I am realizing that many spend most of their energy and attention just to stay in place. i.e. not to lose ground to whatever troubles and obstacles come to make our life worse.
It may explain why so many lives do not improve. How can one improve when he fights not to fall in trouble? (see, however, Enjoying life in the good and in the bad about that trying to enjoy life in times we do not like makes much sense)
Theoretically, one may want to invest less in fighting various small fights to have the resources and attention available to the most important issues in life. There are however, a bunch of caveats:
That "saving" effort does not make the person even weaker. Sleepingness of laziness (although I beleive we are so intoctrinated that working hard is useful, that we should beleive by default that laziness is good)
That we know the "more important things" and they are indeed more important. It is very common to have fallacious theories about what is important and what will make sus happier.
That we do not fall prey to other optimization problems. When acting powerfully, every mistake and miscalibrating is more harmful.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
WWDNGH 5: Technical optimization and human beings
I am having these points in mind for a long time. I tried to clarify them for myself for no avail. So I am posting the thoughts as they are. If any reader can add an idea/explanation/thought it would be greatly valued.
I suspect that humans are not built for technically optimizing and managing the lives.
I used to ask people why not try to use Gottman method to predict relationship future (he was able to predict marital satisfaction and happiness with 90% accuracy)
Nobody was willing to think about the idea. But people surely discuss with freinds whether to get married, they do other things to decide and think.
Somehow, an optimal method is not being used. Is technical the term? Or because it does not arises to mind and action in a natural way? (quite plausible).
There may be more to that. And the whole idea of technical things is unclear to me.
That is why certain optimizations of life is not being used. You can get happier by doing meditation, but it involves donig something out of the ordinary, mechanical, and unnatural.
No convincing reason either. You got only the technically csounding claim that "practicing meditation is improving happiness significantly". This is a dry and unnatural reason.
Tell a male skeptic that there are pretty girls in the course and he will run on all four. *this* is a natural motivator.
I suspect that humans are not built for technically optimizing and managing the lives.
I used to ask people why not try to use Gottman method to predict relationship future (he was able to predict marital satisfaction and happiness with 90% accuracy)
Nobody was willing to think about the idea. But people surely discuss with freinds whether to get married, they do other things to decide and think.
Somehow, an optimal method is not being used. Is technical the term? Or because it does not arises to mind and action in a natural way? (quite plausible).
There may be more to that. And the whole idea of technical things is unclear to me.
That is why certain optimizations of life is not being used. You can get happier by doing meditation, but it involves donig something out of the ordinary, mechanical, and unnatural.
No convincing reason either. You got only the technically csounding claim that "practicing meditation is improving happiness significantly". This is a dry and unnatural reason.
Tell a male skeptic that there are pretty girls in the course and he will run on all four. *this* is a natural motivator.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The Nirvana Myth
What do peopel mean when they talk about happiness?
I believe people think about this elusive eternal feeling of endless happiness.
Another approach is the story thing (concept rather than the feeling) [1] like knowing that at the end of life one will be able to say "this was a happy person" like that of Solon and many others (Solon told the king that he cannot be declared happy until his end, which is nonsense, if we look for momentary happiness, or even the story of every moment.)
In practice, we are fairly limited. We can improve many small things in life (so I hope). But these large gains are next to impossible.
When this fantasy takes precedence, one gives up any hope, at least practically.
Sleeping another half hour a day, does not sound an improvement for life. It sounds a small thing, a technicality. Nobosy cares if it will improve life quality. But I guess the main point is that it does not fit into the huge dream of happiness. It is not going to make you a prime minister, give you eternal bliss, or bring you ultimate love (another overstated dream).
PS. I can find rationalization for concentration on the big dreams. And life calculus are too complex to form an opinion. These are just my natural thuoghts. There are also complex topics on our subjective meanings and all kinds of psychologicval constructs. Just mentioning it to confuse you.
[1] story vs. feeling. Kahneman termed it "Living vs. thinking about it". (read the paper, it is provocative, althought I am informed that Kahneman has even more interesting surprises in store) We have an experience, and we have thoughts etc. Humans tend to take thoughts too seriousely. While much of life is about the espeience, not the story.
I believe people think about this elusive eternal feeling of endless happiness.
Another approach is the story thing (concept rather than the feeling) [1] like knowing that at the end of life one will be able to say "this was a happy person" like that of Solon and many others (Solon told the king that he cannot be declared happy until his end, which is nonsense, if we look for momentary happiness, or even the story of every moment.)
In practice, we are fairly limited. We can improve many small things in life (so I hope). But these large gains are next to impossible.
When this fantasy takes precedence, one gives up any hope, at least practically.
Sleeping another half hour a day, does not sound an improvement for life. It sounds a small thing, a technicality. Nobosy cares if it will improve life quality. But I guess the main point is that it does not fit into the huge dream of happiness. It is not going to make you a prime minister, give you eternal bliss, or bring you ultimate love (another overstated dream).
PS. I can find rationalization for concentration on the big dreams. And life calculus are too complex to form an opinion. These are just my natural thuoghts. There are also complex topics on our subjective meanings and all kinds of psychologicval constructs. Just mentioning it to confuse you.
[1] story vs. feeling. Kahneman termed it "Living vs. thinking about it". (read the paper, it is provocative, althought I am informed that Kahneman has even more interesting surprises in store) We have an experience, and we have thoughts etc. Humans tend to take thoughts too seriousely. While much of life is about the espeience, not the story.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Unhappy Socrates and the happy pig. Is Socrates indeed better? and other tales
John Stuart Mill says that
"It is better to be unhappy Socrates than a happy pig"
Why indeed?
Mill claims that there is asymmatric information. The philosopher knows what it is like being "high minded" but the pig does not know the alternative. We have two judges of which only one knows both options.
This logic, however, is not convincing.
1) The philosopher actually does not know what it is to be a happy non-philosopher. At best he may observe it from afar throught other people. (I assume philosophers are born - not made. Even if made people tend to forget and distort their past experience).
2) Ecology of judgement. Abstract knowledge of options is insufficient. It is the overal personality attitudes etc. that determines a person's ultimate opinion. Socrates experiences another kind of existence, but this very existence along with all his personal featuers etc. may have bent his opinions toward valuing this kind of existence.
There is also a selection bias in the professional philosopher making a judgement. There may have been others who experienced Socrates for awhile and retired back into moviegoers. They tried both options, made the choice, but you do not name them for philosophers who knew.....
Sour grapes. When the fox cannot reach the higher grapes, he says they are sour. When the philosopher is too nerdish to practially enjoy life (fill in yourself), he invent a story where wisdom is more improtant.
Misleading statement.
"happy pig" sounds bad + it is extreme (ad absurdum problem - Reductio de absurdum proves only that the rule is not extremey absollute, it says nothing about the rule itself in normal conditions).
i.e. Maybe we would prefer to be a unhappy Socrates rather then a happy pig. But pig is an extreme. We may still prefer happy regular person over unhappy Socrates.
PS. It took relatively long time to write it. Because I preffered to go to the beach, chat with freinds etc. (happy pig). Only when I decided that this writing has a happy pig side to it (social attention, and joy of writing) I resolved to go into writing.
I hope the reader got some material joy from reading this.... I love only happy pig, not frowning philosophers.
We should also remember the aesthetic bias and the "prominence" distortion.
Aeatheic is that we consider certain ways of livign and thinking as nicer. We automaically translate it to better. A mistake. I tend to have an especiay good intuition about the life quality and wisdom of sexy women. Took me long to realize that since I see beauty first, I a misleading myself seriousely (kahneman did forma work proving that).
"prominence" distorion is that we want to be smart and sound smart. After we have some intuition about what terms are more prominent in whatever sense, we give them more essential attributes. After a series of self cheating and distortions, we end up really beleivinig these smart sounding things. (Same for morality. Long story by itself how morality distort opinion).
Off-topic. Experience vs. story
An important feature of this is the experience vs. story question. We experience one thing moment by moment. But remember it in a different way. Also the story we have in head about our whole life and certaini experiences, is many times altogether different from actual experience. People care a great deal about their story (kahneman).
Is story central? or experience central?
I feel kahneman's approach is the right one. That is, people want actual experience AND story. I still do not feel clear about the the topic, however.
more references.
Loewenstein 2008 what makes life worthwhile
measurements issues 1999 WB volume
hedonomics
"It is better to be unhappy Socrates than a happy pig"
Why indeed?
Mill claims that there is asymmatric information. The philosopher knows what it is like being "high minded" but the pig does not know the alternative. We have two judges of which only one knows both options.
This logic, however, is not convincing.
1) The philosopher actually does not know what it is to be a happy non-philosopher. At best he may observe it from afar throught other people. (I assume philosophers are born - not made. Even if made people tend to forget and distort their past experience).
2) Ecology of judgement. Abstract knowledge of options is insufficient. It is the overal personality attitudes etc. that determines a person's ultimate opinion. Socrates experiences another kind of existence, but this very existence along with all his personal featuers etc. may have bent his opinions toward valuing this kind of existence.
There is also a selection bias in the professional philosopher making a judgement. There may have been others who experienced Socrates for awhile and retired back into moviegoers. They tried both options, made the choice, but you do not name them for philosophers who knew.....
Sour grapes. When the fox cannot reach the higher grapes, he says they are sour. When the philosopher is too nerdish to practially enjoy life (fill in yourself), he invent a story where wisdom is more improtant.
Misleading statement.
"happy pig" sounds bad + it is extreme (ad absurdum problem - Reductio de absurdum proves only that the rule is not extremey absollute, it says nothing about the rule itself in normal conditions).
i.e. Maybe we would prefer to be a unhappy Socrates rather then a happy pig. But pig is an extreme. We may still prefer happy regular person over unhappy Socrates.
PS. It took relatively long time to write it. Because I preffered to go to the beach, chat with freinds etc. (happy pig). Only when I decided that this writing has a happy pig side to it (social attention, and joy of writing) I resolved to go into writing.
I hope the reader got some material joy from reading this.... I love only happy pig, not frowning philosophers.
We should also remember the aesthetic bias and the "prominence" distortion.
Aeatheic is that we consider certain ways of livign and thinking as nicer. We automaically translate it to better. A mistake. I tend to have an especiay good intuition about the life quality and wisdom of sexy women. Took me long to realize that since I see beauty first, I a misleading myself seriousely (kahneman did forma work proving that).
"prominence" distorion is that we want to be smart and sound smart. After we have some intuition about what terms are more prominent in whatever sense, we give them more essential attributes. After a series of self cheating and distortions, we end up really beleivinig these smart sounding things. (Same for morality. Long story by itself how morality distort opinion).
Off-topic. Experience vs. story
An important feature of this is the experience vs. story question. We experience one thing moment by moment. But remember it in a different way. Also the story we have in head about our whole life and certaini experiences, is many times altogether different from actual experience. People care a great deal about their story (kahneman).
Is story central? or experience central?
I feel kahneman's approach is the right one. That is, people want actual experience AND story. I still do not feel clear about the the topic, however.
more references.
Loewenstein 2008 what makes life worthwhile
measurements issues 1999 WB volume
hedonomics
Monday, November 10, 2008
WWDNGH4 Psychology vs. material stuff
Money and simple materialism is relatively simple.
That is why improvement in material life quality is simple.
But it is not everything, and it is somewhat capped above. You cannot improve materialistic state endlessly and still gain much. So you are stuck with what people feel psychologically.
Psychological feelings etc. are much more complex.
Either satisfaction with one's job, life, and social situation.
Self perception. Relationships.
Occupying oneself with things that produce good feeling.
self actualization (sounds psychological nonsense. But it can be very important)
feeling of autonomy and freedom.
Not being flooded and overwhelmed with these feelings.
etc. etc. many more dimensions.
A few barriers for psychological improvement.
Complexity. As above it is not a summary of things. It is rather very complex.
Unseen. Much of psychology is unseen. i.e. even if resulting feelings are somehow the goal (at least part thereof), the psychological dynamics leading to them is very opaque, and many findings show that we have a very bad understanding of our own psych. {to whihc extent?}
Even feelings themselves are highly unclear.We may be more or less aware of ceratin feelings. (very very awareness changes the very meaning of a feeling. But it still counts. Like forgotten "objective experience" that should be counted)
Hard to apply. Changing psychological features of a person is hard. It is not as buying a new car.
No efficient market for psychological stuff.
Many material things have a market. Even when most people are inefficient, a few efficient people can make money on optimizing the tradable goods.
In psychology, nobody makes money from making me/you happier. Therefore, the only way for improvement is doing it ourselves.
A related observation is that certain trends in our subjective psychology are negative. i.e. contrary to economics where there is generally an improvement (suppose). In psychology certain trends are clearly negative.
These trends are sometimes social and cultural dynamics that sometimes move to the worse. There is no ulterior manager that makes all trends to the better.
A good read is "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before". I cannot guarantee all conclusions, but there are clearly dynamics in the culture that are bad of our psychological well-being
Favorite qoute: All is psychology. jobs, philosophies, rationalities, incentives, moralities, are all names presumed to escape our child-like souls. Kahneman/Baumeister more important than Einstein.
That is why improvement in material life quality is simple.
But it is not everything, and it is somewhat capped above. You cannot improve materialistic state endlessly and still gain much. So you are stuck with what people feel psychologically.
Psychological feelings etc. are much more complex.
Either satisfaction with one's job, life, and social situation.
Self perception. Relationships.
Occupying oneself with things that produce good feeling.
self actualization (sounds psychological nonsense. But it can be very important)
feeling of autonomy and freedom.
Not being flooded and overwhelmed with these feelings.
etc. etc. many more dimensions.
A few barriers for psychological improvement.
Complexity. As above it is not a summary of things. It is rather very complex.
Unseen. Much of psychology is unseen. i.e. even if resulting feelings are somehow the goal (at least part thereof), the psychological dynamics leading to them is very opaque, and many findings show that we have a very bad understanding of our own psych. {to whihc extent?}
Even feelings themselves are highly unclear.We may be more or less aware of ceratin feelings. (very very awareness changes the very meaning of a feeling. But it still counts. Like forgotten "objective experience" that should be counted)
Hard to apply. Changing psychological features of a person is hard. It is not as buying a new car.
No efficient market for psychological stuff.
Many material things have a market. Even when most people are inefficient, a few efficient people can make money on optimizing the tradable goods.
In psychology, nobody makes money from making me/you happier. Therefore, the only way for improvement is doing it ourselves.
A related observation is that certain trends in our subjective psychology are negative. i.e. contrary to economics where there is generally an improvement (suppose). In psychology certain trends are clearly negative.
These trends are sometimes social and cultural dynamics that sometimes move to the worse. There is no ulterior manager that makes all trends to the better.
A good read is "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before". I cannot guarantee all conclusions, but there are clearly dynamics in the culture that are bad of our psychological well-being
Favorite qoute: All is psychology. jobs, philosophies, rationalities, incentives, moralities, are all names presumed to escape our child-like souls. Kahneman/Baumeister more important than Einstein.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Enjoying life in the good and in the bad
I will enjoy life when I will just have this little nap, recover from illness, get my acts together, fix the relationship trouble etc.
Makes sense. You can indeed feel better when things will fall on place (maybe. Your bad feelings can come from a different source and you are mistakenly attributing it to these things).
But you got to enjoy life meanwhile. Much of life is spent before we got things right. Even staying in line or waiting in airports.
Multi-strategy in life management.
Having a single strategy that is limited to only part of life is not good. It means that when the situation is not suitabgle to your strategy you stay a sucker. "If I am too tired I feel bad no matter what" means balatantly giving up.
A set of strategies for varying circumstances is more realistic.
What counts in life, is what difference we can make. Possibly, one can improve feelings in bad times even more than good times (then you feel good anyway). But what counts is the difference, and a difference there is is bad times, too.
See also:
trouble gets superimposed on us. Why? Any escape? (linked above under "Even staying in line or waiting in airports")
Monday, October 6, 2008
Humanity and sale persons
I tried to cancel an old internet connection.
Contrary to my personal preferences, the internet company has a torture procedure to the criminal wishing to leave their service. It is done "nicely".
First, the customer service guy is not in charge of cancellations. There is another department for that "customer conservations".
The guy is probably a nice person trying to make his hourly going rate by sitting in the call center. I felt ashamed by getting angry. I clarified to him. "I have nothing against you personally, but I am terribly angry for the company forcing on me this torture. They are cynically exploiting my time and energy".
Anyway, he tried to talk me into deals, until I got tired and in the middle of his sentence told him "let me free, cancel the thing".
He got offended (I guess it is a game. But who knows). "Will not you let me finish the sentence?"
"No".
I appreciate that the person was so nice as to let me close it that way. But it left me in an unease feeling.
Dillema: this guy is exploiting my time unfairly. I owe him nothing. But it is hardly his initiation. It is like beating the cop in a Sovietic Gulag. He may have been forced to arrest me, and will suffer tredemously if I escape.
Also, the guy has his emotional system sensitive. The fact that I am not willing - justically - to spend another second with him can feel still painful for him emotionaly.
He is also followed. The calls are recorded. If he tries to be human and is not to torture me to the maximum, he can get fired.
OTOH, I do not buy the notion that you can send innocent folks to torture me, and I will have to behave nicely toward them. Collaborators of crime cannot expect mercy.
Expecting me to show mercy is taking the cinycism of agency problem [1] to new heights. Not only can you steal my time and energy throught your workers, you also want me to behave. I would round the ball, and torture your workers. At least people will be not be happy to work in an ugly enterprise.
But this logic feels theoretical and inhuman. This sorry young persons who tortured me is a sentient human, and it has to be taken into account.
personal biases: 1) I am more annoyed by talking over the phone especially sale persons. 2) I value these offers much less than an average person. These considerations tip teh balance strongly into the negative area.
But do not imagine that my exceptionality is why it hurts me. It hurts everybody, but people are used to bend their head below the disaster whihle I am not shy.
Comments:
[1] Agency problem. When An agent is deciding for you. The interests of the agent are differenct from yours, whihc leads to decisions and actions that are bad for you.
This problem is worse as the complexity of actions and decisions grow, like in modern life. A good example of agency is when bank managers take risks with shareholders money. The managers can only win (the yearly bonus). The long term risk is on shareholders, and one can guess that the personal interests on managers take precedence in many cases.
Contrary to my personal preferences, the internet company has a torture procedure to the criminal wishing to leave their service. It is done "nicely".
First, the customer service guy is not in charge of cancellations. There is another department for that "customer conservations".
The guy is probably a nice person trying to make his hourly going rate by sitting in the call center. I felt ashamed by getting angry. I clarified to him. "I have nothing against you personally, but I am terribly angry for the company forcing on me this torture. They are cynically exploiting my time and energy".
Anyway, he tried to talk me into deals, until I got tired and in the middle of his sentence told him "let me free, cancel the thing".
He got offended (I guess it is a game. But who knows). "Will not you let me finish the sentence?"
"No".
I appreciate that the person was so nice as to let me close it that way. But it left me in an unease feeling.
Dillema: this guy is exploiting my time unfairly. I owe him nothing. But it is hardly his initiation. It is like beating the cop in a Sovietic Gulag. He may have been forced to arrest me, and will suffer tredemously if I escape.
Also, the guy has his emotional system sensitive. The fact that I am not willing - justically - to spend another second with him can feel still painful for him emotionaly.
He is also followed. The calls are recorded. If he tries to be human and is not to torture me to the maximum, he can get fired.
OTOH, I do not buy the notion that you can send innocent folks to torture me, and I will have to behave nicely toward them. Collaborators of crime cannot expect mercy.
Expecting me to show mercy is taking the cinycism of agency problem [1] to new heights. Not only can you steal my time and energy throught your workers, you also want me to behave. I would round the ball, and torture your workers. At least people will be not be happy to work in an ugly enterprise.
But this logic feels theoretical and inhuman. This sorry young persons who tortured me is a sentient human, and it has to be taken into account.
personal biases: 1) I am more annoyed by talking over the phone especially sale persons. 2) I value these offers much less than an average person. These considerations tip teh balance strongly into the negative area.
But do not imagine that my exceptionality is why it hurts me. It hurts everybody, but people are used to bend their head below the disaster whihle I am not shy.
Comments:
[1] Agency problem. When An agent is deciding for you. The interests of the agent are differenct from yours, whihc leads to decisions and actions that are bad for you.
This problem is worse as the complexity of actions and decisions grow, like in modern life. A good example of agency is when bank managers take risks with shareholders money. The managers can only win (the yearly bonus). The long term risk is on shareholders, and one can guess that the personal interests on managers take precedence in many cases.
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