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Hi, I’m Dr. Tamar Gendler, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences,
and professor of philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science at Yale University.
In this video, I’ll be exploring the idea that the mind is divided into parts,
and that conflict among these parts can be a major cause of unhappiness.
Maya used to think she knew exactly what would make her happy:
a high-paying job, marriage, and a stylish apartment.
But studies show that things like these don’t usually make you happier in the long run.
And philosophical arguments suggest that being happy
isn’t the same as having your desires fulfilled.
Yet even though she doubts her earlier ideas,
there is a part of her that still says:
Make money! Find romance! Live in style!
Why would she still want these things so much,
even though she realizes they won’t really make her happy?
Maya is starting to realize that she doesn’t really know her own mind very well.
Before she can figure out what happiness is,
she has to understand herself better than she does.
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Psychologists think the mind is divided into parts.
These parts can push and pull us in different directions at the same time.
On the Hualapai Indian Reservation on the western end of the Grand Canyon,
there is a horseshoe shaped transparent glass walkway
extending 70 feet over the canyon rim.
Imagine how you would feel standing on that walkway,
4,000 feet over the Colorado River.
One part of you would know that you were perfectly safe:
thousands of people do this every year.
But another part of you would be trembling with fear.
You might not even be able to make yourself take the first step.
Or suppose you were reading resumes of job candidates,
intending to be completely equitable.
Researchers have shown that, despite this intention,
your judgments will still probably reflect common biases.
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You will likely rate candidates with feminine-sounding names
somewhat lower than those with masculine-sounding names
-- even if you think you’re being totally fair.
In both scenarios, one part pushes one way while another pushes another way.
Researchers call the first part System 1.
It operates quickly, automatically, and often unconsciously.
You don’t need to think about whether to be afraid on the walkway.
System 1 simply sees the walkway and screams: THIS IS DANGEROUS!!!
System 2 comprises the slow, deliberate, and reflective processes that require effort:
thinking, reasoning, and deliberating.
To know that the walkway is safe, you have to rely on your past experience,
evidence, and understanding of the world.
You have to think about it for a minute.
These ideas remind Maya of Sigmund Freud’s
distinction between the conscious and the unconscious.
Freud thought that each of us is born with a
bundle of incoherent desires and needs and passions
-- for food, comfort, sex, comprising what he called the id.
Though often unreasonable and inconsistent,
they cause us to act in ways that aim at their satisfaction.
He thought we have another part, the ego, which is sensitive to reality.
The ego recognizes that the id’s drives are incoherent.
This recognition doesn’t affect the id.
Its drives are impervious to reason.
We detect the id’s effects on our thoughts and behaviors,
but we can’t peer into the id itself.
From the perspective of the ego,
trying to see the id is like trying to see the bottom of
an iceberg while standing on the chunk above the water.
The next time Maya meets her friend Sophie
for a philosophical conversation over coffee,
she is excited to talk with her about these ideas.
Sophie points out that the idea that we are
divided against ourselves is much older than Freud.
In western philosophy,
it can be traced back at least as far as the Greek philosopher Plato,
who lived almost 2500 years ago.
Plato taught that people have a divided soul.
He compared the soul to a chariot being pulled by two horses.
The driver is reason.
That’s the part of us that thinks, interprets, and reflects about the world.
Ideally, like a charioteer, reason steers the soul in the right direction.
The horses represent what Plato called spirit and appetite.
Spirit is generally inclined to cooperate with reason
by pulling the chariot in the direction reason wants to go.
But appetite -- the source of cravings and desires -- is ornery.
“The largest part in each person’s soul,” it “is by nature the most insatiable.”
Appetite wants what it wants. And often, it doesn’t want to listen to reason.
“This means", says Plato, "that chariot-driving in our
case is inevitably a painfully difficult business”.
A strong appetite can overwhelm the efforts of reason and spirit.
Plato tells the story of Leontius,
who noticed some corpses lying outside the city wall.
Plato writes: “He had an appetite to look at them,
but at the same time, he was disgusted and turned away.
For a time he struggled with himself and covered his face.
But finally, overpowered by appetite,
he pushed his eyes wide open and rushed towards the corpses,
saying, ‘Look for yourselves, you evil wretches! Take your fill of the beautiful sight.’”
And so Leontius looked at the corpses -- and was horrified by what he saw.
Following appetite’s lead didn’t make him happy.
It disturbed and frustrated him instead.
Plato suggests that a person finds authentic happiness
by getting their parts in line. He writes:
“He regulates well what is his own, and rules himself, puts himself in order,
and harmonizes the three parts of himself like three limiting notes on a musical scale.
And from having been many things”
– from having been pulled in different directions at once
-- “you become entirely one, moderate and harmonious.”
Maya certainly knows how inner conflict feels.
She often feels tempted to do things she thinks she shouldn’t do
-- eat a piece of chocolate cake, check social media --
and struggles with herself over whether to do them.
We all sometimes find ourselves knowing what is right and condemning what is wrong,
and yet nonetheless doing what goes against our better judgment.
Like Leontius, we usually regret it.
Conflict among our parts is a huge barrier to being happy.
So maybe Plato was right. Maybe inner harmony is the key to happiness.
What do you think?
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