Bliss VERSUS Free Will
 

Well I was in civ class the other day, and we were reading about the Old Testament (as a piece of classic literature, not as something we should worship or whatnot.) I skimmed around and read up on the Garden of Eden, and remembered how someone told me that the apple gave Adam and Eve the ability to have free and independant thought. This might be wrong, but that is not the point of this thread, it is as thus:

When given the choice between eternal bliss, or independant thought, with the ability to achieve bliss, which would you choose?

I would personally pick eternal bliss. My interpration of life is to seek happiness despite the struggles and strifes of this world. Well, if I'm given the short-cut to the secret of life, I would glady jump onto the happy train. Why go through all the trouble if the end result is the same, only worse off, for you can lose the bliss and have to reachieve it?

Now this brings me to part two of my question. If there is a totalarionistic society, where one man ruled all, there was no way to move up rank, class, what-have-you, you pretty much had to keep what you given. Now if in this society, everyone liked it, everyone loved how it worked, function, even though they knew there was no way to advance, would you, given the opportunity, commit a complete revolution and throw down this government?

1. I would go for the eternal bliss, no cares, no waorries, just happieness for the rest of your life.

2. Unless the gov't officials were boneheads, I wouldn't overthrow them. Of course, I would want more, but greed is just part of human nature. If the gov't practically gives you everything, I wouldn't mind if we were limited our choice of extras (ie. other than our needs for survival) in life. Ie. A plasma tv, advacned computers, etc. What I'm saying is that, sure, I could go on without a few extra gadgets if the gov't did everything for me.

Perhaps I phrased it wrong. Basically, whatever job your family does, you will inherit into. You won't have any possiblities of getting a better salary, no better items, you can only buy what your salary gives you, similar to our government only without the welfare. When you are getting on in your years the government puts you to sleep to stop the elderly problems. Any other clarifications necessary?

Independant thought. They say ignorance is bliss, but it isn't really. It's false bliss. You can never truly be happy with the intellectual abilities of an animal. Sure... a dog gets happy when you pet it, or it eats when hungry... but it's just a pleasure response. It can't feel things like human love and affection... two of the things that come along with above animalistic thought.


As for the second... it really depends. Advancement isn't important... but freedom is. If the ruler let us do pretty much whatever the hell we please, and didn't invade our lives too much, I wouldn't care. However, if he did... and I was restricted beyond class, probably.

However... if there was someone who WANTED to advance, and they wanted to start an uprising. I'd back them. It's their human right to improve their lots in life. I'm just lazy so I wouldn't care enough to do it myself.

Edit: With your clarifications, yes, I'd lead the uprising.

hey wasn't this conversation (not word for word the idea) in ender's shadow
with ignorance you are happy with what you got (like taoism)
independant thought you must always have more. (like confusism)

Well.... maybe I would revolt. Just for the sheer helluv it! :D

Pawns- I read Shadow, but don't recall that conversation happening.

the conversation between the nun and the guy that had a key of some sort (can't remember).

O, the key that gave bean his short life span but incredible intellectual capacity, the reverse being longevity in life, but below norm mental abilites. And the key wasn't a real key so much as it was a figurative key.

I knew that but I knew it had a name of importance. atwans key? atony's key?
I never said that it was a real key.

if independant thought could lead to bliss, then why not go the hard way and get both? i don't think any structure or government can make everyone happy all the time. i think they can get pretty close, but unless everyone thinks the same way, it can't be. if, however they all do think the same way, and they all have this same bliss, then it would be impossible to lead a revolution.

and i dunno about life's goal is being happy. i mean i'm happy when i get a headshot in CS or something, but that's not the goal of my life. happiness doesn't last, and neither will anyone, for that matter, so the essense of happiness aren't really distillable. if you take something that makes you happy, and you look at the reasons why it does, then you discover (as anthropologists seem to think. go maslow!) that most of what makes you happy is to survive, then to be liked and fit in with society.

But see, that is the point behind this question. Happiness IS possible by this government, the people are genuinely happy with it, even if they don't all agree on everything. As for people who would overthrow this government, I ask you why? You are ruining literally billions of peoples' happiness, just because you think that maybe you can lead them to a life of uncertainty, where they lose all security, among other things? Other than being selfish and wanting to do things your way, why would you overthrow it?

if there's no independant thought in the happy government, then who's going to revolt? that's what i don't get.

First off, this isn't going to make people happy. No matter that you described this situation as it making people happy, it won't. My mother fixes other people's mistakes on calls for Northwest airlines and my father is a repiratory therapist. I don't want to do either of those things. I don't want to do anything even CLOSE to those things. I also like breathing... very very very much. If someone wants to kill me in a few years, I'm going to kill them NOW. Other people be damned... I want to live, and I'm GOING to survive for as long as I possibly can.

Besides... without uncertainty and surprise, life is no fun. It's like playing a video game with an infinite life cheat, that also limits you to the first level... you can't lose... but you can't win either. Where's the fun in that?

Okay let's try it like this. Over the course of the years leading to this government, the world has slowly been altering your DNA to eventually you genuinly enjoy any and all work you do, regardless of what it is. You like benefitting the government, and see no reason why you shouldn't. Futhermore, in this world, there is no crime, thus no police force, CIA, etc. And the being put to sleep is helping to solve the population problem, also benefitting the state. I realize this is some sort of nazish government I'm describing, but nevermind that.

It is ignorance or independence (or you can call it knowlege) in goverment form.

Then it completely removes the possibility for anyone WANTING to revolt. They're all mindless slave drones... if something fucked up and I somehow DID get free will, so that I liked more than benefitting the government/see reason I shouldn't or whatever... then I'd still revolt.

But otherwise I'd have no urge to. I'd be brainwashed, basically.

yeah, but if this stuff is hardcoded into your DNA, then we can't ever snap them out of it... so there's no alternative there either.

if we get some perfect bliss, there's no way out, otherwise that way out would infringe upon the perfection of the bliss.

edit: stop beating me by mere seconds! :P

Why does this question immediatly bring to mind Brave New World...

It depends on how the totalitariansims was attained, and how it works. If everyone is happy in their role because they WANT to be in their role, then that seems fine to me. However if everyone is happy in their role because they have been mentally molded into it, and they where never allowed to know anything else, then that seems wrong and like a dictatorship to be opposed.

As to the first question, I can say without a doubt Free Will over Pure Bliss. As krylo said, Pure Bliss would be closer to an animal like sense of ignorant bliss, where all is happiness, but you have no intelligence. I wouldn't trade the crappy life I have now for it, because one of my joys in life is my pursuit of knowledge and learning. I like the fact that I can make a choice on how to live my life, and what I can do with myself. Sure, I may not like the options, but that is my call as well. I do not pursue "Bliss" in the sense of utter joy. My "Bliss" comes in bite size pieces when I make a big discovery, or I learn something new for the day, or I can look at something and appreciate the finer features that someone else might easily pass over. I get "Bliss" when I am doing something productive that I want to do, and not something that I am forced into. I am at my happiest when my stores of knowledge, useful or not, are of use. My intelligence and wisdom are not gifts I would so easily give up just for instant gratification ever.

As to the new scenario you put up, that is just about 100% like Brave New World, and I would oppose it with a vengence.

EDIT: Actually, even in Brave New World where humans are manipulated from birth to the jobs that will best suit them in life, there are mutations or anomalies. These people rebel against the social order, no matter how much manipulation and brainwashing they go through for some reason. These people are exiled to islands to from their own society to keep all the "Perfect" people from being upset with their strange beliefs and new ideas on how people should live. If I was in that scenario, I would see myself wanting to end up on one of the islands of Exiles...

We're taking the idea that you were just plopped down in here somehow, completely seperate from this world. You are the exact same as you are now, it is the world around you that has changed. But I shouldn't try to refine this scenario anymore, I realize all I'm doing is trying to submit you to agreeing with me, when that really isn't a discussion then, now is it?

EDIT: FZ, I was trying to convey it to how you first stated it on the latest post, where people want to do it, but Krylo refused to believe that, so I had to make up some DNA BS to get the situation to stick.

If I was just plopped into it, again, I'd revolt. I don't want to do what my parents do with their lives. And, quite frankly, I wouldn't care if everyone kept doing what they liked. Sure, things would become a BIT more uncertain, but THEY could still do the jobs they'd been doing. They just wouldn't HAVE to. And, then, I'd start undoing the DNA bs or whatever on the next generation, so they'd actually be free.

I don't see how that would ruin their happiness... it'd just make me happy as well. And not dead in 20-40 years.

But you also brought up the point of people having the job because their parents had it, and their parents had it, ex cetera, ex cetera, ad infinitum. I know that while I respect what my parents do (My mom is an assistant in a classroom of little kids, and my father works for a computer company), I don't want to do the exact jobs that they do, and I want to go my own way in life. So even in the case of Job by Descendent, I would disagree with it. The one I would accept I imagined as more of a "I want this job, so I get it forever" sort of scenario.

EDIT: Wait a second, where did dying in 20-40 years come into this?!

I'd also accept that. You still get the freedom to do what you like, but you're guaranteed it, and guaranteed to keep it. Which is why in the first one I said it depended... but then he refined it while I was posting/watching TV into something that I'd never accept.

Well, I'd accept it if they dropped the old people death thing too...

edit:

but how? i mean if everyone by default loves the system, then don't you too?

wait, if everyone is totally blissful, and yet know that this government is doing whatever its doing, then doesn't that mean that they've chosen to accept bliss? if so, then if i was the only person who's not blissful, how would the government deal with me?

That answer your queston Luke my boy?

It is our free will that defines happiness. There are things that make almost everyone happy; accomplishing a big task, eating our favorite food, being with someone you love. But what causes us to like certain things over another thing? The details? What makes me feel better about becoming an Eagle Scout over graduating from high school? What makes one person prefer pizza over spaghetti? Why the hell did Rai choose Shiney?

Free will. That's why. We're free to choose our own form of happiness, and thus free to enjoy it the most we can.

well, no.

-see, if everyone else is coded to be happy, then revolting is useless
-if everyone is happy because the government is doing an amazing job, then you'd be happy too, and you wouldn't revolt
-if they were gassing the population or something, then the bliss would be false, and someone who sees beyond it would probably revolt.

Oh HELL no I wouldn't support that! That's insane! It sets a precedent for a total disregard for human life, and basically sets a state of false happiness since everyone is forced to rebel against the natural revulsion from death to simply say, "Yay, I'm 60, kill me!" I would oppose that government with a vengence.

This is all getting rather muddled... Everyone is throwing out different theories and states of existance one on top of the other.

One reason to revolt would be concern for the future of the human race. If over 99% of Humanity is composed of blissful sheep with job security, there's no impetus for improvement. Chaos and danger, while unpleasant, makes people tougher, smarter, and more creative.

The goal of humanity shouldn't be "bliss". Bliss is fleeting. Your society sounds mind-numbingly dull. No competion, no new experiences. It's stagnation. Humanity would be weakened. Suffering and strife will never be eliminated, lessened maybe, but not totally destroyed.

i don't see how you're going to rally the troops for a revolt if they're all perfectly blissful. they might just shoot you and smile about it.

in this world bliss isn't fleeting. its permanent, and i dunno about dull. if i were blissful, i wouldn't feel bored. and its not like i'll be lounging in a hammock all day being blissed out either.

that said, if i were the lone non-bliss guy, i'd revolt because i'd feel lonely.

I'll take independent thought over bliss any day. It's more moral. If you're helping other people because you choose to, that's moral. If you're helping other people because you have no other choice, that's not. There is no morality without choice, and I'd rather be moral than happy.
And I'd revolt, even if everyone was happy. Just because they're blissful now doesn't mean they'll stay that way forever. Brian did kind of a take on the subject: http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=020619
Sure, today everyone is happy. But the government has no reason to keep people happy. It all goes back to Kenyon Sharp's least interest theory. Whoever has the least interest in maintaining a relationship holds all the power. You, as one single citizen, provide nearly nothing to the government, so the government has almost no interest in keeping you, specifically, alive. The government provides everything to you. Therefore, the government has absolute power over you - and we all know what absolute power does. In a society like this, you'd actually be less secure than you are now - your security is entirely dependent on an organization that has absolutely no interest in maintaining that security. One day you have your perfect job that you've been bred and raised into, the next day the government decides you're taking up too much space and gasses you with everyone who turned 60 that day. In a less certain world, you're more secure, because other people depend on you more and therefore have more of a reason to keep you secure.

Edit: I'm probably a bit biased, though, being a part of the second American revolution and all.

Free Will always beats Bliss. It's just impossible to beat. People are most happy when they use their free will for progress.

And yes, this is exactly like Brave New World. Go to www.huxley.net and read up some of that. (scroll down to 'False Happiness')

According that very own huxley.net. One can't actually get 'tolerant' to happiness, only get tolerant to what's causing it (like, playing video games only works so long. Then you have to other things).

The question I pose to you is: Can one truly be happy without free thought? And I don't mean any chemical or biological spouts of joy (like drugs or sex). I mean happiness.

now time for the counter question

can one truely be happy with free thought?

... What? That didn't even make sense! Of course one can be happy with free thought. The case has already been given many times. Everyone on this board right now has free thought, and I am certain a good number of them will admit to being perfectly happy individuals. I would say that I am a pretty happy individual, and I have free will. Anyone with free will can be perfectly happy if they ever do anything they want to.

Of course. You can be fully conscious of what you're thinking of and happy.

Overanalyze, though, and you're just asking for trouble.

but how long does your happiness stay? if this true happiness is so vaunted, then how can it be achieved when the world is full of suffering? saying that happiness is EASIER to aquire when you're cognizent of all of the world's evils and all of the worlds problems seems more difficult than saying happiness is easily attained through ignorance.

but you aren't perfectly happy.

If we don't lose our happiness once in a while, we forget what it really is. You can't eat prime rib every meal for a year and still enjoy it the same way as the first time you had it, can you? Same thing applies. We actually need some sadness, some discomfort in our lives or else it's all wrong. Remember what happened to the first, "perfect" Matrix in the first movie?

Ahh, Perfection is a different question all together. I am indeed aware of the problems of the world. If you don't believe me, look at my rant in the Greater Destiny thread. I do not view the world in a good light. Yet that does not prevent me from being happy, and getting joy in the things I do on an individual level. I do not believe in the "Perfect" anything. Everything comes at a price, and in this case, the "Perfect" bliss comes at a loss of Free Will and Intelligence. I do not see that as perfect at all, but heavily flawed. You cannot apply one person's definition of Perfection to another and expect them to agree. If you ask any two people what is perfect bliss, expect different answers. Even if you are mentally forced to be "Happy" yet dumb, I do not view that as happy at all, but instead an animal like sense of contentment. So am I "Perfectly" happy? No, no one is, and no one ever will be. Am I happy with my life, the way it is, and the things I do? Yes, I am.

You recognize the suffering in the world... then recognize it does not apply to you.

Thus are you happy.

One of those shadow and light things, IMO; "Unlimited freedom is meaningless without restrictions." and so on.

Nobody is. Not even God is. But he has free will AND happiness, which pretty much answers your question.

but yet if you're going after perfect bliss, knowing anything will eventually lead to you not having your bliss. you can say "hey look, that pain and suffering doesn't involve me" but eventually you'll be sick, old and dead, all of which don't commonly incite happiness. if you know nothing, on the otherhand, what's to stop you from being completely happy 24/7/365

which is my point. if you WERE completely happy, you'd have to be isolated from experience.

sure you wouldn't like it, and neither would i, but that's because we know better. if you knew of nothing better than the state you were in, you'd be living in the best of all worlds according to yourself. being pretty happy here on earth has nothing to do with the extreme of pure bliss.

its a hypothetical, its not supposed to be something normally achievable or believeable.

All the shit that happens to you IRL, perhaps?

Or at least, very selective about what you wanted to remember, or chose to think about.

Nobody's debating that. Nobody's saying you can ALWAYS be happy. But I am saying that you can be truly happy, even with free will., which I believe answers your original question.

but you've no way of interpreting your senses if you know nothing. its not like you'll randomly go: "oh shit, i'm getting pricked with a needle by my idiot brother while i lie here in a coma-like state".

and i'm saying that no matter how great your happiness is, it won't last a fraction of a second compared with the happiness of non-existance.

if anyone is starting to pick up which religion i'm being a devil's advocate from, msg me for free cookies.

You wouldn't feel happiness either. Happiness is not the absence of suffering. You can be happy while suffering. In the army, we sweated and bled to get the concertina wire fences up, but we were happy, because we were togetehr and working together.

So - your opinion is that oblivion is preferable to existence and that peace can be found away from the wretched mass of humanity? Well, it is your opinion, and you are entitled to it, but don't expect me to argue it for you.

Personally, I think that's a whole load of shit. Nothing against you, though. I just find the idea of nothingness is happiness stupid.

If there's a religion that advocates these beliefs, I'm surprised it still exists. If they truly believed in the nihilistic worldview, the why they haven't all killed themselves off yet?

Because they believe that you can only achieve Nirvana through being a good person on earth. Hint: They also believe in ressurection and really like cows.

And I'm with Dante: If you don't exist, you don't feel ANYTHING. You can't be in bliss, because you can't be in anything at all, whether it be bliss, pain, or something in between. As he said, the absence of pain is not happiness. He gave an example in which he was perfectly happy while in pain... I on the other hand, can be in no pain whatsoever and still not be happy. I wouldn't call what I am when I'm asleep happy... it's not sad either. It's not anything.

hee hee hee. i gets to be a grammar jerk. no one said oblivion, and no one said wretched masses are the point of suffering.

i said.

-to be truly happy, you have to be isolated from experience

so logically without experience, or the ability to gain more, you're sorta comatose, which was a conclusion i refered to in the "brother needling me" example. if that's true, then being dead is pretty much the same for the body as being comatose. thus if the mind can only be freed from suffering when the body doesn't work/exist, then not existing replicates the blissful experience of knowing nothing.

want to draw a conclusion? since we aren't dead, we feel suffering.

where's that from? its the first noble truth of buddism. and no, buddism isn't gone, its experiencing an upsurge in followers.

EDIT: no one gets a cookie.

hinduism is close, but the concept of atman is the opposite of the buddist anatman (soul vs. nosoul.) in hindiusm, nirvana is joining with ultimate reality, while in buddism the escape from samsara is hitting enlightenment. when you die tho, you stay dead. the buddha is a person who helps others stay dead, if you want to look at it that way.

krylo: Ah, that. Right. They don't talk too much about the nihilism, though.

Now, to address the ORIGINAL question - would I have bliss or free will?

I'm with free will. I'm with free will because I like freedom, and free will is one of the last true freedoms we really have. I'm not saying bliss is bad - on the contrary, I consider myself something of a hedonist.

But I would rather have a choice, even if they're all bad ones, rather than walk a fore-ordained path.

EDIT:

Yes, I made a strawman there without realizing it. My mistake. Sorry.

Although the concept of Nirvana can be roughly equated to oblivion...

Knowing nothing isn't necessarily blissful, for one.

And also, to feel bliss, one would have to be conscious of bliss. Not existing implies that there is no consciousness to feel bliss with.

That is correct. But like I said, presence of suffering is not absence of happiness.

AHHH! Evil Religion Attack! Hssss!

i dunno if anyone read the edit, but there it is. for the original question, i'd go for free will too, but i wouldn't take people out of bliss if they had chosen it. oh man, new question: what happens if someone uses their free will to end their free will? are you allowed to stop them? is it an issue that deals with morality?

EDIT: reading edit concerned with the edit.

exactly why perfect bliss can't be achieved. thumbs up.

you said it the otherway around. the presence of happiness is not the absense of suffering. and i'd dissagree with the quote, but agree with the paraphrase, but we're onto a new question, so i'll leave it be.

Yes, morality. And maybe ethics. Or are they the same?

EDIT: Removed erroneous assumption.

the assumption wasn't that erronous. it depends on how we define morality and ethics. my education said that morality is the intrinsic right/wrong, while ethics is a personal code to determine morality.

good definition? or should we get another?

Morality seems more like a personal thing. You have your morals, while I have mine. Ethics, however, seem more exactly defined...

Also, to get this discussion back on track: Of course your free will inculdes the freedom to take the free will from another. The question is, is it right? Or is it just right sometimes? Is it right to stop someone from killing themselves? How about to stop someone from getting a cheese dog?

Actually, this still isn't on track. Um... add something about bliss here... there we go. All better.

Draw your own conclusions, but if it were me, I'd try not to exercise my free will to deprive somebody else of his. It's one thing to be free. It's another to be an asshole.

cheese dogs assure death in 100 years.
...
the semantics of this are annoying me, i've rewritten the same few lines like a bazillion times. basically put, if the value of free will itself regardless of actions to be used or undertaken by this free will is existant, then barring other variables, actions taken to preserve free will are good. the problem arises when other things come into play: if someone tried to kill themselves, if you stop them, you prevent them from exercising free will, but you also allow them to make more choices while alive. now that i think about it, the only reason you'd keep someone alive is if you believe in life as more valuable than the state that exists after death.

wheee... and down the rabbit hole we go!

Here's a more interesting question, I think, than the topic for this thread:

Suppose you were one of the independant-thinking members of the government of this hypothetical society, and were benefitting in every way that a citizen would benefit, plus immortality, an already free will, and a well-established place in this upper society.

The people under you are all sheep. They're mindless, and don't care about their fates.

Would you free them? Knowing it'd destroy the entire society and ruin your own universally perfect portion of it, and not knowing if an independant society could ever emerge from the ashes from these genetically altered packmules, would you do it out of kindness of human spirit? They may well go crazy and destroy the world. They're competent in many ways, but they have no will to live other than to serve you.

Heh? Or keep them locked up?

Damn, that IS a good question... And that is really hard.

On the one hand, I already view humanity as sheep at times. They are easily mallable to political and economic manipulation, and mob instinct is alive and well and meaning that the more people are doing it, the more that will. Plus I have my free will, and Immortality itself. I have everything I could ever want, ever, and live in a position close to Ruler of the World...

On the other hand, we are doing a hideously ammoral thing and twisting human lives into shadows of their former selves, and playing God in the sense of deciding who will be applied to what task, and what mental training and manipulation they will undergo to get there. Free Will lies in a crushed heap at our feet, and I sit alone with my Immortality. No one will truely be as smart as me, or be my equal. Sure, there are the other memebers of the government, but who knows what sort of people would end up as my "Allies" in this. I would spend the rest of eternity with no meaningful human contact, with only my knowledge as one of the last ones with free will to try and comfort me...

My Morals tell me one way, but my Wisdom says to go another way...

I don't really think that the position of free thinker would really affect my judgement on this one. if the society has no purpose, then i'd dismantle it, and let the chips fall where they may. if the purpose was one i didn't believe to be moral (i.e. it was created to subjugate the entire population of the world under one order, or something), then i'd dismantle it. if the purpose was one i deemed moral, i'd let it stay. this of course barring the potential that all of humanity would be lost. i wouldn't go and risk our entire species for free will, when there's already a group that has it.

Eternal bliss without independent thought isn't real bliss. It would be like being drugged up all the time, completely uncaring about the world at all around you. I wouldn't even call that living. It'd be really creepy if that's how things were. Beside you need ups and downs in life. Take the sour with the sweet because it makes the sweet oh so much sweeter. :)

EDIT: And I'd set them free. I would never want to live in a world where ppl couldn't think for themselves. It's much more much interesting with conflict. It'd be so boring if everyone did what you wanted. There'd be no changes there'd be absolutely nothing. I for one need conflict in my life. I need ppl to challenge me or to debate or at least agree with me of their own free will. Whether that were completely destroy society or not doesn't matter. It's not about the destination of our future but the journey I think.

Moral question: If they don't have free will, is it really wrong to kill them?
After all, without free will, they will never make another choice as long as they live. They're not even sheep - they're less than that. Without the ability to choose, what are they? Do they still have rights?

You're right, Anon. They're nothing. Doesn't matter if you kill them.

As for 'what are they', either workers or toys, depending on what you do with them.


Also: I'd probably go a good century or two with the continued subjugation, then get bored/lonely, and start dismantling the system from the inside (slowly returning freewill to the people, etc.) I'm really not a very humanitarian person... I'd only free them because without others having free will I'd be extremely lonely/bored.

Only someone with free will could can choose between the two. The blissfully ignorant have no such choice.

Of course, I wouldn't have just eaten the fruit; I'd have been proud of it. The funny thing is, I believe that would have gotten me off without punishment. Didn't God really punish Adam because he'd immediately chosen to do evil by lying about it? (And this is by no means designed to provoke a religion debate.)

I've always identified well with the Cain(although I'm not sure why Cain always gets put in that role,) or Lilith archetypes. I want to be as independant as possible. I want to live according to my own will, and nothing else.

Edit: Killing them is no different than dismantling a robot. We aren't alive without free will. Not in the figurative sense anyway.

The main source of my happiness is through challenge, excitement, and achievement....all of which are lacking from the "perfect" societies shown. A world in which I would be genetically altered to just enjoy whatever job I did would lack all of those things, thus inducing boredom.....

Without free will, how could we decide whether we are happy or not, anyway?

Call me crazy, but I'll choose free will over perfect sheeplike bliss any day....

I dont know if anyone is still interested in this subject or not, or if anything i say will add something to the discussion or not.

Pertaining to the original basis of the question, bliss was only attainable in paradise. Adam and Eve eating the fruit was a violation of god's will and as a consquence, adam and eve were cast out of heaven, with the fallout being loss of bliss and gaining free will.

I love having free will. I love choosing what to do and when to do it. However to have bliss, in a scenerio where the happiness would never dull or lessen in anyway shape or form, would not be a bad choice. Although, I completely agree that satisfaction tastes better when sweet follows right after bitter.

I cannot begin to understand what true bliss would feel like. All ive ever know, of happiness is from the choices ive made and the choices of those around me. But all in all i think i would have to disagree with everyone whose posted so far, i would choose bliss over free will. Simply because i believe in a higher power ie christian/hebrew/muslam god, and any choice god could make is better then what man has made for themselves.