More on the complexity of happiness: New TED lecture by Daniel Kahneman

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel laureate who has spent his long life making dozens of startling discoveries regarding judgment and decision-making. More recently, he has done considerable work in hedonic psychology. He recently appeared at TED to discuss the "The riddle of experience vs. memory." [caption id="attachment_11875" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image by Nruboc at Dreamstime.com (with permission)"]Image by Nruboc at Dreamstime.com (with permission)[/caption] There is no person better qualified than Kahneman to describe how the human psyche is rife with "cognitive traps." In this TED talk Kahneman explains that these traps "make it difficult to think about happiness." One foundational problem is that humans tend to resist admitting complexity; happiness is a monolithic term for most of us. Kahneman states, however, that "happiness is no longer a useful word, in that it applies to many things. We need to completely give up the simple word "happiness" in order to effectively communicate. One of the biggest problems is that there is a huge confusion between experience and memory when it comes to determining happiness. The distinction is with A) happiness IN your life versus B) happiness ABOUT your life (or WITH your life). The problem with trying to determine one's own happiness is exacerbated by the "focusing illusion." The effect of this illusion is that "we can't think about any circumstance that affects well-being without distorting its importance." Kahneman gave an example of a friend who claimed that a scratching sound at the very end of a music recording ruins the entire experience. This is utter nonsense, since the scratching sound occurred only at the end of the recording. It didn't ruin the entire experience. Rather, it ruined "the memory of the experience." Human beings consist of two selves: the experiencing self (who lives in the moment) and the remembering self (who keeps score and maintains the story of our lives, selecting and maintaining our memories. For the remembering self, a critical part of any story is how it ends. If it ends badly, the memory of the entire experience is contaminated (In this video, Kahneman describes earlier studies regarding colonoscopies which dramatically illustrated this point). Time is a funny thing for human beings. For our experiencing self, a two-week vacation is twice as good as a one-week vacation. For the remembering self, a two-week vacation might not be any better than a one-week vacation--"time has very little impact on the story" for the remembering self. [More . . . ]

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Preachers who don’t believe in God

Daniel Dennett and Linda Lascola have published a paper called, "Preachers who are not Believers." The authors extensively interviewed five active preachers who don't believe in God. They are all closeted in this regard. Fascinating reading. Why not just come out of the closet and admit that they no longer believe? You'll see that they believe that they can still do an important job without that core belief. Interestingly, the participants expressed that lack of belief in God is common among active preachers. When asked his opinion of why ministers do not pass on their seminary-learned knowledge of Christian history to parishioners, one of the participants had this to say:

They don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to lose donations. They want to keep their jobs. They don’t want to stir up trouble in the congregation. They’ve got enough trouble as it is, keeping things moving along. They don’t want to make people mad at them. They don’t want to lose members. What they will often do is bring in someone like me to be a lightning rod, and teach it, and they’ll follow up on it.
I myself have spoken with at least four active members of the clergy over my lifetime (all of them Catholic priests) who admitted that they don't believe in the God that they describe at the pulpit. They each admitted that this is not an impediment to doing good work as a priest. Dennett's paper parallels his contention (in his book, Breaking the Spell), that most believers don't actually believe in God. Rather, they believe in belief in God. They say they believe because they think it's important to say it, whether or not they actually believe. I have often discussed Daniel Dennett's work at this site (e.g., here). He has a track record of being extraordinarily able to thoroughly think through many topics regarding religion and express his conclusions succinctly.

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Shut up and fly the plane

I agree with these observations by Patrick Smith, writing at Salon:

[T]here is an awful lot of yammering going on. There can be up to a half-dozen cabin P.A.s before your plane even reaches the runway, sometimes in multiple languages. Is this really necessary? To some of these announcements we grant a pass. Surely there's nothing out of line about a brief welcome-aboard speech, for example, or other practical reminders. However, if there is one hideous and glaring example of excess, it has to be the pre-departure safety briefing. Is there anything more tedious? . . . With a pair of shears and some common sense, the average briefing could be trimmed to half its length, resulting in a lucid oration that people might actually listen to.

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FCC disappointment on broadband

Tim Karr of Free Press reports that the FCC's newly released broadband plan is severely lacking on some of the most pressing issues:

Judging from the back-slapping and high fives over at the FCC, you’d think that America’s Internet was sailing smoothly into the future. Think again.

With much fanfare on Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered the National Broadband Plan to Congress, saying it will help make Internet access faster and cheaper for everyone in the United States. Getting more people connected to high-speed Internet -- from the 65 percent currently online up to 90 percent of households by the year 2020 -- is Job One, according to Genachowski.

There are a lot of good things in the plan’s 376 pages, including pledges to reform the Universal Service Fund and to re-allocate spectrum for broadband. But the plan glosses over some of thorniest problems plaguing U.S. Internet users: high prices, slow speeds and a lack of choices among providers.

Internet access in America is held captive by powerful phone and cable interests. And regardless of what the laissez-faire editors at the Wall Street Journal think, doing nothing to protect people from getting ripped off is not an option.

I haven't yet reviewed the FCC plan, but this report concerns me--Free Press is a highly trusted source regarding media reform. Once again, it appears that the needs of individual citizens are about to take the back seat to corporate interests.

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Using the U.S. census as a teachable moment

I received my census form in the mail today. I don't generally think twice about it - I understand why the government needs this information to allocate representation, funding, etc. But the insert caught my eye: the Census Bureau took the time to tell me that I don't need to worry about what they're going to do with my personal information. It is, after all, protected by law. Here's an excerpt from the Census Bureau website:

We depend on your cooperation and trust, and promise to protect the confidentiality of your information. Title 13 of the U.S. Code protects the confidentiality of all your information and violating this law is a crime with severe penalties. In addition, other federal laws, including the Confidential Statistical Efficiency Act and the Privacy Act reinforce these protections.
Obviously the Census Bureau considers these assurances regarding the legal protection of privacy to be crucial to getting honest answers. I'm not surprised - the information could certainly be used to identify likely tax evasion, immigration status, even occupancy codes. It is very sensitive information in its raw, unaggregated form. This isn't my first census form. I've had the opportunity to participate in the previous two censuses. But for me, for the first time, I am not reassured by their claim. After all, I'm pretty sure that warrant-less wiretaps are illegal too. As is torture - isn't it? I believe the evidence is strong that our government has authorized or allowed both activities. Certainly it was necessary to pass legislation giving telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for participating in wiretaps. I'm no legal expert but to this citizen that means that the wiretaps are acknowledged to be illegal - we just won't do anything about it. So, how can I have any faith that the Census Bureau would live up to it's claims? How can anyone? But it's an opportunity. This is one of those "teachable moments" that a parent, or teacher would apply to an unruly child. What more natural consequence could there be for lawless behavior by the government than to say "You know what? I won't tell you that information because I don't trust you to act in good faith with it." The census, as an opportunity for civil feedback, is a perfect time to teach that lesson. I only wish that it could be recognized as civil feedback instead of the apathy that it would undoubtedly be labeled as.

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