MIND GAMES
Thinking of the future is a constant with the human brain, yet misperceptions prevent realistic expectations
BY DOUG FRENCH
Nothing is more human than the pursuit of happiness. Each and every one of us engages in this activity, either consciously or unconscientiously. But how much do we really know about what makes us happy? It's not as simple as you think.
In his new book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert delves into the human mind, describing how our imaginations and foresights cause us to misconceive the future and miscalculate what will satisfy us.
Although a psychology professor at Harvard, Gilbert's book is very readable and written in a breezy style that makes the author seem like a normal Joe sitting next to us at our neighborhood bar, philosophically musing about the elusiveness of happiness and the human condition.
Gilbert begins with the notion that humans are the only animals that think about the future. He points out that other animals sometimes act like they think about the future, but in an example of the author's wit, Gilbert writes: "But as bald men with cheap hairpieces always seem to forget, acting as though you have something and actually having it are not the same thing, and anyone who looks closely can tell the difference."
It is this thinking about the future that is the platform to considering happiness. Since humans constantly think about the future and what their lives will be like - yet don't have the ability to predict the future - the brain fills in the blanks as to what the future will be and what will make us happy. Unfortunately, our brains make mistakes and are fooled by misperceptions.
The human brain started out less than half the size of the current three-pound version. The brain grew mainly in the frontal lobe area. The frontal lobe is the area of the brain that allows us to plan for the future. That's the good news. The bad news: it's the area of the brain that generates anxiety and depression. The two are likely related. "This frontal lobe - the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age - is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens," Gilbert explains.
Humans love to escape the present, activate their frontal lobes and dream of the future. That's when the mind starts playing tricks on us. When bad events are anticipated, the brain will imagine terrible feelings to result. When the events occur as anticipated, the result often doesn't seem so bad, because the brain prepares us for it. Unexpected bad occurrences tend to aggravate us more, because the brain hasn't had a chance to prepare us.
The brain tends to misperceive past events and since the brain can only use the past and the present to predict the future, these predictions are faulty. And as the brain improves the impact of unpleasant events, it also changes the impact of pleasant events. It will surprise no one who does employee evaluations that studies show that people believe that they are smarter, better looking, better employees and more motivated than they really are. Our frontal lobes make us look at ourselves with rose-colored glasses. No wonder people often keep making the same mistakes, whether making bad career decisions, picking bad investments or bad partners. Our brains provide convenient rationalizations for anything. "To learn from our experience we must remember it, and for a variety of reasons, memory is a faithless friend," Gilbert writes.
Imagination has three shortcomings, the author explains: it tends to fill in and leave out details without us knowing it; it projects the present onto the future; and it doesn't take into account that things will look different once they actually happen.
So with all this faulty wiring we have, what should we do in imagining the future and working toward happiness? Gilbert suggests that we drop our imaginations and consult others who are now experiencing what we are contemplating. Unfortunately, humans won't do this. We all believe that we are unique and that we can't learn from the experience of others. We think basing predictions on our imaginations, no matter how faulty, is better than learning from another person's experience. Another cruel joke our frontal lobes play on us.
So we are stuck, but at least now we know. As Gilbert concludes, "If our great big brains do not allow us to go surefootedly into our futures, they at least allow us to understand what makes us stumble." LW
Doug French, associate editor of Liberty Watch: The Magazine, is an executive vice president of a Nevada bank. He is the 2005 recipient of the Murray N. Rothbard Award from the Center for Libertarian Studies.
