[Buddha-l] buddhism and brain studies

[Alberto Todeschini]

Dear Richard,

Thanks for your thoughts. As often, I can't quite make out what parts
of your reply are to be taken literally and which are in jest. I
apologize if I'm mixing them up in what follows.

> I can't tell you how relieved I was to
> discover that science had finally confirmed another bit of
> folk-psychology that had previously been known only to poets,
> playwrights, country and western singer-songwriters, Baptist preachers
> and Therav?din monks.

The issue to which I referred about happy people being less likely to
commit suicide is complex. There is the situation of some north
European countries which have high level of different measures usually
associated with happiness as well as self-reports about happiness but
at the same time have a high suicide rate. So some countries allegedly
have high happiness level but also high suicide levels. Many possible
explanations have been put forward for this. There are also opposite
cases with countries having low happiness but also low suicides. So
what seems obvious at the individual level isn't obvious at the level
of society.

My point, which will probably sound like a platitude, is this: an
issue that sounds absolutely obvious and unworthy of study may on
closer examination prove to be surprising and worthy of further
research. Of course, I agree that there are studies that are just
uneventful.

>>  I wouldn't be at
>> all surprised -and in fact am inclined to believe- that people tend to
>> say they are happier than they are.
>
> You don't need a psychologist. You need a philosopher who can help you
> understand that happiness does not exist at all except as a purely
> subjective state about which it is logically impossible to be mistaken.

Allow me to do a little reductionism: it is logically possible to
agree to define happiness as a set of physiological states and be
wrong about it. Just as people intoxicated with alcohol have the
(documented) tendency to underestimate their level of intoxication
("No, officer, really, I am sober!!") I don't see why we can't agree
on parameters about happiness and then be wrong about them. I'm not
saying this isn't problematic. Philosophically speaking we can argue
that 'to be happy' and 'to be under the influence of alcohol' are
vague and yet the issue about alcohol intoxication, as far as the law
is concerned, is dealt with easily and efficiently. So, if we can
agree that to be under the influence of alcohol enough to be a danger
when driving one has to have more than x milligrams of alcohol per
liter of blood, I think something similar could *in theory* be done
for happiness. Then we could be wrong about the state we are in. By
this, of course, we would have supplemented the original meaning of
'happiness/to be happy' as referring to a subjective state with a new
definition referring to an objective one.

>> I hope I'm not going to offend anyone but I find American society
>> (where I've been living for some years now) as a whole to be
>> particularly fake.
>
> You find that American society is particularly fake because American
> society IS particularly fake.

You know, after some 8 year of Buddha-L I was almost certain that you
would have commented on my remark.

> There is no authenticity at all in
> American society. That's because Americans watch TV.

On average, almost 5 hours a day of it. The book where I found
reference to the study about happy people and suicide also has a
chapter on the relationship between watching TV and happiness. In case
anyone is interested, here it is: _Happiness: A Revolution in
Economics_ MIT Press, 2008. Just one quote from p.105: "On average,
ceteris paribus, people who spend a lot of time watching television do
indeed report lower lifer satisfaction."

>  become a charlatan.

Well, for now I'm just trying to finish my PhD. It's possible that
there's a relation there.

Obligatory Buddhist reference: I'm interested in research on happiness
for the same reason that I'm interested in Buddhism: I like the idea
of reducing the amount of suffering that I and others encounter.

Best,

Alberto Todeschini