
Think, Try, Learn: A scientific method for discovering happiness - da5e
http://thinktrylearn.com/index.php/Main_Page
======
thinktrylearn
Thanks for the great comments, everyone. My thinking is that any discussion is
good discussion. I have a few replies:

@todayiamme (a fine and apropos, name :-) Thanks for the points. This is a
Buddhist approach, right? The idea that attachment leads to suffering is one
that's been with me for years; very influential. From the Think, Try, Learn
perspective, I talk about attachment to experimental outcomes. If we desire
and expect a particular result, we have a binary success metric, which makes
the process an unhappy one. If things are going our way, we are unhappy
because we are afraid it will change. Likewise, if things are not going like
we want, we are sad too. Much better is to participate in unfolding events as
a scientist would - by observing fully, which brings you into the moment. And
mindfulness is a way to be happy (another time-tested idea).

So in fact I'm trying to create a philosophy that resonates with the rational
mind, but ties in classic ideas for how to be fulfilled. This is opposite to
the idea that eternal bliss is possible. (In fact I'm an atheist, and religion
doesn't make sense to me. Jack describes this well. That's why TTL is athiest
compatible)

Your experience of keeping a detailed diary is interesting to me. It seems to
me that keeping a general record is periodically valuable, but in my work the
recording is specific to experiments. The thought that I mention in my recent
slidecast ([http://www.slideshare.net/matthewcornell/quantified-
selfexpe...](http://www.slideshare.net/matthewcornell/quantified-
selfexperimentdrivenlifenoanimation-5020668)) is that observation -> awareness
-> change. The self-blame sucks, of course, but ironically, in TTL I argue
that you get a "health sense of detachment" by looking at events as
information/data, which might help with the negative feelings.

Also, I like your clarification to @DeusExMachina. Well put.

@DeusExMachina: I love your quote:

> "But if you spend enough time growing, looking inside yourself to what is
> really important to you and learn to enjoy the journey too, you can be
> happy."

In TTL, the ultimate guarantee of success is that you'll learn something about
yourself and grow your character. The process of experimentation will take you
in a personal direction you like. Put another way, the focus is on being
excellent at discovery, which we all have control over.

Dealing with pain and problems: As you say, they are inevitible, and it's how
we cope (with grace, ideally) that defines us. With TTL, my perspective is
that those situations are externally-imposed experiments, ones that provide
data like such as feelings and pain. Still working this out...

@Jach: Re: brains being a function of ancestral environments - absolutely! I
love this quote by Nancy Kress: "A belief in the afterlife [is] probably the
single largest aberration of the human mind." (From "Steal across the sky.")
In TTL my idea is to manage irrational thinking by modeling it, testing it,
and working to make them consistent (AKA "cognitive dissonance," as orangecat
points out). In science, throwing out pet theories in is hard, but the truth
is ultimately more useful to discoveries. Doesn't work for everyone, though,
and may not be as comfortable as other (unprovable) theories.

@todayiamme: re: radical life extension, I'm ready for it now (I'm soon to be
48 YO) but I'm certain it won't be in time. I don't fear death, but I very
strongly don't want it. From a time management perspective (my other hat) it
can be a real incentive. Just as you point out with the TV watching. (BTW, a
"micro" experiment is to go without TV for a week. I guarantee they will have
new experiences, even things like being bored, talking more, etc. This is an
appropriate setting to have a diary.)

Your quote is poetic, and expresses how I feel too. Thank you for it:

> "I have decided to spend every moment I have loving other people, and making
> their lives richer. I've decided to make others smile and create beautiful
> things. I've decided to learn as much as I can about this amazingly
> beautiful world before I die. I've learnt that happiness is only real when
> shared. I can do this only if I am at peace and I accept that problems will
> always exist around me. Fretting about them doesn't solve much, does it?"

The way this fits into TTL is via collaboration with others, from which the
best science comes. The idea is to love and help each other with our
experiments, and to tune in (i.e., observe) to the great stuff we have going
on in our lives right now. After adopting these ideas, I literally see the
world differently. I spent 45 minutes one day last winter marvelling at
sunlight reflecting off snow crystals. I found that as I focused I could see
individual prismatic effects that varied greatly as I moved my head slightly.
It occurred to me that this might have been the inspiration for Chrismas tree
lights. Just a thought.

@dan00: Re: happiness being a by-product - absolutely! I think of love that
way too. Like happiness and humor, you can't force it, you can only make space
and invite it in. [insert garden/seed metaphor, etc.] (Actually, forcing humor
via "laughter clubs" is a cool idea -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter_Yoga>)

@funthree: "Think, then try, then learn, then think. Okay. I needed that." I
understand that the title seems obvious. Then again, it's a short name that is
supposed to capture the spirit of the scientific method - treating everything
in life as an experiment. (P.S. It's funny that you mention Captin Obvious.
Check out The Personal Productivity Encyclopedia Of Superhero Powers -
<http://is.gd/ezzfu>)

Thanks again, everyone! -- matt

------
todayiamme
The irony is that you won't discover happiness until you realize that there
isn't such a thing as happiness. Misery and pain is part and parcel of being
alive and that's the way it should be.

It's ironic because this encourages people to use the scientific method to
delude themselves into thinking that eternal bliss is possible. I actually
implemented something like this. I used to keep a detailed diary of the things
that have happened and I used to analyze the shit out of everything on paper
and then I would check the conclusions and do it again, but somehow it never
worked. Upon hitting this I would blame myself and everything I've touched for
it. Clearly there has to be something wrong with _me_ , but what I failed to
realize was that I was fooling myself in the most logical manner possible.

It's amazing how twisted things are.

Although, this concept will help you to evaluate things and get things done.
It won't help you to achieve happiness. Nothing can.

~~~
Jach
> Misery and pain is part and parcel of being alive and that's the way it
> should be.

While I don't disagree with your message overall, this statement stood out as
being quite odd. Why _should_ we have misery and pain?

~~~
todayiamme
I read a story about the Buddha as a kid and I never got it until a few days
ago. Once Buddha meets a woman in pain because her new-born child had died.
She begs him to bring him back to life and he agrees provided she could get
him a handful of rice from a house without death.

Needless to say she couldn't find such a place.

The point is that eternal bliss would be such a wonderful thing, but it
doesn't exist anymore than perpetual motion does. Let's face it everything
alive today on this earth during this very second in which you have read these
words will die. I am an atheist to the core and I will remain an atheist to
the core. I don't think that there are any angels, or heaven or some kind of
hell out there. I know that the only thing out there is emptiness. There is no
doubt about it, and that's the beauty of it.

By accepting the fact that nothing truly ever lasts we can prepare ourselves
for peace. It's a really twisted concept that I can't explain in words, but
whenever you see the truth that happiness is not just another shot away then
you don't crave for things. You don't seek to replace the pain with something
else. All you do is focus on just being and that opens the doors for
everything else. You learn to love and create for the sake of doing just that.
You see beyond yourself and you actually care about other people. Most
importantly you realize that just like life learning is a process that will
never end till the day you die. It's amazing.

I hope that you understand.

~~~
Jach
I understand, I've read various texts of Eastern philosophy and I enjoy the
benefits of being able to let go at times, but I was really hoping for a
different argument than this one and the similar one given by Ardit.

I can imagine a world without pain, and a world without death (at least a
world where people live a lot longer than 75 years, I won't argue for some
physics that lets us live _forever_ ), and if I were a member of that world
instead of this one, nothing you two have said would convince me to say "Yeah,
pain and death are great, I want some of that. I need some of that!" Similar
arguments have also been made for trying Meth and the like, that you just
_have_ to experience it! No thanks. I also don't buy the whole "You need pain
to experience happiness", but I haven't formulated an eloquent knockdown
argument against that yet. While it's true pain and pleasure are related
through endorphins, my idea of happiness isn't constant orgasm. I've wondered
if these arguments for pain could simply be using an overly broad definition
of pain that includes any struggle or conflict, any challenge or exercise...
Being for death, especially if you're an atheist, is just ludicrous.

Anyway, I can also imagine being very not-bored in such a different world that
knows no pain nor death for very many years, longer than any lifetime any
human has yet had. I can imagine that in that world where life is valued oh-
so-high, that people are constantly at work to increase it, to let people live
even just one more day. I can imagine learning for the sake of learning and
creating for the sake of creating, I can imagine doing those things for other
ends as well, some selfish, some not.

The brain pattern making up "you" is fairly unique, and it's such a sad shame,
a true shame, that so many patterns have already been annihilated even before
a mere 75 years have passed. There may be nothing _out there_ that says your
matter's state is worth preserving, but there is definitely something _in
here_. In human brains. Unfortunately our brains were built by the ancestral
environment, not by any benevolent being, and thus we have certain problems
such as this contradiction of sometimes believing death and pain are things
acceptable, even good, yet nonetheless having a very strong aversion to death
and pain. I think the aversion is the saner part of our minds.

~~~
orangecat
Very well said. Eliezer Yudkowsky makes similar arguments, most recently in
his (outstanding) Harry Potter fanfic:
([http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/39/Harry_Potter_and_the_...](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/39/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality)).

 _"Death is bad," said Harry, discarding wisdom for the sake of clear
communication. "Very bad. Extremely bad. Being scared of death is like being
scared of a great big monster with poisonous fangs. It actually makes a great
deal of sense, and does not, in fact, indicate that you have a psychological
problem."_

 _there's this little thing called_ cognitive dissonance _, or in plainer
English,_ sour grapes _. If people were hit on the heads with truncheons once
a month, and no one could do anything about it, pretty soon there'd be all
sorts of philosophers_ , pretending to be wise _as you put it, who found all
sorts of_ amazing benefits _to being hit on the head with a truncheon once a
month. Like, it makes you tougher, or it makes you happier on the days when
you're not getting hit with a truncheon. But if you went up to someone who_
wasn't _getting hit, and you asked them if they wanted to_ start, _in exchange
for those_ amazing benefits, _they'd say no. And if you_ didn't _have to die,
if you came from somewhere that no one had ever even_ heard _of death, and I
suggested to you that it would be an_ amazing wonderful great idea _for people
to get wrinkled and old and eventually cease to exist, why, you'd have me
hauled right off to a lunatic asylum!_

------
dan00
You can't directly achieve happiness, because it's a by-product.

------
funthree
Is this something like being human 101? Captain obvious? Some other cheesy
reference? Think, then try, then learn, then think. Okay. I needed that.

