You seem to contradict yourself. Other than (A) and (B), are there any other things that can make me happy? If not, then you seem to be arguing that evolved human brain-nature does in fact help me become happy.
What I'm saying is that the machinery is better at answering concrete questions relating to these matters, than abstract ones. To our abstract thinking machinery, it seems like there should be no logical difference between "what will make me happy?" and A) "what kind of world do I want to live in?" or B) "what kind of person do I want to be?"
However, as the saying goes, the difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there's no difference, but in practice, there is. ;-)
I assume you mean preferred for various genes' survival.
No, I meant, "preferred", as in "what would you prefer?" Not your genes. (Your genes already have another level of control over what sort of preferences you're able to learn, but that's not relevant to the issue at hand.)
I do think it's fine to ask of my present state "am I happy (in other words, how do I feel)?", and to wonder "what will make me happier if I get it?"
This is another one of those seemingly nitpicky things that actually makes a difference: try asking what you want, not what will make you happier. (Also, what you feel, not whether you're happy.)
The problem with asking "am I happy" is that it discards information that would be useful to you about what you do feel, in favor of a one-bit, yes-or-no answer. (At minimum, knowing the difference between the broad non-happy categories of sad, afraid, and mad would be good!)
Next, the problem with "what will make me happier" is that it presupposes ("have you stopped beating your wife?"-style) that there is something that will "make" you happy, as though it's something you don't have any control over. Essentially, the question itself is continually re-priming the idea that you are not in control of your happiness!
Keep that up, and pretty soon you'll be thinking things like:
I'm mostly limited
Oops. Too late. ;-)
Truth be told, the question is more a symptom than a cause; I'm not saying you feel limited or stuck because you asked the question, so much as that the question is both an expression and reinforcement of the stuckness you already feel.
To change your answers, change your questions! (And be aware of what those questions are priming, because the questions you habitually ask yourself are the #1 source of priming affecting your thought processes and emotions.)
In contrast, asking "what do I want?" carries a different prime, by implying that what you want matters, and that you intend to go after it and get it. It also does not call for your brain to figure anything out. Either you want a thing or you do not; there is nothing to "figure out" or strategize. Simply tell the truth about what you do or do not want, do or do not know whether you want. Repeat telling the truth until you know.
"What do I want?" is a question about the current state of reality, in other words, and you can keep asking it as much as you want. The answers may change over time, but that's okay, because that's the truth. You need not expect one answer or "the" answer, because there is no one answer.
"What will make me happy(er)?" is problematic precisely because it causes you to think that there is a problem to be solved, a riddle to be answered or a puzzle to be figured out. It engages the parts of your brain that solve that kind of question, but which have absolutely no idea what you want.
That's why I said the questions matter: because it makes a huge difference which parts of your brain are engaged in finding the answer, and therefore what kind of answers you will get.
It feels like you're obsessed with the specific words I've used to express a line of introspection/deciding/planning, as if I'm going to verbally ask myself a question, and parts of me will react very superficially to the phrasing. I don't think I need to worry about it, because when I think about something in depth, I really think about it. If I'm really thinking, then it doesn't matter what words I use to describe the topic.
However, I am in general willing to experiment with priming tricks, because it's true that I can't afford to think deeply all the ...
Reply to: A "Failure to Evaluate Return-on-Time" Fallacy
Lionhearted writes:
Why will a randomly chosen eight-year-old fail a calculus test? Because most possible answers are wrong, and there is no force to guide him to the correct answers. (There is no need to postulate a “fear of success”; most ways writing or not writing on a calculus test constitute failure, and so people, and rocks, fail calculus tests by default.)
Why do most of us, most of the time, choose to "pursue our goals" through routes that are far less effective than the routes we could find if we tried?[1] My guess is that here, as with the calculus test, the main problem is that most courses of action are extremely ineffective, and that there has been no strong evolutionary or cultural force sufficient to focus us on the very narrow behavior patterns that would actually be effective.
To be more specific: there are clearly at least some limited senses in which we have goals. We: (1) tell ourselves and others stories of how we’re aiming for various “goals”; (2) search out modes of activity that are consistent with the role, and goal-seeking, that we see ourselves as doing (“learning math”; “becoming a comedian”; “being a good parent”); and sometimes even (3) feel glad or disappointed when we do/don’t achieve our “goals”.
But there are clearly also heuristics that would be useful to goal-achievement (or that would be part of what it means to “have goals” at all) that we do not automatically carry out. We do not automatically:
.... or carry out any number of other useful techniques. Instead, we mostly just do things. We act from habit; we act from impulse or convenience when primed by the activities in front of us; we remember our goal and choose an action that feels associated with our goal. We do any number of things. But we do not systematically choose the narrow sets of actions that would effectively optimize for our claimed goals, or for any other goals.
Why? Most basically, because humans are only just on the cusp of general intelligence. Perhaps 5% of the population has enough abstract reasoning skill to verbally understand that the above heuristics would be useful once these heuristics are pointed out. That is not at all the same as the ability to automatically implement these heuristics. Our verbal, conversational systems are much better at abstract reasoning than are the motivational systems that pull our behavior. I have enough abstract reasoning ability to understand that I’m safe on the glass floor of a tall building, or that ice cream is not healthy, or that exercise furthers my goals... but this doesn’t lead to an automatic updating of the reward gradients that, absent rare and costly conscious overrides, pull my behavior. I can train my automatic systems, for example by visualizing ice cream as disgusting and artery-clogging and yucky, or by walking across the glass floor often enough to persuade my brain that I can’t fall through the floor... but systematically training one’s motivational systems in this way is also not automatic for us. And so it seems far from surprising that most of us have not trained ourselves in this way, and that most of our “goal-seeking” actions are far less effective than they could be.
Still, I’m keen to train. I know people who are far more strategic than I am, and there seem to be clear avenues for becoming far more strategic than they are. It also seems that having goals, in a much more pervasive sense than (1)-(3), is part of what “rational” should mean, will help us achieve what we care about, and hasn't been taught in much detail on LW.
So, to second Lionhearted's questions: does this analysis seem right? Have some of you trained yourselves to be substantially more strategic, or goal-achieving, than you started out? How did you do it? Do you agree with (a)-(h) above? Do you have some good heuristics to add? Do you have some good ideas for how to train yourself in such heuristics?
[1] For example, why do many people go through long training programs “to make money” without spending a few hours doing salary comparisons ahead of time? Why do many who type for hours a day remain two-finger typists, without bothering with a typing tutor program? Why do people spend their Saturdays “enjoying themselves” without bothering to track which of their habitual leisure activities are *actually* enjoyable? Why do even unusually numerate people fear illness, car accidents, and bogeymen, and take safety measures, but not bother to look up statistics on the relative risks? Why do most of us settle into a single, stereotyped mode of studying, writing, social interaction, or the like, without trying alternatives to see if they work better -- even when such experiments as we have tried have sometimes given great boosts?