Ron/Merle -
When I went to the WHM, the three things that struck me were: 1) This
is not a blind measure... it seems like you should have to state your
level of happiness before you find out what the current "average" level
is; 2) It looks a lot like the "Current Fire Danger" meter in our
forests (Smoky Bear attending with his shovel, jeans and hat); 3) I
suspect "happiness" to be culturally sensitive (both in meaning and in
scaling?)
Is there a model of sorts for "contagious happiness"? I also assume
some of those here who use models of contagious disease might have some
meta-models to offer (Doug, show your hand)? Are there reservoir
populations? What are the non-human vectors (pets?). Is cynicism a
prophylactic? Does happiness (and cynicism) act like quorum
sensing/quenching (as with biology and/or hive populations?) Are there
memetic equivalents to the modes of gene/protein expression?
I would expect contemporary models of this might be registered on a
network (scale-free, small world, power-law connected).
The Maharishi effect has been offered to me many times without
explanation for it's presumed mechanism. Back in the day, the Maharishi
claimed that "world peace" (or some other unspecified collective good)
would be achieved as soon as the square root of 1% of the population
(that would be .0001 fraction?) achieved Sidhi status. Anecdotally, the
number started out at a high mark of 10%, then dropped to a less onerous
one of 1%, I don't know when or why the square root (.0001was added. I
assumed it implied some kind of model for the phenomenon, but nobody
seemed to know where that part came from or why the numbers kept getting
downgraded.
I recently watched the movie Kumare' (at the suggestion of our own Glen
Ropella) and enjoyed it a great deal. A documentary film maker sets
out to look into the world of Guru's and in the process becomes one...
The best line of the movie was "My job is to be happy!", reducing his
role as a (faux) Guru to a single, simple and effective concept. The
documentary seemed to be completely authentic (as opposed to being some
kind of mockumentary) and a conclusion (related to our earlier
discussion about placebo/nocebo) might be that by embracing the role of
a Guru(tm), Kumare' (the character) managed to have the effect of a
genuine Guru(tm).
10 of his 14 acolytes remained true to him after he exposed himself as a
documentary film maker studying the phenomena rather than a "real"
guru. 4 have refused/avoided further contact with him. All 14 seemed
to be enjoying huge benefits from their participation with him in his
"practice". The 10, in followups seemed to have persistent positive
effects, the other 4 we don't know but might have lost what they gained?
- Steve
Merle,
I'm the developer of www.WorldHappinessMeter.com
<http://www.WorldHappinessMeter.com> (WHM). How can I be involved in
the Happiness Santa Fe launch on Saturday? I notice from your site
that an in-depth survey is part of the festivities. One planned
addition to WHM is a survey in order to gather data worldwide to save
the need for boots on the ground.
Ron
--
Ron Newman, Founder
MyIdeatree.com <http://www.ideatree.us/>
The World Happiness Meter <http://worldhappinessmeter.com/>
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Roger,
Righto! We launch "Happiness Santa Fe" on Saturday ( go to our
website, the Center for Emergent Diplomacy, or just go to
Happiness Santa Fe for a calendar of events). We've had many
recent conversations about how to encourage conditions for a
shift in our mental models from consumerism and inequality toward
compassion and generosity.
When I teach Complexity at Upaya in the Buddhist chaplaincy
program I usually suggest that compassion is an emergent property
of the biggest system of all--our brains. So I say, hey guys,
just meditate more! We have hard neuroscience on how that works.
But how do we change the initial conditions for a collective
response? Perhaps one way is to measure human happiness and
well-being differently by expanding GDP to include ecological and
social indicators as the Bhutanese have been trying to do for
decades. We tend to value what we measure.
You know, dear Roger, that I follow the research carefully.
Thanks for this link. You guys study--we act and put it on the
ground!!
Merle
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Roger Critchlow <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
There's an intriguing book review in Science this week:
*Studying Human Behavior* How Scientists Investigate
Aggression and Sexuality */by Helen E. Longino/* University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 2013. 261 pp. S75. ISBN 9780226492872.
Paper, $25, £16. ISBN 9780226492889.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6129/146.1.full?rss=1
The claim is that there is not and will not be a dominant
paradigm for researching human behavior, there are multiple
ways of establishing causes for behavior and that's just the
way it is.
So not only do phenomena worth studying emerge at different
levels of organization, but the emerging phenomena at a level
of organization are amenable to different disciplines of study
which may all be judged "scientific" by a philosopher of science.
So, what's scientific evidence now?
-- rec --
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--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
mobile: (303) 859-5609 <tel:%28303%29%20859-5609>
skype: merlelefkoff
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