In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on a mission: happiness for everyone. I have pretty much arrived there myself—I am ridiculously happy, and for no particular reason, although I could make up a few if you want me to. The “interpreter,” as Michael Gazzaniga calls it, specializes in making up reasons for things, especially for my thoughts and behavior.
Speaking of Michael, a couple of posts ago, I wrote about an article in the March 2009 Discover magazine, which included comments by Gazzaniga and three other neuroscientists. What I didn’t realize, until Eve pointed it out to me, was that the article was a condensation from an event sponsored by Discover magazine and the National Science Foundation, and that there were videos that included much more information than the article.
In the segments featuring Gazzaniga, he talks about how determinism is affecting how we understand ourselves as parts of the natural universe, and how this growing understanding may come to affect our views of criminal justice, punishment, and retribution; all ideas that are familiar to anyone who’s visited Tom Clark’s naturalism.org.
Despite the additional info in the videos, my favorite consequence of understanding determinism—the way it can change how we feel about our selves—was not addressed. It is the understanding of my self as a fully determined part of the natural universe that has made the greatest contribution to my own happiness, at least according to my interpreter. (Gazzaniga gives a great depiction of the “interpreter,” and how his research led to its discovery, in the segment, “Inside Michael Gazzaniga’s Head.”)
Having evolved from a person who medicated himself for years by smoking large quantities of marijuana, to one who physically grins at himself every five minutes or so, without drugs, I would like—for who knows what reason, although again… I would like to promote the same behavior in everyone else. That’s the mission.
I would rather not be stuck with this goal, simply because it won’t be accomplished in my lifetime, and I would rather be doing something else—making 3D animations and writing music. Besides, the Discover article shows that other people—people with much more scientific credibility than I have—are moving in the same direction, so momentum is building. I think that my current point of view will come to be commonplace, simply because it is based on facts about how the brain works that are as real as gravity.
So my efforts are not crucial, and I could just sit back and watch the inevitable unfold, but my personal history compels me, and I have found a way to combine this mission with the activities that are most fun to me, which you can observe in the video below.
My approach in the video is more oblique than in this blog or in the audio-only Bare Brains podcasts (the first thirteen), but the idea is to nudge people toward looking at themselves in terms of “causes and conditions,” as the Buddhists say; as the natural product of the events of their lives, rather than something they somehow invented out of whole cloth. I have no idea how effective these efforts will be, but making videos is a lot more fun for me than typing out these words, so I’ll probably persist—in addition to the writing.
Norm’s Normal Life: Playing Doctor and More from Norman Bearrentine on Vimeo.
[...] and my verbalizations are just attempts to make sense of the emotions. Naturally, my “interpreter” is going to come up with something that makes me look good within my personal frame of [...]