Happiness is a falsifiable theory

A while ago, BBC came up with this piece of news that Romanians are the unhappiest nation on earth. Is Romania a country suffering from ecstatic impotence? What prevents Romanians from having that childish attitude of positivism doubled by naïve optimism? Is Romania a living example of Murphy’s Law that “if things can go worse, they will?”

The foreign observers’ opinions are radically split. While some claim that Romanians are friendly and sometimes perfunctory gregarious, easy going people or just easy, some insist that Romanians are clinically and chronically unhappy. And this has nothing to do with standard of living. Romanians have an extra gene (or rather a missing one) that prevents them from being happy. They are chronically yet understandably unsatisfied, envious and egocentric.

David T. Lykken believes that 50% of one's happiness depends on one's genes (plus the neurobiological factors such as dopamine, opiate, serotonin), based on studying identical twins, whose happiness is 50% correlated even when growing up in different houses. Only 10% to 15% is a result of various measurable life circumstances variables, such as socioeconomic status, marital status, health, income, sex and others. The remaining 40% is a combination of unknown factors and the results of actions that individuals deliberately engage in to become happier.

The survey also claimed that Russians (with Moscow being the most expensive city on earth) along with Armenians and Romanians, consider themselves the unhappiest nations on earth.

For a moment, I thought that maybe SES (socio economic status) is strictly related to how people perceive happiness these days. You have less (money, education, friends, hopes, dreams, stability), you are less happy. Then as I further read the statistics and what makes people happy, I have found out to my surprise that Nigerians – an example of poverty by excellence- are happier than the richest nations. Ironically, the happiest people on earth are Nigerians in spite of only $2,100/ income per capita per year, a public debt of 14.4% of GDP, 310,000 AIDS deaths/year and 45% of population below the poverty line.

Leaving aside its infamous poverty, generalized corruption, and symptomatic legislation, lack of education and sanitary needs, and skyrocketing death rates, the Nigerians define themselves as HAPPY. So, once more we are tempted to agree with the proverb that “money doesn’t bring happiness”.

In this case, I am tempted to believe the popular credo held by monks and opposed to the current belief of the consumerism society that the desire for material goods suppresses happiness.

What makes the Nigerians happy then? What is their secret? Sure, it is well understood that material comfort plays an important role in insuring a basic happiness which satisfies the immediate needs: good clothing, good food, sexual comfort and well being, access to better medical services, etc.  But well-being is not happiness. Joy is not happiness. Contentment is not happiness. Felicity is not happiness. Blessedness is not happiness. Satisfaction is not happiness. Ecstasy is not happiness. Comfort is not happiness. Fun is not happiness. Again, what is happiness? Bluntly said, happiness is a state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.

Yet, there is an Amazonian society called Pirahã which has no number words at all. The Pirahã uses hói to describe a small number of objects, hoíg to describe a slightly larger number, and baágiso for an even larger number. These words seem to mean "around one," "some" and "many." Explaining addition and subtraction to Pirahã is explaining what happiness is to people who have never experienced it.

Maybe the best way to define happiness is the same way we define faith, by negation. Can we define happiness by saying it is not unhappiness? Is happiness falsifiable? Yes, if it is a theory. Are all people happy?  If we find one single unhappy person, logic allows us to conclude that the statement that all people are or could be happy is false. Well, apparently, happiness is a theory. The Greeks used to say “theoria” to something that you look at, view, or behold. In philosophy, there was an interesting definition of theory, which came to refer to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action, including "practice". Apparently, all we can do about happiness is theoretically contemplate it, and yet never practice it.