jones because if he can choose the correct grail, the knight’s watch can end and he can presumably die.

At the end of the clip the knight refers to the “cost of immortality;” another hint to the negative connotation. He does not refer to it as a gift or blessing, but rather a cost; suggesting that immortality takes more than it would give.

Immortality does not seem to provide the knight with a happy life by any means, but it may provide him with a meaningful one. His life has purpose. He is an eternal guard, and fulfilling that role seems to provide some sort of meaning.

Dracula Untold (2014)

In this retelling of the classic tale of Dracula, Vlad enters a cave seeking to unveil the dark mysteries held within in hopes to use these unknown forces to his advantage. Upon arrival he meets an ancient vampire. The vampire listens to Vlad’s predicament and offers him a solution. If he drinks the elder vampire’s blood, he will gain his powers, but also a thirst for human blood. If Vlad can resist drinking blood, he will return to normal after three days; enough time to conquer his enemies. If he cannot resist drinking blood, he will replace the senior vampire and become immortal.

This is another example of an immortal trying to give away his own immortality. The senior vampire hopes Vlad will not be able to hold out, and will give in to his thirst, freeing the senior vampire. This is another portrayal of immortality as a curse and not a gift. There would seem to be little fulfillment in the senior vampires life, and he warns Vlad that little happiness will come to him if he accepts this burden.

Tuck Everlasting

In the movie Tuck Everlasting, A young woman named Winnie meets and falls in love with a young looking boy named Jesse. As she grows to know Jesse and his whole family she learns that the family is a family of immortals. That her 17 year old boyfriend is actually much older. Long story short, Winnie must choose between drinking from the fountain of everlasting life or accepting her humanity. She wants to be with Jesse, but being immortal can raise a lot of questions. If the Tucks stay in one place to long, people will notice them not aging. Winnie is given the choice to drink from the spring of youth and join the Tucks, or stay behind as a mortal.

The Tucks try to make it clear to Winnie that immortality is not what you might expect it to be. That they themselves would like to give up their own immortality to die. That being immortal means having relationships, and watching them die, or never having relationships at all. The Tuck family is not without happiness, they tend to have a damper mood, but there seems to be some happiness in their lives. Some happiness, though, wouldn’t seem to be enough. There lacks meaning in their lives, and for that reason, they curse their immortality.

Review

In search of films about immortality, I tried to find films that would show immortality in both a positive and a negative light. Interestingly enough, it is difficult to find major picture films that portray immortality as a good thing. This speaks to a general consensus that an immortal life wouldn’t be better than a mortal one. Having life eternal seems to separate those who have it from the rest of the world. Unable to have meaningful relationships.  Life becomes a burden when there is no end in sight, no final goal to achieve, just an eternal, meaningless existence.