As we progress through life, we stand in lines, fight traffic, and perform a variety of mundane chores from grocery shopping to taking out the trash. Yet, amid the clamor of daily life with its pressures and intensity, we typically spend lots of time dreaming - imagining a wonderful home, a favorite friend, a fun vacation, or just a quiet weekend. These are fun thoughts, joyful thoughts, which sustain us and revitalize us amid the hectic pace and constant worries of normal life. These thoughts are a haven we seek because they bring some measure of happiness.
Sometimes we even compare our fanciful dreams to our current life. We stop and ask ourselves how well our lives are going:
Seemingly not as "heady" as some philosophical questions, but certainly more important to us, these questions occur periodically over the years and bear heavily upon our overall satisfaction with life. For with satisfaction comes an inner glow, a warmth, a feeling of well-being and happiness. And though we may have many names for it, this feeling is what we seek. In all of its guises and names, ultimately, we seek happiness.Am I enjoying my work?
Does my spouse love me?
Are my kids growing up properly?
Am I reaching my goals?
Aristotle focused upon this point thousands of years ago recognizing that we usually have an ulterior motive for all of our behaviors. For example, do you own a vehicle - perhaps a car or truck? Why did you get it? For a large majority of us, a prime reason is to go "to" and "from" work. "Ah!" would be Aristotle's reply, "An ulterior motive!" If he were alive today, he would continue his questioning with, "Why do you work?" "I need money to live, of course!" would be the reply. "I need money for food and a home." Again, Aristotle would pursue the issue: "Why do you want a home?" These seemingly endless questions may begin to annoy us, but Aristotle was convinced that they were NOT endless. What's more, they always ended at the same place. Why do we want a home? Because it provides protection from bad weather and intruders. Why do we seek protection from bad weather and intruders? Because they can hurt us, and we avoid "hurt" which feels "bad." If we avoid feeling bad, what do we seek instead? The answer would be the opposite - we seek feeling "good", and "happiness" is the epitome of feeling good. We seek feeling good and avoid feeling bad. Aristotle knew that all of our behaviors could be chased down to our desire to feel good. Aristotle called it "happiness," and he declared it an "ultimate end." It is not a means to something else, it is an end in and of itself:
"Now such a thing happiness ... we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else (;) ... honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself." - from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (McKeon, 1947, pg. 317)
HEDONISM
Many may fear that this
promotes the most base and crass form of hedonism, called cyrenaicism, whereby
immediate and animal pleasures are promoted. This is not true. The approach is
eudaemonistic, from the Greek eudaimonia meaning "well-being":
"Happiness or 'well-being,' not pleasure, is the highest good. Pleasure is fleeting and unstable; happiness is precisely the attainment of a basic stabilty." - from PHILOSOPHY: An Introduction (Randall, et al, 1942, pg. 258)Please note Aristotle's comment about "every virtue we choose indeed for themselves. According to Aristotle any philosophy or religion promoting self-sacrifice or duty to humanity still conforms to the happiness rule. To what end are the sufferings being endured? What is to be accomplished? More suffering? Eternal suffering??!! All sacrifices anticipate a relief at the end. This relief is proclaimed as providing well-being or peace of mind. Are these not virtually synonymous with happiness? Are we not happy when our worries are gone and our minds are upon peaceful or beautiful thoughts? Hard work, pain, or sacrifice in the near term in order to achieve greater happiness later is wholly consistent with Aristotle's premise.
If happiness and well-being are so important to us, if we truly want to enjoy life to the fullest, then it would seem that understanding this elusive creature, "happiness", and learning how it operates would benefit us immensely. Yet, it appears that every time we try to figure out what happiness is, it slips away into hiding. Many artists will corroborate this saying that the best way to kill happiness is to analyze it. The unfortunate truth is that trying to understand what is most important in our lives is painful and, perhaps, futile. It's like grabbing a handful of water while under the hot sun - what doesn't slip through your fingers quickly evaporates as you study it. So, what alternatives are there? How else can this elusive creature be better understood?
PURPOSE
Perhaps Donald "Red"
Blanchard had an appropriate idea. In describing how to hammer a nail,
he noted that one of the best ways to avoid hitting your thumb with the
hammer is to have someone else hold the nail. Similarly, perhaps the best
way to understand happiness is to let someone else go through the pain of
figuring it out. Herein are the results of just that - others trying to
figure out how the mind, the brain, and emotions work. Pieced together into
in a composite theory of mind and emotions entitled, Emotive Energy,
are the works and ideas of major researchers and theorists such as Bernard Baars,
Walter Cannon, Gregg Henriques, Victor Johnston, Stuart Kauffman,
Abraham Maslow, Robert Plutchik, B.F. Skinner, Richard Solomon and
many others. Emotive Energy crosses may fields and boundaries and relies
heavily upon thermodynamics, biology, psychology, and especially economics.
It is a thermo-psychonomic theory.
Fundamentally, Emotive Energy asserts that life is a "feeling," and the primary goal for any living organism is "the fulfillment of the feeling of life." If anything is good, LIFE must be good. And feeling good is life's mainstay. As we live, we see, hear, touch, taste, smell ... and we feel. We sense something inside, the "stirrings of our hearts," a "wrenching in our guts," an inner "glow" or warmth. This feeling, in turn, must stem from energy - life's energy. We sense energy flowing within us, and we know we are alive. We can feel it. It is paramount to us. The feeling of happiness is the feeling of life surging within us. And it feels GREAT!
Yet, life is a fragile commodity, and it's energies must be conserved and used only to our advantage. Packaged by evolution into a system of organs and bones and a brain with thoughts and emotions, a person can produce only a limited amount of energy at a time. Only so much work can be achieved within a moment. If we are to invest our precious time and energy in any endeavor, we need to get something back. We must get a gain, an advantage, a return on our investment. And this return must be a sense of well-being, a feeling of happiness - life surging within us. We need it. We seek it.
Let us embark upon the journey ...
So, what does happiness have to do with the brain and the mind? Everything. And what does the brain and the mind have to do with "systems," "thermodynamics," and "evolution?" Everything! In order to gain a deeper knowledge of happiness, then an understanding of life, the mind, and emotions is essential. In turn, to grasp these, an appreciation of the forces which sculpted them is crucial. Once this knowledge is acquired, it should be easier to recognize and understand these natural forces at work within us. Using our own feelings for personal guidance would also then become a tool for seeking a more satisfying career, for better understanding of our friends and family, and for increasing our enjoyment and fulfillment in life.
SYSTEMS
On our road to understanding
happiness, perhaps a good place to start is even further back from the brain
and the mind to our very existence itself. Most of us believe that, if nothing
else, we exist. As René Descartes remarked, cogito ergo sum, "I think,
therefore I am." Yet more than just existing, we believe that we can experience
some measure of happiness. For most of us, happiness, as fleeting as it may seem,
lasts long enough for us to recognize it, to feel it.
An important question is what allows life or happiness, or anything for that matter, to last for any amount of time? What allows something to last for even the briefest of moments? We must assume that something holds it together. Some force (or forces) is binding together whatever exists. Whether it be a river, a mountain, or you and your family, forces maintain existence of these things across time.
Mountains appear to be the most stable and permanent part of our environment. Though buffeted by winds and rain, and tormented by snow and ice, mountains appear to survive undaunted. I have looked upon Pikes Peak almost daily for close to twenty years, and no appreciable change has occurred. It looks the same today as it did twenty years ago and the same as in photographs from almost a century ago. Though I know that gravel has washed down its slopes into rivers and off toward the ocean, such change is miniscule and imperceptible. As I stare at this impressive monolith, clearly something holds it together. Surely, it cannot be the wind and rain which attack it. The strength of this granitic giant must come from within. Though the elements chisel away at the exterior, powerful and rigid internal forces must hold the bulk of the mountain together - moment after moment, century after century.
Yet even though a mountain eventually crumbles, some of its building blocks still hold together. I hold in my hand a rock of Pikes Peak granite about the size of my fist. I can toss it in the air, drop it on the floor, and it still retains its shape. Something holds it together from within. And even if this rock is reduced to sand over the eons, grains of sand will still survive and rise again into plateaus only to be washed down to the valleys and then rise again. As small as these crystals may be, something rigid and internal binds their atoms together and allows them to endure even longer than the mountains which spawned them.
A river, on the other hand, seems to have no rigid, internal structure; it is held in place by outside forces - its banks, for one. In other words, it is held together by something external. Since the banks do not envelope the river, another external force must help hold it in place - the force of gravity. Moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, these external forces, the banks and gravity, keep nudging water into the course of the river. Granted, some change occurs across time as Heraclitus pointed out, we never step into the same river twice - the sand drifts, the mud shifts, the banks erode. Yet, despite these changes, something about the river stays the same and allows us to give it a name - the Rhein, the Mississippi, the Yangtze, the Amazon, the Nile.
We, too, have something holding us together repeatedly from moment to moment, day after day, year after year. Sure, we change just as the river does - we grow taller and older, then our hair turns grey and our skin wrinkles. Yet, when we look in the mirror, we still acknowledge some tie from our birth until now which spurs us to say, "It is I." Something intrinsic within has held us together for all of the years. We generally call this "something" a force of nature. Whether created by happenstance or by God, we believe that forces of nature have bound us essentially into the same being. And it is these natural forces holding us and the rivers together, holding the mountains upward into the sky, allowing tiny grains of sand to endure, that allows us to exist - moment after moment after moment after moment.
Whenever anything has held together repeatedly from moment to moment by natural forces, we denote it as systematic -
SYSTEM: "A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. " (Lexico, 2001)A system is any repeated interaction, and this repetition may be shepherded by natural forces from both within and without the system. Mountains are systematically held together from within. Rivers are systematically held together from without. Thus, mountains are systems, and rivers are systems. Even living creatures are systematic:
"The organism is conceived of as characteristically an energy system, storing energy and releasing it in activity of one form or another." (Elizabeth Duffy, 1962. pg. viii)Thus, plants are systems. Animals are system. We are systems. Everything in our world is systematic. But this is hardly a new idea:
"... the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round ... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours ... Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves." (Black Elk, 1863-1950, Lakota Holy Man)Finally, even our emotions and "happiness" must have a systematic basis. At least, we must hope so. If we are to ever feel joy again, we must believe that it can be repeated. We must believe that joy CAN happen again. If we seek it, if we hope for it, if we believe in it, it must have a repeatable, systematic basis.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
Can we know anything else about a system which could help us? I believe
that systems retain their identity from other systems - A mountain is
not a river, a rock is not a bird, a bird is not a thunderclap, and a
thunderclap is not you. The keyword here is "not." It is by the use
of "not" that we find difference. That which IS part of the repeating
interactions IS part of the system. That which is NOT part of the
repetitions is NOT part of the system. For instance, the water of the
Mississippi River is still part of its systematic nature as it passes
the states of Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. When it dumps
into the Gulf of Mexico, the water changes its identity from river to
ocean. At that point it is no longer (or "not") a part of the
Mississippi River.
Once we accept that some things are part of a system and others are not, then we have implied two general areas: one being part of the system and one being NOT part of the system. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the former as "internal" and the latter as "external." Anything which is part of a system is internal to it; anything which is not part of a system is external to it.
Why do I belabor this point? Because the most profound and elemental factor of the design of life, the brain, and emotions is the "internal/external" separation factor. For any living creature to survive, it must be "aware" of external hazards and respond to them. It must "manage" the external environment. Similarly, it must be able to detect internal problems and respond to them as well. In this case, it must "manage" the internal environment. We are on a path which will lead to two fundamental biological and psychological systems: an internal control system (Parasympathetic Nervous System) and an external control system (Sympathetic Nervous System). These two systems conjoin to form the larger system we call a living being. In higher order creatures, consciousness is part of the external control system, and emotions are a key component of it. The brain, in turn, is responsible for managing all systems - internal and external control systems - and alternating between them as needed.
If any system is to retain its identity, the forces binding it together must not be disrupted. Once disruption occurs, the identity either degrades, disintegrates, or both. A familiar example to almost anyone is popping a soap bubble. By disrupting the cohesion of a bubble with something sharp, the bubble bursts and disintegrates leaving nothing but some remnant soap film. The identity of "soap bubble" disappears.
In a general way, we, too, are like soap bubbles since piercing our exterior can lead to our own destruction. Many weapons of war throughout the centuries have relied upon sharp and pointed designs - spears, swords, daggers, and pikes - which have long been known to be lethal. But the underlying principle of a sharp, pointed weapon is by no means a human invention. Many animals, from sharks to buffaloes, from eagles to bears, sport their own array of knife-like weaponry - teeth, horns, beaks, and claws. The intent of a piercing design is to disrupt life forces. A penetrating wound disrupts blood circulation whereby the victim's organs do not receive sufficent nourishment to function. Vital organs may also be punctured inhibiting or destroying their systematic functions.
Dangers other than piercing also exist. Destruction can come from fire or the crushing weight of boulders. Dangerous falls and freezing cold add to the hazards of life. Affixiation from volcanic dust and fumes as well as drowning in swollen rivers have also claimed many victims throughout history. These are just some of the pitfalls of the outside world which living creatures must avoid in order to survive. In each of these hazards, destruction of the entity comes by disrupting systematic life processes - crushing organs, removal of oxygen, inhibiting the flow of bodily fluids.
Hazards, though, do not cease with the external world. Dangers lurk within as well. Most of us have had a bout or two with various bacteria or viruses. These small but potentially deadly threats penetrate and attack from inside our own bodies. Once again, their threat is the disruption of our internal systematic processes. Most eat away at vital tissues and organs or produce toxins which equally disrupt systematic processes of life.
BALANCE
If we are to survive, we
must protect ourselves from both internal and external dangers which disrupt
the systematic processes enabling life. We must seek internal and external
states which are free from disruptions. In order to survive, we must seek
the opposite of disruption; we must seek optimum internal systematic
processing, or a simpler term would be a "balanced" state. And with that
statement, we come full circle to happiness. If we seek happiness, and we
are to survive, then happiness cannot be a disruptive state. To seek a
disruptive state would be to seek death. Instead, happiness must be an
optimum state, a balanced state. As a beginning, happiness must be
systematic and it must reflect a balanced state of the living organism.
Walter Cannon encapsulated this in his term "homeostasis":
"The coördinated physiological processes which maintain most of the steady states in the organism are so complex and so peculiar to living beings ... that I have suggested a special designation for these states, homeostasis. The word does not imply something set and immobile, a stagnation. It means a condition - a condition which may vary, but which is relatively constant." (Cannon, 1932/1967. Pg. 24)Homeostasis is the balanced state of any living organism. It is our ideal state. When we achieve this state, we feel it; we recognize it as a sense of well-being, euphoria, or happiness.
If homeostasis, or balance, is a central theme of life, then we should expect to find a brain structure to manage this critical function. In fact, it does exist. In higher-order animals such as mammals (as we are), this structure is termed the hypothalamus:
"The main function of the hypothalamus is homeostasis, or maintaining the body's status quo. ... Ultimately, the hypothalamus can control every endocrine gland in the body, and alter blood pressure (through vasopressin and vasoconstriction), body temperature, metabolism (through TSH), and adrenaline levels (through ACTH)." (Molavi, et al., 1997. pg. 1,2)Other factors monitored and maintained by the hypothalamus include: skin temperature, taste, smell, and gut distension. Even our emotions are tied intimately with the hypothalamus through the brain's limbic system:
"... the limbic system is the area of the brain most concerned with emotion ... its influence on behavior is unbelievably extensive, with all its parts tied bidirectionally to the hypothalamus ..." (Molavi, et al., 1997. pg. 1,2)Essentially, the hypothalamus is "grand central station" for the human brain as well as for our thoughts and emotion. It is the hypothalamus which strives for the internal balance which enables life and happiness.
CONTROL
To effect balance and
achieve a feeling of well-being or happiness, living creatures must control
their internal structures and attempt to control external ones. All behavior
whether it be turning the ignition key of a vehicle, climbing a ladder,
talking, walking, thinking, breathing, pumping blood, or even a living
cell replicating itself - all behavior is an act of control. As B. F.
Skinner noted:
"We often overlook the fact that human behavior is also a form of control. ... We cannot choose a way of life in which there is no control." (Skinner, 1974, p. 208-209)Through knowledge and skill we manipulate the world around us to create bridges, music, literature, and medicines. These are all acts of control. And each act of control is a systematic and ordered set of brain actions and body movements. A bridge is built through the controlled movements of our hands and fingers creating a blueprint, creating an order for building materials, and moving levers and wheels of heavy equipment. It is built through the deft control of our thoughts sequencing the creation of the structure - foundation, supports, roadbed. Even the simple but essential task of breathing while we work relies upon controlled muscle movements in our bodies particularly our diaphragm. By deft control of our muscles, by deft control of the blood flowing through our arteries and veins, by deft control of our nervous system, we are able to effect walking, talking, thinking, writing, feeling, and all industry. As Skinner said, we cannot choose a way of life in which there is no control.
Thus, we are a special form of system. We are "control systems" which respond to environmental factors by adjusting our internal bodies in an effort to maintain homeostasis, to maintain balance. Balance is like a target with our whole being focused upon it. Wavering away from this target is immediately noted and corrected to get us back on target. As Walter B. Cannon explained:
"If a state remains steady, it does so because any tendency towards change is automatically met by increased effectiveness of the factor or factors which resist the change. ... If changes threaten, indicators at once signal the danger, and corrective agencies promptly prevent the disturbance or restore the normal when it has been disturbed." (Cannon, 1932, 1967. Pg. 299, 303)This principle also underlies William T. Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT):
"When a disturbance occurs, a control system acts automatically to oppose the incipient change in the controlled variable. ... perceptual control theory says that behavior is not produced by computing output; it is produced by comparing inputs with desired inputs, and using the difference to drive output." (Powers, 1990.)Remarkably, descriptions of the hypothalmus are perfectly in accord with Cannon and Powers:
"Factors such as blood pressure, body temperature, fluid and electrolyte balance, and body weight are held to a precise value called the set-point. Although this set-point can migrate over time, from day to day it is remarkably fixed. ... To achieve this task, the hypothalamus must receive inputs about the state of the body, and must be able to initiate compensatory changes if anything drifts out of whack." (Molavi, et al., 1997. pg. 1,2)In Perceptual Control Theory, this "set-point" is called a "reference signal:"
"A reference signal specifies that, 'this particular perception should exist.' It does not specify the control system's actions. It does not specify any particular 'objective' state of the environment outside of the control system. A reference signal specifies a perception the control system will create, and then defend against disturbances." (Bourbon, 2001.)The evidence is mounting that we are Perceptual Control Systems, and we effect homeostasis by exerting control over the environment to either avoid or compensate for disturbances to our internal hypothalamic "set-points". As we detect changes, we modify our responses accordingly. We control our internal and external environments into homing back onto our target (our set-point, our reference signal) of internal balance - of happiness.
One final and key point is the goal of "control" versus "reproduction." Though many biologists claim that reproduction is the primary directive and goal of life, it must be superseded by mastery of the environment ("control"). What possibility of reproduction exists if no systematic control of the DNA chemical reactions occur? You can have systematic control without reproduction, but you cannot have reproduction without systematic control. This is a classic case of set theory and syllogistic logic. In the realm of all things, "systems" is a subset. Within the set of "systems" is the subset of "systems which replicate". To remove the set of "systems" eradicates the set of "replicating systems". (The set of "replicating systems" is wholly dependent upon the existence of the superset, "systems".) Yet, removing the set of "replicating systems" does not destroy the superset of "systems". Thus, the set of "systems" and its inherent properties, such as "control", takes precedence over replication in the scheme of things. Further, evolution must ensure the rightful relationship of these in the development of behaviors, thus, Skinner's axiom.
SEEK AND AVOID
Thus, to survive,
any and all living creatures must SEEK a balanced state and AVOID imbalanced
ones. Any situation where balance can be achieved must be deemed nurturing and
those situations creating imbalance must be considered threats. Living organisms must
evoke systematic control in order to seek balance and to avoid imbalance. SEEK and
AVOID, therefore, become the primary behaviors of systematic control for survival.
Through these two primary behaviors, we effect control over the environment.
If we must seek a balanced state, how can we know we have achieved it? We must be able to recognize a balanced state if it ever happens. Otherwise, such balance is "unknowable", and finding and maintaining this state is impossible. Survival would be strictly a chance occurrence. We need some means to sense and evaluate our internal state.
If we seek a feeling of happiness (as Aristotle attested), and we must also seek a balanced internal state to survive (as required by any system), then the two must coincide. To seek an imbalanced state is to seek destruction. Thus, if we SEEK happiness, it must equate to an optimum internal balance - homeostasis. Euphoria (or happiness) must be the mechanism by which we sense our internal balance. In other words, a sense of well-being and happiness must be our internal signal that all is balanced and well!
Conversely, to avoid imbalanced and destructive states, we must be able to sense these as well. If we retreat from ill-feelings, then ill-feelings must equate to an imbalanced state which we must avoid in order to survive. We normally refer to such states as stress, but stressed states would include injury, sickness, or depression as well. All forms of stress are to be avoided.
KNOWLEDGE
Just as we must
be sensitive to our internal state, our feelings and sensations, we must also be sensitive to
the environment. Moreover, we must be able to match an internal feeling with something
of the external or internal world. This pattern matching is the foundation of knowledge.
We must KNOW that food brings happiness and well-being. We must KNOW that we
need shelter from cold and the elements. Once we associate an internal feeling with an
external pattern - water, fruit, tiger, flea, etc. - we can then apply the appropriate
primary behavior - seek or avoid. It is through knowledge that we recognize features
of the outside world and KNOW that they may bring well-being or pain. Finally, we
must apply the correct behavior to achieve the well-being or avoid the pain. This, too,
is "knowing". We must KNOW what to do in any given situation. Our knowledge
encompasses both recognition AND the selection of an appropriate behavioral response.
When we effectively apply our knowledge, we survive. As our behaviors improve through
experience and knowledge, our survival is enhanced. Thus, effective knowledge is the key
to happiness, balance, and a long survival.
Once again, this is not a new idea:
"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom ... wisdom is the principle thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." (Proverbs, 3:13, 4:7)
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