Measuring soft emotions

Why its more important to focus on measuring soft emotions (happiness, anger, love, lust, greed, jealousy) than on going to Mars

I am thinking of a scenario in 2040 when a young boy goes to a doctor for treating his mild depression. After all the tests are done, the doctor says, “Don’t worry, you will be all right. Your HH level is 84 (normal range 100-150) and this is due to high levels of anger and jealousy which are both above normal in your case. Your AL is 324 (180-270) and JL is 6.5 (2.5-5.5)”. Here, HH is Happiness Hormonal Count, AL is Anger Level and JL is Jealousy Level. 

You may think I am joking, but I'm not. After all, about 50 years back, had anybody thought the way doctors speak today about our sugar, BP, blood tests, MRI, CT Scan?  Many things like sound intensity, luminescence, bitterness/sweetness, clear weather, hot/coldness were considered as a matter of subjective judgment until we found ways to measure them objectively and precisely. The journey of science so far has been a parallel journey of subjective parameters becoming objective and measurable. If we extrapolate this journey, we can easily imagine the above-described scenario in 2040.

We have definitely come a long way in the field of measurement since the days we used to measure even distance and time subjectively. The correlation between technological progress and ability to precisely measure has been direct, although it is difficult to say which one is the cause and which one is the effect. But then, why even now, are we not able to measure some basic human emotions like happiness, anger, love, lust, greed, jealousy?

One reason probably can be that the scientists went after the physical things, things that could be seen, touched and felt and easy to quantify (well, today they seem easy to quantify and not 100 or 1000 years back). We were more focused on machines than on minds, on gadgets rather than the need for those gadgets. We wanted to reach Moon and Mars without too much bothering why in the first place we wanted to be there.

Speed thrills. So you want speed and you measure speed. But why not directly go for thrill and measure thrill? Are we caught in intermediate goals rather than the ultimate goal? Honestly, have the human beings made as much efforts on these soft emotions like happiness, love, pain, pleasure, sorrow, anger etc. as they have on hard physical things like planes, rockets, cars, buildings, computers?

One basic management principle is “You can’t improve what you can’t measure.” If our aim by the means of this technological progress is to have a better world or more happy human beings, then what’s our criterion of measuring a better world or happy human beings?

What’s the ultimate goal of the human race and of an individual human being? If that is to live harmoniously and happily, then we need to measure our progress against that goal and not some intermediate indicators of Physical/Technological progress. I feel that somewhere we have got lost in means (GDP, economic progress, education, infrastructure, mortality, health etc) because we can measure them and forgotten about the ends (happiness, joy, satisfaction, harmony, peace) because they can't be quantified. Before it becomes too late, the need of the hour is to develop technologies which can quantify these ends, otherwise we would get lost in maximising the means and thereby destroying the ends.

I am not trying to argue here that we should stop materialism or economic and technological progress and all become monks. But we should do things, which really make us happy rather than following a rat race. And that won't happen until we are able to measure the happiness. We all have read inspirational books like "The monk who sold his Ferrari" but none of us would let go of our Ferrari because Ferrari can be seen, felt, experienced but the happiness out of selling it cannot be measured. Today, world is disproportionately prioritising Economic Prosperity over mental prosperity precisely for the reason that mental prosperity is immeasurable and can't be reduced to a number like GDP.

Big companies and developed countries have a big business/leadership opportunity here to launch projects aimed towards measuring these so far unmeasured human emotions. There is lots of money to be made and goodwill to be generated. I see much more profitable business opportunities in investing in this research than in space research.

A small country like Bhutan came up with the concept of Gross National Happiness, GNH, about 40 years back. But, unfortunately, not much progress could be made in absence of the objective measurement of individual human happiness. Also, it was primarily seen as a tactic used by the King to divert attention from real economic issues. But now many countries have started taking interest in it, UAE emerging as a leader.

Many of our great scientists have been philosophers like Galileo, Newton, Einstein and many more. Now with so much development in computing power, time is again ripe for an interdisciplinary research involving Philosophy, Psychology, Biology, Medical Science and IT to come together in this field of measurement of human emotions. Lets run for the ends and not the means.