Posted by Ron Newman on URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/pluralism-in-science-tp7582640p7582666.html
Jah, now that you mention it, it *does* look like the Smokey Bear sign. The intent on the front end is just to provide some bells and whistles to encourage participation, and the happiness level isn't controlled for influences, i.e. isn't blind. It probably will become a Facebook app, though the few times when I check FB I notice a propensity for an irritating artificial cheeriness, which could skew things.
But it still will be interesting to see if there are any broad trends, since reports are time-stamped and geolocated. What happens after a natural or economic disaster in a region? Does it go down as most people predict, or spike down then up as people discover community effects, rebuilding a neighbor's house, etc.?
Just yesterday I got access to terabytes of data to be mined when happiness reports are in order to flesh out the demographics of the area of each report.
You mention happiness "contagion". Is that due to the link on WHM about the Christakis (Harvard) and Foster (UC San Diego) on contagion and effects of happiness (and unhappiness, as well as obesity), up to two degrees of separation? There's a TEDx talk by Foster and the paper is quite interesting.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
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
(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.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Merle
Lefkoff <[hidden email]>
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 <[hidden email]> 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.
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 [hidden email]
mobile: <a href="tel:%28303%29%20859-5609" value="+13038595609" target="_blank">(303) 859-5609
skype: merlelefkoff
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