Skills, Virtue and Happiness

[obyvatel]

I would like to share some perspectives on the related topics of learning/skills, virtue and happiness and hopefully generate some productive discussions. As such, these terms are quite familiar to us. The term "learning" is used very often in the context of forum discussions in the context of "lessons". Virtues have been discussed on and off (Benjamin Franklin method, art of manliness etc) . And happiness, while not exclusively focused on in the forum (unlike its opposite notion "suffering"), has its place in every persons' vocabulary and perhaps in their motivation to do anything. The idea is to provide a perspective which shows a coherent link between these terms and provide a framework on which everyday experiences, aims and actions can be organized, shared and discussed.

One of the materials that I intend to draw from comes from philosopher Julia Annas who has argued for a "skill model" for understanding virtues and bringing them back into focus for mainstream attention. The concept of virtues used to be a cornerstone for practical ethics in the past but recent psychological discoveries have cast serious doubts on the very existence of virtues as stable features worthy of attention. Are virtues idealistic relics of the past good for only academic scholars of ancient philosophy and classics? Or can they be restored to a position where they can provide practical direction to modern day people as to how to lead their lives and understand the world around them?

What about happiness? We all use the term but do we have a common understanding as to what happiness is? Happiness is much studied in social sciences and their results have led to adoption of indices of happiness like Gross National Happiness . What are people measuring in such indices? Is there any relationship of happiness with virtue? Should there be and should we care?

These are some of the questions that we can explore, if there is enough interest. Starting with the assumption that there will be interest, I will get the ball rolling starting with skills. Learning skills is something we are familiar with as part of daily lives, so it provides a good foundation for the potential later topic regarding the skill model of virtue. Also, I hope that some perspectives on learning skills which can be used across different domains will be useful on its own, including reading and participating here in the forum.

 

[obyvatel]

Skills

Learning is an experiential process. It is spread across innumerable domains. The idea here is to explore some general domain independent empirical material regarding learning skills. We can all agree that learning skills is a developmental process. In their paper "A 5 Stage Model Of The Mental Activities Involved In Directed Skill Acquisition", Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus made an effort to delienate the developmental stages. They proposed 5 stages : novice, competence, proficiency, expertise and mastery. For this post, I have used material from the above paper along with a later paper by Stuart Dreyfus titled "The 5 Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition".

Stage 1 : Novice

When one is just beginning to pick up a new skill, he relies either on imitation of others more advanced in the field for unstructured learning environments or on "context-free rules" for structured learning environments. In the latter case, the rules are of the form "if this ... then do that ...". While unstructured environments are not specifically covered in the Dreyfus model, this type of rules are most likely used in learning through imitation as well. The rules can vary in complexity.

A few examples from Dreyfuses

[quote author= Dreyfus and Dreyfus]
The student automobile driver learns to recognize such domain-independent features as speed (indicated by the speedometer) and is given rules such as shift to 2nd gear when the speedometer needle points to 10.

The novice pilot knows how to read cockpit instruments and how to manipulate
the controls in response to such features as instrument readings and context-free visual cues such as the angular displacement of the horizon.

The novice chess player learns a numerical value for each type of piece, regardless of its position, and learns the following rule: Always exchange if the total value of pieces captured exceeds the value of pieces lost. The player also learns to seek center control when no advantageous exchanges can be found and is given a rule defining center squares and one for calculating extent of control.
[/quote]

In other words, the novice stage involves using recipes and following instructions to the letter. It is machine-like in nature. In the real world application of skills especially in cases of high complexity, fixed rules cannot carry one far. A novice is usually confused and flustered when things do not work according to the "book" and lack the knowledge and/or ability to adapt suitably.

It is interesting to note that we may operate in the "novice stage" for skills which we may not care much to learn more about. We may for example be cooking like a novice even if we have been doing it for decades. It may not just be important enough for us to go into more detail and all we want is to "get the job done". This is sometimes true for some professions as well. A person claiming to have 10 years of experience may in reality be a novice if he has been using mindless repetition in his work.


Stage 2: Competence

The entry to the second stage of competence (changed later to "advanced beginner) begins when the student starts to recognize recurrent meaningful situational patterns. Such patterns or "aspects" can eventually get integrated as situational guidelines in addition to the context free rules learned in the first stage.

The Dreyfuses also add that such aspect recognition can be achieved by calling out specific examples rather than simply attending to recurrent set of features.

An example

[quote author=Dreyfus in The 5 Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition]
The advanced beginner driver uses (situational) engine sounds as well as (nonsituational) speed in deciding when to shift. He or she learns the following maxim: Shift up when the motor sounds like it is racing and down when it sounds like it is straining. Engine sounds cannot be adequately captured by a list of features, so features cannot take the place of a few choice examples in learning the relevant distinctions.
[/quote]

Learning at this stage is still carried on in a detached, analytic frame of mind. The learner responds to aspects of the situation which he/she recognizes in skill application. The goals of skill application at this stage are short-term and partial, as in attending to the immediate problem only without an awareness of a bigger whole.

Stage 3: Proficiency

With more experience and effort, the learner may be exposed to more and more situational factors and complexities which are beyond the reach of rules and guidelines. As a result, at this stage, the learner has to respond to the situation by figuring out what patterns and variables to attend to and what strategies to adopt from his own judgement. The effect of uncertainty is felt very strongly at this stage, especially as he realizes that the rules and guidelines he has learned are not enough for an optimal application of the skill in every situation. Along with the experience of trepidation that uncertainty brings, learners at this stage can also experience elation with the successful application of skill in a complex situation.

Example

[quote author=Dreyfus in The 5 Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition]
A competent driver, leaving the freeway on an offramp curve, learns to pay attention to the speed of the car not to whether to shift gears. After taking into account speed, surface condition, criticality of time, and so forth, the competent driver may decide he or she is going too fast. The driver then has to decide whether to let up on the accelerator, remove his or her foot altogether, or step on the brake, and precisely when to perform any of these actions. The driver is relieved if he or she gets through the curve without mishap and is shaken if he or she begins to go into a skid.
[/quote]

The beginning of emotional involvement in the outcome of a particular instance of skill application is a characteristic feature of this stage. Does this help or hurt further development? Should the learner suppress his/her emotional reactions for the sake of detached dispassionate "objectivity"? Dreyfuses believe, based on some empirical data, that doing so may hurt further development of skill, at least in some domains.

[quote author=Dreyfus]
Patricia Benner has studied student nurses at each stage of skill acquisition. She finds that, unless the trainee stays emotionally involved and accepts the joy of a job well done, as well as the remorse of mistakes, he or she will not develop further and will eventually burn out trying to keep track of all the features and aspects, rules and maxims that modern medicine requires. In the cases of nurses at least, resistance to involvement and risk leads to stagnation and, ultimately, to boredom and regression (Benner, 1984).
[/quote]

Stage 4: Expert

Dreyfuses think that if the learner accepts the anxiety that comes from embracing the uncertainty of outcomes for skill applications which he/she got a taste of in stage 3, he/she can potentially enter stage 4. The positive and negative emotional experiences accompanying success and failure can strengthen learning by potentially reinforcing successful perspectives and inhibiting unsuccessful ones. At this stage, learning becomes embodied.

The learner is already at the stage where the real situation presents itself in its bewildering complexity of detail. He/she develops the capacity of recognizing the salient components of the whole situation spontaneously and is also cognizant of the overall goal, but does not always know with certainty what actions to take. In other words, at stage 4, the learner is able to spontaneously take in the situation in its salient entirety but the decision making process is still mostly consciously deliberate.

Stage 5: Master

At stage 5, the learner's response to situations loses the deliberate quality in the previous stage and becomes spontaneous and intuitive. There is nothing mystical about the notion of intuition here. This intuition is born out of experience. Embodied learning in the previous stages results in access to a vast quantity of detailed information organized according to salient features of the varied contexts along with refined and subtle discrimination. This trains the adaptive unconscious and completely changes the character of the response.

Mastery in any skill is rare. It is perhaps achieved by very few. I have heard and read stories of doctors who could diagnose a patient on entering the room where plethora of specialists and batteries of tests had failed earlier. These intuitions are followed up by tests and analysis for confirmation. When asked how he knew or why he ordered those particular tests, usually there is no convincing answer immediately forthcoming. It is reasonable to suppose that in such cases where the intuition has been honed through years of hard-earned experience, dedicated effort and embodied learning, the conscious deliberative faculties start playing second fiddle. This of course is true for branches of science as well with well known examples of scientists knowing the answer to a problem they had labored on suddenly and spontaneously.

The above 5 stage model is an abstraction. It is useful for understanding progress and devising strategies for the same. It is not predicted by any theory. Neuroscience experiments in a variety of settings comparing neural patterns of beginners and experts show marked differences in activity which indicate that information processing proceeds in a fundamentally different way in these categories. So along with phenomenological observations and personal experience, the general outline of such a model is supported by hard sciences as well making it worthy of attention.

So, does the above account (parts of it) agree with your experience and observations?

 

[Archaea]

Are there different kinds of skills, for example, skill learned by the body and skills learned by the mind? Both Seth and Don Juan talk about how the body has it's own consciousness, Seth says it's not completely separate from our normal consciousness, but we have to expand our consciousness in order to be aware of the body's consciousness.

I've been interested in understanding how skills develop for a little while, and I decided to learn how to juggle. At first I wasn't doing very well, but after a while of trying, I managed to be able to do it a little bit. What was weird though, I thought, was that it wasn't a matter of figuring it out like I would a mathematics problem, using my brain, it was just a matter of practicing. I think this is because my body was doing the learning, not my mind or consciousness.

This makes me wonder that if my consciousness were to travel back in time into my body before I learned how to juggle, would I still be able to do it? I think that's really a non-question in terms if "The Work," however, probably just better to ask: is there's any possibility that the body has it's own consciousness?

 

[Nancy2feathers]

I was giving it some thought and was wondering if some skills might possibly be inherited somehow through reincarnation. For example, maybe I was a Native American in a past life and made leather clothing, bags, moccasins, etc. In this life I'm drawn to that same skill and it comes naturally and sometimes triggers memories of that past life. There could be a feeling of happiness in completing a project using this skill and knowing it was done in a traditional manner, keeping a tradition/custom alive.

Thanks for starting this thread, obyvatel. I find it most interesting. :)

 

[number six]

Are there different kinds of skills, for example, skill learned by the body and skills learned by the mind? Both Seth and Don Juan talk about how the body has it's own consciousness, Seth says it's not completely separate from our normal consciousness, but we have to expand our consciousness in order to be aware of the body's consciousness.

I've been interested in understanding how skills develop for a little while, and I decided to learn how to juggle. At first I wasn't doing very well, but after a while of trying, I managed to be able to do it a little bit. What was weird though, I thought, was that it wasn't a matter of figuring it out like I would a mathematics problem, using my brain, it was just a matter of practicing. I think this is because my body was doing the learning, not my mind or consciousness.

This makes me wonder that if my consciousness were to travel back in time into my body before I learned how to juggle, would I still be able to do it? I think that's really a non-question in terms if "The Work," however, probably just better to ask: is there's any possibility that the body has it's own consciousness?

It is a fascinating question, does the body have its own consciousness. What you say here about expanding our consciousness in order to be aware of the body's consciousness has profound possibilities and i think that that the problem with public education has been it has robbed mankind. I am aware of the Rockefeller corruption of education and its dumbing down in schools where one is taught how to fit in and be a cog in the wheel. Time "is" and consciousness is not, or at the best something one can only hope someday to achieve.

A whole transformation of thinking needs to occur for there to be a totally new and liberating consciousness that is a living breathing demonstration of 'our' natural freedom. The "human consciousness" must become aware of its own self imposed limitation and realize that consciousness has absolutely nothing to do with time and absolutely everything to do with the moment, but this can never be "taught" and there is no "way" for that to happen simply because any of that validates time.

Either one sees it or one does not. The fragmentation of the mind occurs the moment one sees oneself as separate, or the moment one identifies oneself as "human being". Then the rest of life is about resolving that separation but in so doing the "human"fragments itself even further. Expanding ones consciousness is not about evolution or evolving, which imo is a local custom, it is about knowing that one has never been separate from the beginning.

I remember what J Krishnamurti had said about the body having its own intelligence and i found this which i will add to this conversation. It is a dialogue he was giving on the nature of thought. I won't include the whole but just the end as i think it is of interest to this thread.

"Now, is there another form of learning; learning, not in the context of knowledge, but a different form, a non-accumulative perception-action? To find out we have to enquire whether it is possible to observe the content of our consciousness and to observe the world without a single prejudice. Is that possible? Do not say it is not possible, just ask the question. See whether, when you have a prejudice, you can observe clearly. You cannot, obviously. If you have a certain conclusion, a certain set of beliefs, concepts, ideals, and you want to see clearly what the world is, all those conclusions, ideals, prejudices and so on will actually prevent it. It is not a question of how to get rid of your prejudices but of seeing clearly, intelligently, that any form of prejudice, however noble or ignoble will actually prevent perception. When you see that, prejudices go. What is important is not the prejudice but the demand to see clearly.

If I want to be a good surgeon I cannot do so with ideals or prejudices about surgeons; I must actually perform surgery. Can you see that a new form of action, a new form of non-accumulative knowledge, is possible which will break the pattern, break the programme, so that you are acting totally differently?

The way we have lived, over millions of years, has been the repetition of the same process of acquiring knowledge and acting from that knowledge. That knowledge and action is limited. That limitation creates problems and the brain has become accustomed to solving the problems which knowledge has repeatedly created. The brain is caught in that pattern and we are saying that that pattern will never, in any circumstance, solve our human problems. Obviously we have not solved them up till now. There must be a different, a totally different, movement, which is a non-accumulative perception-action. To have non-accumulative perception is to have no prejudice. It is to have absolutely no ideals, no concepts, no faith - because all those have destroyed man, they have not solved his problems.

So: have you a prejudice? Have you a prejudice which has something in common with an ideal? Of course. Ideals are to be accomplished in the future, and knowledge becomes tremendously important in the realizing of ideals. So, can you observe without accumulation, without the destructive nature of prejudice, ideals, faith, belief and your own conclusions and experiences? There is group consciousness, national consciousness, linguistic consciousness, professional consciousness, racial consciousness, and there is fear, anxiety, sorrow, loneliness, the pursuit of pleasure, love and finally death. If you keep acting in that circle, you maintain the human consciousness of the world. just see the truth of this. You are part of that consciousness and you sustain it by saying, `I am an individual. My prejudices are important. My ideals are essential' - repeating the same thing over and over again. Now the maintenance, the sustenance and the nourishment, of that consciousness takes place when you are repeating that pattern. But when you break away from that consciousness, you are introducing a totally new factor in the whole of that consciousness.

Now, if we understand the nature of our own consciousness, if we see how it is operating in this endless cycle of knowledge, action and division - a consciousness which has been sustained for millennia - if we see the truth that all this is a form of prejudice and break away from it, we introduce a new factor into the old. It means that you, as a human being who is of the consciousness of the rest of mankind, can move away from the old pattern of obedience and acceptance. That is the real turning point in your life. Man cannot go on repeating the old pattern, it has lost its meaning, - in the psychological world it has totally lost its meaning. If you fulfil yourself, who cares? If you become a saint, what does it matter?

Whereas, if you totally move away from that you affect the whole consciousness of mankind."
J. Krishnamurti The Network of Thought
Chapter 2 2nd Public Talk Saanen 14th July 1981

 

[theos]

Regarding skills, obyvatel's second post reminded me of something similar I learned in school. From Wikipedia:

The four stages of competence

Unconscious incompetence
The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognize their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage.[2] The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.

Conscious incompetence

Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.

Conscious competence

The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.

Unconscious competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

 

[Archaea]

"Now, is there another form of learning; learning, not in the context of knowledge, but a different form, a non-accumulative perception-action? To find out we have to enquire whether it is possible to observe the content of our consciousness and to observe the world without a single prejudice. Is that possible? Do not say it is not possible, just ask the question. See whether, when you have a prejudice, you can observe clearly. You cannot, obviously. If you have a certain conclusion, a certain set of beliefs, concepts, ideals, and you want to see clearly what the world is, all those conclusions, ideals, prejudices and so on will actually prevent it. It is not a question of how to get rid of your prejudices but of seeing clearly, intelligently, that any form of prejudice, however noble or ignoble will actually prevent perception. When you see that, prejudices go. What is important is not the prejudice but the demand to see clearly.

Could the ability to be aware of our prejudice, or to observe the world without prejudice, be a skill? In the law of one series Ra talks about the mind, body, and spirit complexes, which kind of maybe ties in with the idea of moving, emotional and intellectual centers. So, if there are different skills for the mind and body, could there be emotional or spiritual skills? And would observing the world without prejudice be one of these skills?

I guess the obvious "emotional skill" would be empathy, assuming it's possible to become more empathic with experience. In the Life experiences represent interaction with "God" thread, someone said that Gurdjieff had developed himself to the point where external events wouldn't affect him internally unless he let it. Could this be another emotional skill? And can we think of awareness of objective reality as a skill?

If you keep acting in that circle, you maintain the human consciousness of the world. just see the truth of this. You are part of that consciousness and you sustain it by saying, `I am an individual. My prejudices are important. My ideals are essential' - repeating the same thing over and over again. Now the maintenance, the sustenance and the nourishment, of that consciousness takes place when you are repeating that pattern. But when you break away from that consciousness, you are introducing a totally new factor in the whole of that consciousness.

If we can think of skills as patterns of behavior, then this quote would seem to indicate that we can become quite skilled at self delusion. This would mean that we can develop skills which aren't beneficial to ourselves, but are instead detrimental. I think a good example is the skilled liar, who has become so good at lying that even they believe the lies (makes them more convincing) however, after confusing themselves so much, they lose their mind. I think that's kind of similar to what J. Krishnamurti is saying in the quote.

 

[number six]

Could the ability to be aware of our prejudice, or to observe the world without prejudice, be a skill? In the law of one series Ra talks about the mind, body, and spirit complexes, which kind of maybe ties in with the idea of moving, emotional and intellectual centers. So, if there are different skills for the mind and body, could there be emotional or spiritual skills? And would observing the world without prejudice be one of these skills?

I guess the obvious "emotional skill" would be empathy, assuming it's possible to become more empathic with experience. In the Life experiences represent interaction with "God" thread, someone said that Gurdjieff had developed himself to the point where external events wouldn't affect him internally unless he let it. Could this be another emotional skill? And can we think of awareness of objective reality as a skill?

My impression of Krishnamurtis teaching is not of becoming but rather realizing that the individual already is. If one sees prejudice as a learned trait or condition then it wouldn't be a skill which would allow one to be free of it so much as it would be the understanding that it was never a part of 'you' to begin with. This can only be in the moment and to think that one must now develop a skill to unlearn what was never there to begin with sounds to me like one part of consciousness trying to fix its own creation. Prejudice is fragmenting and can only be resolved in the beginning, it cannot be fixed later by acquisition of some skill.imo

"Now, is there another form of learning; learning, not in the context of knowledge, but a different form, a non-accumulative
If we can think of skills as patterns of behavior, then this quote would seem to indicate that we can become quite skilled at self delusion. This would mean that we can develop skills which aren't beneficial to ourselves, but are instead detrimental. I think a good example is the skilled liar, who has become so good at lying that even they believe the lies (makes them more convincing) however, after confusing themselves so much, they lose their mind. I think that's kind of similar to what J. Krishnamurti is saying in the quote.

Yes there must be another form of learning which never is allowed its full potential because the mind of all humans, human consciousness, learns to fragment its thinking. It is true that to some extent a child must learn discernment, otherwise it would be bitten by a snake or hit by a car etc. It is when discernment becomes judgment however lies the dilemma, and judgment is what humanity needs to resolve.

I say that that also can only be resolved in the beginning. A good question would be why has humanity judged itself as being separate to begin with?

"Because there is us poor little humans who must evolve to get back to the greater reality?"

What if there really never was a separation but only seems like there is because from an early age every individual is taught that there is and validates that each day by identifying with its humanity rather then identifying with its part in an ever changing and ever expanding now .............What if there really never was a separation? Only a mind cognizant of its own fragmentation and aware of its propensity toward fragmenting would know that there has never been. ;)

 

[obyvatel]

I was giving it some thought and was wondering if some skills might possibly be inherited somehow through reincarnation. For example, maybe I was a Native American in a past life and made leather clothing, bags, moccasins, etc. In this life I'm drawn to that same skill and it comes naturally and sometimes triggers memories of that past life. There could be a feeling of happiness in completing a project using this skill and knowing it was done in a traditional manner, keeping a tradition/custom alive.

Hi Nancy2feathers,
It is true that people have natural talents and inclinations towards developing certain skills. Why it is so is a hard question to answer and inheritance through reincarnation supplies one possible answer. IMO, learning how to develop the natural talent (if present ) to the degree possible leads to individual satisfaction as well as benefits to others. This makes pursuit of skills a worthwhile investment of time and energy.

Regarding skills, obyvatel's second post reminded me of something similar I learned in school. From Wikipedia:

The four stages of competence

Yes, this can be correlated to the Dreyfus model in different ways.

The stage of unconscious competence is usually arrived through and after conscious competence. As the article says and the Dreyfus model agrees, it is through repeated practice and experience of different situations that one can reach this stage. Natural talent can expedite the progress through the stages but does not substitute training, effort and practical experience.

Why strive for competence?

Mostly for practical reasons. Keeping obvious benefits aside, striving for skill helps develop discipline and perseverance, which can be used outside of the specific skill domain. Long term pursuit of excellence can bring about significant changes in the brain, as is shown through neuroscience research. Also, being competent in some area may be necessary to recognize and evaluate competence in other people. The alternative sometimes is to fall for the "Dunning Kruger effect".

A deeper aspect of skill as it relates to virtue and happiness is the skill level we exercise in living our lives, moment by moment. In every situation we have a choice to respond in a variety of ways. What choices do we make? How do we evaluate those choices, especially if involving moral/ethical elements? Does it make sense to talk in absolute terms as in an action is virtuous or not virtuous (as in "there is good and bad and the situation which determines which category the action falls under"). Does it make more sense to talk about an action in terms of the degree of skill in a continuum like one suggested by the Dreyfus model? This would take us to the skill model of virtue.

 

[beetlemaniac]

A deeper aspect of skill as it relates to virtue and happiness is the skill level we exercise in living our lives, moment by moment. In every situation we have a choice to respond in a variety of ways. What choices do we make? How do we evaluate those choices, especially if involving moral/ethical elements? Does it make sense to talk in absolute terms as in an action is virtuous or not virtuous (as in "there is good and bad and the situation which determines which category the action falls under"). Does it make more sense to talk about an action in terms of the degree of skill in a continuum like one suggested by the Dreyfus model? This would take us to the skill model of virtue.

I think that the ability to see the "third factor" in any situation would be one's guide to the correct course of action. So to improve one's skill of virtue is to improve one's ability to gather information from a situation, discern the influences involved, and synthesise a unique course of action that takes all influences into account ie. the "third factor".

Effectiveness / skillfulness in gathering information would require the machine to be as clear as possible physically, emotionally and intellectually (diet & detoxification, breathing, mental vigilance ie. removal of buffers and programs). The discipline, struggle and resulting hygiene with sustained work in these areas would naturally align a human being towards objectivity and clear perception.

As I think about the part where discerning influences comes into play, I am forced to reevaluate my own values and "guideposts" to action. It would seem that these internal guides / values that influence our desired outcome are first learnt through imitation, ie. the first stage of the Dreyfuses' model. Values would, for example be "Honesty", "Courage", "Responsibility", etc. I remember first learning about moral values at school -- the words were devoid of any meaning and just rang hollow. As time passed, I met many role models (many of whom are here) whom displayed a certain proficiency at the practice of virtues. Their examples allowed my understanding of values to increase in dimension and they became part of my internal milieu, guiding lights to action. As I see this just unfolding in my own life, I see a progressive subsuming or knitting together of these disparate "values" into one all encompassing idea of Virtue -- maybe, close to point of mastery, the competence gains sufficient weight in the unconscious where the repertoire of virtue is increased to the point where almost any situation can be responded to with ease and gracefulness. Hence, happiness?

Thanks obyvatel and all who contributed, I valued the opportunity this thread gave me to think about virtue.

 

[3DStudent]

Interesting topic. I have for a few years now on and off, been studying art. It has been mostly studying and not enough practice though. There was a recent video by a comic artist about skills and talent. I didn't watch it all, but he uses 5 stages too. There is also talk about inspiration being inherent or coming from the outside.

1. Student - You have knowledge
2. Amateur - You play with that knowledge
3. Professional - You work with that knowledge
4. Expert - You solve problems with that knowledge
5. Master - You invent with the skills you've achieved:

http://<iframe width="560" height="...AM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I didn't think about skills being a kind of discipline or perseverance in life. But then again when you refer to certain studies you call them "disciplines", so it makes sense. I suppose if in striving toward a goal and enjoying the process and building that virtue, it will lead to happiness. And of course there is being in the moment which should be enjoyable too. Learning is fun, right?

 

[obyvatel]

Virtue

A virtue is a disposition to perceive (sense/intuit), to evaluate (feel) , to think and to act in a way that is appropriate to the situation at hand.

This definition of virtue includes the 4 psychological functions that psychologist Carl Jung identified (discussed more here ). One key point here is that a virtue is sensitive to situation. An act which is brave in one situation can be reckless in another and tactless in a third situation.

It is specially tempting to evaluate virtue in all or nothing terms - either an act is virtuous or it is not. An ideally virtuous person in Greek philosophy is an impossibility. Making something impossible to reach has psychological consequences for motivation to practice. Here the skill analogy for virtue is practically useful. One would not say that it is rather useless to learn cooking skills because being the master of cooking is beyond reach. Rather, one knows that to become a good cook, one has to learn the basics, keep practicing and experimenting, and keep getting better, refining the skills all the time. The same analogy can be applied in the area of virtue. Rather than evaluating an act as virtuous or not virtuous, it is better to evaluate it in a developmental scale like the one proposed by Dreyfuses. As ethics philosopher Julia Annas writes

[quote author=Intelligent Virtue]
when an action is virtuous it may be done at any point on a range of development from the learner, who merely parrots what her teachers tell her, to the truly virtuous person, whose actions are based on understanding gained through experience and reflection, self-directed, and coming from a disposition which continually improves through active engagement with experience.
[/quote]


I would contend that this general theme is applicable to all actions of life. Every action, based on the level of knowledge, intention, attention and situation, can be located somewhere within the developmental scale of skills. Since in the context of this forum, we are mostly talking about psychological/spiritual development, and not just skills in general, we bring in the term virtue and use the skill analogy on it.

To develop a skill or virtue, Annas writes that two factors are important: a need to learn and a drive to aspire. There is an aim which drives the "need to learn". The "drive to aspire" is a self-directed effort to continuously look for ways in which the application of virtue-as-skill is improved and refined. This is a demanding aspect - it is not static but needs constant attention and effort. In the absence of the "drive to aspire", virtue-as-skill stagnates and becomes mere repetition.

Stagnation is a tricky topic in itself. How can one recognize stagnation from the general plateaus that everyone goes through in the process of developing skills? In the context of this forum and related activities, how can one see if he or others are stuck and then get unstuck? Can the skill model help? Does immersing oneself in a variety of activities guarantee against getting stuck? All these questions, if considered worthy of attention, can potentially spawn off separate discussions.

What is it about virtues that inspire us? A naturalistic view would say "commitment to goodness and positive values". Why should such things be important? What explanation can be given which does not involve an obvious or sophisticated version of carrot and stick (reward and punishment) type arguments? Aspiring to live virtuously provides no guarantee of favorable outcomes in this world. History of human experience is enough to prove this. Yet, people do get inspired by virtue. Which would bring up the topic of happiness.

But before moving on to that topic, does most of the above seem reasonable but rather obvious? Why bring this up if this is obvious? My observation of many people who take psychological and/or spiritual development seriously in this forum is that this obvious factor is often not embodied in their practice. Especially for those seriously interested in the Gurdjieff Work, there is a tendency to beat themselves up for every failure and slip. The psychological explanation for this is the theory of narcissistic wounding. The antidote offered is acceptance and self-compassion. If or when we are unable to provide this for ourselves, we network about it and get our experiences validated by others who say they are or have been in the same boat and offer encouragement and remedies. When we do not network about it, we are more prone to fall into anger/depression/addiction to substances or activities or relationships. So obviously networking is a beneficial activity in this regard.

The reason to bring up this topic is the hope that the skill analogy will help in organizing and evaluating our experiences appropriately so that we can save energy. Energy that is sucked into fighting the negative introject can be used for other purposes, individually and collectively. If we re-label our experiences of failure in terms of skill application and not something wrong with ourselves, we are likely to save energy. After all if dinner burns down, most of us are not likely to fall into a depression about our worthlessness.

Of course it is harder in the case of virtues because of their essential nature of "commitment to goodness". If we fail, we are no longer good but broken and doomed.I suspect that "failure to be virtuous makes one bad" is the way the unconscious mind is programmed to think given our cultural legacy, and it wreaks havoc in our inner world. So defining virtue as "disposition to perceive, evaluate, think and act in a way situation sensitive way" should supply another way to separate out "doing" and "being".

Further, looking at virtue-as-developmental-skill, we can evaluate our actions in context and see if our acts were more at the novice level or higher. Our failures can be analyzed objectively and improved. When we network from this mindset, it is likely to be more about "this is what was the situation and this is what I did and this is the result I got. How could I do it different for a better outcome next time?" This is exactly how one would seek advice from people at a higher level of skill in vocational contexts. It is not like one is repressing or suppressing emotions in this way. Skilled people do not become experts/masters without some emotional investment in their occupations as the Dreyfuss model describes. Rather, they channel the energy generated from the emotions to feed the "drive to aspire" aspect.

Even if you happen to agree in general with the above perspective, do not expect that there will be immediate changes from just intellectually accepting it. However, if you commit to following up diligently on this concept in your daily life, especially in challenging and reframing your inner narratives, then you may see benefits over time.

At least that is the hope with which I present the above line of thought.

 

[obyvatel]

Happiness

There is a previous discussion on conditions of happiness here . In this post I will mostly quote from the "Intelligent Virtue" by Julia Annas.


Is happiness a state arising out of satisfying desires? In a resource constrained world, it is not possible to conceive of lasting happiness from this perspective. Hypothetically speaking, if there was a world where all desires were satisfied, we wish and it becomes so, would we be happy?

Annas writes
[quote author=Intelligent Virtue]

But it turns out to be problematic to remove neediness as an essential aspect of human nature. The author Julian Barnes, in a brilliant piece of writing, brings this point out. In one of his works he describes a man who finds himself in heaven, or rather in `New Heaven', an up-to-date version of heaven which is non-judgemental, and where you get everything you want, effortlessly and without any adverse consequences. The food is always exactly as you like it, and produces no fullness, indigestion, obesity, or the like. When you play golf, you always win; you excel in any sport or skill you take up.Your favourite soccer teams win; you meet any famous person you like. Your world conforms to what you want it to be, so that all your desires are fulfilled without any of the problems that arise from normal human neediness. What could possibly be the downside to such a life?

None appears for a while, but eventually the narrator realizes that he, and all the other happy people in New Heaven, will ultimately get bored with being able to satisfy any desire they have, with no bad effects, however they ring the changes. And then they will have nothing left to keep them going. When this becomes apparent to a person, he or she willingly goes out of existence. A life of having all your desires fulfilled without the problems created by human neediness leaves humans with nothing to live for, nothing to propel them onwards.

A life of complete desire-satisfaction, even without the problems involved in having needs, turns out to be essentially backward-looking, and leaves out anything that could get us to move forward with our lives. We recognize, even without any theory about it, that something is deeply lacking in an account of happiness that leaves us nothing to live for once our needs are met in a way that leaves no further neediness.
[/quote]


Is happiness then a state of general satisfaction with life? This is the more academic definition of happiness used in some branches of social sciences and is the source of compiling data about index of happiness.

Annas writes
[quote author=Intelligent Virtue]
This kind of account takes happiness to be, not a local attitude had when desires are satisfied, but an attitude of global satisfaction with one's life as a whole. This is an improvement on the desire-satisfaction kind of account, since it involves not just a positive feeling but some kind of overall judgement about one's life as a whole, and thus some kind of evaluation of how one's life as a whole is going. If you are studying happiness in the social sciences, this is the obvious item to try to study, since we can ask people what their overall evaluation of their life is, and record answers, whereas asking people about their feelings or whether their desires are satisfied does not lend itself to measurement. Hence we find that, in the social sciences, numerous students of happiness in sociology and psychology departments study self-reports of life satisfaction, and this often leads to the assumption that life satisfaction is just what happiness is. This is the assumption behind the World Database of Happiness, which over a period of twenty years has amassed the results of questionnaires on life satisfaction and come up with numerous conclusions about happiness both in and between different nations.

There are obvious problems with this approach. One is that people can be expected to have a variety of views as to what it is to be satisfied with their lives. Some may respond that they have an affirmative attitude to their life as a whole because they have attained their major goals in life, even though emotionally they feel flat or even distressed. Others may respond affirmatively about their lives because they are feeling happy at the time they are asked, even though they have failed to attain, or lost, the things they have spent their lives attaining. Some may think that individual achievement matters for being positive about one's life; others may value family ties and connections more. It is thus quite unclear that people asked at a given time about satisfaction with their lives are answering the same question; and this obviously renders uncertain what is achieved by collecting the answers.
[/quote]

In addition, the perspective about general life satisfaction also varies with time, and stage of life.

One common feature in the above perspectives about happiness is that it is a "state". The desire for happiness thus translates to achieving and holding on to a state. An alternative way to look at happiness while including the dynamic component of life experiences is that happiness is more of a forward looking aim that propels us.

[quote author=Intelligent Virtue]
As ancient authors point out, it doesn't make sense to ask why you aim to be happy, in the way it certainly makes sense to ask why you aim to have pleasant feelings or to have desires satisfied, rather than choosing to have some other aims. Living happily is essentially an overall aim, in eudaimonist thinking, and this gives it the right place in our lives. Living happily is not feeling good, getting what you want, or feeling satisfied with your life. How could any of these serve as an aim, inspire you to do anything? When we aim at living happily we are aiming at going forward in certain ways, getting somewhere in what we are doing. Hence the static conception of happiness which takes it to be pleasure is ill situated to make sense of any connection with virtue, which is itself essentially dynamic and forward-looking. Again, it is no surprise that philosophers with a static conception of happiness have seen little connection of that with virtue.

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Possibly the most significant problem about virtue's relation to happiness imported by thinking of the latter in terms of pleasant feelings or satisfaction is that it leads us to confuse the circumstances of a life with the living of it. We have seen this confusion with virtue; but it happens with happiness too. Feeling pleased is essentially a passive part of my life. I can be active in bringing it about: eating appropriate food when hungry, engaging in activities that appeal to me. But feeling pleased, like any feeling, is not itself part of the way I live my life. As with other circumstances stances of my life, it is not up to me whether feelings of pleasure or satisfaction come from experiences, including the satisfaction of desires; it is only up to me to manage this in so far as I can. Pleasure thought of as feeling or satisfaction is essentially passive, part of the materials making up my life but hardly part of actively living it. Hence pleasant feelings or satisfaction come to be thought of, on a `feelings' view of happiness, as episodes in my life. But then they are just part of the circumstances of my life. Aiming at pleasure, understood as a way of living my life, will come, on this view, to nothing more than manipulating other circumstances so that I get as many of these episodes as I can. If we think of happiness this way we will see no plausible connection with virtue.

Indeed, virtue comes to be seen as just one item in the life I am leading, with nothing to encourage me even to see it as crucial in my life. This is perhaps the position some people find themselves in who want to be good, but also want to be rich and successful, and then ask why virtue should be a more important item in their lives than money or success. If we are not clear that virtue is part of the living of my life, rather than the circumstances of it, we will be hard put to it to find any reason for systematically preferring virtue to pleasure (or, come to that, pleasure to virtue) as we live our lives. The decision between them will come to appear a matter of personal preference, or even arbitrary. I prefer virtue to pleasure; you prefer the opposite. This fails to take virtue seriously, and shows the importance of being clear about the distinction between the circumstances and the living of a life.

On the eudaimonist approach, none of these problems arise. Neither virtue nor happiness is a matter of the circumstances of my life. (This is consistent with the point that that these circumstances might put constraints on happiness.) Both living virtuously and living happily are ways of living my life, dealing with the materials I have to hand, making the best of the life I have led up to now. Problems about their relation are problems as to the relations between ways of living my life. If I ask, about my life, how best I can live happily from now on, this is a practical question, to which answers will take the form: living honestly, say, or living dishonestly. Which I choose will make a difference to whether I live happily; it will make a difference, for example, to how I earn my living. `Earning my living' is not itself an answer to how best to live happily: earning a living is part of the material to be given a shape by honesty or dishonesty. Moreover, happiness, taken as living happily is clearly an ongoing activity, not a static condition to be achieved and then rested in. And happiness as living happily is not a determinate, any more than a static condition. Virtue doesn't makes me happy by getting me to an already clearly defined goal, as I might be given feelings of pleasure by winning a game or a prize.
...............
Happiness, on a eudaimonist view, is the way I live my life overall.
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What, after all, is the alternative? How could it be just the circumstances of our lives that make us happy, or not? How can stuff make you happy? As we constantly discover, a big house, a car, money, holidays, don't make us happy if we cannot make the right use of them in our lives. On their own they do nothing for us; how can they? A shop flyer I saw gets something right: `Money doesn't make you happy, shopping does.' Stuff is irrelevant for happiness until you do something with it, even shopping.
....

Given that so much in contemporary work on happiness searches for happiness in the circumstances of our lives, it bears repeating that money, health, beauty, even relationships don't make us happy; our happiness comes at least in part from the way we do or don't actively live our lives, doing something with them or acting in relation to them. Happiness is at least in part activity. If we fully take this on board, putting the feel-good accounts of happiness on one side, it becomes clearer why what makes us happy couldn't just be stuff sitting there in our lives, or passive states of feeling or satisfaction. To live happily we require something with as much dynamism and internal drive as happiness itself has, and the virtues provide this.

[/quote]

 

[3DStudent]

Virtue kind of sounds like discernment. Evaluating a situation and acting in the best possible way. So if virtue is a skill, we should realize that we may be beginners in something. And if you mess up as a beginner, why beat yourself up?, as you're still in a learning phase. Like artists copy the old masters of 500 years ago, we can network and ask the forum members who've gone through those things, how to do better in that area. We learn from the pros, or even the advanced beginners or amateurs who have been there before.

In the experiment with having everything granted to you I thought that, yes, I would be happy. If I had all my books read, forum threads read, more preparedness supplies, unnecessary things ridden and cleaned from my room, and being an expert artist; I would be quite happy. But I think it would be temporary, and if I could not keep up with days later threads, new books I buy to read, more prep items, a slowly messier room, and time to put art skills to use; then I would start losing some of that happiness. They made a point that seemed to say that challenges are what keep us going. I guess it's like if you play a videogame and use a bunch of cheat codes, the game is no longer fun (These days I only find games painful and stay away from them).

On happiness being general satisfaction in life, I have actually recently thought about that. Not like G's last hour practice, but a more of reviewing the life in general. And wondering that if I died now, would I be satisfied with the entirety of my life, or the general path I have taken? And I would say yes, I have. I've learned so much after finding the forum, and can see that my life previously, even though lost in the world and mostly videogames during adolescence, I sort of had a tendency to progress towards Truth. Some of the last few Sott Radio episodes have been hard hitters and talk about this, maybe it was the Having an Aim one. At some point you get tired of playing this game (of life), and search for something more. I can say I've had a good run.

So happiness can be strived for and if virtue is used it may lead to an overall improvement on your view of your life. Virtue, being a skill, makes for people to have varying proficiencies in it. That's where we network about our current experience and skill in it. And these are all ongoing things, not just one-and-done, attaining kinds of things.

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=beetlemaniac]
I think that the ability to see the "third factor" in any situation would be one's guide to the correct course of action. So to improve one's skill of virtue is to improve one's ability to gather information from a situation, discern the influences involved, and synthesise a unique course of action that takes all influences into account ie. the "third factor".
[/quote]

[quote author=3D Student]
Virtue kind of sounds like discernment. Evaluating a situation and acting in the best possible way.
[/quote]

I think that is the right idea. Discernment builds on a foundation of knowledge. Also, appropriate mindfulness is needed to execute the action.

What would be appropriate mindfulness?