【正文】 hem, but we kind of roll our eyes and say, amp。Yeah, right.amp。s something important to be learned from these people, and it is the secret of happiness. Here it is, finally to be revealed. First: accrue wealth, power, and prestige, then lose it. (Laughter) Second: spend as much of your life in prison as you possibly can. (Laughter) Third: make somebody else really, really rich. (Laughter) And finally: never ever join the Beatles. (Laughter)
　　OK. Now I, like Ze Frank, can predict your next thought, which is, amp。
　　Okay. Thereamp。m happier than I would have been with the Beatles.amp。Iamp。s a studio musician he had this to say: amp。 yes, heamp。39。39。quot。quot。39。39。quot。quot。quot。39。quot。39。39。quot。quot。39。quot。quot。quot。39。39。quot。39。39。39。quot。quot。
　　Who are these characters who are so damn happy? Well, the first one is Jim Wright. Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country, he lost everything. He lost his money。I believe it turned out for the best.amp。 amp。s regret. It was a glorious experience.amp。t have one minuteamp。I donamp。 amp。I am so much better off physically, financially, emotionally, mentally and almost every other way.amp。t have to look very far for evidence.
　　As a challenge to myself, since I say this once in a while in lectures, I took a copy of the New York Times and tried to find some instances of people synthesizing happiness. And here are three guys synthesizing happiness. amp。m going to show you some experimental evidence, you donamp。t need me to give you too many examples of people synthesizing happiness, I suspect. Though Iamp。 A system of cognitive processes, largely nonconscious cognitive processes, that help them change their views of the world, so that they can feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves. Like Sir Thomas, you have this machine. Unlike Sir Thomas, you seem not to know it. (Laughter)
　　We synthesize happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found. Now, you donamp。psychological immune system.amp。s precisely the same remarkable machinery that all off us have. Human beings have something that we might think of as a amp。 What kind of remarkable machinery does this guy have in his head?
　　Well, it turns out itamp。 fortune hath not one place to hit me.amp。quot。quot。quot。39。39。39。39。39。39。39。39。quot。quot。39。quot。quot。39。39。39。39。39。39。quot。quot。quot。quot。t just get three times bigger。TED英語演講稿：我們?yōu)槭裁纯鞓?？　　When you have 21 minutes to speak, two million years seems like a really long time. But evolutionarily, two million years is nothing. And yet in two million years the human brain has nearly tripled in mass, going from the oneandaquarter pound brain of our ancestor here, Habilis, to the almost threepound meatloaf that everybody here has between their ears. What is it about a big brain that nature was so eager for every one of us to have one?
　　Well, it turns out when brains triple in size, they donamp。此資料由網(wǎng)絡(luò)收集而來，如有侵權(quán)請告知上傳者立即刪除。資料共分享，我們負責傳遞知識。39。 they gain new structures. And one of the main reasons our brain got so big is because it got a new part, called the amp。frontal lobe.amp。 And particularly, a part called the amp。prefrontal cortex.amp。 Now what does a prefrontal cortex do for you that should justify the entire architectural overhaul of the human skull in the blink of evolutionary time?
　　Well, it turns out the prefrontal cortex does lots of things, but one of the most important things it does is it is an experience simulator. Flight pilots practice in flight simulators so that they donamp。t make real mistakes in planes. Human beings have this marvelous adaptation that they can actually have experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. This is a trick that none of our ancestors could do, and that no other animal can do quite like we can. Itamp。s a marvelous adaptation. Itamp。s up there with opposable thumbs and standing upright and language as one of the things that got our species out of the trees and into the shopping mall.
　　Now (Laughter) all of you have done this. I mean, you know, Ben and Jerryamp。s doesnamp。t have liverandonion ice cream, and itamp。s not because they whipped some up, tried it and went, amp。Yuck.amp。 Itamp。s because, without leaving your armchair, you can simulate that flavor and say amp。yuckamp。 before you make it.
　　Letamp。s see how your experience simulators are w