My thoughts on Ayn Rand's theory of Happiness

This idea that happiness is obtained by pursuing reason, purpose and self esteem, and that people are either happy or unhappy to the extent that they follow these principles - I don't think that's how happiness works.

I think that more fundamentally, our happiness is a result of our emotional experiences in childhood, which then in turn create our core motivation, sense of self and a belief of what is or isn't possible to us.

Our actions later in life will reflect this core emotional composition, rather than the principles we choose to follow.

I think that certain principles can definitely help you work toward your happiness, but that for the most part, achieving happiness has more to do with accessing our core emotions directly rather than taking this or that action.

The motivation to follow healthy actions follows from a healthy emotional core composition (for lack of a better term).

So take something very basic as an example... How about going on a diet? Lots of us fail to follow a healthy diet because something within us is driving us to self sabotage. We crave too much food or the wrong kind of food because it soothes an anxiety that we do not understand and cannot get rid of.

An Objectivist would look at it and say that a person is failing to use their free will to live healthily. Basically telling them "It's your goddamn fault dude for choosing to follow your whims".

Well here is what I think: This idea lacks compassion for our state of mind and it doesn't solve the problem. Instead, it compounds it by adding shame and guilt.

Yes, it is true that we are fortunate to be able to use our will to change our subconscious. But you gotta have respect for your subconscious, how it works, how slow or fast it can change and HOW you go about changing it, if at all. Don't assume that just because you KNOW something is good or right, that you can immediately convince your subconscious of it, too.

That view simply lacks respect for the nature of your mind.

If a program has a bug, it's not enough to know that the bug needs to be fixed - you need specialized knowledge in order to fix it, and our subconscious is the same.

I know some brilliant people who would be stuck hiding their talent from the world until the day they die, because at their core, they are stopped by massive fear. The fear can be so big that they may not even be aware of feeling it, because it is always there, like their skin.

So to go back to the point I was making: Ethics and moral principles as a guide to happiness are great, but I don't think we have full control over our happiness by following a set of principles.

If someone has a core belief that they are not lovable, then productivity, reason, and all that stuff is not gonna make them happy. It might actually make things worse for them.

Also, here is another thing to consider: Human beings were capable of happiness long before we were civilized enough to discover logic, and back when we still made some pretty "dumb" observations (by today's standards). I mean, how would Ayn Rand describe the state of mind of those primitive human beings? I think it would be ridiculous to say that they could not be happy because their capacity to reason was limited. Take a caveman, give him a good family, abundance of food, a good shelter and peaceful coexistence and they will be happy. Maybe even happiER than a modern day intellectual who has x5 more reason, but lacks those social conditions. So then how do you explain that? Well, she will likely say that in order to have abundance of food and a good shelter, he would need to use reason. And that is a good point, however if the caveman who has less reason than a modern man can feel happier, that still brings up an interesting point regarding what factor plays a bigger role in happiness - our social surroundings or our degree of logic.

As you may sense I am actually a big fan of logic. It is not my intention to bash it, only to consider the truth of our fundamental nature as human beings. 

The humility embedded in scientific Thinking

Something just occurred to me while watching this video:
The video really shows two different forms of thinking. at the beginning of the video, they an example of what some might call "mystical thinking": when magnets were first discovered, they were thought to have healing properties on the human body, because of the unusual effect they had on metals. I can really understand how someone looking at this magical object for the first time would attribute supernatural powers beyond what it demonstrates.
The other type of thinking was implied toward the end of the video, when nuclear power was discussed, and was explained using Einstein's formula E=Mc^2

And watching that part, it occurred to me, how weird it would seem to actually take the mass of something, and multiply it by this seemingly random number represented by c (the speed of light), to then get a third number that is suppose to predict (and with accuracy!) a physical, measurable effect.
And then it really hit me that a scientific formula represents a new kind of thinking; one that trusts a long, carefully considered chain of induction, and puts the trust in that induction, no matter how random the resulting numbers might otherwise seem. In a way, it is giving up control to the unknown parts of reality, in the hopes that the attempt at objectivity up until that point will prove justified.

The scientist does not truly know if the theory is correct until the very last minute when their formula is tested against factual results. But a long commitment to nothing but the truth, devoid of any self-serving, ego-indulging assumptions is trusted as the sole guide to knowledge.

And I am not trying to glorify Objectivism with this post. For me, it is more about the wonder of being able to mentally function this way. To be helpless and give up control by offering a theory and a formula as a QUESTION, rather than a certain statement. With no assumption, and absolute humble commitment to the truth. It's only after a theory is proven that it can be thought of as knowledge, in contrast to the leap of logic that (understandably) declares: "A magnet has healing properties! Because it works like magic!"

But more deeply, I think ultimately both these forms of thinking likely have more in common than we think, and the later is probably just a more advanced and refined than the former, but still needs it to exist. First guesses leap into a vast unknown context, and maybe we need this leap in order to later step in with more cautiousness to refine our observations.

Why we feel the way we feel about Learning

I had a thought today that struck me like a thunder in a... ok can't think of a good analogy here, other than the thunder part, but bear with me.

Here is the realization:

In a very basic way, our brain is wired to pursue pleasure and avoid pain.
So, when it comes to our ability to LEARN, the feeling we absorbed from our parents at a young age around the experience of learning will influence our natural reaction and motivation when it comes to learning.

I know what you must be thinking: "yada yada what now?"

OK rewind, slow down and repeat..:

If your parents themselves feel good about results, but not about the process of learning, then when you were a kid, they responded very positively (happy feelings) when you got things "right", but were not very happy (or maybe even disappointed) when you got things wrong, or were in the process of learning. for now, let's not ask why they were this way, but just take it as a given... suppose that's how they were.

So, as a kid, your tiny little developing brain learned to associate success with a pleasant feeling and "failure" with an unpleasant feeling.
Sometimes when kids are left alone, without praise or input from adults, they naturally and quietly develop persistence in learning. They don't go through large mood swings in the process of learning (very happy during success and very frustrated during failure). Adults have their egos invested in the RESULTS and they transfer the same thing to their kid. They become very happy when they think that their kid "is a genius" and what they subconsciously teach that kid is that process is not something to value, but results are the only thing that counts. Knowledge of how to build nests is transferred down generations of birds.... and this type of knowledge, I believe is transferred down through generations of humans.

If you look at kittens as they're training to become better hunters, they have no sense of frustration in "failures" at all. To them, all the attempts are a pleasurable game and they can persist indefinitely. I think every kid has the potential for the same state of mind. But adults can certainly hinder it.

So, what do you do as an adult, if you find yourself in the category of someone who becomes easily frustrated when not seeing immediate "results"? Well, you have to realize that you need to reprogram your mind and teach yourself to FEEL differently. (No, not to ACT differently, but to FEEL differently. I believe feeling leads to action).

OK hopefully, this explanation was not too confusing or too convoluted. But it explains why a lot of kids grow up to need huge amounts of "self discipline" in order to get work done. It's a result of how their subconscious was programmed (expect to receive pleasure only as a result of "success" because their dumbass parents didn't know better, because they were raised in the same way, with no patience or appreciation of process). Basically, it's nobody's fault, but it is still a problem, because it robs us humans of that healthy state of mind of leisurely pleasure of taking on a challenge/ something new to learn.

We basically absorb, through emotional osmosis, our parents' responses to things.

Beauty Harmony and Evolution

Beauty is an emotional response that has a survival value from an evolutionary point of view. It is a response to harmony.

And what is harmony? It is a state in which many different elements carry a primary element in common. For example: All the plants in an area bend in the same direction, which is the direction of the dominant wind in that area.

All the colors in a landscape are influenced by the same strong light (orange sunset light for example), which gives them all a strong similar element.

In sounds: All the sounds are of the same pace, like crickets slowly chirping and plants softly whistling in the wind. It is a sign of a system in equilibrium.

And, as living things, we are attracted to systems in equilibrium because those tend to offer stable and foreseeable conditions for survival.

Evolution-Inspired Cooperation

I thought I had about diseases and living things: Watching my plants grow for a while, and occasionally get in trouble with aphids, or green worms, or whatever else is out there waiting to feast on the plant, I noticed that the biggest contributing factor to which plant will do well and which plant will get attacked by some bug or disease, has mostly to do with its environment. The environment has to be right for the plant, not too much sun, not too little, just the right type of moisture, the right balance of nutrients and chemicals in the ground.

Everything in life thrives in a specific environment and specific conditions. Change the conditions, and you make it more favorable for one type of thing to grow over another.

So when we get sick, one major cause could be that the conditions within our body or outside it have changed to make it more favorable for that organism, just like how certain bugs will show up once a plant has been too long in the shade, or had too much moisture.

My point is that instead of focusing on killing that organism, a different way to think about it is changing the environment that supports it, if possible.

Also, another thing I thought of in relation to this, is that every living thing developed in a specific environment, or a specific range of environments. And over time, it developed the ability to adjust and deal with those conditions. Living things can form cooperative relationships or destructive relationships because their range of survival is either a match to one another or not. In some cases, an organism develops to multiply and survive in an environment which is composed of another living thing, and then that living thing becomes part of the environment to which it adapts. Like predators, or maybe viruses, OR gut bacteria and mitochondria.

But what I am saying is that then the *combination* of those entities is something that has better chances of surviving than the single units. And maybe we can even think of them as a single entity that is synced remotely.

So, we can think of our gut bacteria and our mitochondria as part of a single entity that includes all of our cells, AND think of having men and women as an instance of the same principle. Women's body has specialized in giving birth and nutrition to a baby, and men's body has specialized in securing food (I guess). They sync. Another example is the liver and the muscles. Different entities that co-exist. And the longer this exists in evolution, the more specialization is possible perhaps.