An Alternative Happiness

Lately I’ve been thinking about a theory of happiness that I call gestalt perfectionism. It’s the idea that one’s goal in life (call it happiness, well-being, whatever,) is to pursue greater gestalts—as opposed to pleasure, which most people pursue intuitively. Greater gestalts are “deeper, broader insights,” and the pursuit is that of knowledge, meaning, and self-expression. This may seem arbitrary, but I’ve found this formulation makes good judgments and clarifies the value and harm of certain activities, like demoing builds, modern art, and info hazards. I wrote an essay on this for my philosophy class last quarter, but I wanted a self-contained nugget to refer back to—that’s this post.

Most people subscribe by default to hedonism, which states that pleasure is the only good; usually with modifications like valuing future pleasure, rationality, and meaningfulness. These are the “enjoy the present,” “follow your heart,” etc, views. The trouble is, these theories are “purely subjective,” so an arbitrarily deluded person might make arbitrarily poor choices. For example, someone may find joy, exhilaration, meaning, and community in an MMO, but we may worry that this isn’t the best life. The limiting case is someone addicted to a drug like heroin. That we are fallible suggests the need for some “non-subjective factor”—some basis outside the subjective experience—such as greater gestalts.

I prefer gestalts over something like “human nature” or “rationality,” as suggested by Aristotle and Kant, because we can only be certain of our gestalt experience, and nothing else; this is “I think, therefore I am.” Practically, this frugal basis makes gestalt perfectionism applicable to non-biological intelligences like AIs and hiveminds. To provide a grading on experiences, the idea of “greater” gestalts seems to capture the balance between breadth and depth. You need both to see the greatest gestalts.

This grading allows us to measure the value of something for oneself or for others. For example, gestalt perfectionism explains why we worry about the isolated scientist or art-historian who find great insight in their field but miss gestalts that come from breadth. It also explains our concerns for the adrenaline junkies or movieholics who regularly find pleasure or meaning but miss out on some “deeper” gestalts. If you believe in it, this value assignment allows one to make decisions in real life, like which course should I take? or what should I work on? Do whatever will lead to the greatest gestalts. Or, if you still value pleasure, (which I think I do,) you can choose to do whatever makes you happy and brings the greatest gestalts. Or, gestalt perfectionism can serve as the utility measure in moral theories like utilitarianism. The inclusion of greater gestalts, in any amount, is a lifeline against the dangers of subjectivity, should one stray too close to the edge.

The greatest gestalts this theory has provided me, however, are in understanding failure modes of value judgment. Here’s a whirl-wind tour. For one, the reason that people will give you money for telling them about your work (eg. invited talks, VC) is because you are providing them value in the form of gestalts that come from knowing of your work. You should thus optimize your talks, both in content and timing, for gestalt delivered, since that’s the highest leverage way to convert time spent on show-and-tell to value. Unrelatedly, modern art feels meaningless to many but so meaningful to some because only some have the prerequisite gestalts to experience the new gestalts of new pieces. This is an excellent form of gestalt-making, except that it loses out on much common gestalt experience (common good) because many experiencers do not have the prerequisites. Finally, information hazards are gestalts so powerful that they limit the horizon of possible future gestalts. Gestalt perfectionism excites me because it’s illuminated a new perspective on each of these disparate points. I hope to elaborate on the sketches above soon!