Define "Happy"?

Question

In the arena of casualities is there such a thing as a "Happy" soldier

Answer 1

Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary:

hap·py [háppee]
(comparative hap·pi·er, superlative hap·pi·est)
adjective
1. feeling pleasure: feeling or showing pleasure, contentment, or joy
happy smiling faces

2. causing pleasure: causing or characterized by pleasure, contentment, or joy
a happy childhood

3. satisfied: feeling satisfied that something is right or has been done right
Are you happy with your performance?

4. willing: willing to do something
I'd be only too happy to help.

5. fortunate: resulting unexpectedly in something pleasant or welcome
a happy coincidence

6. tipsy: slightly drunk (informal)
7. used in greetings: used in formulae to express a hope that somebody will enjoy a special day or holiday
Happy birthday!

8. too ready to use something: inclined to use a particular thing too readily or be too enthusiastic about a particular thing (used in combination)
trigger-happy


Happiness is an emotional or affective state that feels good or pleasing [citation needed]. Overlapping states or experiences associated with happiness include wellbeing, joy, sexual pleasure, delight, health, safety, contentment and love, while contrasting ones include suffering, sadness, grief, anxiety, and pain. Happiness is often correlated to the presence of favorable events (such as a promotion, a marriage, lottery winnings, etc.) and the absence of troubles or bad luck (such as accidents, getting fired, divorce, conflicts, etc.).

Societies, religions, and individuals have various views on the nature of happiness and how to pursue it.

Societal theories of happiness
Western society takes its concept of happiness, at least in part, from the Greek concept of Eudaimonia. Eudaimonia(Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu" ("good" or "well being") and "daimōn" ("spirit" or "minor deity", used by extension to mean one's lot or fortune). Although popular usage of the term happiness refers to a state of mind, related to joy or pleasure, eudaimonia rarely describes a state of mind, and the less subjective "human flourishing" is therefore currently preferred as a translation.

In modern western society, especially in North America, it is widely believed that happiness is attained through being successful, healthy, and having a beautiful family; creating monetary wealth; being physically attractive even through old age; and maintaining one's intelligence and wit. Some of these are not supported by empirical evidence; for example, money does not appear to increase happiness, and having children does not on average increase or decrease happiness. Health, however, has a strong impact on happiness.

As well, a portion of the population believes that happiness is achieved by following the latest cultural fads, such as keeping one's clothes in fashion or keeping them in fashion as much as humanly possible, going to the latest clubs, restaurants or bars, buying consumer products seen as trendy or cool, or changing a hair style so that it is current. However, most people disagree with these preceding ideals because they consider them too superficial, consumerist and unsatisfying.

For Americans, the happy or ideal life is sometimes referred to as the American dream, which can be seen as the idea that any goal can be attained through sufficient hard work and determination, birth and privilege notwithstanding. While many artists, writers, scholars, and religious leaders can and do consider their work to fall within the American dream, it is usually thought of as relating to financial success. Writers such as Horatio Alger promoted this idea, and many writers, such as Arthur Miller, criticized it.

In developing nations factors such as hunger, disease, crime, corruption, and warfare can decrease happiness and research shows that people in developing nations on average rate themselves as less happy than people in developed nations [citation needed].

Positive psychology
Martin Seligman in his book Authentic Happiness gives the positive psychology definition of happiness as consisting of both positive emotions (like comfort) and positive activities (like absorption). He presents three categories of positive emotions:

past: feelings of satisfaction, contentment, pride, and serenity.
present (examples): enjoying the taste of food, glee at listening to music, absorption in reading, and company of people you like e.g. friends and family.
future: feelings of optimism, hope, trust, faith, and confidence.
There are three categories of present positive emotions:

bodily pleasures, e.g. feeling the nirvana of sex.
higher pleasures, e.g. absorbing oneself in activities all-altruistic.
gratifications, e.g. absorption in reading.
The bodily and higher pleasures are "pleasures of the moment" and usually involve some external stimulus. An exception is the glee felt at having an original thought.

Gratifications involve full engagement, flow, elimination of self-consciousness, and blocking of felt emotions. But when a gratification comes to an end then positive emotions will be felt. Gratifications can be obtained or increased by developing signature strengths and virtues. Authenticity is the derivation of gratification and positive emotions from exercising signature strengths. The good life comes from using signature strengths to obtain abundant gratification in, for example, enjoying work and pursuing a meaningful life.

Biological basis
While a person's overall happiness is not (as of September, 2006) objectively measurable this does not mean it does not have a real physiological component. The neurotransmitter dopamine, perhaps especially in the mesolimbic pathway projecting from the midbrain to structures such as the nucleus accumbens, is involved in desire and seems often related to pleasure. Pleasure can be induced artificially with drugs, perhaps most directly with opiates such as morphine, with activity on mu-opioid receptors. There are neural opioid systems that make and release the brain's own opioids, active at these receptors. Mu-opioid neural systems are complexly interrelated with the mesolimbic dopamine system. New science, using genetically altered mice, including ones deficient in dopamine or in mu-opioid receptors, is beginning to tease apart the functions of dopamine and mu-opioid systems, which some scientists (e.g., Kent C. Berridge) think are more directly related to happiness. Stefan Klein in his book "The Science of Happiness" links these biological foundations of happiness to the concepts and findings of Positive Psychology and Social Psychology.

Books such as Listening to Prozac as well as published research on oral contraceptives with drospirenone like Yasmin(tm) support the idea that happiness may be lifted above normal levels with medication. This elevation differs from the sudden high of street drugs.

Those who use nootropics are making an effort to function above their normal cognitive capacity or emotional capacity. Personal evidence suggests supplements such as St. John's wort build happiness.

Difficulties in defining internal experiences
It is probably impossible to objectively define happiness as humans know and understand it, as internal experiences are subjective by nature. Because of this, explaining happiness as experienced by one individual is as pointless as trying to define the color green such that a completely color blind person could understand the experience of seeing green. While one can not objectively express the difference between greenness and redness, it is possible to explain the physical phenomena that cause green to be observed, the capacities of the human visual system to distinguish between light of different wavelengths, and so on. Likewise, the following sections do not attempt to describe the internal sensation of happiness, but instead concentrate on defining its logical basis. It is therefore important to avoid circular definitions -- for instance, defining happiness as "a good feeling", while "good" is defined as being "something which causes happiness".

In non-human animals
For non-human animals, happiness might be best described as the process of reinforcement, as part of the organism's motivational system. The organism has achieved one or more of its goals (pursuit of food, water, sex, shelter, etc.), and its brain is in the process of teaching itself to repeat the sort of actions that led to success. By reinforcing successful decision paths, it produces an equilibrium state not unlike positive-to-negative magnets. The specific goals are typically things that enable the organism to survive and reproduce.

By this definition, only animals with some capacity to learn should be able to experience happiness. However, at its most basic level the learning might be extremely simple and short term, such as the nearly reflexive feedback loop of scratching an itch (followed by pleasure, followed by scratching more, and so on) which can occur with almost no conscious thought.

However, to avoid oversimplification, domesticated animals may require needs beyond food, water, sex, and shelter (such as human company, petting, or perhaps needs which mimic that of their owners). Typically, the more domesticated an animal is, the more closely their goals match human behavior. Lab rats for instance, may exhibit addiction to certain drugs as a substitute for happiness, as in humans.

In humans
When speaking of animals with the ability to reason (generally considered the exclusive domain of humans), goals are no longer limited to short term satisfaction of basic drives. Nevertheless, there remains a strong relationship of happiness to goal fulfillment and the brain's reinforcement mechanism, even if the goals themselves may be more complex and/or cerebral, longer term, and less selfish than a lower animal's goals might be.

Philosophers observe that short-term gratification, while briefly generating happiness, often requires a trade-off with negative repercussions in the long run. Examples of this could be said to include developing technology and equipment that makes life easier but over time ends up harming the environment, causing illness or wasting financial or other resources. Various branches of philosophy, as well as some religious movements, suggest that "true" happiness only exists if it has no long-term detrimental effects. Utilitarianism is a theory of ethics based on quantitative maximization of happiness.

From the observation that fish must become happy by swimming, and birds must become happy by flying, Aristotle points to the unique abilities of man as the route to happiness. Of all the animals only man can sit and contemplate reality. Of all the animals only man can develop social relations to the political level. Thus the contemplative life of a monk or professor, or the political life of a military commander or politician will be the happiest.

In contrast, Zhuangzi points out that only man is endowed with the ability necessary to generate complex language and thought—language and thought that can be used to distinguish between things and form dichotomies. These dichotomies then formed, man tries to find reasons to like one side of things and hate the other. Hence, he loses his ability to rove freely, in true happiness, unlike the rest of his animal brethren.

In artificial intelligence
The view that happiness is a reinforcement state can apply to some non-biological systems as well. In artificial intelligence, a program or robot could be said to be "happy" when it is in a state of reinforcing previous actions that led to satisfaction of its programmed goals. For instance, imagine a search engine that has the capacity to gradually improve the quality of its search results by accepting and processing feedback from the user regarding the relevance of those results. If the user responds that a search result is good (i.e. provides positive feedback), this tells the software to reinforce (by adjusting variables or "weights") the decision path that led to those results. In a sense, this could be said to "reward" the search engine. However, even if the program is made to act like it is happy, there is little doubt that the search engine has no subjective sense of being happy. Current computing technology merely implements abstract mathematical programs which lack the causal and creative power of natural systems. This does not preclude the possibility that future technologies may begin to blur the distinction between such machine happiness and that experienced by an animal or human.

Mystical (religious, spiritual, and mythological) view
Explanation of happiness in mystical traditions, especially in advanced spiritual techniques is related to full balance (conjunction, union, "secret marriage") of so called inner energy lines (energy channels of a soul or deepest dimension of the human): nadi (ancient indian), gimel kavim (hebrew), pillars, columns, gnostic ophis or caduceus. In balanced state two main lines (left & right, Ida & Pingala) form third line, called Shushumna or lashon hakodesh (hebr.). Speaking technically (full) activity of this third or central line is happiness. Left and right lines include all aspects of normal human life: sleep and awake, body and mind, physical and spiritual and so on. To attain balanced state of these 2 lines is a main task of life - a paradoxical result of all kinds of activities and endeavours combined with full relax or tranquillity at the same time.

Personal happiness forms the centerpiece of Buddhist teachings and the Eightfold Path that will lead its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting happiness.

American Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu gave a guided meditation: “Close your eyes and think thoughts of good will. Thoughts of good will go first to yourself, because if you can't think good will for yourself — if you can't feel a sincere desire for your own happiness — there's no way you can truly wish for the happiness of others. So just tell yourself, "May I find true happiness." Remind yourself that true happiness is something that comes from within, so this is not a selfish desire. In fact, if you find and develop the resources for happiness within you, you're able to radiate it out to other people. It's a happiness that doesn't depend on taking anything away from anyone else.”


Recent developments
Recent research conducted by Daniel Gilbert (a professor of psychology at Harvard) and others has unearthed several new elements about the business of happiness as concerns humans. The first element being that the major events of our lives have a minimal effect on our overall long-term happiness. Did you get married this year, or not? Have you been involved in a war lately or a victim of a crime? Regardless as to your answer, it is a fair bet that your happiness will be more or less the same in the long term. The latter could be understood if you accept that the brain has a mechanism of sorts to reset people back to their baseline happiness over time. The second element of happiness is the terrible truth that we are awful at predicting what will give us happiness. Do you expect that a new car or home will give you happiness? Certainly it will, just not as much as you expect. The same is true in the opposite. Do you think that getting rejected by your crush or losing a game will make you unhappy? It will, just not as much as you expect.

Answer 2

Soldiers are that go into a war whole hearted,ready to stand up for America and the people are Happy,Happy because they know they are doing their job well,taking the duties like a pro,and getting the job done. Casualties are something that is expected in a war unfortunantly,and they are prepared for them the best they can be.

Answer 3

Yes there is. Here in Afghanistan Taliban and Al-Queda casualities make us very, very happy soldiers. Careful how you ask your question next time.

Answer 4

Happy is an "inside" job
There are people living in golden palaces and being fed with a silver spoon that don't know what it would be like to be happy.

Answer 5

Sure some soldiers are happy fighting and dieing for there country.

Answer 6

"happy" is defined as having good luck and good fortune. I hope you have it.