Money Can Buy Happiness.

Sorry in advance if I seem rushed and thus miss grammatical inferences. I have several Final exams right now, although I suppose thats my fault for starting the debate now. I will do by best from now on to avoid any more of these circumstances. Mood vs Emotion vs state of mind (Mental State). Sorry for using Mental State. I am not proficient in psychological literature, by using mental state I meant state of mind as I assumed they where basically the same thing. As for mood vs emotion, I don't really see the big difference. For the purposes of the debate I think we should stick to emotions rather then moods as happiness is a temporary emotion not a mood. I suppose the best way to describe the way I see the difference between emotion and state of mind is through yet another analogy. The way I see it, emotions are like the weather, they change often and are hard to predict. Whereas the state of mind is more like the climate, it is mostly constant and changes only due to massive world wide climate events. Money can easily influence an emotion, however it is much harder influence the state of mind. A persons entire outlook on life (which is largely influence by their state of mind) doesn't change because they found a couple bucks. However, their immediate emotional response will change for just a few dollars. Measuring Happiness. Sorry, I did misinterpret your statement "You have no means of determining their happiness, so you don't know that money makes them happy (or sad)". I assumed you meant objectively measuring happiness and not measuring their relative emotional state. I agree with you, we cannot objectively measure happiness (or pain), we can simply compare it to others. Buying A Jar of happiness. By saying "You cannot go to a store and buy a jar of happiness" I was saying there is no physical manifestation of happiness as it is an emotion. However, you can still pay for emotions. Emotions are a part of purchasing anything. No matter what I buy, I will experience emotions. I can be regretting my purchase or satisfied that I finally got something I wanted, or I can be mad that it cost so much. Not matter what you do you will experience some emotions with it. If I go to the theatre and pay to watch I movie, what am I buying? I am essentially renting out a seat in a room and paying to experience emotions and gather new memories through a sequence of images shown on a screen. Therefore I am buying the emotional experience. I have just given money in order to get those emotions and memories. If that emotional experience is happiness, then I just bought happiness. I didn't buy any physical thing. I paid to get a chemical reaction in my brain caused by lights that we call memories and emotions. I fear you missed the last part of my previous argument. "I would like to point out that I'm not saying family, friends, and experiences don't bring happiness, because they do. I'm only saying so can money". This is a HUGE point in my argument. Experiences, family and friends all do bring happiness. I am merely saying so can money. I agree with you on that rich countries aren't always the happiest and that people without money don't need money to be happy. I am arguing that money CAN buy happiness, NOT that nothing else can bring happiness. There is a very big difference between the two. Thank-you and Good luck.