

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind (2010) [pdf] - sorpaas
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/KILLINGSWORTH%20&%20GILBERT%20%282010%29.pdf

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Udo
It looks like this specific author has looked at happiness primarily as
defined by "how good are you feeling at this moment?". The observation is
people who are not particularly enjoying their current activity tend to be
less focused than those who are. This should not surprise anyone.

But the author then inverts this causally and states "mind-wandering is likely
a cause, and not merely a consequence, of unhappiness".

Behind this opinion are the assumptions that _unhappiness is a nuisance
causally disconnected from your environment_ , that it should to be avoided
with a mental trick, and that mind-wandering is an otherwise unproductive side
effect of having an undisciplined mind.

On a fundamental level I think it's wrong to advocate against the wandering
mind, because wandering brains are exploring brains. We definitely want that.
Not enjoying the status quo is what drives progress. Worries, anxieties,
regrets, those all have a valuable place in a well-rounded life and they're a
part of learning, too.

The idea of optimizing superficial enjoyment by hacking your mental state only
instead of hacking the environment which makes you unhappy is not a good
solution overall. It certainly isn't a valid problem solving strategy. Hacking
your mental state may work if you suspect you're unusually unhappy without a
good reason. Outside of clinical depression there is actually a good external
reason for unhappiness more often than not.

Telling people their unhappiness is a purely mental defect they need to
overcome strikes me as particularly insidious. Instead of making yourself more
compliant and passive, why not go out and change things?

Being unhappy is first and foremost a signal how something about your
situation needs to change. In most cases, the answer "stay in the moment,
citizen, and carry on" strikes me as the kind of self help content that
doesn't help anybody. Contantly and single-mindedly maximizing happiness is
shallow and ultimately meaningless.

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MisterNegative
This is just crap, for example:

\- The quality of their claims is directly related to the quality of their
input. There is no discussion on the quality of their input.

\- They by no means justify their causal relation assumption

\- They make weird claims, for example they call their method a "gold
standard", but there does not exist a gold standard for this kind of pseudo-
science at all. And their method has the same flaws they mention other methods
have.

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gk101
The author gave a TED talk about this here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5A8dVYU3k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5A8dVYU3k)

and yes, the default mode of the mind is to wander:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network)

~~~
andy_ppp
Interesting video but the dodgy scale on his graph to make the difference
between the happiness in the Mind Wondering and Focused states seem larger
than it is.

The difference is about 10%, it might be a very solid 10% more happy, but god,
scratching my back can make me 10% more happy :-D

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camillomiller
In one word: Yoga.

~~~
dschiptsov
Nope. Yoga is a discipline of practice - a way to develop a new set of habits
of self-awareness and self-control via breathing techniques.

As a side-effect it calms the mind due to proper physiological balance (better
saturation of hemoglobin, less tension in muscles, which in turn influences
other sub-systems. such as digestive, etc.)

Yoga is the same kind of a necessary training routine as when children learn
how to read before they could read "serious" books. But this is so-called non-
verbal skill.

More accurately, it is acquisition of set of skills of remaining in a proper
balance, very similar to bicycle riding. Once _the body_ learns (new habits of
keeping balance has been developed) you could ride any kind of bicycle and
will never forget how to do it.

The bicycle you're leaning to ride (by doing) with yoga is your own mind whose
states you lean to control "non-verbally" via states of your body.

~~~
camillomiller
That's some convoluted answer, to which I'd like to reply just with one of
Patanjali's Sutra:

Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-
wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are
the obstacles

Those are the obstacles to Yoga. In some ways we can say, then, in a very
simple way, that Yoga is not only stopping the mind-wandering, but
nonetheless, ceasing the mind-wandering is Yoga.

~~~
dschiptsov
OK, ok. There is no doubts that it "works" and no contradictions with
"authorities".)

More interesting questions are _how_ it works and _why_ it works. Modern human
physiology and cognitive neuroscience has some nice models. Homeostasis and
the ability of one "sub-system" influence others via feed-back loos from
physiology is just another name for Eastern notion of "proper balance", while
Minsky's "society of mind" gives you insight about multitude of pseudo-
independent, highly-specialized "competing agencies", non-verbal ones.

There is no other scientifically studied mechanisms but training of neural
networks which is another name for "habituation" and these physiological feed-
back loops.

~~~
camillomiller
Everything's very interesting, but somehow pretending to explain that with
complex means of Western knowledge is like trying to break an iceberg with an
ice pick. You'll find yourself with lots of nice ice for your cocktails, but
you'll never break the iceberg that way.

Apart from parables, scientific study of yoga physiological effects is
obviously a good thing. Only, it's something culturally very far from the kind
of knowledge that made yoga possible.

~~~
dschiptsov
OK, let's try to make it more esoteric.) Do you recall the famous picture of
Escher -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing_Hands](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing_Hands)

This is an artistic impression of how "body and mind" works, and this notion
is as ancient as Vedas, but it does not happen to be expressed in such clever
graphical form. Instead, it has been expressed in verbal form, in short
snippets across Upanishads and, perhaps, Vedas.

This artistic impression also captures fundamental concepts of feed-back loops
and recursion, which could explain lots of Nature's phenomena, from weather to
circuits in your iPhone.

"Self-awareness" is just another name for recursion - like "to focus your
attention on the contents/state of your consciousness" which could be verbally
expressed as "that third eye which is looking inside one's own skull".

Btw, you cannot draw that on a tanka, so ancient Indian and then Tibetan
artists render it as a eye in the forehead "looking outside", which, of
course, should not be interpreted literally, like so many do.)

Technically, these two hands depicts so-called Mutual Recursion where two
"processes" are "feeding" each other. This is a crude "high-level" model (a
body-mind mutual recursion) of what happened in Yoga.

In your quote it has been stated that you should "calm your mind and remove
all distractions first" because they are obstacles to Yoga, and then, that
"Yoga is that state of unity (within yourself and with the Whole) without any
impurities". So, where shall we start? The answer is - looking at these two
hands - it doesn't matter. It is a mutual recursion.

Extend it with notion of multiple agencies (processes) so it will be n-process
mutual recursion, to complex to be grasped by mind at once, like this clever
but naive picture.

One side note. You might think that you are having a conversation with someone
with superficial understanding, based on some popular memes, but no, I am
cultural guide and mountaineering instructor in Himalaya regions and North
India for years.)

~~~
camillomiller
Wow. I never thought I was speaking with someone with a superficial
understanding. That was immediately clear to me. But now, well, I'm awed by
one of the best conversations I've ever had with a stranger on the Internet.
Thanks. I think I need some time to process the whole thing.

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asinno
TIL: “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the
brain’s default mode of operation

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emeidi
Me is scientist. Me has produce papers. Me turns questionable data into
sausage article and slaps catchy title onto it. Success. Repeat.

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dschiptsov
This is 2500+ years old idea, why 2010?)

