WEBVTT - Ep108 "Can brains increase their happiness?" (with Bruce Hood) 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.000 Is it possible to become happier? What does the science 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.080 say about this? How much of your happiness is your genetics? 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:15.000 And what does any of this have to do with 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:20.000 social connection or comparison to other people, or your balance 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.520 of optimism versus pessimism, And why it would be useful 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:32.000 to keep a journal of your life. Welcome to Intercosmos 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.080 with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and author at 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.760 Stanford and in these episodes we sail deeply into our 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.479 three pound universe to uncover some of the most surprising 0:00:42.680 --> 0:01:01.800 aspects of our lives. Today's episdis is about what's known 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.840 about happiness from a scientific point of view. Everyone since 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.040 time immemorial has asked themselves what is going to make 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.800 me happy? And they've often speculated what can I tell 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.160 other people about what's going to make them happy? But 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.720 in a sense, I view this the same way that 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.560 people once approached disease. They said, Hey, maybe if I 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.360 sprinkle salt over my shoulder, or boil some bones, or 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.640 eat a lizard's tail, that's going to work. There were 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.160 endless theories and rituals and folk beliefs, some of which 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.959 were passed down for generations. Many of these things were 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.920 totally made up, but they persisted because there wasn't a 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.560 better option. The world of disease changed with the arrival 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:51.240 of the scientific method. With observation and experimentation and replication, 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:57.320 the community slowly was able to replace guesswork and superstition 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:04.200 with reproducible knowledge. We stopped tossing salt and started testing antibiotics. 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.840 We stopped blaming spirits and started understanding microbes, and as 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:14.480 a result, we eradicated smallpox and polio. We developed fixes 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:18.000 for fever and diarrhea and diabetes. And if you ever 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.760 feel skepticism about our progress, just note that we have 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.760 added decades to the average human life. So the key 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.440 question I want to ask today is can we bring 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.680 that same level of rigor to the question of happiness. 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.280 Now that might sound strange because happiness seems so personal, 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.359 it's so subjective. Is it really something you can study 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.480 in a lab? Do we really understand what it is 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:50.359 we're chasing? Happiness? It turns out is a remarkably slippery concept. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.160 You ask three people to define it, you're going to 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.960 get four answers. Is it pleasure contentment? 0:02:57.720 --> 0:02:58.120 Meaning? 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.800 Is it a spike of joy or a slow and 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.720 steady hum of well being. We're probably talking about all 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.640 these things. And I'll note that even the ancient Greeks 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:13.399 made distinctions. They distinguished between the pursuit of pleasure, which 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.720 they called hedonia, and a life of meaning and virtue, 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.200 which they called you'd ammonia. And in modern psychology we 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:25.640 have all kinds of similar distinctions, asking whether happiness is 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:30.960 more about fleeting moods or lasting satisfaction. But here's the thing. 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.120 Even once we settle on definitions, we are not always 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.840 so good at predicting what will make us happy. The 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:44.040 general lesson from psychology is that people make systematic errors 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.280 in forecasting their own happiness. We think that a new 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.880 car will do it, or a bigger house, or finally 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.840 getting that promotion, And when those things happen, we do 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.040 feel a little jolt of joy, but it doesn't last 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.760 apt we return to our baseline. Psychologists call this the 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.240 hedonic treadmill. You keep running, chasing the next thing, but 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.880 you never really get ahead. And by the way, even 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.159 our memories deceive us. We misremember what made us happy 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.560 in the past, and we make plans for the future 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:25.720 based on those flawed recollections. We compare ourselves to others constantly. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:32.160 We overvalue the extraordinary and overlook the ordinary. We confuse 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.919 excitement with fulfillment. So what does this all mean. It 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:41.599 means our internal compass is often misaligned, and yet there's hope. 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.200 And this is because over the past decades, researchers have 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.240 begun to untangle the mystery of happiness by using tools 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:54.159 like longitudinal studies, which follow people across decades or even 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.240 across their entire lives. Other studies use brain imaging to 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:03.520 map emotional states, or behavioral experiments that track the choices 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:05.640 people make and then how they feel about it later, 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.320 or cross cultural research that looks at how different societies 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.200 define and pursue joy. What emerges from this growing body 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.760 of work is a more nuanced, more evidence based understanding 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.480 of what makes life feel worthwhile and good. And the 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.920 answers provide something useful, a map. It's not a guarantee, 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.120 it's not a formula, but it's a way to navigate 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.160 toward a deeper, more lasting sense of well being. So 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.800 today we're going to explore that map. We'll talk about 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.839 what practices actually seem to make a difference. Based not 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.280 on wishful thinking, about on data to guide us through 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.640 this territory. I called up my friend and colleague, Bruce Hood. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.080 He's an experimental psychologist and philosopher at the University of 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.960 Bristol in England, and he recently wrote a book called 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.520 The Science of Happiness. Together, we're going to try to 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.599 get a clearer view of what the science tells us, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.520 what works, what doesn't, and how we can apply these 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:16.000 findings in our own lives. Here's my interview with Bruce. So, Bruce, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.560 I know at the back of your office there's a 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.840 junior high playground and you're always hearing the laughter and 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:26.520 the squealing of children. So what did that make you wonder? 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:29.919 Well, in my day job, I see a lot of 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.840 my students and I'm their tutor, and I've just come 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.640 out of a tutoring session where they were really quite 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:41.000 miserable and unhappy and really worried, and I just heard 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.279 this laughter coming from the playground. I thought, what goes wrong? 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:46.160 Where are we going wrong? 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:46.320 Well? 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.440 How how do they ended this position at the end 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.040 of the education system where they're so preoccupied with their 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.400 performance and they've got mental health issues? And I kind 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.400 of reached the end of my tether to some extent, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:00.960 I wanted to try and do something. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.680 So you thought, look, kids are happy, young adults are 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.280 not so happy, and so you started looking into the 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.560 science of happiness. And what did you find. 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.360 Well, we had reached a bit of a crisis point 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.120 at Bristol University, and I felt I needed to do something. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.280 And I looked around and discover that a former student 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.520 of mind, Laurie Santos, who had I taught as an 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.600 undergraduate when I was at Harvard, had also encountered a 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.720 problem at Yale, and she put on a course that 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.840 had been remarkably successful. So this really inspired me to 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:32.640 try and do a version of it myself. So I 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.200 contacted Laurie and her typical generous nature, She shared all 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.280 her notes, and I put together a version of her course, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.240 and I call it the Science of Happiness. I think 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.640 was called Psychology and the Good Life. And I focused 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.880 a little bit more on critical thinking, my own spin 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:50.920 on stuff. And I just ran it as a pilot 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:52.600 to see if anyone would turn up to it. It 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.880 wasn't credit bearing, it wasn't official course. It was just 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.080 here's a lunchtime seminar series I'm running for ten weeks 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.440 and I was price six hundred people turned up, even 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:04.920 though they weren't getting credit for it. So this told 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.880 me that this was something that was in demand, and 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.240 the universes were very pleased with this, so they gave 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.160 me the green light to go ahead and create a 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.440 course which was credit bearing, and we launched it the 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.120 following year and we've been doing it every year with 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.280 about six hundred students enrolling. And what makes it, I 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.080 think unique, is that to me, it's a large experiment 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.360 because we actually get the students to fill in their 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.000 own sort of levels of happiness and various psychometric tests, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.360 and every year we've run the course, we find a 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.040 significant improvement of about fifteen percent on all these measures. 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.600 So it's not just an educational course because they have 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.880 to actually do things and we discover that actually it 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.680 seems to make some impact. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.120 So before we get into the framework of the science 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.280 of happiness, I want to ask you a few rapid questions. First, 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.079 do you think that students are changing from let's say 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:58.640 when you first started teaching. 0:08:58.600 --> 0:08:59.200 Yes and No? 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.319 My first paper done back in nineteen eighty six. I 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.240 think it came out the full year eighty seven was 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.199 on the transition to university, and I was already interested 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.240 in the fact that students, way back when I was 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.240 an undergrad were experiencing homesickness and this sort of temporary 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.680 period of uncertainty. So I think that's actually a common 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.560 experience for all students when they leave the you know, 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.560 the confines and the familiarity of their home environment, and 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.880 they go to in new, new campus, but very soon 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.199 they get used to it and they kind of adapt 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.240 to that. I think the difference now is that students 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.040 are already coming to university with mental health issues, and 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.199 I think the nature of discussing these things that's normalized 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:43.920 a lot more now, and it seems to be more pervasive. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.520 It certainly seems to feature as an issue that students 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.040 want to talk about. So I think that I don't 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.480 think there's any fundamental difference in the human mind, if 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.920 you like, but the way that we discuss and talk 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.440 about these things and the way it impacts on students, 0:09:58.520 --> 0:09:59.600 I think has changed. 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.440 How much of a person's happiness comes down to the 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:05.600 genes that they inherit. 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:07.760 Actually we do have a pretty good idea about that, 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.640 and that comes from behavior genetic studies where they compare 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.800 identical and non identical twins, and it's roughly the same 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.760 as intelligence around about heritability is about forty to fifty percent. 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:20.800 So yes, some people are very much like their parents 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.680 and some are very unlike their parents. But on average, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.240 if you look across a big population, that heritability is 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:28.920 around about forty to fifty percent. 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.360 And if I can ask you a personal question, Bruce, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.240 tell us about your childhood, as I understand that your 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:40.280 father wasn't particularly happy and well adjusted and you are. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.360 Yeah, I came from well I'm laughing about it now 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.040 because I can look back with some degree of wisdom, 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.480 but at the time it was a very impoverished childhood, 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.679 tenerant if we moved from household to hustle. We never 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.160 had any money, and he was a very abusive alcoholic. Yeah, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.480 it was a painful childhood, but you know, I think 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:08.280 I learned to cope, and certainly this course has helped 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.439 a lot for me. What I've learned on this past 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.760 has actually changed my outlook. I used to be very, 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.160 very driven and maybe too driven, and that to the 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.360 exclusion of people around me. Now I'm a lot more 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.600 mindful and thoughtful about you know, what I'm doing, and 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.600 that might just be age and wisdom, but I also 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.840 think that there is there are things that you can 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.560 do to change your life for the better. So I've 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:34.040 you know, I used to be skeptical about all this stuff. 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.400 I felt it was very soft psychology and you know, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.360 a little bit wishy washy. And now I'm much more 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:41.959 of a convert to it. That and if it does 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.200 make the students better, then you know, whether or not 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.320 we can argue about the mechanisms. I still think it's 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.840 a valid endeavor to try and alleviate some of this 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:52.720 problem that seems to be so pervasive. 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.200 Great, so in your book, you boil this down to 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.240 seven lessons. Well, I call. 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.679 Them lessons to capture the nature that a book that 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.520 was originated from a course, and so it felt like 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:08.559 an educational process. But yeah, and they all actually bleed 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.320 into each other, and it says they're all interrelated. But 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.240 there is a fundamental premise throughout the book that it's 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.360 happiness is about becoming less self centered and that's the 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:18.840 kind of underlying theme. 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.120 Great, so let's dive into the seven lessons. I think 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.360 it's a good way to structure. This so less than 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.440 one you call alter your ego. So tell us about that. 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.679 Well, this comes from my training as a developmental psychologist 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.320 and from the work the works of Jean Piage and others. 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.560 And what Page noted is that children are very egocentric. 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.280 And what he meant by that is that they view 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.319 the world from their own perspective, from themselves. Literally, they 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.040 think the world is an extension of their sensory systems, 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.360 so that if they're not looking at something, it. 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.400 Ceases to exist. So they really do believe. 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:56.920 We have a term in philosophy called salism that the 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.160 world is literally an extension of your mind. They have 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.760 to learn to differentiate themselves from that physical world and 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.240 understand that objects have their own kind of identity and 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.520 permanence and uniqueness. And this is captured in a lot 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.880 of his demonstrations that should behave as if objects cease 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.320 to exist when they're not being looked at, or they're 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.000 a product of the child's actions. Now that's happening in infancy. 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.040 Over time, they start to learn that there is a 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.680 physical world that is separate to them, and they start 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.559 to realize that other children have different thoughts, but they 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.240 still think of themselves very egocentrically. So initially, for example, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.480 they think that other people understand things the way they do, 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.679 They see the way the world they do, and they 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.480 lack what's called a theory of mind in the sense 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.160 that they don't necessarily understand that others can have completely 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.199 different opinions or completely different. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:44.880 Thoughts to their own. 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.319 But around about three or four years of age, they 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.920 start to learn to become less egocentric and more what 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.520 I call alocentric, which means other focused. It's not that 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.920 children don't interact with others, but that interaction is very 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.600 much uni direction or one direction when they're very very young. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.960 But if you want to become a functioning member of 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.760 society as a child, and this is what childhoods are for, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:10.119 it's socialization. They've got to learn to become cooperative, communicate, integrate. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:12.880 So when we tell ch'am to behave, we're trying to 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.440 teach them the rules of socialization in order to be 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.200 accepted by the rest of the tribe, as it were. 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.600 So we start off with a very ecocentric perspective, and 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.360 we've become more other focuses we get older. But like 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.480 many aspects of the human mind. We never entirely abandoned 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.000 these kind of primitive ways of thinking, and I think consciousness, 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.720 for example, is a very egocentric experience. It's from the 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.080 first person perspective. We don't instantly take a theory in mind, 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.560 We don't instantly and for other people's thoughts and purses, unless, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:42.720 for example, they behave in a way that we make 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:44.800 questions why they've done it, and we might then try 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.080 and figure out what's on their mind. But in general, 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.280 we're on autopilot. We're kind of seeing everything from the 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.480 first person perspective, and that's okay. But when it comes 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.400 to happiness, this is where I think it can be 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.240 a problem because left to our own devices, we have 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.960 a tendency to turn in on our ourselves, to ruminate, 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.120 to consider our perspectives, and we can blow things up 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.120 of proportion. Whereas if you start to see yourself as 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:10.440 more interconnected or alocentric, first of all, you're more contributing 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.800 member of society, but also you can start to get 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:14.800 a sense that other people have things going in their 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.640 lives which actually may be more paramount or more important 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.400 to them, or worse. And then once you understand that 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.680 actually we're all interconnected and other people have things going 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.560 on their lives. It starts to put your own things 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.360 into perspective. So I think there's been a language or 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.960 focus on self and identity, politics and all about me, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.360 me me for the past ten years. I think we've 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.840 been hearing that, and I'm just sort of saying, maybe 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:40.840 that's the wrong way to think about it. Maybe focusing 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:45.160 on yourself is directing your energies in the wrong way. 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.040 I think we should try and ritualize of others. And 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.480 this comes from younemonia, which is an ancient concept from Aristotle. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:52.160 Unpack you. 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.600 Aemonia for us, Pneumonia is the technical term for flourishing, 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.520 which means that rather than directing your effort to make 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.920 yourself happy, what you should be trying to do is 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.720 enrigin the lives of other people around you. So it's 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:10.920 a more altruistic, gregarious, other focused way of energy. What 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.280 Aristotle said to it. You know, anyone can be self centered. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.120 Animals are self centered and they can seek gratification. But humans, 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.040 we have moral grounds, we have moral perspectives. We can 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.040 put our efforts into making other people's lives better. Altruism 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.760 and so on. And if you do that, that will 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.680 make society better and you will benefit from that indirectly. 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.720 So he argued that we shouldn't be focusing our energies 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:49.080 on ourselves, but rather trying to improve the lives of others. 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.000 Yeah. One of the things you argue, if I understood 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.040 this correctly, is you're saying what you really want to 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.240 hit is a balance between egocentric and alocentric. Yeah. 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:04.440 Yeah, yeah, Because obviously, if you're so selfless, then human 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.680 nature is that people will take advantage, so you need 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.600 to kind of get the balance correct. The other thing 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.680 about being self less is if you're so empathic, then 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:14.760 there is a danger that you can kind of become 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.480 a super EmPATH or take on all the suffering and 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.560 pain of others around you, which means you can't function either. 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.480 So it's really trying to get things into perspective and 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.560 get the balance right. If you're too allocentric or too 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.080 other focus, you're probably not going to look after yourself well. 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.280 If you're too selfish, you're going to be rejected, possibly 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.280 and ostracized. So it's about becoming what we evolve to be, 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.760 which is a socialized, integrated animal. 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.560 So let's go to the second lesson, which is avoid isolation. 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:43.760 Tell us about that. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.400 Well, that's the flip side of being ostracized. So yes, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.879 we're a social animal, and the way we've evolved is 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.879 through our capacity for what I call well, I didn't 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.920 coin the term. Mike Thomas elo coined it. 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:57.560 It's ratcheting, cultural ratcheting. 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.240 In other words, we have communication and we cooperate, and 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.040 the information that we learn in one generation we pass 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:04.560 on to the next. And this is a way we've 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:08.920 been able to accumulate and build sequentially on the knowledge base, 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.520 which is allowed technology to rise exponentially. So yeah, that 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.080 all comes from the fact that we evolve such sort 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.720 of a social life. If you think about it, we 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.119 spend the largest proportion in childhood of any species. You know, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:25.879 it could be to the teenage years. Some adults who 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:27.800 argue that they've still got kids in their twenties. It's 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.000 still at home as children. But if you look at 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.760 it in terms of our life expectancy, a large proportion 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.320 of that is spent in periods of being dependent on others. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.960 So those long childhoods come at a cost, and that's 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.400 why we have all the emotions of being included, all 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.680 the joys and the pains. 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:44.439 And sorrows and so forth. 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.880 The flip side of it is if you're ostracized, that 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.919 is really detrimental to not only your mental health but 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.439 your physical health. So we know, for example, loneliness, chronic 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.920 loneliness has a higher morbidity risk than many other well 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.280 known factors such as moderate smoking and drinking and obesity. 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:04.679 But if you look at the longitudinal studies of how 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.639 long people live, those who have the best social connections 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.119 live longer and are happier. And that's based on these 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.720 studies of Harvard, for example, They've got studies to be 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.439 following people up for sixty years. So social connection is 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:22.920 paramount to our well being and social isolation is problematic. 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.000 And this, of course is a big concern at the moment, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.960 the way that technology is actually is creating I think, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.280 pockets of isolation and more increased loneliness because the technology 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.560 is so absorbing that people just focusing on their phones 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.800 all the time and they're not engaging in the other 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:40.959 things that they could be doing. And I'm not one 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.200 of these people saying, you know, social media's you know, 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.840 rotting the brains of our kids. I think what's really doing. 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.320 Is it's just taking away all that time that in 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.600 the past we used to have speaking to each other 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.920 and doing those other things, and I think that's its 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:53.560 real danger. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.560 On the flip side, when people are looking at their phones, 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.399 they're often interacting with their friends and colleagues on there, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.879 there's a set in which for people who grew up 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.439 in very isolated environments like I grew up in the 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.199 mountains in New Mexico, I didn't have folks around, but 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.000 kids now always have folks around. Do you think that 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.600 is useful in terms of avoiding isolation. 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.520 Yes, I do, And the last survey by the Pew 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.960 Center showed that actually teenagers really don't see the same 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.400 problems that the adults do, so they actually think it's 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.520 improved their social interactions and their opportunities for interaction. I 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.080 would argue, though, however, it's the nature of that interaction. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.320 I think there's something about doing everything through a screen. 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.720 It doesn't really produce the same level of social interactions. 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.640 I mean, for example, body movements, our ability to read 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.720 body language. These are things which we've evolved over thousands 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:46.960 of years, and now if you take it away or 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.240 you produce artificial interactions. Everyone knows how awkward zoom can be. 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:53.840 It's not the same as as if we were in 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.600 kind of a spontaneous, more informal situation. So yeah, I'm 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.200 not a what's the word, these are called them the luodites. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:03.560 I'm not going to get rid of the technology. And 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.360 by the way, it's actually amazing and and it does 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.400 so many things. It allows people to Education is incredible, 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.680 podcasting is incredible. So these are all great, they're all upsides. 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.640 But I do think we need to think about how 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.280 is changed the nature of our off time as it were, 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.120 so I can see the concerns quite right. 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.320 Okay, so your third lesson is reject negative comparisons. So 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.119 let's unpack that well. 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:34.720 As you probably know, the brain always, by its default, 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:39.080 the way it's calculating anything is by comparison. Nerve impulses 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.960 are a signal is real as a relative comparison to 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.840 the baseline. So from the very basics of how our 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.520 brain cells are working right up to the complexity of 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:53.600 conceptual thinking, we're always drawing comparisons. So, for example, you 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:55.480 can see this in the sensory systems. If you come 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.240 in from a bright day out and going to a room, 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:01.320 it takes a long time to see anything because you've 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.280 adapted to the brightness and the outside, so your system 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.600 has to calibrate to the darkness. And likewise, if you 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.960 go from a dark area out into somewhere bright, you're 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.440 startled initially. So what the brain's always doing is doing 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.879 relative comparisons. The trouble with us is that when you 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.280