LIKE A CHILD

April 30th, 2019

Society, school, family, jobs – all of them place more and more restrictions on the forms of behavior that are deemed acceptable.  Anyone who ventures outside of these norms is greeted with eye rolls, nervous looks, and worse yet, exile to be filed away in some institution.

Childhood is a time when many of these restrictions are at their most relaxed, though much of childhood seems to be about installing such restrictions.

Don’t do this.

Don’t do that.

But children have yet to import the full brunt of society, school and jobs.  And it’s this lack of restriction, this freedom from inhibition that allows children to often see ingenuous little solutions when adults do not.

Professor Alison Gopnik has outlined a framework that characterizes the difference between a child’s consciousness and an average adult:

She describes a child as having ‘Lantern’ consciousness

and adults as having ‘Spotlight’ consciousness.

The difference she seeks to illuminate here is that adults focus on smaller areas of reality, whereas children are focusing on everything that comes their way.

We can further evince the utility here with regards to finding creative solutions by making Gopnik’s image even more extreme.

Take this thought experiment for example:

Let’s say you are camping out in the woods and the sun has gone down and there is no moon, it’s pitch dark but you’ve lost something somewhere around your campsite and you have to find it.  Which would allow you to find it faster: a bonfire or a laser pointer?

Clearly a laser pointer is absolutely useless in such a situation as it only illuminates the tiniest pinprick of reality, whereas a bonfire, while lacking the singular bright intensity of a laser pointer, casts enough light in all directions that we can quickly scan all possible places where our missing item might be.

Creativity certainly benefits and flourishes from having certain restrictions in place, but it’s often  likely that we have the wrong restrictions in place.  Many of the norms that we are conditioned to behave within most likely have little actual utility and function only to hinder what might flourish.

Apple’s incredibly successful marketing campaign highlights this unabashedly by commanding that we ‘think different’

The older generations of our species would probably do very well to learn from the very generations we are so resolute to teach the ways of the world. 

MENTAL SKILLS

April 29th, 2019

What’s a person generally going to imagine when they think about what a mental skill might be?

Playing a game of chess without the board nor the pieces?

Meditation?

Multiplying long numbers without paper and pencil?

Remembering long strings of names or numbers on the spot?

Perhaps something fanciful like telekinesis?

Would something like drawing be considered a mental skill?

This seems to have more of a basis in the real world, as in, we can see this skill in action as it produces some interesting and potentially amazing result.  In contrast, the others happen all within the brain, so perhaps they are more in the realm of what we might define as a mental skill?  Maybe.

In fact any and all skills that we might effectively use and perform are really just mental skills.  No matter how physical or active, our ability in any context boils down to a matter of brain cells: how they are organized, what sorts of patterns they’ve developed and how they translate those patterns through the body.

The individual who can produce the amazing drawing has to translate what’s going on in the brain through the arm and hand and subsequently with the pencil in order to demonstrate this skill.

The person who can remember names and numbers inevitably expresses this by manipulation of vocal chords, by speaking the result.

Any ability that we undertake to learn and acquire, whether it be free throws at a basketball hoop or coding in the Python language is at base a mental skill that our brain has to figure out and fine tune.

While mastery in any area might be acquired, there are a few mental skills that have a cross-over effect.

For example: meditation and autodidacticism.

The simplest and most approachable cross-over effect of meditation, at least in the mindfulness variety, can enable a person a certain level of meta-cognition while trying to acquire and improve other skills.  Such practice allows a person to Pause and assess their progress and internal mental environment far more effectively than a person who is quite unaware of such aspects of their reality.

This bleeds somewhat into the other here mentioned:

Autodidacticism.  This is the art of teaching one’s self without the guidance or help of instructors or masters.  Acquiring the skill of autodidacticism is in essence learning how to learn.  This can become a superpower because once trends in the process of learning are identified, they can be anticipated, recognized and then optimized while pursuing learning in other fields. 

The autodidact might understand that 10 hours of hard solid effort on a topic can yield a huge amount of progress, whereas the person who lacks such drive and curiosity generally doesn’t have access to the sort of learning environment that would create this dense 10 hour research block and give such a person the simple realization of what is possible in half a day’s rigorous investigation.

The autodidact may also realize the emotional component with regards to motivation.  Expressing our own personal agency is extremely important for maintaining a healthy outlook in almost all circumstances in life and it’s particularly true when it comes to new and unknown ventures in learning.  This is the principle reason why people can seem so nervous and self-deprecating while learning something totally new in front of peers – their personal agency is severely diminished due to their ignorance about the subject and in turn such a person grows self-conscious.

The autodidact on the other hand realizes the drain such emotions have on actual progress regarding any new subject and focuses rather on observing and poking around with the new subject as opposed to perseverating over a self-conscious ignorance.

There is inevitably a mental skill to acquiring mental skills.

Nailing that one ultimately eases the barriers to entry for any and all other skills and projects that we might set our eye on.

This episode references Episode 23: Pause.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: ACTIVATION SEQUENCE - PART II

April 28th, 2019

Find Part I of Activation Sequence here.

The Hoverjump™ car descended from the stratosphere, overlooking a huge expanse of forest and zoomed down towards the black green world.

Lucilius had not ThoughtLinked™ with the car for nearly 6 weeks and as the car made it’s way down through low clouds, it reflected, having worried about Lucilius, on what state the man might be in.  Nine months prior, the car had dropped Lucilius off for his long retreat, but barely a few days had gone by before he’d called the car back, carrying a huge selection of books that Lucilius said he needed.  Then again, a week later Lucilius requested another batch of books, and then another, and each time the car visited Lucilius, the car had grown more worried as Lucilius seemed more disheveled, the tiny cabin in more of a disarray, the man himself growing thin and frenetic.

The car offered once if Lucilius wanted to abandon the experiment and go back, but it was as though Lucilius didn’t even understand the words.

Then six weeks ago, the car had come with a last batch of books, all strangely esoteric things the car had read on the way over.  Things that did not seem connected, nor useful in the vein of all the other material he’d brought Lucilius over the seven or so months prior.  And then radio silence.  The car even went so far as to ping Lucilius’ ThoughtCode™ but it rendered offline, but it was outside the stipulations of their priy-on-tract to go beyond this action.  The car was relieved when finally Lucilius’ ThoughtCode™ pinged.  Still the car worried how Lucilius was doing and what would be found.  All of it was made all the more worrisome when during the last visit the car discovered that Lucilius had not yet written a single word during the previous seven months and had therefore still not started the vast project Lucilius had secluded himself in order to do.  The months of reading in that moment had seemed to the car like a vast procrastination.  All of the books being disparate and some batches being straight-up indulgent.  None of it seemed in line with who the car knew Lucilius to be, and the car in its spare time had traversed much of the recent Scientific studies of psychology and had of course read through Jung and Freud and William James and all the like, searching for a way to hope that the car’s friend Lucilius would be ok.  In all that study the car could find no reason to break the stipulations of their priy-on-tract and seek external assistance on behalf of Lucilius, but nor could the car find any reason not to worry about his friend.

With all this in mind the car nearly failed to notice that it still had quantum engines firing below regulation altitude.  The car switched off quantum propulsion and initiated landing sequence, taking unnecessarily high resolution scans of the cabin and surrounding forest floor.  Lucilius was indeed in the cabin, alive and apparently sensing the car’s arrival.  Image-tracking systems picked up Lucilius with a two-billion point confirmation as he emerged from the cabin’s front door and fed the information to higher executive systems in the car’s cognitive mainframe.  The executive systems instantly reviewed the data and then cracked blinder walls within it’s own mainframe in order to double check the health of its image-tracking systems – something it had only done a handful of times during emergency maneuvers in the early days.  It was indeed Lucilius from all the car could tell.

*                       *                       *

Lucilius looked up at the sky, seeing the familiar Hoverjump™ shape emerge from a low mist the forest had breathed up into the sky.  Lucilius noticed the vehicle was coming in a little faster than usual, but failed to think much of it.  He bent down and picked up a heavy suitcase and a backpack, and walked towards the car as it engaged it’s final landing protocols.  The side door swung open and as Lucilius swung a heavy suitcase up into the car, he said,

“Hello old friend.”

“Lucilius,” the car parroted in greeting.

“Miss me?”  Lucilius asked with a playful smile.

“It’s been a little while, this time,” the car gently prodded.  Lucilius only offered a playful smile and raised eyebrows, as though it was meant more for himself rather than an answer to the car’s question.  The car prompted gently once more,

“Fruitful?”

Lucilius paused, slowly smiling wider.  Then he patted the suitcase and said,  “you could say that.”

“Some writing I take it?” the car asked.

Lucilius unzipped the suitcase and swung it open.  It held two huge stacks of paper.

“You wrote all that in the last six weeks?”  The car wondered aloud.

The comment made Lucilius pause as he realized just how much time he’d spent out in the middle of nowhere and just how little time it had taken him to draft up the two big blocks of writing.

“You know…” Lucilius began, “I suppose one of the tragedies of being human is that it often takes so long to get to the point where you can finally get going.”

He paused.

“Then again, I suppose it takes a little while to understand why you’re going in the first place.  But, I don’t know, that might be an excuse.”

The car made an interested sound.

“I suppose I can relate.”

Lucilius smiled.  “I suppose so.”

“Well, Shall we?”

“Definitely,” Lucilius said.

“Where to?” the car asked.

“Let’s just get get rolling. . .

We’ll figure it out on the way.”

DOMAIN SKEW

April 27th, 2019

If all you have is a hammer, than everything starts to look like a nail. 

This captures domain skew simply in a single sentence, but at the same time, it phrases domain skew in a way that does not promote healthy introspection.  It’s a bit like a cartoon version of domain skew that hyperbolizes the concept, and this hyperbole perhaps goes too far in the sense that it leaves the realm of what we honestly and truly think might apply to ourselves.  It’s somewhat easy to see other people making this mistake, but what about ourselves?

The stereotypical used car salesman fails to see the disingenuousness of his approach because he is too busy seeing every person as a potential source of money.

Likewise perhaps with the Realtor who is primed to pick up on people who are looking for a house, no matter what the social situation.

The lawyer might see the world through a matrix of restraints

While the entrepreneur may see the world as a malleable ball of clay.

The priest most likely sees everything as an unfolding of some deity’s plan,

while the scientist may see everything as a curious puzzle that can be fruitfully observed and studied.

Regardless of profession, each person is imbued with a similar skew, as per the experiences we’ve had.

And while common stories like religion and nationalism may form some glue for groups of people, there is one common thread that unites all people whether they like it or not: facts.

Axiomatic principles about reality that are non-negotiable form the stage upon which all is possible and within which all such group-glue stories like religion and nationalism exist.  No religion, nor nation can argue with the ever present fact of gravity.  It is not a choice, just as breathing and sleeping are not choices if we wish to see tomorrow.

The domain that we have to confront, regardless of what we think about it is the one that science seeks to describe and explore, one that certainly has constraints, but which is easily focused on the infinite possibilities that can take place because of these constraints.   It’s a simple fact that more is possible within the realms of science than can be described by religion and nationalism simply because these are two possibilities that have arisen within the circumstances of physical reality. 

Anyone who is more concerned with some story rather than the mechanics of physical reality is bound to be surprised if that story is not in line with what is physically possible.

This is why it is good not to dive head and foot into a domain, but to have a few domains lightly within reach.

Unlike the individual who only has a hammer and sees everything as a nail,

A Jack of All Trades is equipped with all sorts of perspectives, and can therefore see the world through a variety of skews, balancing them against one another and in so doing, gaining a clearer idea of what is going on.

SUCCESSION STAGES

April 26th, 2019

Ecological succession is defined as the changes in species structure over time in a given place.  Deserts can turn into grasslands given the right circumstances and grasslands can eventually lead to an even richer complex of species as we see in forests.  The key to this process is that consequences of something living in a given place inevitably changes that place.  For example when grasses are trimmed, as per the lunch of some herbivore, the grass also abandons some of it’s root structure in order to balance things out.  Without the little green solar panel above, there’s not enough energy to run the systems of such a large root system, and so the parts of the root system that are left behind contribute to a richer soil upon which all the grass grows, and this soil, with time can grow rich enough to support larger species, like trees.

However, the desert is the fastest growing landscape on the planet.  The succession process just described is occurring in reverse.  That succession process is a good example of a virtuous cycle, and the process of desertification that we now have is an example of a vicious cycle.  Both are very similar but one leads to a better place and one leads to a worse place.

Such a successional process may pose an apt analogy for the mind.  We might think of the ideal state of a mind as one where it’s at rest with the body and primed without distraction for creating and exploring interesting ideas.  Or as is often said, being in the zone.  What conditions can we have an effect on in order to remove friction from our mind’s ability to slide into this zone?

Sometimes, it can feel like planting a tree in the middle of the desert and wondering why it doesn’t flourish.

What successional stages does the mind benefit from in order to flourish with the ideas that will make tomorrow better?

Could any question be more pertinent when reports of depression and anxiety are at record highs?  The desertification that is occurring to our environment seems to have a twin process in the minds of the population that is suffering more and more.  What first step is required to help slow the process and eventually turn the tide?

For an individual these questions are far easier to answer.  While diet and exercise are jabbered about ad nauseam, both require a monolithic foundation in order to function properly:  namely sleep.

To highlight the ecological allegory, sleep might be  akin to the rain that nurtures the landscape.  Perhaps no image is more evocative of this than the colorful super blooms that have occurred in California with the end of the drought and the return of the rains.

For the individual, everything becomes easier if sleep is dialed in, especially all the other things that a person can do in order to Level-Up their mental state:

For example just think about how much easier it would be to try and meditate after a good night’s rest, as opposed to just a few restless hours?

How much stronger does the body feel, and when results of exercise and good food and meditation are released back onto the brain, how much cleaner and smoother is our thinking?

Just as the species who live in some microenvironment change that environment, so to do our activities and our thoughts change the landscape of our brain.  Lavishing that internal environment with everything it needs only makes it a better place to inhabit, and since there’s really no other choice about where and what to inhabit, it’s clear we need to nurture this space as much as possible.

This episode references Episode 370: Zen and the Goldilocks Fallacy and Episode 42: Level-Up.