Freedomain Radio

Cat Moody:

Charlotte:

Recognizing the truth is a prerequisite for change, if change is what will make you happy. I can augment my driving abilities by practice and instruction, go to the gym and eat better, and become erudite by study if I wish - but only if I recognize that I need to do these things (i.e. if I acknowledge the truth that I am a poor driver, am overweight, and ignorant). Having acknowledged the truth, I can work to remedy the problems - if remedying them is indeed what will make me happy. (I don't believe that any of these things will actually make a person happy... but that is another post altogether.)

Yes, truth is a prerequisite for virtue. If I admit the honest truth that I lack virtue in some areas, that honesty is a virtue in itself. Then I can work to augment my virtues by being more honest, more compassionate, etc. It is that initial honesty that gave me the opportunity to grow in virtue.

This has been helpful to read :) thanks for posting

Glad to have been helpful to you!

Peter, does the above make sense at all?

Tuttle:

I think you misunderstood Peter. My question wasn't a general one, it was directed at you.

I don't have a clue, all I can say that my intuition tends to answer your statement/question in the negative. I guess that is the reason I posted the statistic, because it suprised me (How can it be that only depressed people have a correct assesment of their capabilities, let's ask the FDR forum). I feel as though I walked in the ladies room because I get little sense of curiosity. That might have something to do with me having the wrong understanding of the word virtue. I think people thought I implied driving skills, looks, intelligence was a virtue (is this correct? Greg is this what you think I meant?). Lets simply it to :if a=b=c, then a=c, so truth=happiness. The statistic says people who know the truth are depressed!=happy. How can this be? I'm perfectly happy with the reply:"these statistics are nonsense"

GregG:

pcrs:

The abstract sounds promising.

I would humbly suggest that abstractions are not helping you right now...

Lots of misunderstandings (I guess): Abstract as in summary

Charlotte:

Peter, does the above make sense at all?

Sounds excellent Charlotte; You need truth to recognise shortcomings (either in virtues or in non virtue related capabilities) to better yourself. Improving your driving skills will not create happiness, increasing your virtues will.

Now if we look at the people from the statistics that said they were a better than average drivers/lookers/thinkers, but were in fact not. They reported to be happy. People who knew their skills/traits, reported depressed. If the wrong estimaters also estimate their virtues wrongly, they would not detect short comings and not improve and fail to be happy. I lean towards thinking their reported happiness is fake. These are the people that think they are better in everything and conclude they therefor should cross happy on the survey. They could be totally dishonest, estimate themselves to be more honest than average and not change a damn thing about it.

What about the depressed? If we extrapolate their correct assessment of their driving skills to their virtues, they correctly estimate their virtues to be very low, hence their unhappiness. What prevents them from upgrading their virtues if they figure this out? Maybe they are misguided by people around them who claim to be happy with their good looks/brains/money.

Fully realize I am speculating out on a limb here, feel free to correct/improve/scorn me.

pcrs:

I heard that most people consider themselves a better than average driver, have better than average looks and higher than average intelligence. Mathematically it would be possible for 80% of the people to actually drive better than average, but you need to come up with a pretty funny distribution. If you take a normal distribution, 50% should feel better than average and 50% worse than average (driver, looker, thinker), to be correct (in compliance with their actual capabilities). So I guess you can state people are generally in error judging their own looks/capabilities.

This is misleading, because it asks people to judge themselves in comparison to the average of the group.  It is a ratio.  It requires people to correctly judge their own capabilities and attributes, and also to correctly judge the capabilities and attributes of the group.  They could be completely mistaken in their assessment of both, and still give a seemingly correct answer. 

Even if 50% of people thought they were above average and 50% thought that they were below average, a "correct" distribution, that doesn't say anything about how correct each individual is.  If half of the people who are above average drivers report that they feel they are below average, and half of people who are below average drivers report that they feel they are above average, then because each group is equally mistaken, they cancel each others error out in the final result.

So the question does not measure a person's ability to accurately judge their looks or intelligence or driving abilities.  I'm not sure what it does measure, or whether it measures anything at all.  Perhaps it measures their relative opinion of themselves compared to the group, but it doesn't say whether that opinion is positive or negative, so I don't see how it's useful.

-

When I think about the times in my life when I was the most depressed, and the times when I was the happiest, the thing that stands out as the biggest difference is the degreee of freedom I was experiencing.  I am saddest when I feel that my desires are unimportant, that there is nothing I can do to improve my life, and that I have no choices.  I am happiest when I realize that my life is mine to make of it what I will.  I am happiest when I realize that I do have choices, especially when I discover some new way of looking at a problem that reveals choices that weren't obvious to begin with.  This is the single most valuable thing I have learned from Stefan and FDR:  I do have choices.

Hi Everett,

Good point you make that if you ask people if they are better than average drivers you basically ask them 2 questions. Indeed their answer tow both can be wrong and the ratio as a result be right. There is however 1 statement we can make with certainty I think:

If 80% of the people asses themselves to be better drivers than average, and driving capabilities have a normal distribution, than a lot of people must be in error about either the average or their own capabilities.

If 50% reports they are better and 50% report they are worse than average, it does not mean they are correct (like you point out, they could even all be wrong), but a 50/50 ratio is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the conclusion that they are correct about both questions.

So we can say with certainty that many of the people who report themselves to be happy are in error about the truth. The statement that depressed people made a correct assesment I approach with a lot of scepticism, since it is likely that researchers overlooked the thing you mention (they saw 80/20 with happy and saw 50/50 with depressed and might have concluded that depressed were 'correct')

Even if the happy reporters were to get a correct assesment of their own capabilities, it would not mean that they would become less happy, since a correlation does not mean a cause consequence relation.

pcrs:

What about the depressed? If we extrapolate their correct assessment of their driving skills to their virtues, they correctly estimate their virtues to be very low, hence their unhappiness. What prevents them from upgrading their virtues if they figure this out? Maybe they are misguided by people around them who claim to be happy with their good looks/brains/money.

I think the mistake you (and the researchers) are making is coordinating these people's reported levels of happiness with the truth of their statements. People report they are depressed - A. People report they are bad drivers - B. These could both be true, but A does not necessary lead to B. This is a post hoc fallacy.

Even if we grant that "A therefore B" is true, though, it still doesn't account for the person's psychological history, etc. There are any number of reasons why people who know they are bad at something do not improve. You've stated at least one of these yourself.

Charlotte:

People report they are depressed - A.

People report they are bad drivers - B.

These could both be true, but A does not necessary lead to B. This is a post hoc fallacy.

I don't think I quiet understand, did I imply somewhere that A leads to B?

What I think you can conclude from the statistics is that if 80% of the people think they are better than average at X and X has a normal distribution across the population, that  lot of them must be in error. They could be in error on their own abilities in X or on what the average of X is. For driving it could be that what they think is 'the average driver' is heavily influenced by that one bastard that cut them off last week. That could disproportionally take down what they consider the average and elevate their own driving skills above the average. But that is just a possible explanation. Maybe depressed people do not even notice the guy that cut them off last week or forgot about it (they have bigger things to worry about), so their estimate of average driving skills did not go down, causing them to be less in error.

I think you need more data to make any objecive claim about what is going on. The whole story reminded me of this guy in my high school class. He always made these terrible jokes, that no one could laugh about, instead it made (at least my) toes curl up in agony to watch it (I wonder why that is btw). He himself however found his own jokes hilareous. I wondered then if he was happy. Can you live in a bubble of happiness holding the incorrect belief that your jokes are funny? In error, but happy. I also wondered if this state was preferable to a state of realising you were not funny, but being correct about it. My intuition said no, but then, I might mix that up with other people's scorn/pain, which he was propably not feeling.

Moin,

the depressed can easily underestimate their abilities. Or their ability to improve.

But lets look at your points:

- being a bad driver as no big deal. Just don"t drive, or drive more carefully. With a defensive driving style you cannot go wrong

- looks don"t really matter for men. You can score some points by workout and better clothing style

- intelligence: if you are able to state your above question you are probably in the upper half of the distribution.

What is totally missing in your list is personality, virtue, creativity, work ethics. And other beautiful words.

I know people that are not that amazingly bright, but very pleasant to be around.

So my idea is, that you can always work on the parts that can be improved. And i tend to think that the ability to improve your situation already leads to happiness.

Martin

pcrs:

I heard that most people consider themselves a better than average driver, have better than average looks and higher than average intelligence. Mathematically it would be possible for 80% of the people to actually drive better than average, but you need to come up with a pretty funny distribution. If you take a normal distribution, 50% should feel better than average and 50% worse than average (driver, looker, thinker), to be correct (in compliance with their actual capabilities). So I guess you can state people are generally in error judging their own looks/capabilities.

There is one group who has a correct assesment of their looks, brains and driving capabilities. This group is the depressed. So you tend to think:;"I am smart, I am good looking and I am going places", but if you would know the truth you would be depressed. How does this match to the statement that truth=happiness? Apparently the people with the most accurate judgement of their own situation are depressed. Truth=happiness when the knowledge is about whether or not a truck is barreling down a side street, but seemingly not about your own position in society.

Any thoughts of you brilliant good looking studs and babes?

Actually, I have always said "reason = virtue = happiness," that's not the same as "truth = virtue = happiness."

Stefan Molyneux:

Actually, I have always said "reason = virtue = happiness," that's not the same as "truth = virtue = happiness."

But don't you reason in order to find truth?

 I'd say its fairly important not to muddle the cause with the state personally.  I would really hesitate to confuse the two by placing equal signs and whatnot. 

I don't think its pedantic to say that a better phrase might be ''living by virtue and applying reason leads to an understanding of truth which should lead to happiness''  or something like that.

I'm busy working my way through 'stumbling on happiness' by Daniel Gilbert which I downloaded from Audible.com and it is wonderful and incisive as well as being witty and well read.  It has truly changed the way I view the 'emotion(s)' and state of happiness.  Which is an entirely subjective thing.  The book has a habit of turning my conceptions on its head and I'm only half way through.

pcrs:

Stefan Molyneux:

Actually, I have always said "reason = virtue = happiness," that's not the same as "truth = virtue = happiness."

But don't you reason in order to find truth?

Interesting post Pcrs! 

In my experience truth statements only go so far (assuming they're true.) For instance, if I say "I am depressed" and that is true, you aren't left with much. Reason helps us bridge cause and effect and bring light on multi-layered truths. Truth without reason falls flat; reason is what makes truth preferable - it creates prescription, shines light on what is virtue.

It is true that apples fall to the ground; but only reason can tell us why and how; only why and how can enlighten us... and happiness yaddad ya dayadasdaya....

pcrs:

Stefan Molyneux:

Actually, I have always said "reason = virtue = happiness," that's not the same as "truth = virtue = happiness."

But don't you reason in order to find truth?

No, that can be perceptual.

Stefan Molyneux:

pcrs:

 

But don't you reason in order to find truth?

No, that can be perceptual.

 

You can perceive the sun and the moon to be the same size, your eyes do not directly measure size like a tape measure does. Reason helps you to find truths that perception can not.

Seems to me that while it's certainly true that people can be "happy" living in an illusion, truth/reality will catch up eventually and make them unhappy.  Kind of almost like building up potential unhappiness.  The more deeply invested in the illusion, the deeper the unhappiness will be when the bubble bursts.  Doesn't always happen, of course.  They may get to live their entire lives in illusionary happiness and be none the wiser.  What then?  More power to them, I suppose.  And when you're not very deeply invested in a burst illusion, such as the "good" driver who ends up causing an accident, it's more easily shrugged off..  Just a thought..