Honesty and happiness

My recent forays into the dating scene and discussions with some of my friends have enlightened me to one important quality in the search for happiness. That quality, I believe, is nothing more than honesty, both with oneself and to others.

No one doubts the value of being honest to others, but I think that honesty with oneself is something that is extremely undervalued or not even recognized by many. Being honest with oneself means critically examining the choices that she or he makes with regards to things such as careers, dating, and outward behavior. Once one becomes truly open to his or her own feelings, I think that this person will be in a very good---if not the best---position to positively affect their life. Knowledge is power and it precludes constructive action, so I don't think that self-honesty is a quality whose value can be challenged.

But is this quality enough to achieve happiness? That question is debatable and subtle. A friend of mine argues that it is not simply enough to know what makes us the happiest. Often times we are unable to achieve those things. For example, a love interest may not reciprocate romantic feelings or income may not suffice to live the lifestyle of one's choosing. For this reason she argues that finding satisfaction with the things that she currently has is more important than knowing what makes her happy, since these things might not be attainable.

I can think of examples of friends with whom this idea may not work. Specifically, I have friends who are miserable at their jobs but are unwilling to switch because the money supports their lifestyles well. I concede that they may truly value their own entertainment and financial freedom more than satisfaction with their careers, but I honestly don't believe this. Being unhappy at work bleeds over into so many other aspects of their lives, so I doubt that settling for five unfulfilled days a week is an optimum behavior for being happy. Here I believe that a close self-examination of their situations would reveal the culprit behind their discontent and provide the basis for making a change for the better.

Despite this counterexample, my friend's advice has definite merit. I suppose then that there can be no general rule for finding happiness with either of the two approaches. Individuals must find a blend of the two that works for them and provides them a degree of satisfaction that they can be, well, satisfied with.

Side notes: What are the obstacles to self-honesty? Why do people value the things that keep them from attaining the maximum degree of happiness? I may be in error by placing so much emphasis on a quantification of happiness, but I think that without this tool I have no way of discussing it. I do wonder, though, what other models exist for such a thing.

Products of the mind

This morning I read an article in the Guardian about the late and former NFL star Dave Duerson. On February 17, 2011, Duerson killed himself inside his apartment in Florida by shooting himself in the heart. Though he had experienced several bad setbacks over the past several years, including a faltering business and divorce, family and doctors do not attribute these to his death. The cause, they say, was a disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a severe degeneration of structures in the brain due to repeated blows to the head. The disease is most commonly found in athletes who participate in sports featuring strong physical contact, such as boxing, hockey, and American football.

Those closest to Duerson reported that he was becoming increasingly unable to focus on complex problems and recently made many uncharacteristically bad business decisions. He also suffered severe mood swings and was unable to enjoy his usual happy demeanor. Hours before his death, he had unofficially arranged for his brain to be examined by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. It seems that he understood that his life was deteriorating due to the problems with his brain.

Stories like this one remind me how much we are products of our own minds, and not just of our thoughts. Many people have turned to ideas borrowed from eastern philosophies for finding happiness within their lives. Own little; eat lightly; think positively. There is however no amount of positive thought that can overcome depression when there is a physical reason for it.

But how are we to recognize the difference between the two causes---external and internal? I suspect that the growth of modern neuroscience will lead to new (albeit incomplete) understandings of the physical causes of depression, which in turn will lead to medicines with the possibility of their misapplication. Is it right to prescribe an anti-depression drug when the stress is external and natural or holistic remedies exist? These questions are of course relevant now, but I think it is enlightening to examine them from a philosophical context, especially one that attributes so much power to the mind in finding happiness for oneself.

A dynamic value system—revisited

It is interesting to note that a world view that is based upon a dynamic value system is similar to a Bayesian reasoner. This is a model for designing algorithms that must make decisions based upon incomplete information. Once more data is received, the degrees of plausibility that certain propositions are true are recalculated by the reasoner.

A world view based upon dynamic values changes its conclusions and outlook when its values change, and these change with experience (similar to acquiring new data in the Bayesian model).

This brings to mind a curious question: if two individuals share the exact same life experiences, are they necessarily the same person?

And to further explore this question: will differences in their physiology cause them to adopt different personalities and world views? Is it impossible to impose the exact same events in the two lives, making the question unanswerable? Because Bayesian reasoning, if it can even be correctly applied to human reasoning, is still based upon probabilities, is it actually only a question of how likely the two individuals will be more or less the same?

These thoughts have been fueled by E. T. Jaynes's "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science."

Addendum: I think the question above is only relevant within the context considering a Bayesian reasoner, i.e. not an actual human. Actual human thought is driven by more than reasonable analysis of propositions, such as physiology and emotion.