Six Surprises from Brainwave 2016: Emotion

Brainwave 2016: Emotion featured speakers from all walks of life exploring human emotions and how they play a role in our lives. Here are some of the most surprising moments from the series.

According to psychologist and author Emma Seppälä, “the greatest fulfillment we can feel comes from connections with other people.” During Seppäläs program with actress Parker Posey, the psychologist pushed back against the common opinion that it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Seppälä asserted that the desire to bring down others is not a natural instinct. In fact, both humans and animals have a “compassionate instinct.”

Emma Seppälä also revealed that we are happiest when we are in the present moment, even if we are doing something that we aren’t particularly enjoying. Monks are known to be particularly adept at finding happiness, and their meditation practice is a contributing factor. After being the subject of intensive clinical tests at the University of Wisconsin, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard was declared by scientists to be the world’s happiest man.

Many discussions about autism focus on the detriments of the condition, but the onstage conversation between actress Sigourney Weaver and neuropsychologist David Amaral covered some of the positive aspects of an autism diagnosis and the special gifts that autistic individuals can possess. During the discussion, Amaral brought up the example of autistic artist Chris Murray, who demonstrates his incredible attention to detail in his meticulous multimedia renderings of New York City buildings, and Weaver spoke about her experiences with Ros Blackburn, the high-functioning autistic woman who helped the actress prepare for her role as Linda in the movie Snow Cake.

While the actress discovered the truly debilitating and challenging aspects of autism through her research, she also found something rather beautiful: “And where they go in their brains, I don’t know where she goes when she plays for two hours, but it completely replenishes her. I feel like she goes to some waterfall of experience and fills up. Neurotypical people don’t know how to do half of the things she does to make her happy. There’s so much we can learn from people like Ros.”

“The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it’s almost impossible to stamp out.” —Plato

During the Brainwave talk on Fickle Love, love expert and anthropologist Helen Fisher and philosopher Simon Critchley discussed the biology of love. Helen Fisher says that love is “basically a drive. It’s in the brain right next to the regions for thirst and hunger.” Genetics, in addition to being a factor in the way we lean politically, also play a role in who we choose to love. We learned from Fisher that there are four broad styles of thinking and behaving, each associated with a different brain system. To what degree you express these traits can help determine your personality signature and have an effect on who you are attracted to and work well with. Fisher, the chief scientific advisor for Chemistry.com and Match.com, has developed quizzes to help determine potential mates for members of the sites. Try a quiz for yourself.

During Helen Fisher and Simon Critchley’s Brainwave talk on Fickle Love, Fisher asserted that online dating does not change the way we court one another. “This isn’t a dating service; it’s an introductory service,” Fisher told the audience. She says that while online introducing might be a new way of finding a mate, the actual selection process happens as naturally as it always has—through face-to-face interactions. Sites like Match.com aid in the process by narrowing down choices for us, but it is ultimately up to you to “let your ancient brain do its thing.”

During the Brainwave talk on Invention and Inspiration, writer and researcher Pagan Kennedy told the audience that many of mankind’s greatest inventions have been the result of “serendipitous situations” and not corporate engineering labs. We learned that when researchers asked thousands of inventors how they originated their ideas, they found that “50% of patents came from accidents, mistakes, and failed projects.” Kennedy added, “We tend to think of it as all happening in our heads, but most inventors describe some sort of interaction, like they heard a weird sound or they had some goo lying around and wondered what it was good for?”