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We ended the previous segment with Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New
World, which describes a world ruled with the help of psychiatric drugs.
Everyone in this world is very happy all
the time, because everyone takes drugs all the time.
Most readers feel that there is something really wrong with that
kind of world, but it is hard to say exactly what,
because everyone is so happy, so what's wrong with it?
The problem has to do with the definition of happiness.
In Huxley's world, happiness is defined in biological terms,
simply as pleasure. To be happy is no more and no less
than to experience pleasant bodily sensations more and more
of the time.
Since our normal biochemistry, our normal biochemical system limits the
volume and the duration of these pleasant sensations in the body.
The only way to make people experience a high level of happiness
over an extended period of time, is to manipulate the biochemical
system with the help of drugs and other medical treatments.
This indeed is a direction in which our world today is progressing.
Not in some science fiction fantasy, but in the real world.
And it's progressing in that direction in a very fast rate.
But, the definition of happiness as pleasure, which is common
today in science, in our society, is not
accepted by all scholars, or by all people.
In a very famous study, Daniel Conman, winner of the Nobel Prize
of Economics, has studied, amongst other things, what's causes people happiness.
And he asks people to recount a typical work day, a,
an usual day, to recount it, to tell what happened to them in that day, in
great detail. Going through it, episode by episode, and
evaluating how much they enjoyed or dislike each of them.
He did one of these studies on 900 and something women
in Texas from the, from working class, from the working class.
He asked each of these woman, each of these women eh, to eh, break up
her day, a typical day, into segments, into episodes,
of two, three, five minutes, write what she's doing each five
minutes, and also write how much she enjoyed or disliked what she did.
So you have these
long stories, long diaries, that I talked on the phone with
a friend, and then I took a bus to, to work, and
then I had to wait for the bus, and then I was
on the bus, and then at work, the boss yelled at me.
And I went, and I went, went back home, and I watched
TV, and I did the laundry, and so forth and so on.
And about each of these small episodes, she also wrote how
much she enjoyed or disliked it. And what turned out is that the things,
the episodes that these women, on average, dislike most or some of the
things that they disliked most was the taking care of their children.
Most of their contact, most of their activities, which
had, which were a concern with their children, were rated
as the least joyful.
And the, eh, least joyful activities of the day, like
changing diapers, and doing the washings of the dirty clothes.
And, and preparing food for them, and having to deal with temper
tantrums and, and, and children fighting and, and yelling at each other.
This was the least enjoyable part of every day.
They even preferred, according to the grades they
gave, they even find more joy at work than being with their children at home.
Now, he then, he also asked these women to write in general
terms, what are the things that contribute most to their happiness.
And most of them said that their children are their chief source of happiness.
Even though,
their actual contact with their children not all the, the,activities
was most of the activities were rated as the least enjoyable.
So how to explain this discrepancy that in general, in
theory, these women say, my children, this is the source
of my happiness, but when you actually look at her
interaction with the children, most of the things that she does,
like again, changing diapers, or preparing breakfast or separating
kids screaming at each other, she doesn't like it.
So how, why does she say, that this is the chief source of her happiness?
Now, there are two ways in which scholars understand these results.
One school of thought, one option, is that people,
not only these women in Texas, but people in general
just don't really know what's good for them.
They think that one thing is the source of their happiness, perhaps because society
told them that this is what the source of happiness is, but it's not true.
When you actually look at at, at, at events close from from
close up, it doesn't fulfill these expectations.
Another option is that what
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studied and other such studies discovered Is that happiness is
simply something different from pleasure. Happiness is not
the surplus of pleasant moments over unpleasant moments.
Rather, happiness consists in seeing one's life
in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile.
There is a very important cognitive and ethical component to happiness.
Our values is what makes tje difference in the way that we see ourselves.
Our values makes a difference between seeing ourselves as miserable slaves to a
baby dictator, and seeing ourselves as lovingly nail, nurturing a new life.
In how you relate to this job of raising children, and these
scholars argue that a meaningful life. Activities
in which you find meaning can be extremely satisfying.
Even if they're not easy, even if they are
hard, even if they are not joyful very much.
Whereas a meaningless life,
activities in which you don't find any meaning Can be
a terrible ordeal, even if it is very, very comfortable.
Again, to take another example, it's like somebody who goes to
climb the Everest, or goes on a very eh, difficult trek.
It's not comfortable.
Most of the things he or she will experience, will be difficult things.
It's much easier to stay at home, sit on the sofa and watch TV.
However, if, if this person finds meaning in this
ambition to climb the Everest, or some other high, high mountain, he may reflect
upon this the entire chapter of his life as be a very happy, period.
The time when I climbed the Everest, much happier than
the time when I sat at home on the comfortable sofa and watch TV.
Why?
Because happiness isn't comfort. And happiness isn't pleasure.
Happiness above all is finding meaning in what we do, even
if what we do involves a lot of hardships and difficulties.
And it's not rosy and joyful all of the time.
This as important,
this approach has important implications for the history of happiness.
People in all cultures and eras have probably felt the same type
of pleasant and unpleasant sensations in their body.
But, the meaning that people gave to
their experiences might have been very different in
different cultures and periods of, of history.
If so, then the history of happiness might
have been far more turbulent than what biologists imagine.
It's not a straight line that everybody always has relatively the same levels
of happiness because pleasure and unpleasant
sensations in the body remains the same.
No, if meaning has an important
impact on happiness, then there could be huge differences between
the meanings that people in different cultures find to their lives.
And if this is true, this implies that life in the modern age is not
necessarily better, happier, than life in previous eras like the middle ages.
If you look at life minute-by-minute,
activity-by-activity, and judge how hard it is, or how easy
it is, then certainly life in the Middle Ages for most
people was much more hard, much more difficult, much less comfortable
than life is today at least for people in affluent societies.
However, if happiness depends on meaning, then still, Medieval people could
have been even happier than people today in, in affluent societies.
Because Medieval people, say, in Europe, they could find meaning to everything that
happens in their lives, in the promise of everlasting bliss in the afterlife.
And of their being part of this huge cosmic plan of God, of
the creater God, so everything that happens to me, it might be difficult,
but it's full of meaning.
In contrast, to these Medieval people, who had a very meaningful life, modern,
secular people in affluent societies, they may have a very comfortable life.
But it's, it's, for many of them, it's meaningless.
In the long run, in the long term, they can expect nothing except complete and
meaningless oblivion.
There is no heaven, there is no hell, there is no
cosmic plan, everything that happens to me is simply unimportant and meaningless.
So, if you ask how comfortable life is,
then yes, life today is far more comfortable.
But if you ask people how satisfied are you
with your life, and how meaningful is your life.
Then people in the Middle Ages, despite all the difficulties, might have been
in a equal situation, even a better situation than people today.
The problem is, this is another approach to the history of, of happiness.
It gives a lot of importance to meaning, much more
than to pleasant sensations and, and comforts, and from this
perspective it turns out tat life today is not necessarily
much more happy, much more meaningful than in the past.
The problem with this approach however, is that from a purely scientific
viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning.
According to science, at least to science in
the early 21st century, humans, like, just like all
other phenomena in the world, humans are the outcome
of blind evolutionary processes that operate without any purpose.
Without any goal, without any meaning, our actions, our
lives are not part of some divine cosmic plan.
If planet Earth would blow up tomorrow morning,
with all the humans and elephants and giraffes
on it Then the rest of the universe
will probably keep going about its business as usual.
It wouldn't change anything to the universe that the
whole Earth with all its people disappeared, blew up.
And according to modern science today, any meaning that people ascribe
to their lives and their decisions and their actions is simply a delusion.
We are deluding ourselves.
We think we have meaning, but we don't.
All these religious meanings, otherworldly meanings,
that Medieval people found to their lives. They were delusions.
And similarly, the meaning that modern people try to find to their lives.
The humanists, the nationalists, the capitalist meanings of the
lives of modern people, they too are just delusions.
Today scientists may say that my life is meaningful
because I increase the store of human knowledge.
A soldier may say that my life is
meaningful because I fight to defend the homeland.
A business person might say that my life is
meaningful because I'm building a new and successful company.
But these too, these are all deslusions.
Just like Medieval people who thought that their lives had meaning
in reading scriptures, or going on crusade, or building a cathedral.
And now we look back and say they are just deluding themselves.
So the same is true about the lives of people today.
The conclusion of this line of thinking is, that if the
key to happiness is to have meaning in your life, then the real key to happiness
is to synchronize your personal delusions of meaning with
the prevailing collective delusions, there is no meaning in the world.
But as long as my personal story fits, is in line
with the stories of the people around me, then I can convince myself that my
life is meaningful, and thereby find happiness and satisfaction.
And this is a pretty depressing conclusion.
It implies that happiness, that having happiness, that being happy, depends
on self-delusion, and depends on the fact that nobody will come
from outside and destroy your delusions. So this is a pretty depressing
conclusion. So far we've seen that happiness depends
on feeling pleasant sensations, then in order to
be happier, we need to re-engineer our biochemical system.
If happiness is based on feeling that life is meaningful, then
in order to be happier we need to delude ourselves more effectively.
Is it perhaps another way of understanding happiness?
One alternative that receives growing attention from
scholars of happiness, is the Buddhist view of happiness.
Buddhism assign the question of happiness more
importance than perhaps any other religion in history.
The main question of modern East religions is given that God
exists, what does he want from me? In contrast,
the main question of Buddhism is given that suffering
exists, how do I get liberated from suffering and enjoy happiness?
Therefore, for the last 2,500 years,
Buddhists have systematically studied the essence, and
causes of happiness, which is why there is a growing interest among the
scientific community in Buddhism, both in
Buddhist philosophy and in Buddhist meditation practices.
For example, today brain scientists are taking Buddhist monks
and ask them to sit in the laboratory and meditate, and they connect them to
all kinds of electrodes and, and brain scanners, and scan
their brains to see what happens when these monks meditate.
There's a lot of eh, eh, these researches
of this kind going along, going around today.
Buddhism shares the basic insight of the biological approach to happiness.
Nmely that happiness results
from processes or caring within one's body, and
not from events happening in the outside world.
So this is something very similar in
Buddhism, and the biological approach to happiness.
However, starting from the same insight, Buddhism
reaches very different conclusions. According to Buddhism,
most people identify happiness with the pleasant sensations and
feelings in their body, while identifying suffering with unpleasant feelings.
People consequently ascribe immense importance to what they feel.
People crave to experience more and more pleasures, while avoiding
as much as possible, pain and unpleasant feelings.
Whatever people do, whatever we do, throughout our lives, whether
we scratch our leg, or we move slightly in the chair, or we fight world
wars, whatever we do, we are just trying to get pleasant feelings.
The problem according to Buddhism is that our feelings
are no more than fleeting vibrations, changing
every moment like the waves in the ocean.
If five minutes ago I felt very joyful and
purposeful, now these feelings from five minutes ago they're gone.
And I might well feel sad and dejected. So if I want to experience pleasant
feelings, I have to constantly chase them
while constantly driving away the unpleasant feelings.
Even if I succeed, I immediately have to start all over again.
Without ever getting any lasting reward for all my troubles,
because these pleasant feelings from five minutes ago, they are gone.
I have again, and again, and again,
to chase them to get them. What, then, asks Buddhism, what is
so important about obtaining such ephemeral prizes?
Why struggle so hard throughout our lives to achieve something that
disappears almost as soon as it arises? These vibrations, these feelings.
According to Buddhism, the root of suffering is not
the feeling of pain, and not the feeling of
sadness, and not even the feeling of meaninglessness.
Rather, according to Buddhism, the real root of suffering is this
never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings.
Which causes us to be in a
constant state of tension, of restlessness, and dissatisfaction.
Because of this pursuit of
pleasant feelings, the mind, our mind, is never satisfied with reality as it is.
Even when we experience something pleasant,
some pleasant feeling, we are not content.
Because our mind fears that this feeling might soon disappear,
and we crave that this feeling should stay and intensify.
People are liberated from suffering, not when
they experience this or that fleeting pleasure, which immediately disappears.
But rather, people are liberated from suffering when they
understand the impermanent nature of all of their feelings.
And therefore stop craving them and chasing them.
And this is
the aim of Buddhist mediation practices. In mediation your
supposed to closely observe your own mind and body.
To witness for yourself the ceaseless arising and passing of all your feelings,
and thereby to realize how pointless it is, to chase after them, to pursue them.
And when the pursuit
stops, the mind becomes very relaxed. Very clear, very satisfied.
All kinds of feelings still go on arising and passing.
There's still joy and anger, and boredom, and *** that arise and pass.
But once you stop craving to have
particular feelings, then you can accept whatever comes.
You can accept whatever feelings that comes,
just watching, just watching it.
Coming and going without losing losing your head over them.
The resulting serenity, according to a Buddhist to the Buddhist view.
The resulting serenity is so profound that people who go on
living their lives in frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can hardly even begin
to imagine what it is like to be out. To be outside of this pursuit.
Now, this idea is so alien to
modern Western culture, that when Western new-age movements
encountered Buddhist philosophy, and Buddhist meditation, and all
of this Buddhist insights, they turned them upside-down,
turned them on their head. New Age cults frequently argue
that happiness does not depend on external conditions in the outside world.
Happiness depends only on what we feel inside.
So people should stop pursuing external achievements, such
as wealth and beauty and status, and instead
connect with doubt in your feelings. Or as many Mew Age cults put it, in
brief, happiness begins within. Now this is exactly
what biologists argue, but it is more or less opposite.
Of what Buddha said.
Buddha agreed with modern biology and with modern New Age movements that
happiness is independent of external conditions.
Yet, his more important and far more profound insight,
was that true happiness is also independent, also inner feelings.
Indeed, the more significance that we give our inner
feelings, the more we crave for them and the more
we suffer.
The basic recommendation of Buddhism is not merely
to slow down the pursuit of external achievements.
But above all, to slow down the pursuit of inner feelings.
If we accept this view of happiness, then our
entire understanding of the history of happiness might be misguided.
Maybe it isn't so important whether people enjoy pleasant
feelings, and whether people feel that their life has meaning.
The main question is whether people understand
the truth about the nature of their feelings.
And what evidence do we have?
That people today in the 21st century, understand this truth any
better than ancient foragers, or medieval peasants.
So this is the Buddhist view. Now, this is not the time and place to
judge, to try to judge between all these different approaches to happiness.
Scholars began the scientific study of happiness only a few years ago.
And we're still just formulating initial
theories, and searching for the appropriate
research methods.
It's much too early to jump to conclusions and
to end the debate before it hardly even begin.
What is important at this stage is to get to know as
many different approaches to happiness as possible, and to remember to
ask the right questions. Most history books focus
on the ideas of the great thinkers, on the bravery of
warriors, on the charity of saints, on the creativity of artists.
Most history books, however, have much they
have much to tell us about social structures,
about the rise and fall of empires, about
the invention and spread of, of, of technology.
But they
have much less to tell us, most history books, about how all this
have influenced the suffering and the happiness of individuals.
And this is the biggest lacuna, the
biggest hole, in our understanding of history.
We don't really know how all this impacted
happiness in the world, so we had better start
filling this hole because, without knowing this,
we can't say that we actually understand history.
And with this thought we end our journey through the
human past, from the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago, to the present.
During these 70,000 years, a lot of things happened.
We are just not sure whether it was all good or bad.
But there is still one more subject which we need to address
before terminating this course, A Brief History of Humankind.
And this subject is the future. We've
talked a lot about the past, but history also
includes the future. In the next and last lesson
of the course, we will try to say
something about the likely future of human kind.
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