ehard's blog
Why do we abhor death? Why don’t we conceive of death as a pleasant reward at the end of a life of travail? As far as we can tell, death is a state in which we are relieved of every unpleasant aspect of our lives. No pain, no nagging, no angst, no depression, just peace. What’s so bad about that?
If our essential functionality is probabilistic – any of an infinite number of synaptic connections may lead to one event or another within us – then our happiness must, in some measure, accommodate this chance-based essence. See, e.g., Gary Lynch (Big Brain).
What room in a theory of happiness is there for love?
A fair number of us – particularly those who keep track of developments in science – perceive ourselves as open-minded. But how often do we assess this quality in ourselves with any degree of rigor? What does it feel like to be open? What does it look like?
The dialectic between descent with modification and the expanded cortex of the mammalian brain appears to have led to a kind of “house of mirrors” in humans. The smarter we get, it seems, the more we believe in our perceptions, while our brains work overtime to concoct a version of reality divorced from the evidence.
What might principles for the pursuit of happiness look like? Some suggestions follow. The key idea is that we do not know that all is hopeless, we just conclude it from time to time, based on our emotional state, not our knowledge. Having sufficient humility to recognize that we do not know is a key stepping stone to improving our well being.
Our brains appear wired to adopt a belief about our milieu, consecrate it, then bar the door to our consciousness against any competing belief. If a different belief gets past our mental bouncer, the result is conflict, sometimes labeled cognitive dissonance. This process should be familiar to most of us, yet how likely is it to reflect some objective quality of our universe? The transcendent achievements of our brains help to blind us to their concomitant evolved limitations. There appears to be little circuitry in the brain encouraging it to adopt a critical posture towards itself.
Is happiness what is left over after we trim away the pursuit of despondence? In many respects, the answer may be yes.
Neuroscientists and others who study the issue tell us that people have a “set point” for happiness, a default mode to which we revert after any foray into escstasy or depression. They also tell us, however, that there is much we can do to improve on our day-to-day feeling of well being, if only we apply ourselves. The old nature-nurture debate has an answer: both are true. Our job is to focus on the part we can influence: nurture. So how do we nurture a happier brain?
THE GOD QUESTION
We conceive of the universe as having a beginning, hence, a moment of birth, or creation. Such a scenario implies a creator. But we may think in terms of cause and effect, beginnings, because that is our milieu. Our brains evolved in an environment steeped in birth, in beginnings.
What is the relationship between our inclination to judge and our well being?
How do we escape the trap of how we are viewed by the world? One problem is our concern for the opinion of others. It seems we are wired to construct a picture of ourselves for distribution to our peers.
We should all spend time thinking about what makes us happy. Here are some ideas on how to start.
