Psychology – Page 21 – Achilles & Aristotle

Aristotle, Children, Life, Philosophy, Psychology

Complex Pleasures

Talking last night with friends about ‘pleasure’, we recognised it’s a complex beast. One of our party admitted she was happy with her life but generally not happy as she lived it. How could this be?

I listened again to Thomas Hurka on Philosophy Bites today to remind me. Hurka identifies four types of pleasure in two categories: ‘felt’ and ‘thought’.

The two ‘felt’ pleasures are: first, ‘simple pleasures’ i.e. specific immediate sensations: “mmm tasty” or “ahh comfortable.” And second, moods – which are a general and last for a duration.

The two ‘thought’ pleasures are specific: “I’m happy that… my daughter is in the school play” or “my football team won” and general: “overall I’m happy with how my life is going”, aka Aristotle’s flourishing.

Of course they are all intertwined. A life of physical pleasures – pure hedonism – might come up short on achievement. Or get cut short by a heart attack. But a life of too much ‘thought’ might lack passions and pleasures and the achievements of love and family.

Apparently, most parents say that the thing which has given them most pleasure in their lives has been the raising of children.

But also, apparently, if you give parents of young children an electronic ‘clicker’ to register every time they feel a sensation of pleasure during their day, they register fewest clicks of personal pleasure when they are actually with their kids. Probably haven’t got time to click…

So Hurka’s four pleasures explain how our friend can think “I am happy with how my life is going” whilst feeling in a permanent bad mood – they have three kids who run them ragged. Doesn’t sound great. But she’s happy, at least on one level.

Sleep’s the big one for me. Now I’m getting my sleep and enjoying my work – as well as enjoying time with my kids – I’m in a pretty permanent good mood. Feeling good is a great addition to my life. Simple to feel, complex to achieve.

Ethics, Life, Politics, Psychology, Science, Work

I am a Scientist

Like most people I guess, I get irritated by folk who are wrong. But unlike most people, I actually don’t mind so much when I am.

Perhaps that’s because I believe in a ‘Bayesian brain’. Mash up all the facts, data and experience you have (however little) and come up with a probabilistic answer. That’s certainly how my mind works.

Of course we all live trapped in our own heads. So what seems common sense to me, absolutely may not to other people. Different experiences, different world views, different data.

As a recently deceased US Senator said:

“Sir, you are entitled your own opinions, but not your own facts.”

But what are facts anyway? Just a combination of data, theory and interpretation.

If someone says something I disagree with, generally speaking, I’ll have a quick go at saying so – and what I think. If pushed, I’ll point out the flaws in their position, if they are obvious.

But except in the most extreme or important situations, I’ll generally leave it after one or two tries. Experience tells; people don’t change their minds easily.

One of the weaknesses in a Bayesian approach is similar to the ‘ethical’ problem I used to have as a Utilitarian. The balance of probabilities, like the balance of morality, isn’t easy to explain or justify to people of principle and belief.

Most of the calls we make are analogue not digital. They are ‘probably’ not ‘binary’. So I’ve learnt, in the main, to simplify what I’m thinking when it comes to persuading. In the art of human persuasion, a single strong argument trumps several reasons.

And this cuts us to the chase. Why is it so hard to reason with people? Because most of human existence was in the pre-scientific era. Belief, superstition and commandment drove most people’s thoughts and deeds.

And a quote I read from the late great populariser of science, Carl Sagan, sums up the difference:

In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken.” And then they would actually change their minds and you would never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

I am a scientist.

Art, Life, Psychology

Arts and Draughts

I found myself talking Art – with a nice bloke I’ve never met before – in the pub this week. It was at a leaving do for my other half.

Neither of us look like gallery buffs. But a happy coincidence of amateur enthusiasm for the painterly arts, meant two slightly awkward men – with ostensibly nothing in common – had a surprising bond.

He told me about a couple of lectures he’d been to at the National Gallery: what’s hidden in Turner’s boats and skies, what’s interesting about (two painters neither of us usually find remotely interesting) Gainsborough and Reynolds.

I told him about ‘Barge haulers on the Volga‘ and the problems of perspective for Renaissance composition (realism can really get in the way of symbolism – see Uccello navigating the transition from Medieval to modern above).

We finished on intrigue and alchemy in Nineteenth century porcelain (him) and the challenges of making colours and the discovery of new blues (me, him and Monet).

A cracking natter. We could’ve done footy – he offered me Everton FC early on. But something about him (chair of his local synagogue, England Rugby shirt, a bald head and long grey curls) made me venture portraiture.

I’m so glad I did. Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ in action.

Achilles, Life, Psychology, Science

Crystal Ball

What if the purpose of memory is not to remember things?

We generally judge our memory on accuracy and completeness – and we are generally disappointed. Memory is jumbled, retouched and unreliable as a definitive record of the past. But a recent New Scientist suggests perhaps that’s because remembering is not what it’s for.

Thinking in evolutionary terms, what use is a perfect record of your entire past on the Serengeti plains? Not much. There would have been precious little time for introspection with four-legged food to chase and four-legged death to avoid. Not to mention increasingly cunning two-legged competition alongside.

Memory must have conferred a survival advantage – so it seems reasonable to think it developed from what other mammals probably have: recall of close shaves, sources of food and – if elephants are anything to go by – key life events: births, deaths and marriages.

And this is why dates get jumbled, memories get intertwined and autobiographical narratives develop in our heads – to guide us on what to do next, not produce a perfect historical record. Memory exists to better predict and guide our future.

Memory tells us who to trust, how to act and what might happen. Yes it’s flawed by inductive logic. Past performance is stricto sensu no guide to the future. But we remember what we need to remember – what’s useful for our future.

This difference in purpose is the big difference between computer memory and ours. Ours is constantly shuffled, refined and selected for its Bayesian predictive power, not its precision.

No wonder it’s sometimes cloudy; human memory isn’t a time capsule, it’s our crystal ball.

Children, Life, Psychology, Science

A Dog’s Life

I’ve just finished ‘In Defence of Dogs’, a fascinating book on the evolution and psychology of our four-legged friends. Packed with insights, perhaps the most important is: they’re not half as complicated as we think they are.

That’s not to say dogs aren’t smart. But they proceed by ‘associative learning’ – always assume result b) follows directly from cause a) i.e. that which immediately preceded it.

Dogs, it seems, have no real capacity for introspection or to place events in the past – even the comparatively recent past. So shouting at them when they finally come back – or when you come back home and they’ve made a mess – just confuses them.

In the dogs head it’s “Smell x, smell y, hear shout from owner, bark, sniff, run around, bark, wag, return to owner – get shouted at.” The only associative learning possible from this is ‘Sometimes when I return to my owner I get shouted at.’

Dog owners project the full gamut of human emotions onto their dogs – guilt first and foremost. I did, Charles Darwin did, every dog owner does. But in fact there is no evidence dogs can feel guilt or can learn from it.

But they are hugely sensitive to humans and very attuned to us. So they can certainly tell when we’re not happy with them. What they can’t tell is why, unless it’s for the very last thing they did.

The capacity to appear ‘smart ‘ whilst lacking complex cognition is not a bad thing to have in mind for young kids too. We easily assume kids have fully featured introspection, a ‘theory of mind’ and the ability to think ahead. But a focus on the immediate and simple ‘associative learning’ is undoubtedly a big part of how kids are too.

My supersmart 8 year old daughter – on getting out of the bath last week – said: “Daddy, it seems to me that other people aren’t always thinking the same things that I am thinking.” “Indeed.” I said. “So how can I tell what other people are thinking” she asked? “That, my love”, I replied ruefully, “is the entire complexity of human life.”

On one level, it’s a bit sad to learn dogs can’t do complex emotions. It makes them seem a bit simple. But there is overwhelming evidence that dogs can – and do – do ‘happy’, ‘sad’ and most of all ‘love’.

And they reserve their deepest, most unconditional love for us – humans of all shapes and sizes, personalities and temperaments, faults and failings – their owners.

It’s a dogs life being scolded for stuff you can’t remember or understand. But what ‘In Defence of Dogs’ establishes beyond doubt is; we towering two-legged creatures are the centre of their world. We should aim to love them as much as they love us.