The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life (25 page)
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Authors: Shimon Edelman
BOOK: The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life
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Because the mind of an individual is computationally entangled with those of others in his or her social circle, minds are distributed not only across many processes running inside their respective “home” brains but also over a sizable chunk of the world that surrounds them. Thus, the distributed, collective nature of the mind constrains not only self-conquest but also world conquest. The struggle to bend the world, or even just a small corner of it, to one’s own will necessarily remakes the would-be conqueror’s self.
One often encounters sentiments analogous to this one in geopolitical thinking. Empire-builders realize sooner or later that their home country is being transformed by its overseas dominions; occupation is known to corrupt the occupier even as it grinds down the occupied. My extension to individuals of such observations, which normally apply to nation-states, capitalizes on the modern understanding of the distributed, collective self by cognitive science, but it also echoes David Hume’s brilliant insight comparing “the soul . . . to a republic or commonwealth,” as recounted in Chapter 3.
Much in the same way as the relationship between minds and computation captured by the “computer metaphor” proved to be literally true, Hume’s vision of the mind as a commonwealth has been transformed by cognitive science from a mere metaphor into an empirically substantiated computational theory. Hume’s outstanding explanatory move, no longer metaphorical, still offers a valuable and vivid picture of how a mind (or “soul”) can act cohesively despite being distributed, and how a distributed being can undergo change while its identity endures.
Less astute philosophers than Hume tended to picture the mind as a compartmentalized black box, whose emergent personality reflects the balance of terror in the strife between the compartments. An unfortunate consequence of this view has been the notion—still endemic in some schools of personality and clinical psychology—that the pursuit of happiness must involve a violent realignment, or, as I put it earlier, conquest. On the one hand, the happiness-craving black box is supposed to wage war against itself—a campaign that is bound to meet with resistance. (If you ever tried it, you’ll know why.) On the other hand, war must be waged against others to induce them to further what for them is someone else’s happiness agenda; this too is unlikely to contribute to peace in the neighborhood.
The black-box self in this mistaken view of how the mind works finds itself in a perpetual state of war of its own making, not unlike the assorted cold warriors in Stanley Kubrick’s film
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
. I am thinking here in particular of the personage of Dr. Strangelove himself, who has to fight off his own hand that tries to strangle him when he is not scheming about how best to fight the Russkies (who, of course, fully reciprocate).
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
. I am thinking here in particular of the personage of Dr. Strangelove himself, who has to fight off his own hand that tries to strangle him when he is not scheming about how best to fight the Russkies (who, of course, fully reciprocate).
Cognitive science’s discovery that minds are in fact not sealed black boxes but open, intermingled societies of computational processes gives one hope that a person wishing for a happier life can attain it through gradual, cognitively transparent change.
13
A unique feature of an open society—Hume’s “republic or commonwealth”—is its ability to change itself, and sometimes its neighbors and partners, to the better by nonviolent means. To my mind, Hume’s ideas and the lessons from cognitive science that corroborate them suggest that it should be possible for people to strive for happiness without resorting to any kind of “conquest.” It is interesting to note that whereas the classical recipes for collective happiness predicate the betterment of a society on the self-improvement of its members, what we just discovered is that these two kinds of processes may be expected to follow similar dynamics.
13
A unique feature of an open society—Hume’s “republic or commonwealth”—is its ability to change itself, and sometimes its neighbors and partners, to the better by nonviolent means. To my mind, Hume’s ideas and the lessons from cognitive science that corroborate them suggest that it should be possible for people to strive for happiness without resorting to any kind of “conquest.” It is interesting to note that whereas the classical recipes for collective happiness predicate the betterment of a society on the self-improvement of its members, what we just discovered is that these two kinds of processes may be expected to follow similar dynamics.
This dynamics is anything but simple: people’s minds, and even more so societies made of people, are very complex systems. The path of individual or societal change is thus rarely short, straight, or smooth. An open society may nearly succeed at suicide, only to reemerge, after unspeakable violence to self and others, as one of the most progressive forces on the planet. (Consider Germany, from the Nazi win in the 1933 elections to the 1967 shooting of a peaceful demonstrator by the police and the ensuing public outcry, which eventually transformed the still-conservative postwar country.
14
) Or it may resort to internal violence to initiate the emancipation of its downtrodden second-class citizens, yet complete this emancipation by peaceful means. (Consider the United States, from the judicial murder of John Brown in 1859 to the election of President Barack Obama in 2008.)
15
14
) Or it may resort to internal violence to initiate the emancipation of its downtrodden second-class citizens, yet complete this emancipation by peaceful means. (Consider the United States, from the judicial murder of John Brown in 1859 to the election of President Barack Obama in 2008.)
15
It looks, therefore, like there are reasons for optimism. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” But cognitive science tells us that the moral and cognitive dimensions of the human mind are coextensive. Similarly, the idea that the moral progress of a society is driven by the cognitive betterment of its members—which, unsurprisingly, brings about also increased individual well-being—is implicit in Aristotle’s concept of practical wisdom, or “phronesis,” and in the “right mindfulness” that is part of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.
16
Thus, with any luck, the lifelong psychological war of conquest that each of us has been waging in the name of personal happiness and prosperity will end with a velvet revolution.
Ulysses Leaves Ithaca Again16
Thus, with any luck, the lifelong psychological war of conquest that each of us has been waging in the name of personal happiness and prosperity will end with a velvet revolution.
Cognitively transparent (hence peaceful), gradual self-change of the kind that promotes well-being and, indeed, happiness is helped along by the accumulation of experience. That life experience is good for your practical wisdom has been noted by philosophers; more importantly, this notion turns out to be very much along the lines of what science has learned about the role of experience in cognition.
17
17
The idea that experience is central to cognition has been with us since Chapter 2, where I sketched a rational foundation for using the past to anticipate the future: the amazing Bayes Theorem. In subsequent chapters, we saw that the buildup of experience enriches and refines all cognitive functions: perception, motor planning, problem solving, decision making, and language. It is a truism that the sum total of a person’s episodic memories constitutes a large part of his or her persona—what I called the narrative Self.
18
We should remember that the other part of the mind’s
I
—the phenomenal Self—is swept along by the same current: the present is always experienced through the memories of the past.
18
We should remember that the other part of the mind’s
I
—the phenomenal Self—is swept along by the same current: the present is always experienced through the memories of the past.
There are good reasons why the accumulation of experience feels good and why it promotes happiness (in a reasonably well-adjusted self, that is; as it usually happens, it is the rich who get richer—but you did not need me to tell you that, did you?).
19
The urge to explore, accrue information about the world, and use it to dodge the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (or catch such stuff as looks good) makes evolutionary sense. Feeling good about mastering novelty through learning appears to be the currency with which the brain is bribed into leaving the couch and venturing outside. Even though what evolution
acts
on is not fleeting good moods but lasting good outcomes, in its vocabulary “lasting” means “lasting long enough to procreate profusely”—what a lovely way to burn! Thus, feeling good is the means, but the end is happiness. Could you imagine it any better than that?
19
The urge to explore, accrue information about the world, and use it to dodge the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (or catch such stuff as looks good) makes evolutionary sense. Feeling good about mastering novelty through learning appears to be the currency with which the brain is bribed into leaving the couch and venturing outside. Even though what evolution
acts
on is not fleeting good moods but lasting good outcomes, in its vocabulary “lasting” means “lasting long enough to procreate profusely”—what a lovely way to burn! Thus, feeling good is the means, but the end is happiness. Could you imagine it any better than that?
To sum up, we now know enough about how the mind works to be able to explain not just
why
happiness can be increased by the pursuit of experience, but
how
it happens. In a drastically condensed form, the complete explanation reads as follows. The world is partially predictable. Predicting the future requires remembering the past. Cognitive systems, of which the human mind is a prime example, use accrued past experience to their advantage by resorting to statistical inference. Such inference ranges from simple extrapolation of a few variables by regression on the available data to the construction of complex virtual-reality models intended to simulate the behavior of objects and the unfolding of events, including other minds and social interactions. For their pursuit of experience in the service of these computational needs, systems that are subject to evolutionary pressure, as the human mind is, are rewarded, both in real time and in the long run. This, then, is the entire account of the happiness of pursuit.
why
happiness can be increased by the pursuit of experience, but
how
it happens. In a drastically condensed form, the complete explanation reads as follows. The world is partially predictable. Predicting the future requires remembering the past. Cognitive systems, of which the human mind is a prime example, use accrued past experience to their advantage by resorting to statistical inference. Such inference ranges from simple extrapolation of a few variables by regression on the available data to the construction of complex virtual-reality models intended to simulate the behavior of objects and the unfolding of events, including other minds and social interactions. For their pursuit of experience in the service of these computational needs, systems that are subject to evolutionary pressure, as the human mind is, are rewarded, both in real time and in the long run. This, then, is the entire account of the happiness of pursuit.
How does my quest for an algorithmic understanding of happiness measure up against the explanatory excitement fanned by all the talk about computation in this book? I shall not pretend that the understanding at which we have arrived spells out a comprehensive algorithm for leading a happy life (although it does suggest some well-motivated actionable ideas, which could easily fill another book). No, its main value lies elsewhere.
Imagine that your search for spiritual solace brings you to the mountain retreat of a widely revered sage. The hermit, who looks reassuringly radiant and serene, gladly reveals the secret: ubik. You ask for details and are told that ubik is something that all people have (or perhaps merely think they have—the account, which mainly takes the form of parables, is unclear on that point), and that it is generally a good idea to begin with getting to know your ubik, which in turn will enable ubik-improvement, with all the ensuing benefits. You are too polite to press the issue further and so take your leave, hoping to work it out on your own.
20
20
This vignette is, of course, prompted by the classical recipe that predicates happy life on self-knowledge, self-improvement, and, eventually, selfless conduct, yet stops short of explaining what kind of thing it is, exactly, that you need to come to know, improve, and perhaps transcend. This used to be a singularly frustrating situation, but times have changed. Instead of merely exhorting you to seek self-knowledge, this book explains what a self is, so that you may know yours better. One classical motif does, however, persist: writing the sequel for your story is still up to you.
I conclude mine by revisiting Tennyson’s poem
Ulysses
, from which I quoted back in Chapter 3. The hero—back in Ithaca after ten years on the fields of Troy and another ten trying to get home, through many adventures and much adversity—is called by an irresistible call to depart. It takes Tennyson’s Ulysses seventy lines, some of the very best in English verse, to explain why. Of these, I always found the last one the most striking, and it is that line that I will now tweak to make my point (with impunity, as all persons concerned have long since sailed beyond the sunset). My version of the closing line puts a little less value on resolve and tenacity, which all heroes have in abundance, and a little more on the twin virtues of recognizing when a cycle of experience has come to a completion, and knowing what to do then:
Ulysses
, from which I quoted back in Chapter 3. The hero—back in Ithaca after ten years on the fields of Troy and another ten trying to get home, through many adventures and much adversity—is called by an irresistible call to depart. It takes Tennyson’s Ulysses seventy lines, some of the very best in English verse, to explain why. Of these, I always found the last one the most striking, and it is that line that I will now tweak to make my point (with impunity, as all persons concerned have long since sailed beyond the sunset). My version of the closing line puts a little less value on resolve and tenacity, which all heroes have in abundance, and a little more on the twin virtues of recognizing when a cycle of experience has come to a completion, and knowing what to do then:
To strive, to seek, to find, andthen to yield.
Although this may sound like the end of the present story, we should take it for what it really is: a new beginning. The happiness of pursuit is such that there is always more of it to be had, as long as we remember that the moment of attainment is the perfect time to start striving for something new—but not until after we pause to savor the moment, which is what I am going to do now.
Ithaca, NY
March 2011
March 2011
ALWAYS COMING HOME
†
†
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. ELIOT,
“Little Gidding,” V
, Four Quartets
(1942)
“Little Gidding,” V
, Four Quartets
(1942)
Ever since Jorge Luis Borges and Stanisław Lem perfected the art of reviewing nonexistent books, thereby setting a new standard for insouciant sophistication, aspiring authors who are at least as ambitious as they are lazy have been faced with a choice: to actually write the book of their dreams, or to pretend that it has already been written and proceed directly to write a review for it. An enlightened person—one who has cultivated a due appreciation for the self-limiting nature of any action (a quality that is virtually unknown among aspiring authors)—would opt for neither
of these two alternatives. I, who am the nominal author of
The Happiness of Pursuit
(
THoP
, pronounced “tea-hop”; Edelman 2012) as well as of the present review, have chosen
both
.
†
The title of this review of
The Happiness of Pursuit
, which is conveniently included with the text itself, has been borrowed by its author from Ursula K. Le Guin (1985).
The Happiness of Pursuit
(
THoP
, pronounced “tea-hop”; Edelman 2012) as well as of the present review, have chosen
both
.
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