[Buddha-l] buddhism and brain studies

[Alberto Todeschini]

Dear Richard,

Thanks for taking time to reply.

>> 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."

Don't quote me on this, but if memory serves one possible explanation
put forward was that those north European countries also have a rather
low religiosity. So it's possible that suicide is seen as more of an
option than in more religious places where there is a strong belief
that suicide is wrong. But yes, peer-pressure is a powerful,
well-documented factor on our psychological well-being.

>> 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.

Only on your definition of happiness. On the logically perfectly
possible definition of happiness as an objectively measurable physical
state your argument doesn't work. Once again, I'm not saying that a
good definition of objectively measurable happiness is currently
possible.

>>  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.

Let me restate my argument: it is possible to give a definition of
happiness as an objectively measurable physical state. This definition
would be fundamentally different from the one you are employing. And I
suspect that in the next few decades it will be not merely logically
possible but also practically possible to give a half-decent and
useful definition and to measure the parameters of such definition. I
imagine there will be disagreement and that the definition will be
refined over time.

Of course, feel free to disagree on the technical feasibility of such
thing or even on its desirability.

Seen as a measurable physical state (I repeat, maybe not today but in
the future), 'to be happy' is similar to 'to be tall' or 'to be
obese'. The only difference is that we can form a reasonably accurate
opinion about whether a person is tall or obese with our unaided
senses. For happiness we will need some instruments. And just as there
are different coexisting meanings of 'to be obese' (non-technical =
'to be very fat'; the technical one could be something like 'to have a
body-fat mass above 30% of total body mass'. For the first you just
need your eyes, for the second you need a measuring instrument) the
same can (if not today, in the near future) happen with 'to be happy'.

>> 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.

It's not bad philosophy in so far as it isn't philosophy at all. Feel
free to have a philosophical discussion about it, as this can help to
clarify thoughts and has some entertainment value.
It's not bad science but rather young science. The field is young
*but* very promising. I don't think we should discard a field that is
only some 10 years old.
And I also have to disagree on it being bad Buddhim in so far as it
isn't Buddhism at all. But the potential to increase people's
well-being is phenomenal and that, I think, is close to Buddhism. I
never claimed it to actually be Buddhism but just that I have an
interest in both. Feel free to call it bad Buddhism, but I won't call
it Buddhism to start with.

I do think that science on happiness and Buddhism can enrich each
other. Besides, a person can be a good Buddhist as she does research
in this field, no? For instance, by being a good Buddhist when dealing
with family, co-workers, fellow researchers and students.

Basically, one has to start somewhere. I know that presently
researchers have only started. But already psychologists have studied
and documented several strategies that increase subjective happiness
quite effectively. As I mentioned in my original post, one of the most
recurring strategies in the literature is engaging in vigorous,
regular physical exercise. Another is meditation. For all those who
are interested here's a very accessible book: _The How of Happiness_
by Sonja Lyubomirsky, Penguin, 2008.

> 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.

Or do both what you suggest and what I suggest.

By the way, one of the well-documented activities that can effectively
increase subjective happiness is precisely doing voluntary work and
helping others.

For all of science's problems, I have great faith in it. Perhaps here
is our biggest disagreement.

Best,

Alberto Todeschini