PHILOSOPHY - The Power Of Ideas: Ideas Have Changed The World. What Useful Ideas Have Changed You ?

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"The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement." John Stuart Mill 1806 - 1873

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
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Wrong George.
Not "all" progress, for that excludes serendipitous discovery.
None the less, a useful insight, corroborated by:
"Necessity is the mother of invention." Irish proverb
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Ideas have changed human history.

Early in human history, the adult male may have ruled the cave, the hut.
As society developed, leaders became royalty - "Long live the king!"

Democracy is an idea:
governance not by royalty, but by the People themselves, self-rule. What an idea ! Increased power by political decentralization.

i·de·a (ī-dēə)
n.
1. Something, such as a thought or conception, that is the product of mental activity.
2. An opinion, conviction, or principle: has some strange political ideas.
3. A plan, purpose, or goal: She started school with the idea of becoming a doctor.
4. The gist or significance: The idea of the article is that investing in green technology can save you money in the long run.
5. A sense that something can happen; a notion or expectation: They have this idea that we can just drop what we're doing and go to the park.

7. Philosophy
a. In the philosophy of Plato, a non-physical form or archetype to which beings in phenomenal reality correspond only as imperfect replicas.
b. In the philosophy of Kant, a concept of reason that is transcendent but nonempirical.
c. In the philosophy of Hegel, absolute truth; the complete and ultimate product of reason.
8. Obsolete A mental image of something remembered.
[Middle English, from Latin, from Greek; see weid- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms:
idea, thought, notion, concept, conception
These nouns refer to what is formed or represented in the mind as the product of mental activity. Idea has the widest range: “Human history is in essence a history of ideas” (H.G. Wells).
Thought is distinctively intellectual and stresses contemplation and reasoning: She gathered her thoughts before she spoke. Notion suggests an often intuitive idea or image conceived by the mind: “All that came to mind was a notion of galactic space, of spirals, the Horse Nebula, all of which were distant and mysterious and cold” (Craig Nova).
Concept and conception are applied to mental formulations on a broad scale: You seem to have absolutely no concept of time. “Every succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty” (Anthony Eden).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
"Ideas are not for believing. Ideas are for using." psychologist Joy Browne
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"They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." Confucius

"When anger rises, think of the consequences." Confucius

"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals; adjust the action steps." Confucius
 
Thomas Jefferson included the term "pursuit of happiness" in his Declaration of Independence.
Historians suggest this is less about getting hammered Saturday night than it is about working toward prosperity.

Consider this paradox: the more deliberate an individual is about seeking happiness, the more elusive achieving it becomes.
“Happiness is not a reward, it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment,it is a result.” attributed to Robert G. Ingersoll
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The Paradox of Pursuit​

How Chasing a Goal Can Get in the Way of Achieving It​

https://medium.com/@mikesturm?sourc...597c4c---------------------------------------
Mike Sturm / Dec 19, 2016
Nearly all of us want to be better. We want to be better at relationships, better at our jobs, better at doing the right thing. For those of us that have such an impulse, it’s a blessing. But it can also be a curse. The thing is, as with many goals that we pursue, we need to be careful about whether focusing relentlessly on the goal is getting in the way of actually achieving it.

The Problem with Happiness​

To explain, let me elaborate on a paradox that I learned about while studying and teaching philosophy. It’s called the Paradox of Hedonism. John Stuart Mill, in step with most Utilitarian philosophers like him, generally believed that happiness was the thing when it came to defining good. Things were good only because they promoted happiness for people or reduced their pain. That’s an over-simplification, but it gets me to my point, which is this: Mill came to understand a paradox in pursuing pleasure, which he lays out eloquently:

I now thought that this end [happiness] was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness[….] Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way[….] Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
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Funny how that works, right? The best way to become happy is to stop trying to be so happy. It’s a bit more complex than that, though — it always is.

It’s really about doing something for the love of that thing, rather than doing it as a means to achieve satisfaction. It’s about caring immensely about something other than yourself and your own happiness.

When you have a great time playing a game of basketball, it’s probably because you weren’t spending every second on the court thinking about maximizing how much fun you were having. When you had a blast at a party with friends, it was probably because you spent time in interesting conversation — really caring about the topic at hand, rather than focusing on making sure you made this the best party ever.

medium.com

The Paradox of Pursuit

How Chasing a Goal Can Get in the Way of Achieving It
medium.com medium.com



ma·ter·ni·ty (mə-tûrnĭ-tē)
n. pl. ma·ter·ni·ties
1. The state of being a mother; motherhood. *

ser·en·dip·i·ty (sĕr′ən-dĭpĭ-tē)
n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties
1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. *

* The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 
sear said:
John Stuart Mill, in step with most Utilitarian philosophers like him, generally believed that happiness was the thing when it came to defining good. Things were good only because they promoted happiness for people or reduced their pain.
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But if your goal is to "maximize happiness" the first thing you're going to have to decide is whether that's happiness for the individual or happiness for the collective (i.e., society). The two are not necessarily the same.
 
Shiftless2 said:
"But if your goal is to "maximize happiness" the first thing you're going to have to decide is whether that's happiness for the individual or happiness for the collective (i.e., society). The two are not necessarily the same." S2 #4
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And it spirals out from there, the axiom familiar to many: "'tis better to give than to receive."

I've puzzled over why a woman with the responsibilities and burdens of motherhood might find herself happier than her unwed twin sister, never to bear a child.
Could it be the nature of the binary?

We can't have hot without cold, up without down, left without right, and so it seems, happiness without discontent.
Unwed sis may reflect gleefully on not having to change soiled diapers.
But is the non-diaper norm each twin experiences elevated by the brief chore at the changing table?

u·til·i·tar·i·an·ism (y-tĭl′ĭ-târē-ə-nĭz′əm)
n.
1. The belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility.
2. The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 
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