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Comply with Berkeley Talks, a Berkeley Information podcast that options lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas is the science director on the Larger Good Science Middle at UC Berkeley. (UC Berkeley picture)
In episode #158 of Berkeley Talks, we revisit a lecture by Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of UC Berkeley’s Larger Good Science Middle, wherein she discusses happiness — what it means, the place it comes from and the way we will improve it in our lives.
“The place does happiness come from?” asks Simon-Thomas, who co-teaches the Science of Happiness, a web based course that explores the roots of a cheerful and significant life. “People have been questioning this for hundreds of years. Early thought and philosophy on happiness was that it was simply luck. It was divine favor. It was within the stars whether or not or not you ended up a cheerful particular person or not.”
The Greeks and Romans, she says, had the concept that happiness was tied to how virtuous an individual was. In one other stretch of historical past, individuals believed that happiness was about maximizing pleasure and avoiding ache. After which, lastly, and maybe the newest pondering is that happiness comes from social connection, from feeling a way of belonging and group.
“There’s some actually compelling neuroscience research that present that if we’re remoted, this really engages pathways and buildings in our mind that sign vigilance to menace,” she says. “So, being alone, being remoted, is definitely not a protected state for the common human.”
This lecture, given on July 28, 2021, was sponsored by Science at Cal.
Watch a video of the lecture under.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of UC Berkeley’s Larger Good Science Middle, gave a lecture on July 28, 2021, about happiness — what it means, the place it comes from and the way we will improve it in our lives.
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