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Happiness, 5.15 (V) Week 5 Video 11 - Going Spiritual

5.15 (V) Week 5 Video 11 - Going Spiritual

[MUSIC] Hola my friend, and welcome back. I got so tired of forgetting my password to all my online accounts that I changed them all to be incorrect. So now, whenever I forget my password, my computer reminds me by saying, your password is incorrect. [SOUND] Hola again, it's really good to see you. If there's one thing that many of my students are worried about before taking this course, it is that I'm gonna ask them to entertain some non-scientific beliefs. Even after I shared with them my definition of happiness, which is as you may remember from week one, is being joyful but not at the cost of rationality or compassion. Some of my students don't feel reassured. They feel that a discussion of God, or religion, or spirituality is just around the corner. And you will be happy, or perhaps you're gonna be unhappy, to know that we have turned that corner today in this course. In this video, I want to talk about how it might be useful to adopt what might be considered a spiritual attitude. The attitude that whatever happens is for the best. This attitude involves having an implicit trust in life, that you're taken care of. And that even if you're currently experiencing a seemingly negative outcome, you'll eventually grow out of it and learn and as a result lead a happier, more meaningful, more fulfilling life. Of course, I wanna very quickly add here that it may difficult to adopt this attitude for all events, and I certainly don't want to say that everyone should always adopt it. But, I just want to discuss in a calm and rational manner, what such an attitude could do for your happiness levels. I'm sure that you can instinctively see how such an implicit faith or trust in life is going to be very helpful in instilling the dispassionate pursuit of passion. When outcomes that appear negative happen, you'll spend far less time ruminating about them or wallowing in self-pity, you'll quickly bounce back and grab life by its horns again. In many ways the three strategies that I outlined in the previous video, the strategies of reminiscing about past events and realizing that if they turned out to be positive, so could the current negative events. The strategy of actively looking for doors of opportunity that negative events trigger through the practice of gratitude. And the strategy of three good things for the quest. They're all aimed at instilling an implicit trust in life. By putting those strategies into practice, you will discover that the hypothesis that life can be trusted and that everything happens for the best can't be completely ruled out. Just as the competing hypothesis, that life is totally indifferent to you or that life is maligned and can't be trusted, can't be ruled out either. It's precisely because none of these three hypotheses can be completely ruled out that I seldom get into a discussion or an argument with someone who holds an entirely different perspective on whether life is good, bad, ugly or indifferent. And now too, I'm honestly not going to try and convince you to adopt an attitude that life can be trusted and that everything happens for the best, if you're strongly opposed to that idea. But as a rational and scientifically-minded person I think you'd be interested in knowing why holding this view, that life can be trusted, is really no less scientific and no more delusional than is holding the view that life is indifferent or that life is malign. This reason in short has to do with placebo effects which refers to the idea that, in some context at least, our subjective beliefs about what the truth is shapes the objective truth. Consider the study done by Professor Donald Price from the University of Florida at Gainesville. In this study, patients with a condition called IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is a very painful stomach condition, were divided into three groups. In all three groups a balloon was blown up in the patients' rectums. These were clearly not happiness enhancing balloons. And after that, the patients were asked how painful this experience was. Before the balloon was blown, the patients in one group were given an anesthetic that mutes feelings. The pain experienced by this group, represented by the dotted line in the graph, was significantly lower than that experienced by the second group of patients, represented by the dark line, that wasn't given any anesthetic. The interesting group were the third group who were given a placebo, specifically Vaseline, and were told that they had been given something known to powerfully reduce pain in most people. As you can see from the graph, this set of patients experienced the least amount of pain. Even lower than that experienced by the group that got the anesthetic. To those of you who are familiar with placebo effects, these results won't come as a surprise. Placebo effects are so prevalent in medical contexts that, as you might know, any experiment or testing the effectiveness of a new drug involves comparing it with a controlled condition in which a placebo drug, like a sugar pill, is given to the patients. What this placebo effects findings tell you is that our beliefs can shape our reality. If you think that a pill is gonna cure a disease, there is an objectively greater chance that it will cure the disease than if you think that it's not gonna cure the disease. As it turns out, placebo effects are not restricted to medical contexts, they occur in other contexts as well. In marketing contexts findings show that if you believe that imbibing a particular drink will improve your cognitive skills, then they will. In the context of learning and intelligence, findings of Carol Dweck and her co-authors have shown that those who believe that intelligence levels can be enhanced are more likely to get smarter over time and more successful than those who believe that intelligence levels are fixed at whatever levels they are born with. What all of these findings share in common is that, in many contexts, our subjective beliefs can shape objective reality. I don't mean to suggest of course that every subjective belief shapes objective reality. For example, no matter how firmly you believe that the earth has two moons, that's not gonna change the objective reality. However, what's also true is that in many contexts there's no denying that our subjective beliefs do shape objective reality. And not acknowledging this fact is a grossly unscientific thing to do. With that kind of minimal background on placebo effects and its implications for what it means to be a scientific person or rational person, let me get to the question of what the most rational belief to have is about whether life can be trusted or not trusted. Is life benign, malign, or is neither? One's belief about life, it turns out, falls very firmly in the domain of placebo effects. That is, to a person who believes that life is benign and can be trusted, it turns out that life is benign and can be trusted. To a person who believes the opposite, that person too see evidence, ample evidence, ample support for the idea that life is malign and that if you aren't constantly watchful and vigilant, you'll get run over and screwed. And likewise, the person who's in the middle and sees life as indifferent, he or she too will find convincing support for his or her belief. So, there's no way to scientifically prove that one hypothesis, that life is benign or malign or indifferent, is more accurate or true than the other. However what is true, from a rational perspective, is that it is better to believe that life is benign and that it can be trusted, if your objective is to lead a life in which your happiness levels are enhanced. There are a lot of research findings that show that those who hold a positive, life is benign kind of attitude, those with a spiritual attitude towards life, are far happier than those who don't. Likewise, findings also show that those who consider themselves lucky generally experience more positive outcomes than those who think that they're unlucky. The researcher who's probably done the most amount of work on spirituality and health, both mental health and physical health, is Kenneth Pargament a professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. I'm gonna end this video by playing a clip of an interview with him. In my interview, I ask professor Pargament what he would say to someone who considers that having a spiritual inclination is an unscientific thing to do. Here's what he had to say, listen. » Well I think we all live our lives by faith. I'm not a scientist, I mean I'm not an engineer, but I get in a plane and I put my faith in the engineers who developed that plane and that that thing's gonna take off and land safely. I'm talking to you via computer and television, and I have no idea how this thing works, but I put my faith in it that it's not gonna explode and destroy us both. [LAUGH] So, we're only human, and we have to make some leaps of faith to live our lives. I can't speak to the ultimate truth of the sacred and the sense of whether there's something that actually exists that's sacred. We have no tools to measure God. If you came up with one, you would be winning a Nobel Prize. But we can look at what's called the footprints left by faith. And we can look at beliefs and perceptions and how they shape subsequent behavior. And generally, apart from my formal definition of spirituality, my more metaphorical definition of spirituality is that it's a way of seeing. It's a way of seeing or perceiving the world, being able to see or perceive the world in a deeper way, to see that there's more to reality than what meets the eye, there's a deeper dimension. And people who have that capacity to see more deeply, it seems to have a lot of benefits. They are able to have a sense that there's a greater meaning than what's on the surface. So if there's a greater meaning then just living and dying, that suffering may have a greater meaning. That relationships, there's something more to them to just people meeting each other's biological and psychological needs. That people are more than what we see as the eye, they have souls, they have spirits. That the world is more than just a place that you live and die in, but that it's something that we need to perfect and improve. So this capacity to see more deeply, I think has lots of implication for happiness, and health, and well-being. Now, we can't really measure the ultimate truth of what that rests on, be it a god or some ultimately true, sacred being. But I think there's a lot of evidence that at least that capacity to see more deeply is an important part of happiness, and maybe a necessary part of happiness. » So as you just heard, Professor Pargament argues that being spiritual just means having the ability to see that there's more to the picture than meets the eye. And as he states, those who have this capacity are likely to be happier than those who don't. What's interesting to me that even a hardcore atheist like Sam Harris, who came out with a very great book called Waking Up recently, would agree with both of these statements, that being spiritual means having the ability to see beyond superficial reality and also that this ability to see beyond superficial reality has a lot to do with happiness. With those deep set of thoughts, let me bid you goodbye til the next video in which I'm gonna have Katherine imparting to you the instructions for the sixth happiness exercise. Three good things with a twist. See you soon. [MUSIC]


5.15 (V) Week 5 Video 11 - Going Spiritual

[MUSIC] Hola my friend, and welcome back. I got so tired of forgetting my password to all my online accounts that I changed them all to be incorrect. So now, whenever I forget my password, my computer reminds me by saying, your password is incorrect. [SOUND] Hola again, it's really good to see you. If there's one thing that many of my students are worried about before taking this course, it is that I'm gonna ask them to entertain some non-scientific beliefs. Even after I shared with them my definition of happiness, which is as you may remember from week one, is being joyful but not at the cost of rationality or compassion. Some of my students don't feel reassured. They feel that a discussion of God, or religion, or spirituality is just around the corner. And you will be happy, or perhaps you're gonna be unhappy, to know that we have turned that corner today in this course. In this video, I want to talk about how it might be useful to adopt what might be considered a spiritual attitude. The attitude that whatever happens is for the best. This attitude involves having an implicit trust in life, that you're taken care of. And that even if you're currently experiencing a seemingly negative outcome, you'll eventually grow out of it and learn and as a result lead a happier, more meaningful, more fulfilling life. Of course, I wanna very quickly add here that it may difficult to adopt this attitude for all events, and I certainly don't want to say that everyone should always adopt it. But, I just want to discuss in a calm and rational manner, what such an attitude could do for your happiness levels. I'm sure that you can instinctively see how such an implicit faith or trust in life is going to be very helpful in instilling the dispassionate pursuit of passion. When outcomes that appear negative happen, you'll spend far less time ruminating about them or wallowing in self-pity, you'll quickly bounce back and grab life by its horns again. In many ways the three strategies that I outlined in the previous video, the strategies of reminiscing about past events and realizing that if they turned out to be positive, so could the current negative events. The strategy of actively looking for doors of opportunity that negative events trigger through the practice of gratitude. And the strategy of three good things for the quest. They're all aimed at instilling an implicit trust in life. By putting those strategies into practice, you will discover that the hypothesis that life can be trusted and that everything happens for the best can't be completely ruled out. Just as the competing hypothesis, that life is totally indifferent to you or that life is maligned and can't be trusted, can't be ruled out either. It's precisely because none of these three hypotheses can be completely ruled out that I seldom get into a discussion or an argument with someone who holds an entirely different perspective on whether life is good, bad, ugly or indifferent. And now too, I'm honestly not going to try and convince you to adopt an attitude that life can be trusted and that everything happens for the best, if you're strongly opposed to that idea. But as a rational and scientifically-minded person I think you'd be interested in knowing why holding this view, that life can be trusted, is really no less scientific and no more delusional than is holding the view that life is indifferent or that life is malign. This reason in short has to do with placebo effects which refers to the idea that, in some context at least, our subjective beliefs about what the truth is shapes the objective truth. Consider the study done by Professor Donald Price from the University of Florida at Gainesville. In this study, patients with a condition called IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is a very painful stomach condition, were divided into three groups. In all three groups a balloon was blown up in the patients' rectums. These were clearly not happiness enhancing balloons. And after that, the patients were asked how painful this experience was. Before the balloon was blown, the patients in one group were given an anesthetic that mutes feelings. The pain experienced by this group, represented by the dotted line in the graph, was significantly lower than that experienced by the second group of patients, represented by the dark line, that wasn't given any anesthetic. The interesting group were the third group who were given a placebo, specifically Vaseline, and were told that they had been given something known to powerfully reduce pain in most people. As you can see from the graph, this set of patients experienced the least amount of pain. Even lower than that experienced by the group that got the anesthetic. To those of you who are familiar with placebo effects, these results won't come as a surprise. Placebo effects are so prevalent in medical contexts that, as you might know, any experiment or testing the effectiveness of a new drug involves comparing it with a controlled condition in which a placebo drug, like a sugar pill, is given to the patients. What this placebo effects findings tell you is that our beliefs can shape our reality. If you think that a pill is gonna cure a disease, there is an objectively greater chance that it will cure the disease than if you think that it's not gonna cure the disease. As it turns out, placebo effects are not restricted to medical contexts, they occur in other contexts as well. In marketing contexts findings show that if you believe that imbibing a particular drink will improve your cognitive skills, then they will. In the context of learning and intelligence, findings of Carol Dweck and her co-authors have shown that those who believe that intelligence levels can be enhanced are more likely to get smarter over time and more successful than those who believe that intelligence levels are fixed at whatever levels they are born with. What all of these findings share in common is that, in many contexts, our subjective beliefs can shape objective reality. I don't mean to suggest of course that every subjective belief shapes objective reality. For example, no matter how firmly you believe that the earth has two moons, that's not gonna change the objective reality. However, what's also true is that in many contexts there's no denying that our subjective beliefs do shape objective reality. And not acknowledging this fact is a grossly unscientific thing to do. With that kind of minimal background on placebo effects and its implications for what it means to be a scientific person or rational person, let me get to the question of what the most rational belief to have is about whether life can be trusted or not trusted. Is life benign, malign, or is neither? One's belief about life, it turns out, falls very firmly in the domain of placebo effects. That is, to a person who believes that life is benign and can be trusted, it turns out that life is benign and can be trusted. To a person who believes the opposite, that person too see evidence, ample evidence, ample support for the idea that life is malign and that if you aren't constantly watchful and vigilant, you'll get run over and screwed. And likewise, the person who's in the middle and sees life as indifferent, he or she too will find convincing support for his or her belief. So, there's no way to scientifically prove that one hypothesis, that life is benign or malign or indifferent, is more accurate or true than the other. However what is true, from a rational perspective, is that it is better to believe that life is benign and that it can be trusted, if your objective is to lead a life in which your happiness levels are enhanced. There are a lot of research findings that show that those who hold a positive, life is benign kind of attitude, those with a spiritual attitude towards life, are far happier than those who don't. Likewise, findings also show that those who consider themselves lucky generally experience more positive outcomes than those who think that they're unlucky. The researcher who's probably done the most amount of work on spirituality and health, both mental health and physical health, is Kenneth Pargament a professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. I'm gonna end this video by playing a clip of an interview with him. In my interview, I ask professor Pargament what he would say to someone who considers that having a spiritual inclination is an unscientific thing to do. Here's what he had to say, listen. » Well I think we all live our lives by faith. I'm not a scientist, I mean I'm not an engineer, but I get in a plane and I put my faith in the engineers who developed that plane and that that thing's gonna take off and land safely. I'm talking to you via computer and television, and I have no idea how this thing works, but I put my faith in it that it's not gonna explode and destroy us both. [LAUGH] So, we're only human, and we have to make some leaps of faith to live our lives. I can't speak to the ultimate truth of the sacred and the sense of whether there's something that actually exists that's sacred. We have no tools to measure God. If you came up with one, you would be winning a Nobel Prize. But we can look at what's called the footprints left by faith. And we can look at beliefs and perceptions and how they shape subsequent behavior. And generally, apart from my formal definition of spirituality, my more metaphorical definition of spirituality is that it's a way of seeing. It's a way of seeing or perceiving the world, being able to see or perceive the world in a deeper way, to see that there's more to reality than what meets the eye, there's a deeper dimension. And people who have that capacity to see more deeply, it seems to have a lot of benefits. They are able to have a sense that there's a greater meaning than what's on the surface. So if there's a greater meaning then just living and dying, that suffering may have a greater meaning. That relationships, there's something more to them to just people meeting each other's biological and psychological needs. That people are more than what we see as the eye, they have souls, they have spirits. That the world is more than just a place that you live and die in, but that it's something that we need to perfect and improve. So this capacity to see more deeply, I think has lots of implication for happiness, and health, and well-being. Now, we can't really measure the ultimate truth of what that rests on, be it a god or some ultimately true, sacred being. But I think there's a lot of evidence that at least that capacity to see more deeply is an important part of happiness, and maybe a necessary part of happiness. » So as you just heard, Professor Pargament argues that being spiritual just means having the ability to see that there's more to the picture than meets the eye. And as he states, those who have this capacity are likely to be happier than those who don't. What's interesting to me that even a hardcore atheist like Sam Harris, who came out with a very great book called Waking Up recently, would agree with both of these statements, that being spiritual means having the ability to see beyond superficial reality and also that this ability to see beyond superficial reality has a lot to do with happiness. With those deep set of thoughts, let me bid you goodbye til the next video in which I'm gonna have Katherine imparting to you the instructions for the sixth happiness exercise. Three good things with a twist. See you soon. [MUSIC]