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(For the "meaning and self-realization" side of things one should check out transpersonal psychology. Here's an abridged version of William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience".)
I believe it's more mundane than that. From what I've read, eudaimonic well-being (aka life satisfaction) is measured by self-report tests (eg. "How satisfied are you with your life?")
Yep, me too. I don't think that's a problem, though. The content is practically an annotated bibliography, which needs to be there to substantiate the summary but doesn't need to be read unless you really want to.
Still, I argue that you should read the bulk of the post. Reading just the summary may be like just reading the synopsis of a movie (if I may be so hubristic! :) instead of watching it. You 'get' the idea but you don't appreciate it as much, and it doesn't stick with you as much as if you watched it. Less mental associations.
And to be more specific, you will miss, among other things, the supporting argument (aside from the obvious) for why you should make a point of avoiding bad experiences. Perhaps I should have included it in the summary.
In response to
Be Happier
Gut reaction: Working out has an externality. Muscle tone applies a cost on others who must devote more of their time (which can be measured in dollars, by the way) toward the positional signalling game of fitness. Does this mean we should avoid conspicuous health?
Second reaction: I don't like this advice. Maybe I value other goals higher than happiness.
The term "conspicuous consumption" is commonly applied to displays of (financial) wealth; the recommendation to avoid conspicuous consumption does not imply that you should avoid all forms of conspicuous superiority. I'm not sure that fitness-as-status is so closely analogous to wealth-as-status.
In response to
Be Happier
This isn't a fault of the post per se, but I wish there wasn't so damn much equivocation on the word "happiness". I know what sadness, contempt, contentment, rapture, &c. are—introspectively they strike me as a rather distinct states. But "happiness" means like ten or fifteen different things that are only somewhat related to each other. (FWIW smiling makes me feel bitter-sweet, not happy, so this might be an undue generalization from one example.)
Also, at least many kinds of happiness are measures of value, not ends in themselves, and so chasing after them specifically is getting dangerously close to wireheading or the problems of Goodhart's law more generally.
As for your second paragraph — I'm not certain, but I think it's rational to treat happiness as a maximand. Is your objection not addressed by the sections "Optimal Happification" and "Happiness Interventions Work!" ?
In response to
Be Happier
This isn't a fault of the post per se, but I wish there wasn't so damn much equivocation on the word "happiness". I know what sadness, contempt, contentment, rapture, &c. are—introspectively they strike me as a rather distinct states. But "happiness" means like ten or fifteen different things that are only somewhat related to each other. (FWIW smiling makes me feel bitter-sweet, not happy, so this might be an undue generalization from one example.)
Also, at least many kinds of happiness are measures of value, not ends in themselves, and so chasing after them specifically is getting dangerously close to wireheading or the problems of Goodhart's law more generally.
Re Equivocation: Good point. The important distinction seems to be between hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being.
Found on the web:
Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary.
The thrust of this post is mostly for hedonic well-being (or 'experienced happiness').
Evidently almost everybody, since nobody has pointed out the broken link here:
"This research also supports the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions by demonstrating that higher levels of happiness may expand an individual’s mindset to include thoughts of others."
Which is a pity, because I thought the meat of the post added a lot to the (already completely awesome!) summary.
(Also: there's a broken link.)
ETA: Also, I see a lot of references to "(Aaker et al 2010)" throughout the post- is that the same as "(Aaker, Rudd, & Mogilner, 2010)," which is only cited once?
Fixed and fixed! How do you have such sharp eyes.
I thought the meat of the post added a lot to the (already completely awesome!) summary.
Yes, and I don't learn well from outline-summaries only. I imagine that I would not gain much if I had read only the summary up top. The just-acquired lessons would quickly dissipate without the examples and explanations to reinforce them.
In response to
Be Happier
Well done!
Learn about the science of happiness. Internalize the lessons in this article and in here.
The link at the end of this sentence is broken.
Yes, it most certainly doesn't belong here. Move it to main please author! (Whereupon Eliezer should promote it.)
1 karma point to go :)
eta: I have 19 karma at the moment.
I anticipate expressing free-floating beliefs would get me negative karma on Less Wrong.
More seriously:
I do not anticipate free-floating beliefs being useful in the same sense that maps of reality are useful. A map can turn out to be accurate or inaccurate, and insofar as it is accurate it can help me navigate and manipulate reality. My belief that "a proper belief should not be free-floating" prohibits free-floating beliefs from doing any of that.
Or one might as well see it as not a belief, but as a definition. There's BeliefType1 which is grounded in reality, and BeliefType2 which is not, and we happen to call BeliefType1 a "proper belief". (Of course we still do it for a reason, because we care about our sheep, or rather, we care about our beliefs being true and thus useful.)
Not sure which approach makes more sense.
The ability to anticipate experiences is one of our maximands because we have goals that are optimally achieved with this ability. To believe that beliefs should allow us to anticipate experiences is grounded in the desire to achieve our goals.
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It's the same reasoning as the "avoid conspicuous consumption" lemma, and it could also be applied to education-as-status, lawncare-as-status, fashion-as-status, art-as-status or karma-as-status. Maybe the lesson could be rewritten as "Conspicuous Consumption has Costs on Others"? That seems like an unbiased reading of that study.
But I'm not even sure if I agree with that. If conspicuous consumption encourages others to become productive members of society out of envy, then it has its societal benefits.
You seem to be saying that the rules of the game of wealth-as-status are the same as those for fitness-as-status, to take one of your examples. But this is not at all clear to me. Wealth can be stolen and given away. Wealth can be amassed. Fitness is accessible to most people in a way that wealth is not.
I'd say that it is an overgeneralization of the findings.