0:15

Pushkin. The

0:22

science of happiness is progressing all the

0:24

time. Hardly a week goes by without

0:26

some fascinating new wellbeing finding hitting

0:28

the news, and today's researchers

0:30

have been able to harness so many amazing new technologies,

0:33

from complex MRI scanners to new

0:35

medical treatments, all to help unlock

0:38

the secret of how our minds work. But

0:41

in spite of all these new insights, it's important

0:43

to remember that the quest to feel better is much

0:46

older than these modern scientific tools.

0:48

The pursuit of happiness is a challenge that's occupied

0:51

our species for a long time. In

0:53

fact, many long dead philosophers, thinkers,

0:55

and spiritual leaders have had some powerful

0:58

ideas for improving our well being, strategies

1:00

that are just as relevant today in the

1:02

age of the podcast as they were back

1:05

in the time of Caesar or the Pharaohs. If

1:08

you've listened to others for the Happiness Lab, you

1:10

probably know that I get a lot of inspiration from

1:12

ancient lives and insights, and that

1:14

I love to share all those old school tips

1:17

with you. But our past episodes

1:19

have only just scratched the surface on all

1:21

the strategies that ancient wisdom can teach us,

1:24

So get ready to go old school and

1:26

welcome back to Happiness Lessons of the

1:28

Agents with me, Doctor Laurie Sanders.

1:35

In today's episode, I want to share the happiness

1:38

insights of a towering figure in the history

1:40

of Western thought. He's the og

1:42

disruptor, a philosopher who challenged

1:44

everything, but someone who is never so

1:47

vain as to think that he knew it all. He's

1:49

a scholar who's beloved worldwide by

1:51

some of the most brilliant philosophers and academics

1:54

around. A thinker that I

1:56

personally was lucky to be exposed to all

1:58

the way back in the nineteen eighties, but

2:01

not because I read his student, Plato's famous

2:03

account of his teachings. Now I

2:05

learned of this famous scholars work from

2:08

Bill and Ted's X Adventures.

2:11

The only true wisdom consists in

2:13

knowing that you know nothing. That's

2:15

us, dude. Oh yeah.

2:18

For those uninitiated in adi cinema culture,

2:21

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is a movie

2:23

about Bill S. Preston Esquire and Theodore

2:26

Logan aka Bill and Ted.

2:28

They're two san Dimas high school students who,

2:30

in an attempt not to flunk their history exam

2:33

head back in time to meet the great thinkers

2:35

of the past. Bill and Ted were

2:37

the first to expose me to the central doctrines

2:40

of Socrates, or as I would

2:42

later get to know him, Socrates. Socrates's

2:46

famous idea, which very much appealed to Bill

2:48

and Ted, is that we know far less than

2:50

we often think. It may

2:52

sound like a simple concept or a joke

2:54

out of some classic high school movie, but

2:56

it's also a hugely important insight, especially

2:59

if you want to live a happier life. There are

3:02

rors in history where Socrates

3:04

was considered a figure

3:07

alongside Jeez. This

3:10

is my dear friend, the Yale philosopher and cognitive

3:12

scientist Tomar Gendler. Benjamin

3:14

Franklin, who has this wonderful

3:17

autobiography which is full of really good

3:19

advice about happiness, wrote

3:23

Humility, Imitate, Jesus,

3:26

and Socrates. Tomorrow teaches

3:28

a popular class at Yale known as Philosophy

3:31

in the Science of Human Nature. You

3:33

can check it out for free on the Open Yale Course

3:35

Network. The class looks to ancient

3:37

scholars for insights into the problems we all

3:39

face today, and Tomorrow agrees

3:41

with Ben Franklin that Socrates is a perfect

3:44

model of intellectual humility, and

3:46

that his example, if we can follow it,

3:48

will bring lots of benefits to our daily lives.

3:51

Socrates is a fascinating

3:53

figure. He lived about twenty

3:55

five hundred years ago in ancient

3:58

Athens. He was born some time

4:00

around for seventy before the Common

4:03

era, and though we don't

4:05

know his exact birth date, we do know

4:07

his exact death dache, because

4:09

he was put to death in a very

4:12

famous public trial in

4:14

Athens in three ninety nine

4:17

BC, which was

4:19

recorded by his

4:21

student, a man named Plato,

4:24

who described socrates

4:27

intellectual integrity and

4:29

bravery in his willingness

4:32

to be put to death for what he

4:34

believed. What Socrates

4:37

was known for is

4:40

sitting out in the public

4:43

square of Athens and

4:45

drawing people into conversations

4:48

about fundamental questions, questions

4:51

like what's the nature of truth,

4:54

What's the nature of justice? What

4:57

is it for a society to

4:59

be fair? What should

5:01

our attitudes be towards

5:04

the gods? What should our attitudes

5:06

be towards religious rituals?

5:09

What should our attitudes be towards

5:11

prisoners that we captured from

5:14

other countries? And because

5:16

Socrates was willing to question

5:19

everything, he was accused

5:22

of being a corruptor

5:24

of the youth, and when he

5:26

was put on trial, he was put

5:28

on trial for corrupting youth

5:32

by causing them to question the

5:34

received wisdom of their culture.

5:37

So, like, what was his background? How did he become

5:39

the kind of guy that was questioning all these things.

5:42

Here's what we know about Socrates.

5:45

We know that his father

5:47

was a stone worker and his mother

5:50

was a midwife, and those are roughly

5:52

middle class professions in ancient

5:54

Athens. So he wasn't a super elite

5:57

guy, but he was born into

6:00

a social class that gave him

6:02

access to the elite,

6:05

so he didn't have many financial

6:08

concerns. He heerted his father's

6:10

estate. That is, he came from the part of society

6:13

that had inherited wealth, which

6:15

allows a certain kind of security

6:18

and stability, and as a result,

6:20

he was free to

6:23

pursue ideas that intrigued

6:26

him. And he had been trained up in

6:28

the way that most middle class

6:30

opinions of his time were. He knew

6:32

how to read and how to write, and he

6:34

knew a little bit about poetry

6:37

and music. But even though he was kind

6:39

of this middle class dude with some inherited wealth,

6:41

he also kind of wasn't into that

6:44

wealth himself, right, Like, he kind of just

6:46

didn't dress as awesomely as other Athenian

6:48

dudes and things. Yeah, I would say one

6:50

of the striking things about Socrates is

6:52

that he was a pretty idiosyncratic

6:55

guy. He was not conventionally

6:58

attractive by the norm

7:00

of his time. He was being

7:03

bellied and snub nosed,

7:05

and he, let us say, eschewed

7:08

class to marry bathing practices.

7:12

So he was kind of a guy

7:15

on the corner who engaged

7:18

passers by in conversation.

7:21

He was a funny guy. So you can imagine

7:24

him as sort of an owner

7:26

of a Brooklyn corner store

7:29

who just engages

7:31

all of the people who pass him

7:34

by in really really really

7:36

interesting conversation. But instead

7:38

of being about the Yankees or the Mets

7:40

or the lottery, his conversation

7:42

is about the nature of mathematics

7:45

or the value of justice. But

7:48

really what he is is a guy

7:51

at the corner store who's engaging

7:54

everyone going by in his quirky,

7:56

idiosyncratic, individualistic

7:59

way. And he wound up being the corner

8:01

store guy that got a lot of followers, including

8:04

some like really famous ancient philosophers,

8:06

right Socrates was the

8:09

person who was the teacher

8:11

of Plato. Plato is

8:14

the person who was the teacher of Aristotle,

8:16

and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great,

8:18

So in his intellectual legacy

8:21

is all of ancient

8:24

Greek history. But he

8:27

was really famous even

8:29

at the time where he lived. If

8:31

you have heard of any

8:34

of the ancient playwrights,

8:36

they wrote plays about Socrates

8:39

in which he appears as a

8:41

character a gad fly or

8:44

a funny guy on the corners. So there

8:46

are famous comic play about

8:49

him by a Greek dramatist called

8:51

Aristophanes. He's also

8:53

written about in historical

8:56

works. For example, the ancient historian

8:58

Xenophon writes about him.

9:01

So he was, in

9:03

some sense the person

9:05

whom all of the

9:07

rich, cool kid of Athens

9:10

hung out with a contrary

9:12

to their parents' desires. So imagine

9:15

your Plato's parents. You want him to go

9:17

on to live a normal Athenian

9:19

life where he makes money and has a

9:21

position of honor, and instead

9:24

he's hanging out on the corner with

9:26

this funny looking guy who

9:29

is wearing ratty robes and

9:31

has a messy demeanor

9:34

about him, who's asking him

9:36

to think about fundamental questions.

9:38

And it's not just Plato, it's all

9:40

the fancy youth of Athens who

9:43

are down there hanging out

9:45

with this dude, Stocrates. But

9:47

the parents didn't really like the fact that their kids

9:49

were hanging out on the corner with the slovenly guy, and

9:52

that was one of the reasons that his life played out in

9:54

a sort of unfortunate way and the end. Yeah, so

9:56

the parents really didn't like the

9:58

fact that their kids were hanging out on the corner with

10:00

this slovenly guy. And the

10:03

stity of Athens decided

10:05

to put Socrates on trial,

10:08

and they made three charges against him.

10:11

The first was that he was corrupting

10:13

the youth, the second was that

10:15

he was worshiping false gods,

10:18

and the third was that he was defying

10:20

the state religion. And

10:23

the trial of Socrates

10:26

is documented in a

10:29

dialogue written by his

10:31

student Plato, in which Plato

10:34

allows the world

10:36

to hear what happened

10:39

at the trial and what happened

10:41

when Socrates accepted

10:43

the outcome of the trial. So famously,

10:46

Socrates was condemned to

10:49

death, and the

10:51

death was to take the form of

10:54

drinking poison hemlock. Socrates

10:57

students offered him the opportunity

11:00

to escape Athens so

11:02

that he could avoid what they viewed

11:05

to be an unjust penalty, and

11:07

Socrates instead said,

11:10

I have lived within the city

11:12

of Athens. I have thrived because

11:14

of its laws and culture, and

11:17

therefore I am compelled to

11:19

take the penalty which is given

11:21

to me, whether or not

11:24

it is the penalty I think appropriate.

11:27

So he spent his last day

11:29

surrounded by his students

11:32

and then voluntarily took upon

11:34

himself the penalty which

11:36

had been imposed. So one of

11:38

the reasons Socrates is famous is for this kind of drinking

11:41

the hemlock corrupting the youth story. But one

11:43

of his main philosophical legacies is

11:46

the way that he went about his argument.

11:48

And so this is what's known as the Socratic method.

11:50

What is the Socratic method and why was it so kind

11:52

of novel and important? So the

11:54

Socratic method is the method of

11:57

asking questions rather than giving

12:00

answers, as a way of

12:03

causing people to think through their

12:05

own commitments and

12:08

allowing them to bring them

12:10

into some sort of

12:12

equilibrium or harmony.

12:15

So there's a famous

12:17

example in one of Plato's dialogues

12:20

about Socrates, which is a dialogue

12:22

called the Mino, where Socrates

12:25

encounters a young, uneducated

12:28

boy and he teaches

12:30

that boy the Pythagorean theorem.

12:33

You may remember, that's the theorem from geometry

12:36

about a right angle in

12:38

a triangle and the relation between

12:40

the sides of the triangle. And

12:42

the way that Socrates teaches this

12:44

young boy about the

12:47

Pythagorean theorem is by

12:49

asking him, the young boy, a

12:51

series of questions that cause the

12:54

young boy to realize explicitly

12:57

something which he had already realized

12:59

implicitly, which are certain facts

13:02

about geometrical relations.

13:04

So you can see how that works

13:07

in the case of geometry,

13:09

and we can think of our own

13:11

examples of teaching children basic

13:14

facts of arithmetic. You cause

13:16

them to come to reason. If I have one apple

13:19

and I put one other apple on the table,

13:21

how many apples would we have.

13:24

That's Socratic method. It's eliciting

13:27

from somebody a fact

13:30

about the world or a view

13:32

about the world, which they held, but

13:34

they didn't realize they held. So

13:37

what Socrates does is he uses

13:39

the method that you might use in

13:42

arithmetic or geometry about

13:45

the sorts of things that matter most.

13:48

So he might ask you a question,

13:51

why does truth matter,

13:54

and you might say truth

13:57

matters because truth

13:59

is a good guide to

14:01

the world. And then he would say, but

14:04

what if there were something untruthful

14:07

that were an equally good guide to

14:09

the world. Would that matter to you as much

14:11

as truth? And you would engage in

14:14

a back and forth about it until

14:16

you yourself come to recognize

14:19

either that you don't fully

14:21

understand something, or that

14:24

your previous view about it

14:27

was just based on assumptions

14:30

for which you don't have real

14:32

justification. And the cool thing about the syncratic

14:34

method is that Socrates didn't just ask these kinds

14:37

of questions of other people. He also

14:39

applied the same method to what

14:41

he himself knew, to his own sets of knowledge.

14:43

Right, that's right. So there is a famous

14:46

story about this, And

14:49

to tell you the story, I'm going to need could give

14:51

you just a little bit of background about

14:54

ancient Greek religion and culture.

14:57

So one of the things the ancient Greeks

14:59

believed is that the gods

15:01

could speak to human beings through what

15:03

we're called oracles. Oracles

15:06

were basically mystical

15:09

priest who interpreted the

15:11

words of the gods. And there was a very, very

15:13

famous oracle at a place

15:15

called Delphi in Greece,

15:18

in the Temple of Apollo, and

15:20

during the time this is reported

15:23

in Plato's Apology. During

15:26

the time of socrates

15:28

trial, a young

15:30

man named Hiraphon went to visit

15:33

the oracle at Delphi, and Kirafond

15:35

said to the oracle oracle, who

15:38

is the wisest person? And

15:41

the oracle answered Kairafon

15:44

by saying, very specifically,

15:47

no one is wiser

15:49

than Socrates. The Kiraphon

15:52

comes back and he says to Socrates,

15:54

hey, I went to see the oracle at

15:56

Delphi, and it said that

15:59

no one is wiser than

16:01

you. And Socrates

16:03

responds as follows, and I'm now giving

16:06

you the exact words as transcribed

16:08

Into's Apology that

16:10

are translated into English. When

16:12

I heard this, says Socrates, I said

16:14

to myself, what can the oracle

16:17

mean when it says that no one

16:19

is wiser than I am? For I know

16:22

that I have no wisdom, small

16:24

or great. And then Socrates

16:26

continues, So I went to one who

16:28

had the reputation of wisdom,

16:30

and I began to talk with him, and I

16:32

could not help thinking that he was not really

16:35

wise, although he was thought wise

16:37

by many and wiser still by himself.

16:40

So Socrates continues, So I left

16:43

him, saying to myself as I went

16:45

away, although I don't suppose

16:47

that either of us knows anything

16:50

really beautiful and good, I

16:52

am better off than he is, for

16:55

he knows nothing and

16:57

thinks that he knows, whereas

17:00

I neither know nor

17:03

think that I know. So what Socrates

17:06

saying here, he's saying, most

17:09

people who have a reputation for being

17:11

wise and knowing a lot of things

17:14

have a mistaken degree of

17:16

self confidence. They not only

17:19

act to the world as if they

17:21

know things, they are

17:24

in their own minds more

17:26

certain than they ought to be. And

17:29

so this is what's been called the paradox of self

17:31

knowledge, or the paradox of Socratic

17:33

knowledge. What is that the paradox

17:36

of Socratic knowledge is

17:39

that the knowledge involves

17:41

the recognition that Socrates

17:44

himself is unsure. So

17:47

think back to what the oracle said

17:50

to Chirafon. The oracle

17:52

didn't say in response to the question

17:55

who is the wisest person? Socrates

17:58

is the wisest person, the oracle

18:00

said. One asked who is the wisest person,

18:03

No one is wiser than Socrates.

18:06

And in saying that, it

18:09

emphasize that the way in which Socrates

18:11

is wise is that he knows

18:14

just how much he does not

18:16

know. So this is cool. I mean, it's really setting

18:18

up this idea that to know ourselves

18:21

is to know that we don't know ourselves.

18:24

Yeah, that's a beautiful way of

18:26

putting the paradox. To know ourselves

18:29

is to know that we do not know ourselves.

18:32

It is to know that, in

18:35

many ways, we do not

18:37

have direct access

18:40

to our motivations.

18:42

We don't have direct access to

18:45

what it is that we are actually

18:47

responding to when we do something.

18:49

And it's an endless process

18:52

of engaging in Socratic

18:55

self question. So there's a way

18:57

in which each of us can

19:00

give ourselves an inner

19:03

Socrates who says, why

19:05

do you think that? Is it possible

19:07

that you think that for a different reason. Is

19:09

it possible that, even though you assume

19:11

you value that, actually that's

19:14

just an old habit that you

19:16

haven't questioned. Is it possible that

19:18

you think you're responding to

19:21

a person and in fact you're

19:23

responding to a stereotype about

19:25

people of that kind. Those

19:28

are the kinds of questions that your inner

19:30

Socrates tend to ask you.

19:33

Harnessing your inner Socrates isn't always

19:35

comfortable. It involves intentionally

19:37

questioning why you think certain things and

19:39

why you take certain actions. It

19:41

also involves admitting that you probably aren't

19:44

as smart as you think you are. But

19:46

the science hints that channeling this ancient

19:48

thinker a bit more can be an important step

19:50

to becoming happier. The problem,

19:52

as will explore when the Happiness Lab returns

19:54

from the break, is that our brains don't

19:56

always make that an easy task. The

19:59

Happiness Lab will be right back socrates

20:09

is great insight is that we don't really understand

20:11

ourselves as well as we think. It's

20:14

an idea so radical that it got the great

20:16

thinker condemned to death. But

20:18

you know, Professor to Mar Gendler argues the Socrates

20:21

might have been on to something. Modern

20:23

scientific studies show that there are real limits

20:26

when it comes to our self knowledge. In

20:28

fact, some classic experiments have found

20:30

that we don't even know why we feel the way we

20:32

do. There's a fantastic

20:35

study gun in the nineteen seventies that

20:37

was trying to figure out whether

20:39

people sometimes mistake what

20:42

is going on around them or what is going

20:44

on inside them. And so here's

20:46

the study The study involved

20:49

putting two people on a

20:51

bridge and the bridge was either

20:54

a really solid bridge and unthreatening,

20:58

or it was a suspension bridge,

21:00

and afterwards they

21:02

looked to see how likely the

21:05

two people were to think

21:07

that they had physical

21:09

attraction to one another, That is,

21:11

how likely they were to call the other one

21:14

and ask for a date. People

21:16

were almost twice as likely

21:19

to ask the other person for a date when

21:21

they had been standing on an

21:23

unstable bridge than when they had been

21:25

standing in a stable place.

21:28

That seems wild, right, that's

21:31

a major major effect. Why are people

21:33

twice as likely to think they were

21:35

attracted to somebody if they met them

21:38

on a bridge that was unstable

21:40

then if they met them in a place that was stable.

21:42

Think about what happens

21:45

when you're on a shaky bridge.

21:48

Your heartbeats a little faster,

21:50

Your breath gets a little shallower,

21:52

You notice a little bit of trembling.

21:55

What happens when you fall in love with somebody

21:57

and find them physically attractive. Your

22:00

heartbeats a little faster, your breath

22:02

gets a little shallower, you notice

22:04

your hands trembling. That is,

22:06

people can't distinguish whether

22:09

the reason their heart is beating

22:11

fast is because they're on a shaky

22:13

bridge, or because they're attracted

22:16

to a person. And that

22:18

fact about people that

22:20

we cannot tell what's

22:23

causing us to respond in the way we do

22:26

became the basis for almost fifty

22:28

years of psychological

22:31

studies that looked at exactly this

22:33

question. And this is basically really

22:35

falling prey to the thing that Socrates was worried

22:37

about that even in the domain is fundamental

22:40

is whether or not you're falling in love with somebody. We

22:42

just don't have access to what it is.

22:44

We really prefer what it is, We really believe

22:47

what it is, we really think and why Yeah,

22:49

imagine having an inner Socrates with you

22:51

on the bridge, right, So there you are and you're

22:53

thinking, ooh, this person across from

22:55

me is really hot, and your inner Socrates

22:57

says, hey, why

23:00

do you think they're really hot? And you say,

23:02

well, my palms are sweaty,

23:05

and your inner Socrates says, is

23:07

there any other explanation for why your palms

23:09

might be sweaty? Did you notice you're standing

23:12

on a bridge and all of a sudden,

23:14

the fact that you are willing to doubt

23:17

that you know yourself allows

23:19

you to know yourself better and

23:22

our inability to know this stuff doesn't just happen

23:24

in these domains where you know, our heart is racing

23:26

and it's this big physiological effect. Sometimes

23:29

it's really just cognitive too. So

23:31

tell me about these sort of choice blindness studies.

23:33

So here's a fabulous choice blend in

23:35

study. So you show people

23:38

a pair of pictures and ask

23:40

them to judge which picture they think

23:42

is more attractive. So suppose

23:45

they say the second picture is more attractive

23:47

to them than the first picture. A

23:50

minute later, when they show

23:52

the pictures next, they've swapped

23:54

them. You show them the

23:57

first picture, not the one they chose

23:59

the first picture, and you say to them, why

24:02

did you think this one is more attractive?

24:05

And they offer a rationalization

24:08

where they say, oh, I thought picture

24:10

one was more attractive than picture two

24:13

because I like the color

24:15

of the shirt, or I really like the

24:17

shape of the eyebrows. But notice

24:20

they didn't think that picture one was

24:22

more attractive than picture two a minute

24:24

ago they had selected the second

24:26

picture. So not only do

24:29

people have a really bad sense

24:31

of why they make the choices that they do,

24:34

they may not even be in a position

24:37

to hold onto which choices

24:39

they made. We are not transparent

24:42

to ourselves. We should have

24:44

our inner socrates check whether

24:47

we mean what we just said. So

24:49

these are kind of funny examples about our choices,

24:52

and you know, who we might find attractive or what image

24:54

we might like better. But this is also

24:56

a big problem for our happiness, because our happiness

24:58

also seems to depend on our preferences

25:01

and how we think we should behave. If we don't

25:03

have knowledge of that, that's going to be a big problem

25:05

for how we act in the world. That seems exactly

25:07

right. So when you ask the but what makes

25:10

them happy and they

25:12

make their first guesses, they give answers like,

25:14

oh yeah, what makes me happy is money,

25:17

and what makes me happy is

25:19

external approval. And

25:21

when people say those things, they're convinced

25:24

of them. And exactly the same way that the

25:26

person on the bridge was convinced that

25:28

they were falling in love with this other person

25:30

and they didn't recognize that they were

25:32

wrong about what they thought

25:35

they knew. In that same way,

25:37

we're wrong about a whole bunch of

25:39

things we think we know about

25:42

what makes us happy. I mean, this whole

25:44

podcast is filled with them, right, You know, we have episodes

25:46

about how we think you know, spending

25:48

money in our ourselves will make us feel happy,

25:50

but actually we find out that spending money on other

25:52

people is really the way to go. We have episodes

25:55

on how trying to add to

25:57

our workload will make us happy because we want

25:59

accolades at work, but then we find that having more

26:01

free time will make us happier. You know. There's

26:03

even a famous episode where I get

26:05

lots of critiques from people online where we

26:07

tell people, hey to strangers, that will

26:09

make you happy, but people consult their self

26:12

knowledge, and their self knowledge says nah, that will make

26:14

me feel like crap. I mean, it just

26:16

feels like the whole field is one where we

26:18

really need to recognize that our minds seem

26:20

to be lying to us if we want to make some progress.

26:23

But it's kind of a problem because we don't really

26:25

know what we don't know. That's right, And

26:27

the first step towards being

26:30

able to recognize what

26:32

we don't know is being

26:34

ready to accept that

26:37

any given moment where you seem

26:39

to know something, you might not.

26:42

You might know it, but you might not. And

26:44

so let's walk through why we're so bad as self

26:47

knowledge. Right. One comes from the structure of the

26:49

way our minds work, which is like we kind

26:51

of just don't have access to everything in our heads.

26:54

Yeah. So, anybody who's

26:56

ever heard of the notion of

26:58

the unconscious, or read

27:01

a novel in which a character does

27:03

something for a reason that they themselves

27:06

don't recognize, or anybody

27:08

who has ever been involved in therapy

27:11

knows that one of the

27:14

fundamental ways of

27:16

understanding human beings

27:18

it is to understand that a lot of

27:20

what we do is not for conscious reasons,

27:23

it's for unconscious

27:25

reasons. And what it means for something

27:28

to be unconscious by definition

27:31

is that it's not something to which we have

27:33

direct, immediate, automatic

27:36

access as we move around

27:38

in the world. And so that's the problem of

27:40

things in our minds being unconscious, things we don't

27:42

have access to. But there is also a problem where

27:45

our mind isn't just a unitary thing

27:47

too, right, Yes, so we

27:49

sometimes act as if

27:51

there's a single thing that we're thinking

27:54

at any moment, but it's

27:56

never the case that there's only one

27:59

thing going on in your head

28:01

at once. Previously, Laurie,

28:04

you and I have the chance to talk about a

28:06

metaphor from Plato which divides

28:08

the mind into three parts. It says

28:10

that there are two horses

28:13

and a charioteer, a driver

28:15

of those horses, and one of those horses is

28:18

interested in things like food and

28:20

reproduction. The second horse is interested

28:22

in things like honor and social approval,

28:25

and then the driver of these horses is

28:27

interested in reason and

28:29

rationality. And Plato's image

28:32

there is echoed by

28:34

everything we now know about

28:37

the brain. So in the middle

28:39

of all of our brains is a lizard brain,

28:41

which is responding to really primitive

28:44

things. When you are

28:47

making a judgment about the world, there's

28:50

stuff coming in from your visual system, and

28:52

there's stuff coming in from your auditory system,

28:54

but there's also stuff coming in from your amigdala,

28:56

which is giving you a sense of your

28:59

emotions, and there may be things coming

29:01

in from your memory. And all of these things

29:03

are coming in in lots and

29:05

lots of different directions and pulling

29:08

you in different directions, and your mind has

29:10

to make a decision about

29:13

what it's going to say it sees. One

29:15

of the nicest examples of this is

29:18

in an optical illusion. So

29:20

if you're sitting in a train

29:23

looking out the window and the train

29:25

next to you starts moving, your

29:28

visual system gives you a certain

29:31

kind of information, and it

29:33

runs to the front of your brain and

29:35

it gets there to your

29:37

conscious rational part before

29:40

the stuff from your somatosensory

29:43

or your vestibular system, And so you

29:45

even though it's the other train that's

29:48

moving and you're sitting still, your

29:50

eyes full you they get to the front

29:52

of your brain first. They tell your brain what

29:55

to think, and your brain thinks, oh my god,

29:57

my train is moving, but it's

29:59

not. And that kind of

30:02

mistake happens endlessly

30:05

in brains that are built up of complex

30:08

evolution nary layers, as

30:10

every human brain is. So

30:13

our pesky minds make it hard for us to really

30:15

know ourselves. But don't disparage

30:17

us yet, because when we get back from

30:20

the break, we'll learn that we can get better at

30:22

self knowledge if we commit to harnessing our

30:24

inner Socrates. We'll

30:26

see how when the happiness lab returns in

30:28

a moment. When

30:37

I first watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

30:39

back in the nineteen eighties, my childhood

30:41

self was able to pick up tiny snippets of

30:43

the Socratic canon, mostly

30:45

in the form of bad punch lines from the movie Excellent.

30:52

But it wasn't actually until later in my education

30:54

that I was introduced to one of Socrates' key

30:57

phrases, one that's super important

30:59

for feeling happier and one that

31:01

I find to be, to paraphrase Bill and Ted,

31:04

most excellent. The quote that people

31:06

often think of and associate

31:09

with Socrates is the

31:11

unexamined life is not

31:14

worth living. So

31:16

what does it mean to say the unexamined

31:18

life is not worth living? There

31:21

are two ways of thinking

31:23

about that, both with regard to one's

31:25

relation to what we might call outer

31:28

knowledge that is the way the world is,

31:30

and with regard to what we might call

31:33

inner knowledge, that is the

31:35

way we ourselves are. So let me start

31:37

with the outer knowledge. What does Socrates mean

31:39

when he says the unexamined life is not worth

31:41

living? He means society

31:43

as we inherit. It isn't

31:46

perfect. Your country

31:49

may have a religion which

31:51

has landed on certain really

31:53

important truths and missed other

31:56

really important truths. Your

31:58

society may have some values

32:00

which are really important to human flourishing,

32:03

but some values which really impede

32:05

human flourishing. And there are many

32:07

many discoveries to be made about

32:10

the world. This is the time when science

32:13

as a way of making sense

32:15

of reality begins. For example,

32:17

people begin to do astronomical

32:20

work and understand the

32:22

relation between the stars and

32:25

the planets and the earth. All

32:27

of those are what Socrates we call

32:29

the examined life in an external

32:31

sense. And so the unexamined

32:34

life is the life where you

32:36

aren't curious about the natural

32:38

world around you and you aren't ready

32:41

to challenge the social world

32:43

around you. So that's version

32:45

one of the unexamined life.

32:48

The second version of the unexamined

32:50

life that Socrates is concerned about

32:53

is the case where you

32:55

trust your first impression instead

32:58

of your deeper self. That is

33:00

the case where you

33:02

don't awaken your inner

33:04

Socrates to ask yourself,

33:07

Am I really in love with this person? Or

33:09

is it just that my palms are sweaty?

33:11

Am I really happier when I make lots

33:13

of money? Or am I just taking

33:16

at face value something that

33:18

my brain is telling myself?

33:21

Is my train really moving? Or

33:24

am I just responding to what vision

33:26

got into my body faster

33:29

than the other senses. So

33:32

the second sense in which Socrates means

33:34

the unexamined life is not worth living is

33:36

that he means we need to examine our

33:39

own assumptions about

33:41

what we think we want and about

33:43

what we think we need. Another

33:45

way we can do this is through the practice of mindfulness.

33:48

Why does mindfulness help us kind of know ourselves

33:51

better? So, mindfulness is a

33:53

practice whereby we try

33:55

to authentically

33:58

recognize what is going

34:01

on inside us. It's a process

34:03

of removing distraction

34:06

and focusing liberately

34:10

attention on something particular.

34:13

And there's a way in which you

34:16

can think of meditation as

34:19

a non verbal analog of

34:22

Socratic self examination. So

34:24

Socrates says, keep

34:26

asking yourself, why do you think that? But

34:29

why do you think that? But why do you think

34:31

that? That's the verbal version

34:34

of Socratic self questioning. Meditation

34:38

is the non verbal version of

34:40

Socratic self question It says,

34:43

attend what's really going

34:45

on, what's really going on? What's

34:48

really going on? So both of these

34:50

are processes of eliminating

34:53

distraction and coming to authenticity.

34:57

Neither of them demands that you get

34:59

all the way there. It just

35:01

says, here's a process that you

35:03

can follow that's going to bring you closer

35:06

to the truth, close

35:09

sure to understanding, and

35:11

that is being ready

35:13

in the Socratic sense, to challenge

35:16

yourself and ask why, and

35:18

being ready in a meditation

35:21

sense to focus yourself

35:23

and eliminate distraction. So the first

35:25

way that we can really get better self knowledge, according

35:28

to Socrates, is through this idea

35:30

of the Socratic method and applying it to ourselves.

35:33

What does this look like, say in the context of, you know, maybe

35:35

thinking that money might bring us happiness when

35:37

it might not. So you might

35:39

ask yourself in the way that Socrates

35:42

would ask you, why do you think that money

35:44

is going to give you happiness? Think back to

35:46

a time that you got money, what did

35:48

you really feel? Think back to

35:50

other times when you were happy? What

35:53

were those times? Like? I think that

35:55

took things that you've learned from science

35:58

about what it is that makes people

36:00

happy. Why would you think those

36:02

scientific facts don't apply to

36:04

you. It's exactly like you

36:06

come home and you have a fight with your spouse.

36:09

Spouse says, why are you yelling at me? And

36:11

you say blah blah blah, and

36:13

your saust asks you a question again

36:15

and you realize, Oh, I'm yelling

36:17

at you because I was irritated

36:20

by something that happened to me on the

36:22

bus on the way home, and so

36:24

I'm taking frustration that came from one

36:26

source, and I'm bringing it

36:28

out in another source. That

36:31

kind of capacity to recognize

36:34

that we're doing something for a reason other

36:36

than the reason we thought we were doing

36:38

it's familiar to all

36:41

of us when we think about our

36:43

relations to other people, and so it

36:45

shouldn't be surprising that it's

36:47

also the case when we're making decisions

36:49

for ourselves. I think a final way

36:51

that we can really embrace our inner Socrates is

36:54

to really understand what the science is

36:56

telling us. Right that sometimes it's

36:58

just really hard to know our minds because of the unconscious

37:00

makes us our own selves impenetrable.

37:03

But if we know what's going on with other people, that

37:05

that can kind of help us make better decisions ourselves.

37:08

Yes, So, one of the amazing things

37:11

about human beings is that

37:13

each of us is different from

37:15

one another, but in certain

37:17

fundamental ways, we've each

37:20

been given the same set of stuff

37:22

to work with. All of us have brains

37:25

that were subject to the same evolutionary

37:27

process. All of us are

37:29

affected by features

37:31

of our external environment.

37:35

And therefore one of the ways

37:37

to understand yourself

37:40

is to understand other people.

37:43

And it's really really

37:45

unlikely that everybody

37:48

else in the world would be some way,

37:50

and you, yourself would be

37:53

another way. You are

37:55

unique. You're unique in the configuration

37:59

of facts which are true of you, but

38:02

general tendencies that if

38:04

your skin is cut, you

38:06

will bleed, that if

38:08

you are feeling sadness, your pupils

38:11

will show a certain kind of dilation.

38:14

Those are fundamental facts about

38:16

human beings. And one of the many,

38:19

very good ways to learn about ourselves

38:21

is to learn about others. And one of the

38:24

very many good ways to learn

38:26

about others is to use scientific

38:29

understanding. I think another insight of

38:31

kind of finding our inner Socrates, is this

38:33

idea that we can sort of treat ourselves

38:35

the way we would treat a friend. Like if our friend

38:38

was really struggling with something, we might ask them questions,

38:40

we might kind of get curious with them, and

38:42

ultimately what we're doing is just treating ourselves

38:45

in the same friendlike way that we might treat

38:47

other people when they're dealing with difficult

38:49

situations. That's right. It's sometimes

38:52

said a friend is a second

38:54

self, but a self

38:57

is a second friend. And just

38:59

as when we're asking a friend questions,

39:01

why do you think that? Why do you think that? Hey,

39:04

that's inconsistent with that. We don't

39:06

do it in an accusatory way. We don't

39:08

say, oh, you loser, you

39:11

were being mean to the cat because you

39:13

were angry at the bus driver. We say,

39:15

hey, that's so funny. You're

39:18

being mean to the cat because you were upset

39:20

with the bus driver. Now that you understand that,

39:22

isn't it easier for you to be compassionate

39:24

towards the cat in the way that you wanted it to

39:26

be? So. One of the nice things about

39:29

using a friend to understand yourself,

39:31

or using yourself to understand

39:33

your friend is that they're both ways

39:36

of evoking simultaneously

39:38

compassion and responsibility.

39:41

You say simultaneously, I'm

39:43

not letting you off the hook to

39:46

yourself or your friend, and

39:49

I understand that

39:51

it is challenging, and

39:53

that simultaneous attitude of

39:56

compassion and responsibility towards

39:58

self and other, through self

40:01

and other is a key

40:03

lesson that we can take from this Socratic

40:06

image. Sometimes when people hear about

40:08

this idea that we don't know ourselves

40:10

very well, it can be a little bit destabilizing.

40:13

How have you handled this? Heart

40:16

of what self knowledge requires

40:18

is a certain kind of humility

40:21

that is really authentically

40:24

understanding that you don't know

40:26

yourself brings with it

40:29

a kind of vertigo. You have this

40:31

sense that I don't really know what's

40:33

going on inside. But then there's

40:36

this reassuring sense that even though

40:38

you don't know what's going on inside, at

40:40

least you're no longer under the false

40:43

impression that you thought you

40:45

knew what was going on inside when

40:47

in fact you didn't. And even

40:50

though there is a certain kind of anxiety

40:52

which comes with recognizing that

40:54

you really are opaque

40:56

to yourself, at least realizing

40:59

that you're opaque to yourself is a little

41:01

more transparent than thinking

41:03

that you're transparent to yourself. Knowing

41:06

all these practices and studying Socrates

41:08

yourself, have you been able to better turn on

41:10

your inner Socrates to promote happiness?

41:13

Absolutely, when I find myself

41:16

frustrated, one of

41:18

the tricks that I have tried to

41:20

habituate in myself is

41:23

just an asking of why

41:25

am I feeling this

41:28

emotion right now? Often

41:31

it comes in the context

41:33

of a case where I have a project

41:36

that I want to engage in and

41:38

I find myself procrastinating

41:40

on it, and I ask myself,

41:43

why am I putting this off?

41:45

And often it's because I

41:48

don't know what the next step is, or

41:51

I'm told and I'm staying

41:53

where I am because I have a Radian story in

41:55

this room and I need something in another

41:57

room. And discovering

42:00

that these little things

42:02

and make a difference that just

42:05

likely move me towards what I'm trying to

42:07

do. I never try to

42:09

get all the way there all at once,

42:12

but Socratic self questioning

42:15

can help me understand what direction

42:17

I need to go to take the very next

42:19

step. Socrates's

42:22

ideas were so challenging in his own time that

42:24

he was put to death. Today, many

42:27

centuries later, Socrates is called

42:29

to constantly question ourselves and our motivations

42:31

can still cause lots of discomfort, But

42:34

as Tomorrow so eloquently put it before, it

42:36

really is better to know that we don't know.

42:40

So next time you're feeling a negative emotion, a

42:42

flash of anger, or a sense of arousal, or

42:44

a twinge of sadness, take some time

42:46

to intentionally examine the reasons you might

42:48

be feeling that way and look

42:51

carefully at the steps you can take to address

42:53

those emotions. And if you're planning to

42:55

do something that you think will make you happy. Why

42:57

not channel your inner Socrates and ask

42:59

if the path you're planning to follow is really

43:02

right for you, Does it fit with

43:04

what the science says truly makes for a happier

43:06

life? Or are you being fooled

43:08

by the lies of your mind yet again? And

43:11

do remember the great advice of Socrates's

43:13

later students Bill and Ted, because

43:15

harnessing your inner Socrates is yet another

43:17

great way to be excellent to one another

43:20

and to yourself.

43:27

If you liked tearing about today's Ancient happiness

43:29

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listening to this another pushkin podcasts,

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43:43

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43:46

So be sure to sign up today at Apple Podcasts

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or at pushkin dot FM.

43:51

Our next edition of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients

43:53

is going to be a little different. We'll head deep

43:55

into the Happiness Lab's past episode

43:58

archive to look at the work of Socrates's

44:00

famed pupils, Plato and Aristotle.

44:03

We'll see that we're not yet done with the deep wisdom

44:05

we can get from the ancient Greeks. Until

44:07

next time, stay safe, stay happy,

44:10

and party on. The

44:18

Happiness Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley

44:20

and is produced by Ryan Dilley, Courtney

44:22

Grano and Britney Brown. The show

44:25

was mastered by Evan Viola and our original

44:27

music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special

44:30

thanks to Greta Kone, Eric Sandler,

44:32

Carl Migliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan

44:35

Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, my agent,

44:37

Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team.

44:40

The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries

44:43

and by me, Doctor Laurie Santos.