The meme of identity

Some memes are so central to our being that we may find the thought of them being memes almost repulsive. Still, taking that risk, I am suggesting that human society has seen an increasing ascendance of the meme of identity. This meme is summarized as follows:

"There is a core self that is 'I' for each human being. This self is immutable, continuous in time and transcendent. The sovereignty of each individual is founded upon this self. The core identity of an individual is this self. One finds one's true self over a period of time. If one is true to oneself, life is full of possibilities. If one is not true to oneself, there is anguish and suffering."

I would guess that this identity meme arose in the intellectually curious amongst those having the luxury of not having to work/fight for subsistence - a subset of the early priests. I would further guess that this meme was the preserve of the elite classes till recently - say till the beginning of industrial revolution. Why that might be so is simple: the rest had way too much on their mind - what with the food gathering and the plague and the rituals of being a part of a society. They clearly were not automata - but were quite tightly bound by their roles and the requirements of being alive so as to leave little time for reflection. In a sense, their identity was mass-produced by their social context and installed in their minds without much variation subsequently. The elite classes with the luxury of spare time and energy could probably muse about the questions of who one is and what is one meant to do. The latter also requires some freedom of action to be answered with anything other than the role-based activities in the given social context.

More recently, as a larger and larger part of the society has been able to afford spare time and energy - and as the legacy systems of identity definition have crumbled around the world - there is a massive growth in the meme of identity - especially its definition and further 'nurture'. Gradually over the last several decades, more and more of human beings are starting to ask - who am i? Few of them of course have stopped to wonder if the question itself is relevant. That reluctance is probably driven by the already weakly established mass-produced identity meme. The social context always installed a simple version of the identity meme in each one of us anyway. It is just that in recent decades, the spare time and energy has meant that there are mental resources available to most of us to attempt refining this meme further.

I have gradually lost interest in the identity meme. As i noted above, it is based on an already established meme of the same type but simpler construct. There is nothing more sacrosanct than that to the notion of identity. As noted in another one of my blogs, the locus of self is not inside one's head but in the social context. As I read Metzinger, Dan Dennette and Bruce Hood and watched a few other videos related to the topic, I have anyway concluded that the self is an illusion (it is not unreal, it is just far less than it seems). However, as I observe the simple as well as 'profound' human reflections I can't help but feel a sense of amusement at the notion of 'core self', 'true nature', 'real identity' and so on!!!

Change matters more than absolutes: (or ‘The unexpected virtues of incrementalism’)

Kahnemann and Tversky’s seminal paper on prospect theory had several path breaking insights. One in particular stayed with me because of its highly non-intuitive nature. Stated with an example, it is as follows: Say A’s net worth is Rs. 150 lakh and B’s net worth is Rs. 20 lakh, we are used to believing that A is happier than B or in economics jargon, A’s utility level is higher than B’s. (For the purpose of this argument, I am ignoring the claims of there being more to life than money. That is because this idea transcends money – you can very easily replace net worth in the above example with “units of being at peace” or “ounces of respect from fellow human beings” or some such measure of whatever you hold to be more relevant to happiness than money.)

Prospect theory does not make a prediction of this sort (A being happier than B). It is silent on who has higher utility. If pushed, the proponent of prospect theory states, “the data provided is insufficient. What was A’s and B’s net worth yesterday?”

Let us make it interesting. Say A moved from Rs. 200 lakh yesterday to Rs. 150 lakh today and B moved from Rs. 15 lakh yesterday to Rs. 20 lakh today. Now prospect theory would predict that B is happier than A. Most readers would think, “Well, this is obvious! Especially given the new information.” Stated in the whole detail, this later change of stance seems logical. However, this does not prevent almost everyone from offering the response in the first step above when the changes in net worth were not known and only current levels were known. Perhaps, in absence of the change information, we assume no change. That is fair but what is noteworthy is that we do offer an answer – which suggests that most of us think absolute levels are the predominant drivers of utility (or happiness) and while change matters, it matters only so much. It is an erroneous assumption. This is where prospect theory makes a non-trivial contribution to our understanding of ourselves.

We human beings are tuned to notice changes and contrasts. An extreme example of this is the Ganzfeld effect where the subject is exposed to undifferentiated and strictly uniform field of color for a long period of time such that the subject stops perceiving the color altogether (and even hallucinates). Our sense of color is really speaking a sense of distinction in stimuli. Take away the distinction and the brain slowly settles down into ignoring the color entirely. Most of our day-to-day judgments operate with the help of contrasts. We are highly sensitive to changes. Equally importantly, we are quite insensitive to absolute levels.

Combining these two connected ideas (high sensitivity to changes and low sensitivity to absolute levels), one can attempt to create an optimal path for maximizing utility (or happiness!) over the course of a single human life. No prizes for guessing that this path would advocate thorough incrementalism. To put the matter a bit more mathematically, we are used to thinking (in a manner ignorant of prospect theory’s observations) that the overall happiness of a person in the whole life – at least in its material aspects – is some sort of ‘area under the curve’ of material wellbeing. Hence if A moved from net worth of say Rs. 150 lakh to Rs. 200 lakh to Rs. 125 lakh to Rs. 175 lakh again over four decades of working life, each of these states lasting for say a decade each, we would calculate (implicitly) overall happiness over the four decades as 10*(150+200+125+175) = 6500 lakh-years for A. Likewise B with networth movement of say 10 lakh to 15 lakh to 40 lakh to 100 lakh over the same four decades would prompt us to suggest her overall happiness to be 10 * (10+15+40+100) = 1650 lakh-years. Clearly in this case A’s life was nearly 4 times as happy as B’s.

A prospect theory-informed first-cut attempt at the mathematics of these two individuals would work differently. Assuming A and B inherited their starting wealth the first decade has no utility value. Thereafter, A goes as follows: 10* ((200-150) + (125-200) + (175-125)) = 10* (50 – 75 + 50) = 10 * 25 = 250 delta-lakh-years. (Pardon the units, the actual units do not matter for the sake of this argument since our intent is to merely compare the two individuals.) B’s path is a bit rosier: 10 * ((15-10) + (40-15) + (100-40) ) = 10 * (5 + 25 + 60) = 10 * 90 = 900. It turns out B is nearly 4 times as happy as A.

Which prediction is closer to observed instances? I am inclined to think that it’s the latter. Clearly the above first-cut mathematics is way too simple. In real life, the absolute levels of material wellbeing matter too, all the more so in crises and in enabling risk-taking. However, it suffices to say that the dependence of happiness on change in the level of these drivers is of far more importance than we generally acknowledge.

There is another observation – and this is not from prospect theory. It is simply based on observing human beings. The capacity for happiness of every human being is finite. This means, we may have to modify our equations to put an upper limit of some sorts on happiness units in each time period, even after making it dependent on change. Beyond a threshold, a bigger increase in a happiness-inducing input (money, fame, love, peace etc) does not add to happiness. So if the change in wellbeing is beyond a threshold, the happiness from that change would max out and not increase further with the size of the change (for that period). In other words, it might be better to postpone that extra increase to the next time period if possible.

To make the mathematics a bit more explicit, I would state the following.

Before prospect theory, happiness over life of t_max years would be as follows:

Where L is the level of material wellbeing (or level of fame or level of self-actualization)

This prevalent but naïve hypothesis would suggest that a billionaire is 1000 times happier than a millionaire. Or to switch to fame as a source of happiness, the person adored by 1 million people is 100,000 times happier than a person adored by say 10 individuals.

After prospect theory the equation is nuanced as follows:

Where DeltaL/Delta_t is the discrete change in level of material wellbeing (whatever driver of happiness you choose – money, fame etc) across two successive time periods and Delta_max corresponds to the maximum change in wellbeing upto which humans are happiness-sensitive to the change.

To get a bit less mathematical and bit more lyrical, it is more happiness-inducing to get to the summit of life using the long-winding steps than using the helicopter (if one is available). It may seem tempting to prefer the helicopter so that one can quickly get to the summit which can then be enjoyed for longer – rather than wasting time on the steps. However, our dual hypotheses above (prospect theory and finite capacity for happiness) predict that the one-time happiness of getting to the summit is likely to be overshadowed by the cumulative happiness of the multi-step path. Also, the summit itself is likely to lose its ability to induce more happiness over a short period of time (because there would be no increase from there on).

Is there a real life implication of this thought? Maybe! To put it simply, if one has the flexibility of organizing the improvements in one’s drivers of wellbeing, it is optimal to organize them into a gradual increase mode than to maximize the jump. Also, since absolute levels of happiness-drivers matter much less than we are used to thinking of, the hurry to maximize absolute levels is probably suboptimal use of our limited resources (time, energy, bandwidth, goodwill etc). Presumably, this could inform some decisions related to trade-offs in career decisions, location preferences or social standing pursuits.

High time for direct democracy?

When I came across the idea and mechanism of democracy as a child, i naturally asked why there are representatives voting on our behalf for making laws. As a child, I thought it rather indirect and cumbersome to elect a representative who supposedly would represent your wish in the process of law-making. (just to be clear, i was not a visionary child for having asked this because firstly i was old enough - maybe 12 - and secondly many of my friends also asked similar things then)
As I grew older and learnt more about parliamentary democracy i realized that it is probably the only workable system owing to the large population of the country and the rather complicated business of making laws. I was also a bit confused about the executive branch and the legislative branch because the Indian system has these overlapping - the party in majority in Lok Sabha anyway forms the government often drawing the ministers from the Lok Sabha (sometimes Rajya Sabha) MPs. As I learnt more about the US system with its very clear demarcation between the congress/senate and the cabinet (or whatever they call the group of the president and his men/women as various secretaries), I realized that the executive function is clearly a 'job' - with specific skill requirement and specific tasks to be carried out from morning to evening every day. On the other hand the legislative function is not a matter of skills (in the conventional sense of the term) but of knowing and representing the wishes of a certain section of population (in most democracies, this is geographically divided.) Also, the legislative function is not a job but more so a membership of a conference of sorts which takes place a few times a year in the parliament.

There were, till recently, sound reasons why we had to stick to a system of representatives being elected for the latter i.e. legislative function. Switzerland has demonstrated that direct democracy can work - but it's an example often ignored because of the small size and relative opulence of Swiss population - not to mention their neutrality in international conflicts - which makes the legislation far less cumbersome than say India's or Malaysia's.
However, has the time come to revisit this system of representative democracy? Does our communications and identification technology at present not allow us to set up a system of voting on all important laws directly? And I mean that question for the country of the size of India - along with the limitations of partial illiteracy, imperfect connectivity and a part of population still below poverty line, While it may sound audacious, it is easy to see that the implementation does not require any technology that is not already in existence and widespread. Aadhar cards with mobile phones and a suitable app with advanced security features can enable Indian citizens to vote on everything directly.
Think of the advances in democracy! Besides the obvious benefit of getting a say in matters of national importance, there is another huge potential benefit - slicing the population eligible to vote by non-geographical criteria as well as criteria different from the static geographical cuts of today. If there is a road to be built between two cities, the populations of these two cities and the towns in between should vote on it, with far off towns having no say in the matter. Likewise if a law affects only farmers, why should a equity analyst vote on it? On tightening or loosening a security law, maybe the whole country can vote.

The doubters would say the laypersons do not always know the nuances of the law being made and they may vote with their prejudices and biases. This is a fallacious argument. I don't think most individuals (across countries, but more so in India) have very high regards for the intellectual capabilities of their representatives (for example, I personally do not know anything about the person i voted for in the previous lok sabha elections and i voted just because he was of a certain party). Secondly, even intelligent representatives (no, not shashi tharoor, there are many others!) do not necessarily get to vote as they truly wish. In US there is even a position of a 'majority whip'! In India 'high command' tells the representatives to vote one way or other. I have not heard of any noteworthy examples of MPs of any party voting against the party high command's wish and staying in the party long after that! So the next question is - do party high commands know better than the citizens what is good for the latter? More importantly, are they likely to use the criterion of 'better for citizens' as the driver of their voting decisions? If the answers to these are unclear, why not let citizens directly vote with their biases and prejudices?
There is a more constructive answer to this question though. While there may be no elected representatives making laws in such a system, there is clearly a place for formally elected 'proposers' for proposing various laws and clarifying their benefits (as well as problems with laws proposed by other 'proposers'). Some proposers then go about creating proposals and championing them while others oppose them. People hear the arguments on both sides and vote with the accumulated knowledge from these as well as their prejudices and biases. There is room to educate and debate!
(Just to be clear, the MPs are replaced by 'proposers'. There is still the need for the executive i.e. a prime-minister and the cabinet, which in effect will be elected as per the presidential system in US.)

I do believe the system is up for overhaul - especially considering its many perversions in recent decades, across many countries - developed and developing. Instead of seeing the political choices of our times in two poles of democracy and totalitarian regimes, we are better off pushing the democratic pole further into direct democracy!