September 2010 – Achilles & Aristotle

Art

A super article in the New Scientist explains – as artists have intuited down the centuries – that the brain works to a different set of rules than the real world.

We have misread shadows and mirrors from Velazquez Rokeby Venus to Bond’s Scaramanga but most of the time we get it right. I’m going to look up Patrick Cavanagh of Paris Descartes University’s work, but in essence the visual tricks of Dali and Escher and the deeper emotional connection made by a Monet are no accidents.

As the New Scientist summarises ‘You can’t do a proper analysis of all the laws of physics in in the 10th of a second it takes your visual system to form an image so we evolved a simple set of rules that can be computed rapidly without requiring a large proportion of the brain.’ This also means it can be tricked.

I think our visual system may be like our ‘ethical system’. We have evolved a simple, but very powerful set of rules constantly improved by experience through our Bayesian brains. However like an untrained artistic eye if we don’t examine and assess our moral judgements we may not learn and improve and thus fall short of a virtuous and fulfilled life. We can all draw an object but very few can render it perfectly or change the way others see it. Our ‘Ethical eye’ although primarily instinctive is worth training I believe.

I also think the odd checklist helps. I read something a few months back about the astonishing improvements in surgical outcomes achieved by simply running through a checklist – not least checking “have I left any surgical instruments in the person”. Pilots have known it for years, rudders – check, instruments – check, honesty – check, courage – check.

An Aristotelian list is not a bad checklist:

Courage
Temperance
Liberality
Magnificence
Pride
Honour
Good Temper
Friendliness
Truthfulness
Wit
Friendship

11 is a lot to remember, but the good thing of course is I don’t have to. Simply follow my gut (it’s all simplified, instinctive and instantly available in there) and periodically assess and train the Bayesian brain.

Much easier than painting a Monet.

Life

Evolution

There’s a line which sticks with me from the recent remake of War of the Worlds. It sounds like Morgan Freeman who says it at the end of the film as the Martians have been vanquished not by armies or modern weapons, but by a simple virus.

He says words to the effect of the hubris and arrogance of ‘them’ to believe they could win their place on earth in a moment when others had fought for theirs through millions of years of struggle to be the fittest.

A similar thought came to me this morning talking to my partner today about our lives. It’s easy to feel that there are big changes we can make which would make our lives even happier. New job, move house, a bigger garden, less work, more money. But I’m increasingly convinced that happiness, flourishing and fulfilment are the product of many small things – not things you can confidently and sustainably change directly by conjuring up big changes.

Of course we could win the lottery, have our house destroyed by fire or worst of all have one of us die. Big things could happen bad or good and we would evolve – or not – like viruses, dinosaurs or finches beaks. What I’m starting to believe is ‘the good life’ evolves from myriad small choices, chances, modifications and improvements and not big leaps in the dark.

We concluded this morning that we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of one of us making a big change, but we equally shouldn’t forget that our life has evolved to a pretty good state.

Like those Martians beware the hubris and arrogance which says you can conquer life or design a better one – evolution is infinitely more powerful.

Life

Bowerbirds

Although the writing is not to my taste, the photos in National Geographic Magazine make it worth the subscription for me. A few months ago there was a picture of chimpanzees looking through a wire mesh fence in silent mourning as a the body of much a loved female chimp was carried away in a wheelbarrow. The emotion was obvious. The landscapes can be amazing too. It’s easy to think you’ve seen the world if you’ve travelled a bit. National Geographic reminds me I ain’t seen nothing.

Over the summer I read a beautifully illustrated article on Bowerbirds. Male Bowerbirds spend inordinate amounts of time building extraordinary ‘bowers’ which are at times fanciful and often huge confections to show off their prowess to lady Bowerbirds. A veritable nest builder’s ‘peacock’s tail’, often functionally useless, dangerous and wasteful to build they are the Victorian follies of the avian world.

Some are castles of kitsch, some monuments to consumerism and globalisation – constructed entirely of colourful bits of drinks cans and other rubbish. I saw one with two rows of tall twigs and a pathway of identically coloured purplish bits of slate in between which looked so minimalist it could have graced a home design magazine. It seemed impossible that a bird made it, but the male looking back coquettishly over his shoulder at the far end demonstrated it was his pride and joy.

I think we are all Bowerbirds to some degree. Some are lucky enough to be born with exceptional beauty – their own peacock’s tail, but I fear they are often haunted for the rest of their lives by the physical decline and loss that turns the beauty of youth into the inevitable walnut of old age.

We can all build a bower for ourselves though. And its beauty can live all your life – and sometimes beyond. A work of art, a book, creating a beautiful home, your children, different people have different bowers within them.

Taking 15 minutes to think, reflect and write every day may well be my route to quietly building a slate strewn, twig fronded pride and joy for just for me.

Work

Eureka

I read something today which put a bit of theory behind something I’ve been trying for a few months now. If you have a complex problem to work out try forgetting about it.

I originally read a letter in the New Scientist written by a man who said when he had a particularly tricky problem to work out he would set himself a timescale of between 10 days and two weeks and then forget about it. Routinely the solution would come to him unbidden at some stage in the time he allowed.

Since being aware of it I’ve become conscious of the same phenomenon. The answer to things I’ve been thinking about or working on a lot often floats into my mind as I pass a particularly forbidding high rise housing estate about 25 minutes into my morning cycle ride.

Turns out Poincaré wrote about this many years ago describing four distinct stages in developing new insights or having breakthrough ideas. First think about it and study it a lot. Then hopefully get distracted or less fun, but as effective, get frustrated and lose hope of working it out. Then from nowhere Eureka. Finally verification of the validity of the insight and the develping confidence you are really onto something. Conscious thought, unconscious thought (or incubation), illumination and verification are the key stages.

Discovering it written down is a great relief – routinely forgetting about major work and life problems feels a bit uncomfortable without a bit of intellectual cover. The polymath Poincaré is a pretty good brain to pray in aid.

So the answer I’m increasingly persuaded, whether you are Archimedes or not is study, stop, forget it and bingo – eureka.

Happiness

RGB

White light can be made from red, green and blue – just like in the Trinitron TV we had when I was a kid. Talking to a good friend this morning it came to us that finding a good balance in life needs you to get the RGB balance right.

We were comparing notes on our ‘re-entry’ into work after summer holidays and as Autumn is upon us wondering where the eudaemonia was going to come from in the short dark days of winter. Work is going to be tough. We live in an age of austerity. Home as family men is going to ask a lot of us too. I said if you think of it as spotlights (think of the Flickr logo) you have to get some balance between the work spot (red) and the home spot (green). I certainly had that balance wrong pre the summer and my life went red.

But to get to white, well-being and eudaemonia you need a blue spot too – and that’s the spot which is purely and uniquely for you. For most of my 20s I got nearly all I needed in my life from the red spot – work gave me money, laughs, sex and an international life. In my 30s I built a home: I found a partner and dog, mortgage and a family followed with the many joys and responsibilities they bring. In my 40s I have come to realise if I don’t do a few things for me I begin to get frayed and transactional. It is a truism that to really love others you have to start with yourself.

So we concluded this morning that the pure white light of fulfilment, flourishing, eudaemonia and just keeping the show on the road requires a spot of blue – some things you do just for you. It’s easy to feel guilty about that – a moment for a cuppa, a walk around the block in the sunshine, indulging a hobby or interest you don’t share with anyone else. I think you shouldn’t and you mustn’t.

Happiness and well-being are emergent phenomena I’m increasingly convinced. You can’t approach them directly and doing one thing or set of things however well won’t deliver them. Like the white light from an RGB monitor you need the red of work, the green of home and crucially the spot of blue for you.