Computers are just electrons moving. Biology is just phyics. See how little that explains? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, even if it's still encoded in the parts.

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mym1990 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I get the sentiment though. Happiness is a mix of the right hormones firing, so the question is: how does intelligence affect different types of hormones, if at all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be difficult to control only for “intelligence”.

	▲	anyfoo 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		By that logic, "How does loved one dying affect different type of hormones, if at all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be difficult to control only for 'loss of a loved one'". If you have depression or another condition affecting your affect and your emotions, sure. Otherwise it's pretty obvious to anyone that concepts on orders of magnitude higher levels than hormones being correlated with happiness, or if you prefer, those concepts having a significant effect on the overall action of those hormones.

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koakuma-chan 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Except happiness is a well-known thing, and there are substances like alcohol, cocaine, etc, that are optimized for it.

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anyfoo 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Putting aside that they are not optimized but just happen to have an effect, would you claim that these are the only things that affect happiness/its relevant chemicals?

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koakuma-chan 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I would claim all other things are far less effective, to the point where they have little to no effect.

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anyfoo 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm sorry, but I don't think that makes sense, and that it's pretty obvious that it doesn't.

I don't have experience with cocaine, but as a Bavarian I made plenty of experience with alcohol. I've never been addicted, but I had my fair share of Oktoberfest and beer garden visits. And yet you don't see my optimizing my life around it. In fact, nowadays I have a beer every few months if even, simply because most of my hobbies don't work well with alcohol.

As for cocaine: As I said, no experience, but it appears to me that even very wealthy people who probably consume it also still do other things in life, despite not having to for income etc.

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koakuma-chan 8 hours ago | parent [-]

In my experience that is the case. I haven't gone to the gym for a few weeks now, because after years of doing it, I no longer feel anything. I go to Walmart every day and buy Apple juice and Kit Kat, and that does very little, incomparable to taking pleasure-optimized drugs.

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