[Buddha-l] buddhism and brain studies

[Lidewij Niezink]

Been offline for a few weeks but I want to thank you all for this great
discussion on the usefulness of psychology. Being a social psychologist
myself --yes, there is a gradation in uselessness of psychologist and I am
inclined to think that we, social psychs, are the worst-- I can't help but
agree with about everything which is said here. I myself for instance, got
my PhD on the concept of empathy, as vague as happiness and as well known
and thought through by 'folks' as any of the other obvious studies we seem
to produce. Great!!! Long live empathy/sympathy/compassion/altruism.
Unfortunately, after studying that topic for five years, I am much less
knowledgeable than I thought I was on the topic itself... Another side
effect of the wonderful world of psychology in particular and probably any
field of knowledge in general (sorry for stating the obvious here, it's a
professional deformation).

"If you want to reduce misery, learn to believe in blind luck and then go
out and give food and shelter to homeless people you randomly encounter
on the streets. I bet they'll thank you for it."

I keep wondering if the anticipation of reciprocity in the form of a 'thank
you' might be reducing the happy effects (read: efficiency) of the reduction
of misery...

Thanks once again,
Lidewij


2008/11/12 Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>

> On Tue, 2008-11-11 at 17:33 -0500, Alberto Todeschini wrote:
>
> > As often, I can't quite make out what parts
> > of your reply are to be taken literally and which are in jest.
>
> I rarely reveal my actual thoughts on anything. I learned as a child to
> keep my cards close to my jest.
>
> >  I
> > apologize if I'm mixing them up in what follows.
>
> The odds are better than even that I am even more mixed up than you.
>
> > So some countries allegedly
> > have high happiness level but also high suicide levels.
>
> This is hardly paradoxical, unless the the very people who are most
> happy are the ones committing suicide. My guess (strictly amateurish, of
> course, since I have no familiarity at all with thinking professionally
> about anything) is that when everyone in the neighborhood is happy,
> one's own unhappiness is all the more intolerable. As the Buddha said:
> "Misery loves company. So join the Sangha."
>
> > 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.
>
> In a moment of uncharacteristic sobriety of spirit, I agree with you
> completely.
>
> > 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.
>
> Yes, but it is not logically possible to be mistaken about whether one
> feels happy. And since there is no fact to the matter of whether anyone
> actually IS happy, there can be no discrepancy between what one feels
> and what is actually the case. What one feels IS actually the case.
>
> >  Just as people intoxicated with alcohol have the
> > (documented) tendency to underestimate their level of intoxication
> > ("No, officer, really, I am sober!!")
>
> There is no parallelism at all between feeling happy and thinking that
> one's blood alcohol level is above the legal limit. One can easily be
> mistaken about the later, but it does not follow from that that one can
> also be mistaken about the former. The case of blood alcohol level is a
> matter of objective testing, whereas feeling happy is nothing but a
> purely subjective feeling with no objective component whatsoever. It is
> untestable, and therefore both unverifiable and unfalsifiable.
>
> > You know, after some 8 year of Buddha-L I was almost certain that you
> > would have commented on my remark.
>
> As I am sure you have figured out by now, my only goal in life is to be
> completely predictable to everyone. Good to see I am enjoying a measure
> of success in achieving this goal. It makes me feel happy. Undeniably
> so.
>
> > 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."
>
> I have no trouble at all believing that. The only times in my life when
> I have had suicidal thoughts have been immediately after watching Fox
> News and stepping by mistake into a Wal-Mart center. Television and
> shopping centers do not always make me suicidal, but they do plunge me
> into temporary states of deep melancholy bordering on despair.
>
> > 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.
>
> I also like the idea of reducing the amount of suffering that sentient
> beings encounter, but approaching the matter systematically and
> scientifically strikes me as a very unpromising approach. Concocting
> operational definitions of what happiness is and then testing whether
> people (or laboratory mice) meet the criteria set up by those
> operational definitions is bad philosophy, bad science and bad Buddhism.
> If you want to reduce misery, learn to believe in blind luck and then go
> out and give food and shelter to homeless people you randomly encounter
> on the streets. I bet they'll thank you for it.
>
> --
> Richard Hayes
> Department of Philosophy
> University of New Mexico
>
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-- 
Lidewij Niezink, PhD
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lniezink