This book touches on the recent developments in some American universities, and tries to identify some of the causal mechanisms that give rise to the “… new problems on campus, [which] have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.”

Elephant in the Brain

Published: December 31, 2022

Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson

A book about psychological truths that we tend to pretend don’t exist but are more or less obvious, much like the saying “the elephant in the room”. Hence the title, the elephant in the brain.

The Evolution of God

Published: December 31, 2022

The Evolution of God by Robert Wright

This book sees how religion evolved alongside humans, from hunter gatherer tribes to civilizations. More emphasis on the monotheist Abrahamic religions.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Published: December 31, 2022

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Published: December 31, 2022

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

This book explores the question of why some regions of the world developed and expanded faster than others.

Happiness Hypothesis

Published: December 31, 2022

Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

A book about happiness that uses a clever metaphor to describe the conflict between primitive motives and conscious thought.

The Lonely Century

Published: December 31, 2022

The Lonely Century by Noreena Hertz

Why Buddhism is True

Published: December 31, 2022

Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright

The Brothers Karamazov

Published: January 14, 2023

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

“It sometimes happens that [the odd man] bears within himself the heart of the whole, while the other people of his epoch have all for some reason been torn away from it for a time by some kind of flooding wind.”
Fyodor’s first wife was well-off, while he was not. Narrator suggests Adelaida was an echo of foreign influence, a mind imprisoned, wanting to assert her feminine independence and go against social conventions, despite the despotism of her relatives. Fyodor latched on for the potential of social status. Neither loved each other, both using each other to satiate their respective desires for anti-conformity (Adelaida) and status (Fyodor)
When Adelaida left him, Fyodor gleefully recounted his woes to all. “One would think you had been promoted, you’re so pleased despite all your woes!”
In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.
- Wickedness stems from banal ignorance
Fyodor abandoned his first son, not out of malice, but simply because he totally forgot about him
“Who was apparently not wicked but had become a most insufferable crank from sheer idleness.”
“…that eternally needy and miserable mass of our students of both sexes who…habitually haunt the doorways of various newspapers and magazines…to invent anything better than the eternal repetition of one and the same plea for copying work or translations from the French.”
“The question of atheism…of the Tower of Babel built precisely without God, not to go from earth to heaven but to bring heaven down to earth.”
- The issue with bringing heaven to earth, is that it runs counter to the theme of delayed gratification that the concept of heaven attempts to instil in followers. Heaven is like a macro-level delayed gratification mechanism, urging people to forego selfish urges in promise of blissful paradise—yet this paradise realistically lies within the future generations of the social group. When we try to bring blissful paradise to earth with no faith, the future risks crumbling in the wake of hedonic indulgence—hell. Faith is our ability to look ahead, and if we don’t look ahead, we get nowhere.
“Perhaps…this tested and already thousand year old instrument for the moral regeneration of man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfection may turn into a double edged weapon, which may lead a person not to humility and ultimate self-control but, on the contrary, to the most satanic pride—that is, to chains and not freedom.”
- Like Buddhas story of self-indulgence to self-mortification
“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies…does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.”
“It sometimes feels very good to take offense…he likes feeling offended…and thus he teaches the point of real hostility.”
About a doctor: “the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular.”
“And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie.”
- A precondition to fear is uncertainty, and we sometimes fill in that uncertainty with a more certain and fearsome outcome. This is the lie.
- Are there honest fear responses? If I see a venomous snake, is being fearful of that signal honest?…the fear is still predicated on a projection into the future, I suppose, that the snake could harm me, but it hasn’t harmed me yet. Even if it bites me, I may become scared of the consequences, but that’s because I don’t know what will happen (uncertainty). Fear depends on a projection, and that projection is always a lie, an abstraction, a fiction.
Ivan proposes against separation of church and state. Suggests that the state should end by being accounted worth of becoming the church, from a lower to higher type.
At the time in Russia, criminals were punished mechanically, cut off like an infected limb for the preservation of society. Ivan suggests the state should strive towards the idea of regeneration of man anew, of their restoration and salvation.
The elder claims the mechanical punishment option is not punishment, it only chafes the heart. The real punishment lies in the acknowledgment of one’s own conscience.
You will behold great sorrow, and in this sorrow you will be happy…seek happiness in sorrow.
Mitri to Alyosha: “the terrible thing is that beauty is not only fearful but also mysterious. Here the devil is struggling with God, and the battlefield is the human heart.”
- Selfish urges battling with communal urges — both urges exist, selfish being more rewarding in the present (tangible and familiar), communal being more rewarding in the future (less tangible, feels more godly and ethereal)
Do they truly love? Or do they simply love their own virtue?
“In our great intelligence, we’ve stopped flogging our peasants, but they go on whipping themselves.”
Father Paissy in a remark about growing scientific interest: “…after hard analysis, the learned ones…have absolutely nothing left of what was once holy. But they have examined the parts and missed the whole, and their blindness is even worthy of wonder. Meanwhile the whole [Christianity] stands before their eyes as immovably as ever, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Fyodor Pavlovich: “wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they do it on the sly and I do it openly. And for this sincerity of mine, the wicked ones all attack me”
“But you need him in order to continually contemplate your high deed of faithfulness, and to reproach him for his unfaithfulness. And it all comes from your pride. Oh, there is much humility and humiliation in it, but all of it comes from pride…”
“Schoolchildren are merciless people: separately they’re God’s angels, but together, especially in school, they’re quite often merciless.”
“For the daughter—love, and for the mother—death.” o In reference to Madame Khokhlakov’s greed for her daughter, and unwillingness to let her crippled daughter marry Alyosha. Her daughter depends on her, and once she no longer depends on her mother, for where can the mother find her worth?
“The stupider, the clearer. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while reason hedges and hides. Reason is a scoundrel, stupidity is direct and honest.”
- Reason involves nuance, making it complex and elusive. Stupidity takes shortcuts, slashing away at nuance, making things easier to understand but often less true.
“It is precisely the defencelessness of these creatures the tempts the torturers, the angelic trustfulness of the child, who has nowhere to turn and no one to turn to.”
“If I wanted to understand something, I would immediately have to betray the fact, but I’ve made up my mind to stick to the fact…”
“For nothing has ever been more insufferable for man than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching dessert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them…”
“No science will give them bread as long as they remain free, but in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: ‘Better that you enslave us, but feed us.’ They will finally understand that freedom and earthly bread in plenty for everyone are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share among themselves.”
There is no more ceaseless or tormenting care for man, as long as he remains free, than to find someone to bow down to as soon as possible. But man seeks to bow down before that which is indisputable [to all of man] …for it must happen all together. And this need for communality of worship is the chief torment of each man individually, of mankind as a whole, from the beginning of the ages. In the cause of universal worship, they have destroyed each other with the sword.”
“Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him.”
“There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either…There are three powers…capable of conquering and holding captive forever these feeble rebels, for their own happiness—these powers are miracle, mystery, and authority.”
“If in the name of heavenly bread thousands follow you, what will become of the millions of creatures not strong enough to forgo earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly?…the weak too are dear to us…depraved and rebels, but in the end it is they who will become obedient. They will marvel at us…because we…have agreed to suffer freedom and to rule over them [ouch]—so terrible will it become for them in the end to be free!”
“Since man cannot bear to be left without miracles, he will go and create miracles for himself, his own miracles of quacks, or women’s magic, though he be rebellious, heretical, and godless a hundred times over.” o Modern examples are astrology, tarot cards, and politics
“You [Jesus] did not come down [from the cross] because, again, you did not want to enslave man by a miracle and thirsted for faith that is free, not miraculous. You thirsted for a love that is free, and not for the servile raptures of a slave before a power that has left him permanently terrified.”
“Mankind in its entirety has always yearned to arrange things so that they must be universal. There have been many great nations…but the higher these nations stood, the unhappier they were, for they were more strongly aware than others for the need for a universal union of mankind.”
“Freedom, free reason, and science will lead them into such a maze, and confront them with such miracles and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, unruly and ferocious, will exterminate themselves [because they only have the power to bring themselves down]; others, unruly but feeble, will exterminate each other; and the remaining third, feeble and wretched, will crawl to our feet and cry out to us: ‘Yes, you were right…save us from ourselves.’”
“For he is accustomed to relying only on himself, he has separated his unit from the whole, he has accustomed his soul to not believing in people’s help, in people or in mankind, and now only trembles lest his money and acquired privileges perish.”
“Everywhere now the human mind has begun laughably not to understand that a man’s true security lies not in his own solitary effort, but in the general wholeness of humanity.”
“For the world says: ‘You have needs, therefore satisfy them…Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even increase them’—this is the current teaching of the world. And in this they see freedom. But what comes of this right to increase one’s needs? For the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; for the poor, envy and murder.”
“We are assured that the world is becoming more and more united…by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of people. Taking freedom to mean the increase and prompt satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they generate many meaningless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd fancies in themselves. They live only for mutual envy, for pleasure-seeking and self-display…I ask you: is such a man free?”
“The idea of serving mankind, of the…oneness of people, is fading…for how can one drop one’s habits, where will this slave go now that he is so accustomed to satisfying the innumerable needs he himself has invented?…They have succeeded in amassing more and more things, but have less and less joy.”
“If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more each day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.”
- Being present and attentive about life’s intricacies. There lies an eternity in every grain of sand, every bird’s chirp, every gentle smile. If you can’t see the eternity, you aren’t looking deeply enough
“My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.”
“Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of the birds, still it would be easier for the birds, and for a child, and for any animal near you, if you yourself were more gracious than you are now, if only by a drop, still it would be easier.”
- When those ridicule the practice of non-harm by the Buddhists, who refuse to even harm an insect, this is what I think of. If we can learn to love even pesky insects, reducing our disgust and hatred of them, we reduce the chances of that hatred and disgust being directed toward fellow humans
“By shifting your own laziness and powerlessness into others, you will end by sharing in Satan’s pride and murmuring against god.”
- Radiate selflessness, not selfishness.
“If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all.”
“The righteous man departs, but his light remains…Your work is for the whole, your deed is for the future.”
- This light that he leaves behind is heaven—a better place to live.
“What is hell? The suffering of being no longer able to love.”
“But Rakitin, who could be quite sensitive in understanding everything that concerned himself, was quite crude in understanding the feelings and sensations of his neighbours—partly because of his youthful inexperience, and partly because of his great egoism.”
“One should forgive pathetic phrases, one must. Pathetic phrases ease the soul, without them men’s grief would be too heavy.”
When Mitya is being questioned and has to remove his clothes: “If everyone is undressed, it’s not shameful, but when only one is undressed and the others are all looking—it’s a disgrace!”
- How I felt on a bus ride in Seattle, near the end of the pandemic, when I forgot a mask (regardless, the mandate had recently lifted) and everyone had still worn a mask, so that I was the only maskless—“undressed”—person on the bus. The social pressure I felt was unbearably crushing. Lol
To suffer and be purified by suffering
“Because what is virtue?—answer me that, Alexei. I have one virtue and a Chinese has another—so it’s a relative thing. Or not?..I just keep wondering how people can live and think nothing about these things.” - Mitya to Alyosha
The same people who naively neglect forces larger than themselves are most prone to being thrust around by those forces. Ivan is a man of science, striving towards objective truth and ridiculing the unknown. But his naive rejection of the unknown leaves him vulnerable to his passions, which ironically makes the journey to truth much more difficult
“You’re too intelligent, sir. You love money…you also love respect, because you’re very proud, you love women’s charms exceedingly, and most of all you love loving in peaceful prosperity, without bowing to anyone.”
“If everything on earth were sensible, nothing would happen.”
“Without suffering, what pleasure would there be in [life]—everything would turn into an endless prayer service: holy, but a bit dull.”
Mentions of a legend in which a philosopher doubtful of the afterlife, who mentions the lights will simply go out at death, is sentenced in the afterlife to walk in the dark for a quadrillion kilometres.
- Metaphorically, those who are dismissive about sin, not fearful of consequences beyond their own life, are leaving society in the dark, bound to walk aimlessly for a quadrillion kilometres. Faith in something larger provides the guiding light; lack of faith leaves us aimless. Note that this does not imply that we must believe in a supernatural afterlife, rather we must recognize that life continues after us, and we can provide to that afterlife rather than burden it.
Ivan’s spiritual ambivalence eats away at him. He yearns for the certainty of faith found in the devout, seemingly ignorant, and spiritually blissful followers (like the plump wife of a merchant)
“Out of pride he will understand that he should not murmur against the momentariness of life, and he will love his brother then without any reward. Love will satisfy only the moment of life, but the very awareness of its momentariness will increase its fire.”
- Each of our lives may be momentary, but they are part of a larger symphony. Seeing it as momentary—divorced from prior or future generations—is a mistake, an oversimplification. You couldn’t exist without your ancestors, and the future couldn’t exist without you, and if you believe in making the world better, you have a duty to serve the past, present, and future.
“God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit…He will either rise into the light of truth, or…perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in.”
Regarding Dmitri’s trial turnout: “Hysterical, greedy, almost morbid curiosity could be read on [the ladies’] faces.” Dostoevsky does a great job at highlighting the comical yet concerning female urge for gossip and drama.
“The contemptuously curious eyes fixed upon her by our scandal-loving public.”
“For now we are either horrified or pretend that we are horrified, while, on the contrary, relishing the spectacle, like lovers of strong, eccentric sensations that stir our cynical and lazy idleness, or, finally, like little children waving the frightening ghosts away, and hiding our heads under the pillow until the frightening vision is gone, so as to forget it immediately afterwards in games and merriment.”
We were no different in the late 1800s. Gobbling up stories of suffering with relish and a hint of concern and forgetting them shortly after.
“Everything contrary to the idea of a citizen, a complete, even hostile separation from society: ‘Let the whole world burn, so long as I am all right.’”
“There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world. But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love, and it will…expand and show how merciful God is, and how beautiful and just people are.”

Cosmos

Published: January 14, 2023

Cosmos, Carl Sagan

Introduction

Science is delightful; evolution has arranged that we take pleasure in understanding—those who better understand are more likely to survive.
Chapter 1: The shore of the cosmic ocean
Chapter 2: One voice in cosmic fugue
On the plant and animal relationship: “What a marvellous cooperative arrangement—plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet wide mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometres away.”
DNA knows what to do, RNA conveys the instructions of the DNA to the rest of the cell (to make proteins?)
If the mutation rate is too high, we lose the inheritance of four billion years of painstaking evolution. If too low, variation may be too low to adapt to a changing environment. Life requires a precious balance between mutation and selection
In all life, nucleic acid is used for heredity (DNA), proteins are used for the enzymes that control cell chemistry (as per messenger RNA instructions received from DNA).
- Nucleic acid information is translated into protein information
  Chapter 3: The harmony of worlds
Martin Luther described Copernicus as “an upstart astrologer…[who] wishes to reverse the science of astronomy. But sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth.”
Chapter 4: Heaven and Hell
Planets in our solar system have near circular orbits—not as elliptical as comets, say—because of a sort of planetary selection. Elliptical orbits would have had higher likelihood of collision, stymying the formation of planets. Wider, more circular orbits allowed amalgamation of matter with lower likelihood of collision.
“Science is generated by and devoted to free inquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits.”
“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but is not the path to knowledge.”
Chapter 5: Blues for a red planet
Strong passions fray the tolerance for ambiguity, which is essential for science
“The twin human passions for Euclidean geometry and territoriality.”
Chapter 6: Travelers’ tales
Leuwenhook and Huygens, products of Netherlands explorative and entrepreneurial era, were early discoverers of microscopic organisms (animalcules). Their work grandfathered germ theory and much of modern medicine, but their motives were merely related to tinkering with recently developed technology
- The benefits a technology brings need not be realized upon the technology’s discovery. Technology can bring about unforeseen downstream effects, which can be beneficial or harmful.
Jupiter is nearly a star and may as well be considered one if we consider its infrared radiation. Jupiter generates 2x more energy than it receives from the sun.
- If there were two stars in our solar system, we could have had no night-time. In this kind of world, would sleep be required? Would sleep-states be rationed throughout “days”? The notion of day would change to whatever salient energy patterns arise due to our planet’s rotation and translation. How would evolution unfurl without night-time?
  Chapter 7: The backbone of night
“When…he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon…does he, in fact, do anything more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?” - Paul Heinrich Dietrich
Early Greeks believed the first being was Chaos (corresponding to the phrase in Genesis “without form”). Then, Ionians argued Nature exhibits order: there are regularities in Nature that permit its secrets to be unveiled. This ordered character of the universe was called Cosmos.
“Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.” -Hippocrates, ~500BC
Chapter 8: Travels in space and time
“Space and time are interwoven. We cannot look out into space without looking back into time.”
Chapter 9: The lives of the stars
Supernovae occur at the end of a star’s life, where stellar mass is violently ejected into space. During this ejection, thermonuclear reactions in the stellar interior fuse smaller atoms into larger atoms—this is where hydrogen combines into helium, then carbon, then oxygen, and so on until silicon and iron. We are formed by these atoms as well—we were birthed by the death of a star once located somewhere in our galaxy.
Heavier atoms, like gold and uranium, are formed in the violent explosions of supernova. This high local pressure and temperature can fuse heavier atoms together. Embedded in uranium is the energy of a distant supernova that birthed the matter that forms Earth. Incredible.
Almost all life is solar powered. Even mutation itself is solar powered—cosmic rays create mutations which cause hereditary variation
Normally atoms in kind are repelled by their electron fields and protons. Why don’t the protons in their nucleus repel each other? Neutrons apparently serve to bind the protons together, like a nuclear clamp
When temperatures and pressures are high enough, enough energy is provided to overcome the nuclear aversion between atoms and fuse them together, creating larger atoms
Larger stars (3-5x) than the sun experience higher pressure and temperatures, thus consuming nuclear fuel at a higher rate. The lifetimes of larger stars tend to be much shorter (order of a few million years) until they die, explode, and fraction into smaller solar systems with smaller stars. Our sun is one of those smaller stars, and its long life is one of the reasons life has been able to evolve to a point where we can understand the stars themselves.
When even larger stars (>10x sun) die, their implosion generates a black hole, whose gravity is so immense that even light cannot escape. The gravity causes three-dimensional space time to sink within itself, generating a fourth dimension unbeknownst to us.
Chapter 10: The edge of forever
If the universe is expanding, as observed by prevalent elongated—red—spectra, then why aren’t we the center about which everything is expanding? The answer may lie in a fourth dimension.
Say the three dimensions observable to us are akin to a two-dimensional plane on a sphere, observable to two-dimensional folk. We may occupy a surface of a four-dimensional hypersphere, unaware of the fourth dimension as the 2D folk are unaware of the third. And if our hypersphere is expanding, the surface fabric of space time we occupy would be expanding in all directions.
Chapter 11: The persistence of memory
The brain is a very big place in a very small space. It has the informational equivalent of 10^14 bits, information which could fill some twenty million volumes, as many as the world’s largest libraries
Chapter 12: Encyclopedia galactica
Chapter 13: Who speaks for earth?
Subtle consequences of nuclear war (beyond immediate blast and radiation)
- Ozone depletion in high atmosphere due to combustion of nitrogen, increasing solar UV radiation. Skin cancer risk increase, crops decimated, and microorganisms killed—some of which could sit at the base of the ecological pyramid
- Dust and ash would reflect sunlight, cooling the planet and disrupting agricultural crops
- Birds are more vulnerable to radiation than insects. With less insectivores, plagues would be imminent as insect populations explode
- Immunological function is hindered by radiation, making the few survivors more vulnerable to diseases
When our well-being is threatened and our illusions challenge, some of us fly into a murderous rage. Sagan suggests the same thing happens at the nation scale, and that conflict is coerced by a few power/profit hungry entities
Some estimate that roughly half of scientists and high technologists are employed full or part time on military matters. They’re offered power, money, accolades, and secrecy, which obviously attracts
This secrecy is a challenge, however, because not even civilians can monitor the going-ons of their militaries. If we do not know what our militaries do, how can we stop them? “And with the rewards so substantial, with the hostile military establishments beholden to each other in some ghastly mutual embrace, the world finds itself drifting toward the ultimate undoing of the human enterprise.”
Every major power has a justification for its production and stockpiling of weapons. These justifications often presume cultural defects of enemies (as opposed to us fine fellows) or the intentions of others (but never ourselves) to conquer the world.
“Superstition is cowardice in the face of the Divine.” - Theophrastus
To not confuse what things are with how we wish they’d be
Only here, on this planet, do humans likely exist. We are a raw as well as an endangered (due to ourselves) species. In the cosmic perspective, humans are precious. So, if a human disagrees with you, let them live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened to include the entire global human community. Many nations will find this unpleasant, fearing the loss of power. But it is this or extinction.

Atomic Habits

Published: May 04, 2023

Atomic Habits, James Clear

Chapter 1: The fundamentals: why tiny changes make a big difference

Good, and bad, habits compound. Good habits gain exponentially, though there is a period of ramp up where little improvements can be seen. Persistency is required to reach the larger gradient, i.e., when your marginal habits start to pay off
Systems are more important than goals. Focusing on lifting a specific weight is less important than improving technique and making sure you don’t miss a day at the gym. Use goals for setting a general direction and use systems for making progress
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems
Chapter 2: How your habits shape your identity
Focus on changing your identity rather than your outcomes, e.g., the goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader
“I’m terrible with directions; I’m not a morning person; I’m always late” are all repeated stories we tell ourselves that act as barriers to positive change. This is identity conflict, where attachment to a particular version of your identity hinders change. Identity is transient, not static.
“Each action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become”
“Are you becoming the person you want to become?”
Chapter 3: Build better habits in 4 steps
Habits proceed in 4 steps: cue, craving, response, and reward
If a behaviour is insufficient in any of these stages, it will not become a habit. No cue means the habit never starts. No craving means no motivation to act. A difficult behaviour means you won’t be able to respond to it. No satisfaction of desire, i.e., reward, then there’s no reason to do it again
How to create a good habit:
- Make it obvious (cue)
- Make it attractive (craving)
- Make it easy (response)
- Make it satisfying (reward)
How to break a bad habit:
- Make it invisible (cue)
- Make it unattractive (craving)
- Make it difficult (response)
- Make it unsatisfying (reward)
  The 1st law: Make it obvious
  Chaper 5: The best way to start a new habit
People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. This is known as implementation intention
I will [BEHAVIOUR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]. The most important cues are time and location.
Diderot effect: obtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases. Diderot was a French philosopher that suddenly became rich due to a generous donation. He bought a elegant robe, but nothing else matched it so he had to spend more and more money upgrading the rest of his belongings
Habit stacking is a positive version of the Diderot effect: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
Be specific with your habit stacking directions, e.g., “After I finish my morning tea, I will meditate.”
Chapter 6: Motivation is overrated; environment often matters more
It is easier to build new habits in new environments where you don’t have to fight against old cues
Make good cues obvious in your environment, and hide bad cues
Delegate specific spaces in your home to specific habits. This chair for reading, the kitchen for cooking, the bed for sleeping, etc.
Chapter 7: The secret of self control
Self control is a short term strategy, not a long one. Modify your environment such that you don’t need to exercise self control in the first place
To break bad habits, reduce your exposure to their cues. Remove the cues from your environment

Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: Complexity Theory

Published: May 04, 2023

Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: Complexity Theory, David Krakauer

“Convenient idealizations that throw the complex baby out with the merely complicated bathwater” — idealizations approach complex systems by removal of complex features, but the magic and realism of the system is lost in the process
In a biological organism’s life, they learn and adapt to their environment, attempting to maximize fitness (or equivalently minimize losses) given the complex array of components making up that environment. During this learning process, it’s challenging for the player to know whether once a peak is reached, if it is the global optimum for that organism or whether they can maximize further. Much like if I own a stock and it levels out, I don’t know whether it’s peaking or not so I may decide to sell
Generalizing in life involves sampling many outcomes; resulting in a longer training process, more exposure to error, yet improving the possibility of reaching higher peaks. This is a crude process and reaching the absolute peak in any domain is unlikely due to the coarseness of the learning rate. Specializing involves sampling less outcomes and trudging higher towards a local optimum and realizing its fullest local potential. Reaching the peak is made possible due to the granularity of the learning rate; but it’s also more likely to leave you at a local, rather than global, optimum of fitness.
- Specializers: small learning rate, more likely to penetrate deeper towards a local optimum, but also more likely to get stuck at a local optimum
- Generalists: large learning rate, less likely to penetrate deep into a optimum, but more likely to escape a local optimum
- The optimal strategy likely lies in the middle, where an adaptive learning rate is used
Observations from the natural world are mapped by humans into mathematical formulations. Patterns observed in the real world get encoded into symbols and strings of formal logical structure. Meaning is restricted to the natural world, formal systems have no way of synthesizing meaning, they just represent it symbolically.
Complexity is subjective, a random rock to your typical observer can be thrown, broken, or moved—that’s about it. But a rock to a geologist can be carbon dated and analyzed materialistically. What was simple to one was complex to another.
Developing a complexity theory requires formalizing intuitive notions about complexity into symbols and syntax. The subjective nature of complexity makes this challenging, thus the search for a general model that connects and equates subjective formulations is needed

The Enchiridion

Published: May 04, 2023

The Enchiridion, Epictetus

Confine aversion only to objects which are contrary to the natural use of your faculties (i.e., to injury, to malnutrition, etc.) and which you have in your control. If you are averse to things outside of your control (i.e., sickness, death, and poverty), you will be wretched.
Suppress desire, for if you desire what is not in your control you must necessarily be disappointed; and if you desire what is in your control, by nature of it being a desire, it is not yet in your possession
Use only the actions of pursuit and avoidance; yet use them gently and with reservation
When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is; e.g., if you go to bathe, keep your mind in a state conformable to nature, then if any hindrance arises during bathing you can say “I not only wanted to bathe, but to keep my mind in a state conformable to nature, and I will not keep it if I am bothered at things that happen.”
- This coincides with Buddhist philosophy, where a large emphasis is placed on being present (similar to this notion of conformance to nature). If you get annoyed when something doesn’t go your way, it is because you are attached to a particular outcome—or in the Greek case you desire what is not in your control, which is destined for disappointment
The uninstructed will lay the fault of their bad condition upon others, the novice instructed will lay the blame on themselves, the perfectly instructed will place the place blame on nobody
When you are prideful, and say “I have a handsome horse”, know that what you are proud of is only the good of the horse. What then, is your own?
- The modern equivalent of this is people being prideful of their luxurious possessions, i.e., their cars, their properties, etc. If one exerts meaningful effort into constructing these things, it is laudable and is worth praise; yet if they simply route money earned from elsewhere it seems less worthy of praise…should it be?
“Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”
Don’t think of things as lost (in the context of losing something you love, i.e, a loved one or your youth), think of them instead as returned. You don’t own what you can’t control, be grateful for it while it’s there but accept it when it goes.

Flights of Fancy

Published: May 04, 2023

Flights of Fancy, Richard Dawkins

Bats evolved with echolocation to locate flying prey, increasing their sampling frequency of clicks as they home in on a target. Moths evolved ears tuned to just the right pitch to hear bat shrieks
Moths may be furry to dampen the acoustics sent out by bats. Likewise, moths have small fork-like scales on their wings that resonate with bath ultrasound in such a way to disappear off the bat radar
Insects move their wings via a hinge-like mechanism on the upstroke, pulling the hinge down so that the wing moves up. To generate the downstroke, a muscle erects the thorax, lifting the thorax up so that the wing pulls down
Within a bat’s webbing are rows of thin thread-like muscles, thought to be derived from the same muscles that all mamas have in their skin for erecting hairs, such as when we get goosebumps. Goosebumps are a remnant feature from when our ancestors had more hair, erecting hairs when we got cold to trap warm air within the layer of hair. Getting goosebumps has also been shown to stimulate more hair growth in mice, acting as a signal to generate thicker coats to protect from the cold

The Great Leveler

Published: May 04, 2023

The Great Leveler, Walter Scheidel

Introduction: The challenge of inequality

The four horsemen of leveling: mass mobilization warfare, transformative revolution, state failure, and lethal pandemics
Ways in which to measure inequality:
- Gini coefficient: measures extent to which the distribution of income or material assets deviate from perfect equality. Perfect equality: Gini=0, one person controls everything: Gini=1
- Percentage share of total income or wealth: i.e top 1% share higher incomes or assets than other 99% * Gini computes overall degree of equality, percentage shares describe the shape of the distribution
Income prior to taxes and public transfers is known as “market” income, income after transfers is called “gross” income, and income net of all taxes and transfers is defined as “disposable” income
Most of this book refers to “market” income, taxes and transfers are hard to trace depending on the society
Why does economic inequality matter?
It can hinder economic growth; lower disposable income inequality has been found to lead to faster economic growth and longer growth phases
The credit bubble that helped trigger the 2008 recession was in part due to low income households drawing on readily available credit, from the wealthy at the top, to borrow for the sake of keeping up with consumption patterns of more affluent groups
Under conditions where lending is more restrictive, wealth inequality also disadvantages low income groups as it blocks their access to credit
In developed countries, higher inequality is associated with less economic mobility across generations. Higher income families get access to better education, residential segregation sees public services disproportionally attracted to affluent areas
High levels of inequality are correlated with lower levels of self-reported happiness, but not so much health. This makes sense, as happiness can be hindered by discouraging social comparison
Part 1: A brief history of inequality
Chapter 1: The rise of inequality
Our ancestors, Australopithecus, from 3 to 4 million years ago were more sexually dimorphic, with male body mass advantages of over 50%. Evolution attenuated this sexual inequality both among males and between the sexes
As our brains and physiology changed, physical differences made less of an impact on inequality. As lower status men could form coalitions and make weapons to battle from afar (rocks, spears, bows), which played an equalizing role in the physical sense, but privileging knowledge/skill over size
In a site north of Moscow, dated from about 30000-40000 years go, the remains of a man and two children were found buried with loads of ivory beads and more, with estimates of the time required to make all these objects at 2-5 years. Despite this, social and economic inequality in the paleolithic era likely remained sporadic and transient
The Holocene era brought with it temperate conditions, allowing for the thriving of humans and most life in general. This allowed Homo sapiens to rely on local concentrations of resources, occupational specialization grew, strictly defined asset ownership developed as well as the perimeter defence of territory, and intense competition between groups that led to enslavement of captives (the Chumash of the California coast in year 500-700 were found to do this)—all fostering social hierarchy and inequality
Two crucial determinants of inequality: ownership rights in land and livestock, and the ability to transmit wealth from one generation to the next
The different types of wealth: embodied (genetic), relational (partners in labor), and material. In foragers, embodied wealth is more important; whereas in herders and farmers material wealth is most important
Transmissibility of wealth is about twice as high for farmers and herders than for foragers, and the material possessions available to them were more suitable for transmission
Inequality and its persistence over time is the result of 3 factors:
- The relative importance of different classes of assets
- How suitable they are for passing on to others
- The actual rates of transmission
If wealth is passed on between generations, random shocks related to health, parity, and returns on capital that would typically rebalance resource distribution is instead dampened. Resources accumulate over time rather than redistributing elsewhere
Agricultural development in societies, i.e., ways in which to develop and maintain wealth surplus, foster political inequality in these societies. A historical survey found that 86 percent of Native American societies (out of 258) surveyed found that those lacking significant surplus production also lacked signs of political inequality
80% of hunter gatherer societies had no ruling class, whereas 75% of agrarian societies do. Agrarian societies with wheat, rather than, say, roots, are more conducive to political rule as grain is more suitable for long term storage
In early societies/chiefdoms, state-directed allocation of material resources converted political inequality into income and wealth inequality, as political elite and administrators were allocated more materials (land, labor (slaves), etc.)
Chapter 2: Empires of inequality
The Han dynasty (200BCE-200CE) and Roman Empire (200BCE-200CE) feature historical accounts of inequality.
In the Han dynasty, the elite, aristocrats, government officials, and war officials normally earned status and resources via land ownership. They would regularly employ tactics to evade taxes (e.g., falsifying census records, creating fake names, collect taxes from tenants and pay less than received and pocket and pocket the difference).
Attempts to equalize power from elite to lower class were attempted throughout the dynasty, however, these attempts waned over time and discontinuities in leadership would disrupt them as well
- There would sometimes be a change of elite rule, due to warfare or internal politics, but the wealth at the top would mostly be redistributed to those next in line
In the Roman Empire, wealthy elites and retired war senators would accumulate properties—normally at the expense of the middle class, shoving them downwards towards the lower class. Property and material assets would concentrate towards these few over time, serving to increase polarity between the lower and upper rungs of the wealth ladder
Within these examples, imperial income inequality could be hindered only through conquest, state failure, or wholesale systems collapse—all violent upheavals. Despite some attempts, peaceful ways of combatting inequality have not made a meaningful impact in these historical accounts
In premodern societies, very large fortunes regularly owed more to political power than to economic prowess. This could be somewhat managed by the state rulers’ abilities and willingness to engage in tyrannical intervention
Chapter 3: Up and down
After the fall of the Roman rule, state collapse served to redistribute wealth throughout Europe and counter-act inequality
Prior to the Black Death, a millennia later, Europe was more developed and unequal than it had been since the Roman Empire. General stability and development lay fertile ground for increased inequality
This changed when the Black Death struck in 1347, which is estimated to have killed more than 25% of the European population by 1400. As a result, labor became scarce and unskilled labor and farm wages increased 2X. Commoners, from England to Egypt, enjoyed better diets and grew taller bodies
In late medieval-early modern Europe, urban regions suffered from more inequality (compared to rural regions) due to: greater division of labor, differentiation in skills and incomes, spatial concentration of elite households, and the inflow of poorer migrant workers
According to a Florentine census of 1427, wealth inequality correlated with the scale of urbanism—the larger the city the larger the wealth inequality
Part 2: War
Chapter 4: Total war
After defeat in World War Two, Japan underwent significant wealth leveling. Throughout the war the Japanese government directed resources (labor and capital) towards war efforts, impacting the top 1% the most. After the war, hyper-inflation devalued the capital owned by the top 1%, and exterior forces attempted to maintain a wider distribution of wealth
Post war, American occupation enforced the democratization of Japanese economic institutions. They postulated that low distributions of wealth to Japanese industrial workers and farmers hindered domestic consumption and led to overseas economic expansionism. Massive taxes were imposed on the affluent, where the assets themselves were taxed rather than income.
Unionization that was absent pre-war returned post war, providing improved benefits and a general consensus on wage structures for employees
Chapter 5: The great compression
Fiscal leveling constitutes of three main ingredients during war time: military mass mobilization, progressive enhancement of tax rates, and targeting of elite wealth of top income
While mass conscription applied to most, the wealthy normally got off due to age or privilege and stood to profit from commercial involvement in the war industry. Thus, countries like the UK, United States, and Canada imposed significant taxes on the incomes and estates of the rich as a means to keep things fair and ensure national cohesion
More autocratic nations like Germany and Russia opted to borrow or print money to sustain war efforts, this however led to hyperinflation, which eventually ended up compressing inflation by reducing the value of the capital of the elites (?)

Meditations

Published: May 04, 2023

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

Three disciplines: perception, action, and will
- Perception: requires that we maintain objectivity of thought—that we see things dispassionately
  - This involves avoidance of inappropriate value judgements, such as designating things as good or evil. The things aren’t the problem, but the interpretations we place on them are. This is similar to emptiness in Buddhism. We assign an essence to things and thus interpret them as attractive or unattractive
- Action: active cooperation with the world, with fate, and above all with other human beings. We were made not for ourselves but for others (agree), and our nature is fundamentally unselfish* (I don’t completely agree with this)
- Will: we control our actions and are responsible for them—if we act wrongly, we harm ourselves. Likewise, if someone or something else harms us, they are harming themselves and not us, the victim. Acts of nature such as fire or illness, can only harm us if we see them as harmful
Seeing things for what they are and accepting them, is something Epictetus calls “the art of acquiescence”
Objective judgement, unselfish action, and willing acceptance of all external events. These three points are a recurring theme in Marcus’ writings
“The best revenge is not to be like that”
“To accept without arrogance, and let go with indifference”
“The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than being kept on it”
- This is similar to the dog running alongside the wagon rather than being dragged by it, the wagon being logos. Those who feel helpless about life and settle into this mode get the sense that there’s no point in trying if the cards are stacked against them. There’s more room for growth than what they can see and limits they can reach. Giving up removes the possibility of seeing where those limits can take you
Mentions that wrongdoing done over pleasure is worse than that over anger. The angry wrongdoer is a victim of his anger, but the man doing it for pleasure is motivated by desire
- Don’t quite agree with this. Anger is also motivated by desire, an attraction towards an angry state. Both are motivated by desire, and thus both are victims. Buddha once said that anger is like an arrow with a poisoned root with a honeyed tip
Emphasis on being honest and present in one’s thoughts. If the mind is preoccupied with something you wouldn’t be comfortable speaking about, when those ask what you’re thinking about you will answer dishonestly—so be disciplined with your thoughts
Be ready to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. Conversion should always rest on a conviction that it’s right, or benefits others. Not because it’s more appealing or more popular
When something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself is no misfortune at all, to endure it and prevail is good fortune
If you resist the temptation to feel victimized—to feel harmed—then harmful things can’t happen to you, only things
Be tolerant of others, but strict with yourself
The best revenge is not to be like that
When asked to write out a name, would you clench your teeth and groan as you write it? When faced with responsibilities, approach them as you would writing a name, methodically and one letter at a time. Don’t get dissuaded by the text itself—complete it one task at a time
We tend not to waste much time concerning ourselves with our height or width, spatial dimensions of our bodies (these days a little more so, with weight issues associated with caloric abundance). So why should we concern ourselves with the temporal dimension of our body, i.e., how long we live? Accept the limits placed on the body.
The importance of detaching from our body’s urges, to resist impulses and sensations. Thoughts seek to be their master, not their subject. Thoughts were created for this use.
- Interesting. Frontal lobe development, contributing to logical calculus and delayed gratification, evolved such that our survival wouldn’t be impinged by short term gratification—i.e., indulgence in impulsive behaviour
Actions and perceptions need to aim at:
- Accomplishing practical ends
- The exercise of thought
- Maintaining a confidence found on understanding
  - in Buddhism action is understood as having three aspects: thinking, speaking, and acting (doing something). Some similarities here
When bothered by those behaving poorly in pursuit of pleasure, money, or status—reflect on when you thought like that. Recognize that they are acting out of compulsion, and attempt to remove the compulsion if you can

Understanding Our Mind

Published: May 04, 2023

Understanding Our Mind, Thich Nhat Hanh

Store consciousness stores and preserves all the seeds of our experiences, where seeds represent everything we have ever done, experienced, or perceived. These are “subjects” of consciousness
The seeds make up store consciousness and can be distinguished from the store, but the store is dependant on the seeds, thus the seeds are also “objects” of consciousness
The ways in which we act plant seeds for how we behave in the future. If you plant wheat, wheat will grow. If you act in a wholesome way, you will be happy. If you act in an unwholesome way, you will water seeds of craving, anger, and violence in yourself and others
When we perceive an object, we see its “sign” (I like signature more). As per Buddhism there are 3 pairs of signs of phenomena:
- Universal and particular: universal signatures are generic labels (e.g., a house) and particular signatures are more specific (e.g., the brick, wood, nails, etc. that make up individual houses)
- Unity and diversity: all houses are part of the designation “house”, but there are countless variations between the collection of individual houses
- Formation and disintegration: a house could be in the process of being built (formation), but is also already in the process of decay, being weathered by its surroundings (disintegration)
  - Seeing these signatures are the basis of the teachings of interbeing
It is easy to confuse our mental image, our signature of something, with its reality. The way to avoid misperceptions is through mindfulness: deliberate investigation of our perceptions, poking and prodding until we approach the true nature of a perception
When we have a false perception and continue to maintain it, we hurt ourselves and others. In fact, people kill one another over their competing perceptions of the same reality
Individual and collective seeds: the collective consciousness is made up of individual consciousnesses, and an individual conscious is formed by the collective conscious. This is the nature of interbeing
Looking deeply into an atom, we bow our heads in awe. And yet with our friend/significant other sitting next to us we think we already know everything about them
Walking at dusk, we see a long stringy object, and thinking it’s a snake we get scared. Upon shining a light on the object, we realize it was just rope. Our fear was the product of a misperception, not seeing something for what it truly was. We do this in life as well, misperceiving constructed perceptions as truth, avoiding deep deliberation of what we’re assuming
Impermanence and nonself are essentially the same thing, both meaning the absence of a separate, fixed self. Impermanence looks at this temporally, nonself looks at this spatially. The idea of a discrete self is incompatible with a continuous world
The true nature of consciousness is neither individual nor collective. We are simultaneously individual and collective. I am a unique biological pattern, that was formed by the collective consciousness of my family, the earth, and the cosmos. This collective consciousness is produced by many individuals. Interdependence.
Manas provides energy for ignorance, thirst, and craving. It also serves as the “survival instinct”, providing reflexive reactions to stimuli. It operates in the realm of representations, and thus cannot touch the realm of things-in-themselves (truth). The attachment of manas in a self is based on an image it has created.

The Moral Animal

Published: May 04, 2023

The Moral Animal by Robert Wright

Part 1: Sex, romance, and love

Chapter 2: Male and Female

Due to reproductive organ asymmetries, it’s in the male’s advantage to pretend to be highly fit, and in the female’s advantage to spot false advertising
Females of most species are coy, somewhat resistant to mating with males, whereas men are more liberal with sexual partners. Coyness is rewarding in the Darwinian sense, because the males that surpass that resistance, either verbally or physically, are more likely to have more fit offspring
Chapter 3: Men and Women
Flowers and other tokens of affection are more prized by women as it signals generosity, trustworthiness, and most importantly an enduring commitment
High male parental investment has made males evolve to compete for scarce female eggs, but females have also evolved to compete for scarce male investment
85% (~900/1100) societies around the world have been polygamous—that is, they have permitted men to have multiple wives. The majority of men, however, were likely monogamous as they couldn’t afford multiple wives, but the high-status males are allowed to if they can provide for the families
Chapter 4: The marriage market
Marriage favours lower class men. Women, who would otherwise marry up the hierarchy and split resources of a high-status male with other women, are forced to stick with a male mate at a similar spot in the hierarchy
Institutionalized marriage thus doesn’t serve women near the bottom of the hierarchy. They may have to stay with a bum rather than obtain resources from a well-off man. Low status males in this case may have more to benefit from marriage
Without institutionalized marriage, many low status males will be alone, upset, and likely become violent. Married men are less likely to commit crime—this could be because men who wouldn’t commit crime in the first place tend to get married, but marriage also settles the man down
Western culture now has a serial monogamous nature, where divorce is prevalent. This leaves children without their natural parents, and step-parents often care little for step-children, hindering development and lowering the quality of guidance for children from broken families
Unstratification of social status could help curb the decrease in monogamy; if resources are allocated more equally, women are less likely to have their eye on men up the echelon, as the echelon will be more balanced. Political and social inequality leads to allocation of multiple women to a high-status man, and more upset, low status males as a result
Chapter 6: The Darwin plan for marital bliss
Male sexual fantasies tend to be mostly visual in nature, whereas females tend to include tender touching, soft murmurs, and other hints of future investment
Some approach divorce with the mindset that they married the “wrong” person and next time they’ll get it right, but divorce statistics say otherwise. “The triumph of hope over experience”
How moral codes arise: people tend to pass moral judgements that help move their genes to the next generation. Thus, a moral code is a compromise among competing spheres of self-interest, each acting to mold the code to its own ends
Part 2: Social cement
Chapter 7: Families
Some parent-offspring conflict arises since children share 50% of genes with siblings, so put simply its in their best interest to favour themselves at 2-to-1 odds than their siblings. Whereas parents share genes equally with all offspring, so it could be in their best interest to treat each child equally. These broad differences in self interest could be the source of some child-parent conflict
Parents may have reasons to prefer some offspring over others, a pretty daughter in a poor family likely has a better chance of moving up socioeconomically than a handsome boy, whereas in an already rich family a man is more likely to maintain the resources and attract an attractive female, converting those resources into genetic proliferation
Studies on rats have shown that mothers starved of resources are more likely to provide milk to daughters, and wean off sons
In the middle-east/Asia as well as medieval Europe, infanticide of females was most common upon upper class families
In a study done in America, it was found that sons of high-class families were more likely to be breast fed, and less likely in low class families, i.e., breast-feeding frequency of boys changed with socio-economic status. Women who had a female child in low-class families were more likely to wait to have another child than if they had first had a male. The opposite trend was found for high class families
Magnitude of grief of a parent from a lost child seems to correlate near perfectly with fertility metrics of hunter-gatherer societies. That is, parents tend to grieve more for a child that is closer to their peak fertility potential. Grievance for an adolescent will be much stronger than that of an infant or older relative
First born siblings tend to be less exceptional. Studies of academics and political greats are found to rarely be first born amongst their siblings. Younger siblings tend to have to compete with older siblings for parental affection or attention, and the older sibling has had more time to develop a relationship with the parent, and likely wins favour through sacrifice of taking care of younger siblings. Thus, the younger sibling seeks another niche, say excellence in school, to gain parental favor
Chapter 9: Friends
In game theory, the TIT FOR TAT strategy wins out. Cooperate on the first go, and match the other player’s move from there on
If everyone at the start doesn’t cooperate, the TIT FOR TAT strategy doesn’t work. It’s likely cooperation started out due to kin-selection and gradually spread out, allowing TIT FOR TAT to dominate, and thus society to grow
Reciprocal altruism thus likely evolved selfishly, since unlike with kin-selection where genes are shared, altruism with outside-kin is likely just an optimal strategy for personal benefit—everybody wins. It also isn’t a surprise that betrayals are common as well, if people can cheat without repercussion, they will. Gossip and punishment deter this behaviour.
Chapter 10: Darwin’s conscience
In the Victorian environment, in which there were small quaint towns, it paid to be good, act with integrity, and be altruistic, as the towns were small, and it was the optimal strategy for small groups
However, in todays large cities, where nobody really knows anybody, it can pay to be dishonest and to be a cheat, hence the societal shift in norms from the Victorian times from having a strong “character” to having a nice “personality”
Those who lack a secure environment when growing up, either without parents to instill values of integrity and kindness, or in a disparate environment where these values aren’t necessary, often grow up to be criminals. They are generally not evil people, just products of their environment
Part 3: Social strife
Chapter 12: Social Status
In the Ache, though skillful hunters share their food with the tribe, they in turn enjoy more extramarital affairs, have more illegitimate children, and their children get special treatment
As more and more societies are re-evaluated in a Darwinian light, it becomes doubtful that any truly egalitarian society has ever existed
In a study, those given artificially low test scores to lower self esteem, were more likely to subsequently cheat in a game of cards. Another study found that people with lower serotonin levels are more likely to commit impulsive crimes
The common stereotype of a wife complaining that a husband can’t bring himself to admit he’s wrong may be because males who too readily sought reconciliation after a fight, or needlessly submitted to others, saw their status drop and thus their inclusive fitness
- Women fall prey to this as well, but if folk wisdom can be trusted, the average woman is less reluctant than the average man—which makes sense as the fitness of females depend less on status maintenance than does males
The ultimate aim for politicians is status, and thus they will say things that appeal to the group of voters most likely to get them into power or keep them there
Chapter 13: Deception and self-deception
“The best liar is the one who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.” Lies that are slight, and hard to discredit, are more difficult to get tangled up in, making them easy to hide behind
It may be in the genetic interest of someone at the low rungs of the status hierarchy to display their low status, as to advertise that they aren’t a threat to those above them. This is one possible explanation for individuals with low self-esteem
We could have a built-in tendency to refrain from bestowing status enhancement benefits on people whose status threatens our own. Darwin would often acknowledge minor researchers whose empirical observations aided him, but not those who’s ideas had influenced his thought (i.e., competitors near-above him in the status hierarchy)
When in a negotiation, say when buying a car, the first person to make a voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice is that who governs the negotiation. If a dealer believes you’re walking away for good, he’ll cave. If the dealer says he can’t accept less than X and appears as if his pride wouldn’t let him go lower, then he wins.
Studies show that when shown plausible/implausible arguments to a social issue you care about, people were most likely to remember the plausible arguments that supported their views, and implausible arguments of the opposition. The net effect drives home the correctness of our position, and the silliest of the alternative
Chapter 14: Darwin’s triumph
When dealing with non-kin, natural selection wants us to look like we’re being nice; the perception of altruism, not altruism itself, is what brings reciprocation. One aim of the conscience is to cultivate a reputation of generosity and decency, whatever the underlying motives of those actions are
Part 4: Morals of the story
Chapter 15: Darwinian (and Freudian) cynicism
Freud’s basic insight of the mind: it is a place of conflict between animal impulses and social reality
Chapter 16: Evolutionary ethics
A utilitarian mandate, in which behaviour that increases people’s happiness is considered good and thus encouraged, and behaviour that leads to peoples suffering is bad and thus discouraged, is thought to lead to a better off society (via non-zero sumness)
- In essence, considering the welfare of others as importantly as you would your own
Utilitarianism strives for maximum societal happiness: the greatest good for the greatest number
Some underlying reasons as to why we don’t like someone: liking them won’t elevate our social status, aid our acquisition of material or sexual resources, help our kin, or do any of the other things that during evolution had made our genes proliferate
Chapter 17: Blaming the victim
Determinism view: it seems likely that behaviour is determined in part due to genetic factors and environmental factors—our next move is decided by genetic interest and environmental circumstance
Robust moral codes rest not only on norms but on “metanorms”: society disapproves not only of the code’s violators but also on those who tolerate violators by failing to disapprove
Chapter 18: Darwin gets religion
Like how religions preach for brotherly love, politicians self-servingly preach for nationalism, i.e., brotherly love on a national scale

Range

Published: May 04, 2023

Range, David Epstein

Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. The more breadth within learned content, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to situation they had never seen before—which is in essence creativity
A study found that typical children tend to be raised in families with an average of six household rules, compared to one rule for extremely creative children. After a wrongdoing parents would let the child know, rather than proscribing it beforehand
The “hypercorrection” effect: the more confident a learn is of their wrong answer, the better the information sticks when they subsequently learn the right answer. Tolerating big mistakes can create the best learning opportunities
- This effect was even reproduced in primates (rhesus macaques)
Teachers who drive overachievement in their current courses (by providing easier content) tend to undermine student performance in the long run (US Air Force study). Those who had more challenging math courses, and thus had lower student satisfaction, saw their students overachieve in future math courses (i.e., short term their grades would suffer, but long term their grades flourished)
Interleaving problems, i.e., mixing them up when practicing, has been found to be more effective than approaching problems in blocks. Shuffle the problems beforehand to improve learning via rules differentiation rather than learning structured patterns
According to a Yale study, more scientifically literate adults are surprisingly more likely to become dogmatic about politically polarizing topics in science. One theory is that they are better equipped to find evidence that confirms their beliefs
A personality feature that fights back against this propensity is scientific curiosity, not scientific knowledge. Roam freely, listen carefully, and consume indiscriminately. Be open-minded.
Scientific work that builds bridges between disparate pieces of knowledge (i.e., atypical citations with respect to the discipline) are less likely to be funded, more likely to be ignored upon publication, but more likely in the long run to gain traction and succeed

Make it Stick - The Science of Successful Learning

Published: May 04, 2023

Make it Stick - The Science of Successful Learning, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel, and Peter C Brown

Chapter 1: Learning is misunderstood

“Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in the sand, here today and gone tomorrow.”
We are poor judges of when we are learning well or not. When we’re undergoing a challenge it doesn’t feel productive, so we’re drawn to strategies that feel better, unaware that they may be less effective
Rereading text and massed practice are not productive, i.e., rapid fire repetition of something you’re trying to learn or cramming for exams. They give rise to feelings of fluency but are largely a waste of time
Retrieval practice - recalling facts or concepts from memory - is much more effective than review by rereading
Spacing out practice or interleaving it with other subjects makes it feel more challenging to recall, yet produces longer lasting learning and more versatile application of what is learned in later settings
Trying to solve a problem prior to being told the solution leads to better learning
The notion that you learn better according to your learning style, e.g., a visual or auditory learner, is not supported by empirical research. You learn better when you draw on all of your aptitudes and resourcefulness, rather than just the style you find most amenable
Extracting and understanding the underlying principles or rules of problem makes one more successful at picking the right solution in unfamiliar situations
People who learn to extract key ideas from new material, organize them into a mental model, and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery
Chapter 2: To learn, retrieve
The stronger one’s knowledge about the subject at hand, the more nuanced one’s creativity can be in addressing a new problem
Knowledge amounts to little without the exercise of ingenuity and imagination; as creativity absent of a stable foundation of knowledge builds a shaky house
A 1978 study showed that cramming leads to higher scores on an immediate test but results in faster forgetting compared to practicing retrieval
Testing immediately after exposure enhances knowledge retention, one study found an 11% increase on test scores on a topic learned a week prior between a group that was tested immediately after and one who had not been tested prior
Multiple spaced out tests immediately after content is learned serves as an immunization against forgetting the material, the mental strain induced by testing solidifies a foundation of knowledge
Students who have been quizzed have a dual advantage: a more accurate sense of what they do and don’t know, and the strengthening of accrued learning from retrieval practice
Chapter 3: Mix up your practice
Massed practice is prevalent; whether it be summer language boot camps, colleges teaching a single subject promising fast learning, or continuing education seminars with material condensed to a single weekend. It feels productive, yet the material is forgotten as fast as it is learned. Spacing out practice feels less productive as it’s more effortful, yet it generates fertile ground for knowledge to grow out of and flourish
“The myths of massed practice are hard to exorcise, even when you’re experiencing the evidence yourself.” Massed practice feels better, because as you study you feel as though you’re learning faster and that feels good and more seamless. Yet when compared against the more cognitively challenging varied and interleaved practice, massed practice generally underperforms on later tests.
Providing a quiz at the end of a conference can help the audience retain some of what they learned. Normally they just listen and walk out, forgetting the material shortly after
Reflection is a form of retrieval practice, essential to bridging the gap in the learning practice (“What did I do? What happened? How did it work out? What would I do differently next time?”)
Chapter 5: Avoid illusions of knowing
A good way to engage in self-insight is to ask yourself: is the world giving me positive feedback? Is the world rewarding me in a way that I would expect a competent person to be rewarded? Is there something I can work on to reduce the delta? “Think of the kids lining up to join the softball team—would you be picked?”
Chapter 6: Get beyond learning styles
Fluid intelligence: the ability to reason, see relationships, think abstractly, and hold information in the mind while working on a problem
Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge of the works, the pattern recognition models one has developed from past learning and experience
Chapter 7: Increase your abilities
Myelin coating of axons generally starts at the back of our brain and works it’s way towards our frontal lobes as we grow into adulthood. Myelin coating thickness correlates with ability, and with increased practice, leading to thicker coats that improve the strength and speed of electrical signals
Automatic actions or responses to stimula, i.e., habits, tend to be directed from a region deep in the brain called the basal ganglia
Learning to remember the relationship between unrelated items, such as names and faces, stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus. This neurogenesis starts in anticipation of the learning event, and persists after it has been completed
Some individuals aim for performance goals, working to validate their ability. These individuals unconsciously limit their ability, picking challenges that they are confident they can meet so as to validate their ability
Some individuals strive toward learning goals, working to acquire new knowledge or skills. With a goal to increase ability, they pick ever-increasing challenges, and interpret setbacks as opportunities to learn and improve
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a rare variable they can control, but emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of a child’s control, providing no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet

Published: May 04, 2023

Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, Thich Nhat Hanh

We live in a civilization of borrowing. When we want something we can’t yet afford, we count on the bodies and labor in the future to pay back the debt. We have treated the global ecological environment similarly—exploiting the planet for its resources, burdening future generations with the debts we currently incur in order to maintain superfluous and ostentatious lifestyles
The four notions of the diamond suttra
- The illusion of self: I am composed of cells shared with my ancestors, of flourishing and diverse microbiomes lining the inside of my gut, of non-me elements that come together to make me. Thus, the notion of me being separate from the rest of the world is false, and a construct developed by natural selection to prioritize the survival of my genes. Yet, in reality, my system cannot function without the rest of the world… Interconnectedness. I am all.
- The notion of “human being”: we depend on other beings in order to survive, whether it be plants, fish, or water. Yet we preference our species at the expense of others. Due to interbeing, by harming others we are harming ourselves. Our life requires cohesion with the rest of the world, and since we are interdependent with the planet and its constituents, this notion of “human-being” preference at the expense of others serves to eventually harm us
- The notion of “living being”: we are composed and dependent on inanimate matter as well—minerals, molecules, atoms. Life is contingent on these things, thus the preference for living over non-living can be unhelpful
- The notion of “life span”: when we die, we don’t really die, we just transform into something else. Likewise, within us live the genes of ancestors dating back to the creation of life billions of years ago.
Three basic needs: peace, understanding, and love. To cultivate in any situation a feeling of peace, understanding, and compassion allows for disillusioned and positive action
When suffering, get in touch with it. Do not cover it up with media, games, or alcohol. Ask why you are suffering, and where it has come from. Recognize it and hold it inside—look deeply into it and say “hello my fear, anger, and despair. I will take good care of you.”
The mechanics of compassion: when suffering, look deeply into its nature and develop an understanding of it, and follow with a compassion towards the suffering

Science

Published: May 06, 2023

A collection of notes from scientific books.

Self-help

Published: May 06, 2023

A collection of notes from books within the self-help genre.

Western Philosophy

Published: May 06, 2023

A collection of notes from books read on Western philosophy.

The Righteous Mind

Published: May 11, 2023

The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt

Part 1: Intuition comes first, strategic reasoning comes second

Chapter 1: Where does morality come from?

One of Haidt’s early cross-cultural studies on moral judgement found that between rural Brazil, a city in Brazil, and a city in the USA, those in the more disadvantaged areas tended to moralize more
Within each city, lower social status individuals tended to moralize more than those in high status. This effect of status was stronger than the differences in location
Kids tended to moralize more than adults
Those in rural Brazil still tended to deem something morally unacceptable even if they didn’t find anyone was harmed by the proposed scenario, whereas in the USA they would say it violates a social convention—showing that moral intuitions are not solely innate but absorbed via environmental influence
Gut feelings about disgust and disrespect can sometimes drive reasoning, normally fabricated post-hoc. People may have a moral intuition about a certain circumstance, and struggle to come up with a distinct reason as to why they believe it’s bad/good
Chapter 2: The intuitive dog and its rational tail
“Desire and reason pull in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong”-Ovid, Roman poet
There is a difference between personal preference and moral judgements. With personal preferences, it’s perfectly ok to decline a situation because you don’t want to, based on your subjective preference
Moral judgements, however, are not subjective statements; they are claims that somebody did something wrong. I can’t gather support to punish you just because I don’t like what you’re doing. I must point to something outside my personal preferences, that pointing is our moral reasoning
We reason morally not to see how we came to a judgement; but to find the best reasons why others ought to join us in our judgment
Moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail; you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments
Empathy is an antidote to righteousness and divisiveness, yet it’s challenging to empathize across a moral divide
The mere exposure effect: An experiment showed that repeated exposure to arbitrary objects made people like them more; the brain tags familiar things as good things. This is a basic principle in advertising
When exposed to a bad smell, subjects of a study were more likely to give harsher moral judgments. When reflecting on a past moral transgression, we are more likely to want to clean ourselves (Lady Macbeth effect). Even when something as simple as a hand-sanitizer is nearby, we become more morally conservative
Animals first evolved to attract and averse to smells and tastes, i.e., biochemical senses. This could be one reason why a bad/good smell effects our moral judgments—if I’m sensing something pleasant, this is probably something that’s good for me
An experiment gave its subjects a moral quandary and provided half of them with a weak justification and half with a strong justification. When asked their stance on the situation directly after reading the justification, most stuck to their intuitions and condemned the situation. When given 2 minutes to reflect afterwards, most who were shown the strong justification were much more likely to change their minds
After ingesting information that provokes an affective response, letting it mellow for a few minutes, such that our initial brain stem response dies down, allows us to judge things with more reason and openness
Chapter 4: Vote for me (here’s why)
People are more likely to engage in exploratory thought (truth seeking) than confirmatory thought (one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point) when:
- Prior to forming an opinion, they are told they will be accountable to an audience
- The views of the audience are unknown
- The audience are well-informed and seek accuracy
One of thought’s central functions is to allow one to justifiably and persuasively describe why one acted in a particular way, and to search for reasons to convince oneself that they have made the “right” choice of action
Schools don’t teach people to reason thoroughly; they select the applicants with higher IQs, and people with higher IQs are able to generate more reasons (normally supporting their side and discounting the opposition)
When we want to believe something, we ask ourselves “Can I believe it?” and search for supporting evidence; when we don’t want to believe something, we ask ourselves “Must I believe it?” and search for contrary evidence
Part 2: There’s more to morality than harm and fairness
Chapter 5: Beyond WEIRD morality
When asked to write statements beginning with the words “I am…”, westerners are more likely to reference internal psychological states (I am happy, I am outgoing, etc.) and East Asians are more likely to reference roles and relationships (I am a father, I am a husband, etc.)
The WEIRDer you are, the more you perceive things as separate objects rather than relationships
Other than ethics around harm and fairness, the ethic of autonomy is prevalent in western societies. Not as prominent in WEIRD societies are the ethics of community and divinity, though in more conservative and religious factions of western society these ethics are more prevalent
“We are multiple from the start.” The foundation for each of these moral ethics lies within us, latent, from the start. It is possible to view them all, to improve understanding of why others take moral positions, and to reduce ignorance towards why they feel that type of way
Chapter 6: Taste buds of the righteous mind
Five good candidates for being the “taste receptors” of the righteous mind are care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity
Chapter 7: The moral foundations of politics
The brain of a newborn is one that is best seen as prewired—flexible and subject to change—rather than hardwired, i.e., fixed and immutable
“Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises…built-in does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.”
The moral matrix of liberals falls more heavily on the Care foundation than does that of the conservatives, though conservatives do still have some (e.g., save our troops… respect those who sacrifice for the group). The care foundation for the conservatives is aimed more locally, liberals tend to be a bit more universalist (e.g., human eating practices)
Regarding the foundation of fairness, on the left, fairness often implies equality, whereas on the right it implies proportionality (i.e., get paid in proportion to one’s contributions)
The loyalty foundation comes stronger for conservatives, who lean into loyalty by pledging loyalty their nation (nationalism) and to sports teams. Liberals have a harder time with this one as they tend to be universalists
We are the descendants of individuals who were best able to play the game of authority/subversion—to rise in status while cultivating protection from superiors and the allegiance of subordinates
The omnivore’s dilemma is that omnivores must seek out and explore new potential foods while remaining wary of them until they are proven safe. They thus go through life with two competing motives: neophilia and neophobia
Liberals tend to be more neophilic (open to new experiences); conservatives tend to be more neophobic (preferring what’s tried and true)
There is some evidence that liberal and welcoming attitudes to immigrants are more common in times and places where risks of disease are lower (the recent pandemic made this apparent)
Chapter 8: The conservative advantage
The liberty/oppression foundation makes people notice and resent any sign of attempted domination, triggering an urge to band together to resist or overthrow bullies
- This manifests as egalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism on the left, and “don’t-tread-on-me” and anti-government attitudes on the right
The fairness foundation focuses mostly on proportionality. Most people have a few intuitive concern for the law of karma, we want to see cheaters punished and good citizens rewarded in proportion to their deeds
Part 3: Morality binds and blinds
Chapter 9: Why are we so groupish?
Shared intentionality, i.e., when groups of humans share a common representation of a task they are pursuing, could have been the keystone step in the development in human morality. Once people began sharing a common understanding of how things were supposed to be done, and someone violated it, the group would feel a twinge of negativity towards the violator
Morality is like the matrix, it’s a shared, consensual hallucination within a group
A set of selection pressures operated within groups, e.g., via punishment of nonconformists; and between groups, e.g., via the most cohesive groups surviving and taking resources from less cohesive, smaller groups
The human love of using symbolic markers to demonstrate a group membership likely adapted because it provided a way for our ancestors to develop a sense of “we” beyond kinship. The more permanent the symbol (e.g., piercings and tattoos) the more permanent the membership. We trust and cooperate better with people who look and sound like us, we expect them to share our values and norms
We have a psychology which “expects” the social world to be divided into symbolically marked groups
Humans “self-domesticated” themselves when they began selecting for partners and friends based on their ability to live within the tribe’s moral matrix
Changes in our genes accelerated greatly during the Holocene era, once humans started becoming more social, agriculture development began, and humans expanded across the globe into novel environments. Genes and culture coevolve, and once culture starts picking up the pace, genetic evolution picks up the pace as well
Early population bottlenecks can also contribute to rapid genetic evolution. If we suddenly lose 95% of all food, the humans that survive are going to be the ones that work best together to monopolize the remaining resources. The small number of people that are left and the genes they carry have an immense impact on the generations that follow. Some suspect this happened 70000-140000 years ago during large global temperature fluctuations and volcanic eruptions that disrupted the environment
Groupishness tends to be focused on improving the well-being of the in-group, instead of harming the out-group (although this does happen, e.g., warfare)
Human nature is mostly shaped by individual selection. However, there is certainly a case to be made that group selection has played a role in shaping human nature, particularly in shaping our righteous minds
Chapter 10: The hive switch
There exists a “switch” in us that, when engaged, dissolves selfish interests and prioritizes the collective. The peak of this is collective effervescence, a state achieved when a large group acts in synchrony, generating a sort of electricity that reverberates throughout the group
We are homo-duplex, we live most of our lives in our individual, ordinary worlds, but achieve some of our greatest joys in brief moments of connection to the “sacred” world, where the self dissolves and we become part of the whole
Oxytocin bonds people to their groups. It increases intra-group love, but not love towards all humans as a whole
Mirror neurons enable empathy, but studies show that they activate more for those that share their moral matrix (i.e., for those on their good side)
Ch11. Religion is a team sport
Often our beliefs are post hoc constructions designed to justify what we’ve just done, or to support the groups we belong to
New atheists dismiss religion as costly, ineffective, and irrational—a product of cognitive misfirings (e.g., agent-detection module). However, it turns out religion is a solution to one of the hardest challenges humanity faces: cooperation without kinship
Communes (i.e., groups of people who reject the moral matrix of general society) in the United States tend to persist longer when they adopt a religion. More within group demands for sacrifice also correlated with group longevity. The longevity of secular communes was much shorter, though this doesn’t necessarily mean the people in these communes were more or less happy. It just means religious communes may be more effective groups
In the human population as a whole, genes that promoted religious behaviour were likely to become more common in each generation as the less cohesive societies perished and the more united ones thrived
If human minds and human religions coevolved, shaping one another, we can not expect people to abandon religion so easily. Of course, one can still reject organized religion, a more recent cultural phenomena. But someone who rejects all religion will have a hard time shaking off their religious psychology
Particular religious beliefs and practices don’t correlate much with how altruistic a religious person is. How enmeshed with their co-religious community is the strongest correlate to how generous and charitable they are in general. Friendship and group activities carried out in a shared moral matrix enhance selflessness.
“It is religious belongingness that supports neighbourliness, not particular religious beliefs.”
Chapter 12: Can’t we all disagree more constructively?
Genes collectively give some people brains that are more (or less) reactive to threats, and that produce less (or more) pleasure when exposed to novelty, change, and new experiences. Genetics play a role in one’s tendency to be conservative or liberal
A study which asked thousands of American to fill out a moral foundation questionnaire, where a third answered as themselves, a third pretended to be a typical conservative, and a third pretended to be a typical liberal, found that moderates and conservatives were able to most accurately predict what the other sides would answer in the questionnaire. Liberals were the least accurate, with those who were “very liberal” having abysmal ability to predict the morals of conservatives
This is likely due in part to the emphasis on two moral pillars (care/harm and fairness) that liberals stand on, and the six pillars that conservatives stand on (even though, ironically, conservatives tend to be a bit less empathetic)
Can you convince yourself that the following statements hold merit?
- People are inherently imperfect and prone to act poorly when all constraints of accountability are removed
- Our reasoning is flawed and prone to overconfidence, making it dangerous to construct theories based on pure reason (i.e., rationality), unconstrained by intuition and historical experience
- Institutions gradually emerge, shaped by society, which we then respect and sometimes even sacralise; if we strip institutions of authority and treat them as arbitrary and artificial, we render them less effective, exposing ourselves to social disorder and potentially a lack of meaning (anomie)
“Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for traditions, and dissolution/subjection to foreign conquest through the growth of individualism and personal independence that makes cooperation impossible.”
Liberal programs with good intentions can sometimes have unintended consequences, e.g., the urge to help Hispanic immigrants in 1989 led to multicultural education programs that emphasizes the differences among Americans, rather than their shared values and identity
“Emphasizing differences between one another makes many people more racist, not less.”
“We think the other side is blind to the truth, science, reason, and common sense, yet everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects (i.e., beliefs).”

Breath

Published: June 11, 2023

Breath, James Nestor

Chapter 1: The worst breather in the animal kingdom

Around 40% of today’s population (western?) suffers from chronic nasal obstruction, around 50% of us are habitual mouth breathers (females and children suffer from this the most (why?))
Chapter 2: Mouthbreathing
How the body generates energy via food and/or air: anaerobic and aerobic respiration. Anaerobic respiration metabolizes glucose to generate energy, and is much less (16x less) efficient than aerobic respiration, a process in which the cells in our body have fine-tuned over the past 2.5 billion years
Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing; nosebreathing begets more nosebreathing. Breathing through the mouth reduces air pressure against the back of the throat, causing the airways to sink and relax at the back of the throat, leading to restricted airways. Nose breathing increases air pressure, forcing the muscles at the back of the throat to open up, leading to opened airways
Chapter 3: Nose
The interior of the nose is lined with erectile tissue. When the right nostril is breathed through it tends to be associated with a more sympathetic response: increased heart rate and cortisol and feeds more blood (?) to the left frontal cortex which is associated with impulse response and logical decision making. The left nostril is associated with a more parasympathetic response, calming the body down and feeding blood to brain regions more associated with creativity and mental abstractions
Nasal breathing induces a release of nitric oxide by the sinuses, a molecule that plays an essential role in increasing circulation and oxygen delivery to cells. We can absorb about 18 percent more oxygen through nose breathing than by mouthbreathing
Chapter 4: Exhale
Chapter 5: Slow
Breathing slowly improves oxygen usage, allowing carbon dioxide to settle a bit longer which eases transport of oxygen within hemoglobin to needy tissues
Many meditative/prayer practices, e.g., Buddhist/Hindu chants and the Christian rosary, involve chants or rhythmic breathing of a rate of ~5.5 breaths per minute. These practices may have evolved as they synchronized with cardiovascular rhythms, and gave a feeling of well-being and alertness while practicing
Chapter 6: Less
Slower breathing holds in slightly more carbon dioxide, which lowers the pH in blood to make it more acidic. The sweet spot pH in blood is about 7.4, and the body attempts to maintain that pH
One way the body does this aside from breathing is through buffering, in which the kidneys release bicarbonate from blood into urine, lowering the pH in response to high pH levels (brought about by low carbon dioxide from too-rapid breathing)
- When bicarbonate leaves the body, it takes magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium with it. This is why asthmatics and others are prescribed these supplements to stave off future attacks
- Bones get weakened as well, as mineral stores within the bones are dissolved to compensate for the lost minerals
  Chapter 7: Chew
Chewing helps maintain a strong jaw and keeps the jaw and teeth structurally sound. The historical records find that around the time softer foods were developed, a corresponding significant decrease in teeth quality (straightness) came along with it.
I like to think of this like trying to plant a fence post in eroded and granular soil: your fence post is going to wiggle around. Whereas, with a strong, dense soil, the fence post stays straight and upright.
Chapter 8: More, on occasion
The parasympathetic system is part of the autonomic nervous system that stimulates relaxation and restoration. It eases digestion, relaxes bowels for waste elimination, and stimulates genitals before sex (“feed and breed” system). Many nerves in the lungs that connect to the parasympathetic system are located deep down in the lungs, so deeper, relaxed breaths tend to engage a parasympathetic response
The sympathetic system stimulates the fight or flight response. Nerves for this system tend to be located in the upper lungs. Short, rapid breaths engage the sympathetic system, routing blood from less-vital organs (like stomach and bladder) to more important organs (like muscles and brain)
Tummo breathing is a technique used by Buddhist monks in the Himalayas to stay warm with limited insulation. This heavy breathing practice coupled with cold exposure releases adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol on demand. Immune function is enhanced by adrenaline, inflammatory immune response in downgraded by cortisol, and norepinephrine redirects blood from the skin, stomach, and reproductive organs to muscles, the brain, and other vital organs
Tummo breathing and cold exposure expands the bounds on what the body is used to, and what it can handle, such that it can adapt and become flexible with respect to unseen stressful physiological responses
Tummo breathing procedure:
1. Lay flat on your back with a pillow beneath your head
2. Take a very deep breath into the pit of the stomach, through the nose if possible. Inhaling should first inflate the stomach, then the chest. Exhale out just as quickly as the inhale. Repeat 30 times
3. Exhale to leave about a quarter of the air in the lungs and hold that air for as long as possible
4. Take a huge inhale and hold it for another 15 seconds. Move the fresh air around the chest and shoulders.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for three or four rounds
  Chapter 9: Hold it
We have a cluster of neurons at the base of the brain stem called central chemoreceptors, that measure CO2 levels in the bloodstream (?) to regulate how fast and deeply we should be breathing. Low CO2 -> breathe slower, high CO2 -> breathe faster
These chemoreceptors have the ability to trigger a panic/fear response outside the amygdalae, which is generally responsible for translating external stimuli into aversive behaviour. The roots of the chemoreceptors are more ancient than that of the amygdalae, used by the first aerobic life forms around 2.5B years ago
Chapter 10: Fast, slow, and not at all
Epilogue: A last gasp
“…our body is much more nearly perfect than the endless list of ailments suggest. Its shortcomings are due less to its inborn imperfections than to our abusing it.” - Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi
Nine out of ten of the top human killers, i.e., diabetes, heart disease, stroke, are cause by the food we eat, water we drink, the houses and offices we work in. Humanity/civilizations created these diseases

The Social Conquest of Earth

Published: June 11, 2023

Chapter 1: The human condition

The creation myth is a Darwinian device for survival. Tribal conflict was a principal driving force that shaped biological human nature. By itself, mythmaking could never discover the origin and meaning of humanity (as it attempts to do); however, the discovery of the origin and meaning of humanity may explain the origin and meaning of myths, the core of organized religion
Part 2: Where do we come from?
Chapter 2: The two paths to conquest
Human groups are formed of highly flexible alliance, in which strategies for navigating these groups were written as a complicated mix of altruism, cooperation, competition, domination, reciprocity, defection, and deceit
This array of strategies required higher degrees of intelligence and intense socialization. The brain had to measure emotions of friend and enemy, plan strategies for social interaction, build mental scenarios of short and long-term relationships, and retrieve memories far into the past and long into the future to imagine the consequences of every relationship
Chapter 3: The approach
Chapter 4: The arrival
One critical point in our evolutionary past was when our ancestors developed an omnivore diet. Hunting game requires a high amount of teamwork and cohesion, and it’s worth it: meat is pound for pound more energetically efficient than vegetable food
Another critical point was the ability to control fire, which then led to camps (i.e., nests) which served as the nucleus for social groups. Now in close proximity to one another on a regular basis, intellectual development that enhanced one’s cohesion with the group (e.g., social intelligence, empathy, deceitfulness, etc.) was selected for, propelling our intellectual development further
- I also remember reading that cooked food also requires less energy to consume (chewing), which may have allowed resources to be directed away from the jaw to the brain region. It seems like these factors (this one and the previous point) arose in tandem, with cooked food enabling more brain capacity and social complexities driving the cerebral growth
  Chapter 5: Threading the evolutionary maze
The following preadaptations enabled human eusociality:
Living on land: without land dwelling there exists no possibility for the use of fire—a critical prerequisite to social flourishing in mammals * Being large: to house a brain with enough processing power to compute the complexities of social organization requires a large enough animal to house that brain. While ants are hypersocial and design intricate architecture with custom air conditioning, they are purely instinctual. And again, insects are too small to control fire * Grasping hands tipped with spatulate finger tips * Having those grasping hands free from walking, i.e., being bipedal * A shift from vegetarianism to an omnivore diet. Meat yields more energy per gram than vegetation. The social cooperation required to hunt meat also led to select for groups who could cooperate effectively * The controlled use of fire followed, facilitating the consumption of meats; mastication and digestion of cooked meats requires less energy * Persistent fire provided a refuge for early Homo species. As such, nests were formed—a precursor to the attainment of eusociality of all other known animals * With fireside campsites came division of labor, where subgroups formed and bands organized into dominance hierarchies
Chapter 6: Creative forces
The outcome of between-group competition for humans was determined largely by the size and tightness of the group, and the quality of their communication and division of labor
The genetic fitness of a human being is the consequence of both individual and group selection. These two forces tend to pull in opposite directions—I could deceive and cheat in pursuit of self-interest at the expense of the group, or I could be heroic and altruistic for the benefit of the group, but at the expense of my resources
- If the benefit from group membership falls below that which would be had from a solitary life, evolution would favour cheating or departure from the group. If personal benefit from group membership rises high enough, the members will be prone to altruism and conformity
Group composition is unstable because of advantageous group size increases from immigration, ideological proselytization, and conquest, pitted against the advantages by usurpation within the group and fission to create new groups
Much of culture (i.e., the content of the creative arts) has risen from the inevitable clash between individual and group selection
Chapter 7: Tribalism is a fundamental human trait
People must have a tribe. It gives them their own and social meaning in a chaotic world, making the environment seem less disorienting and dangerous. Each human has a system of interlocking tribes, savouring the company of like-minded friends, and yearning to be in one of the best tribes
Groups, regardless of how they are formed, have always been observed to rank out-group below in-group—even in experiments when they were told the in-groups and out-groups were chosen arbitrarily
The tendency to form groups and favour the in-group members has the earmarks of instinct. Children can have an inborn propensity to learn some things swiftly and decisively, known as prepared learning. Evidence suggests that in-group preference is prepared early in development, with infants being most sensitive to the sounds of their native language, regardless of whether the meaning of the speech is fully comprehended. Later, these infants look preferentially at person who spoke their native language within their hearing
The elementary drive to form and take deep pleasure from in-group membership translates at a higher level into tribalism. We are prone to ethnocentrism, preferring the company of others of the same race, nation, clan, and religion (or anything that can be symbolically represented—as long as I can tell who belongs to my group and who doesn’t)
Different parts of the brain have evolved by group selection to create groupishness. Studies have observed that the amygdala (fear & anger) fires when subjects are presented an image of someone of a different race
Chapter 8: War as humanity’s hereditary curse
Once a group has been split off and sufficiently dehumanized, justifications can be made for horrible acts towards that group, no matter how gruesome
As a biological reproducing species, our population approaches limits set by available food and water. We are still fundamentally the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, just with more food and larger territories. Yet, we blindly obey the instincts that we’ve inherited from our Palaeolithic predecessors, which in our case lead to an overindulgence of energy and material resources
Chapter 9: Breakout
A loose rule of island biogeography is that animals smaller than 20kg tend to evolve into relative giants (e.g., the immense tortoises of the Galapagos), and animals larger than 20kg tend to evolve towards dwarfism (e.g., the dwarf deer of the Florida Keys)
- A cousin of Homo Sapiens, branching from Homo Erectus, are the Homo floresiensis of the island Flores, who were less than 1 meter tall and with brains of comparable size to australopithecines. This evolutionary product supports the above stated loose rules
“We should learn to promote human biological diversity for its own sake instead of using it to justify prejudice and conflict.”
Chapter 10: The creative explosion
Bands and communities of bands with better combinations of cultural innovations became more productive and better equipped for competition and war. Rivals either copied them or else were conquered. Thus, group selection drove the evolution of culture
Chapter 11: The sprint to civilization
The chiefs of chiefdoms typically micromanaged the affairs of their domain, delegating as little authority as possible to reduce the chance of insurrection. Common tactics include the suppression of underlings and fermenting a fear of rival chiefdoms
Part 3: How social insects conquered the invertebrate world
Chapter 12: The invention of eusociality
Chapter 13: Inventions that advanced the social insects
A significant change that allowed for the flourishing of ants, and other social insects in general, was the shift in arboreal flora from mostly conifers to leafy and flowered trees. Flowered trees are more diverse and thus leave a more diverse landscape in the soil below (as the portions of the trees eventually fall to the forest floor). They also coevolved with insects, encouraging pollination, and rewarding with sugar
This change in the tree landscape also led to a symbiosis between ants and sap sucking insects (i.e., aphids). These aphids would suck sap from trees and excrete their waste below. Ants eventually learned to consume this sugary waste, and in return the aphids wouldn’t get stuck in a pile of their sticky waste
Now, some species of ants have intricate nests with pastures laid out for their fleet of sapsuckers, much like how humans do for domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, and so on.
Some species of ants in more earthen regions (i.e., not so foresty) have granaries to store seeds of nearby plants
Social complexity seems to involve at some point a species developing an ability to sustain larger energy reserves. Ants develop intricate, complex nests with a caste of workers with specialized skills, as do humans in the forms of civilizations with farmers, engineers, and medics
“The more elaborate and expensive a nest is in energy and time, the greater the fierceness of the ants that protect it.”
Part 4: The forces of social evolution
Chapter 14: The scientific dilemma of rarity
Chapter 15: Insect altruism and eusociality explained
Chapter 16: Insects take the giant leap
One explanation as to the rarity of eusociality is that it requires specific pre-adaptations, notably the construction of a nest in which offspring are reared. Then, there comes a point where cooperation with another member of the species, e.g., one bee produces larvae while the other defends the nest. This would require an allele change (based on external environmental cues) in the bees that suppress certain behaviours, i.e., foraging for food or producing offspring
An allele flip of this sort happened with ants as the working caste lost their wings. The idea is that this gene switch would cause offspring that would otherwise disperse to instead stay and contribute to the nest. This would occur when cooperation of the group favours survival more than if the insect lived a solitary life
Eusociality seems to become irreversible once an anatomically distinct worker caste is developed
In a eusocial insect group, there must be a balance in cooperation. If too many queens, there are not enough workers to maintain the colony; if too many workers, food around the nest will fall short; if not enough soldiers, predators will overwhelm the nest; and if not enough foragers, the colony will starve
Chapter 17: How natural selection creates social instincts
Overarching principles crucial for understanding the genetic basis of instinct and social behaviour:
- The distinction between the unit of heredity and the target of selection. The unit is a gene/arrangement of genes that form part of the hereditary code. The target of selection is the trait/combination of traits encoded by the units of heredity and favoured/disfavoured by the environment
- Natural selection is usually multilevel: it acts on genes that prescribe targets at multiple levels of biological organization, such as cell and organism, or organism and colony. Selection occurring at one level (e.g., the cell) can work in the opposite direction from that of the adjacent level (e.g., the organism). A runaway cancer cell causes the organism of which it is a member to sicken and die. Conversely, the community of cells stays healthy when the growth of cancer cells is controlled
- In colonies composed of authentically cooperating individuals (i.e., humans), selection among genetically diverse individual members promotes selfish behaviour; while selection between groups of humans typically promotes altruism among members of the colony. Colonies of cheaters lose to colonies of cooperators. The degree of cohesiveness of a colony depends on the number of cooperators and cheaters, which depends on the relative intensities of individual selection versus group selection
- Traits (targets) that group selection acts upon emerge from interactions among members of the group (e.g., communication, division of labor, cooperation, etc.). If these interactions favour the colony over another colony who uses lesser interactions, the genes prescribing the improved group performance spreads through the population of colonies
- Individual vs. Group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness (virtue and sin) among society members. If a colony member devoted their life to service over marriage, the individual is of benefit to the society, even though they do not have personal offspring. If a colony member is a layabout our coward who saves their energy passes the resulting social cost onto others
Phenotypic plasticity describes how traits prescribed by genes (phenotypes) may sometimes be rigid (in the case of the number of fingers on the hand or colour of eyes) but may also be flexible based on environmental cues. There is a species of plant, the water crowfoot, who’s leaves will adopt a different style depending on the surrounding, brushed below water and broad above
Proximate cause: how a process or structure works
Ultimate cause: why the process or structure occurs in the first place
Chapter 18: The forces of social evolution
In this chapter E.O Wilson attempts to challenge the dogma of inclusive fitness theory, i.e., the notion that degrees of altruism are proportional to the degree of genetic relatedness when trying to explain the emergence of eusociality
While there are a few examples in which kin selection holds to explain social phenomena, group selection also offers convincing arguments as well
One example is that of an ant colony which invests more energy into virgin females than males. This was initially though to be because this particular ant species was diploidhaploid, i.e., sisters share 3/4 of their genes with one another compared to 1/2 with their mother. Female workers investing more in the virgin females compared to males seemingly confirmed inclusive fitness theory; they invested more in the females since they’re more related. However, an alternative explanation is that males are proportionally smaller and less energy intensive to produce than females, who have fatty deposits to support reproduction. If offspring were invested in based on energy equivalency, many more males would be supported than females, which would result in wasted resources (as many males would be left without a partner). As such, more investment in females is optimal for the colony in terms of resource allocation, making it a more efficient relative to colonies that do not follow this strategy (i.e., selection at the group level)
Chapter 19: The emergence of a new theory of eusociality
Part 5: What are we?
Chapter 20: What is human nature?
Human nature is the inherited regularities of mental development common to our species
Examples of this include:
- Incest avoidance: most social species are exogamous, i.e., their young go off to another tribe, humans are no different. Likewise, humans follow a simple rule of thumb known as the Westermarck effect: Have no sexual interest in those whom you knew intimately during the earliest years of your life. Note, this effect occurs regardless of the degree of relatedness between two individuals
- Colour perception: when modulating the intensity of light, we can correctly perceive the continuous nature of the intensity change. However, if we do the same with wavelength, i.e., changing colours, we bin the changes into their major colour groups (red, to orange, to yellow, to green and so on). We discretize colours, even though the wavelength spectrum is continuous, likely because it was evolutionary advantageous to do so
  - Cross culturally, the language used to describe colour follows a hierarchy (known as the Berlin-Kay progression): black and white -> red -> green/yellow -> blue -> brown -> the rest. This sequence is not random, indicating some human predisposition in describing more/less important colours
    Chapter 21: How culture evolved
Culture is the combination of traits that distinguishes one group from another
A cultural trait is a behaviour either first invented in a group or learned from another group, and then transmitted among group members
The driving force leading to the threshold of complex cultures appears to be group section. A group whose members could read intentions and cooperate among one another, and predict the actions of competing groups, had an enormous advantage over competing groups. Individual selection surely still played a role in intra-group competition, yet group selection acted on inter-group competition
Morality, conformity, religious fervour, and fighting ability were keystone to generating a united, cooperative, and effective group
Chapter 22: The origins of language
Three particular attributes enabled our species to approach the highest level of social intelligence: shared attention; high level of awareness required to act together in achieving a common goal; and the “theory of mind”, i.e., the recognition that their mental states are shared by others
Language is a set of coordination devices that serve to direct the attention of others
When the conversational gaps (the pauses between one person’s speaking and the other’s answering) of ten languages were measured, all were shown to avoid overlap, and the length of turnover gaps were found to be almost the same
In warmer climates, languages around the world have evolved to use more vowels and fewer consonants, creating more sonorous combinations of sounds; sonorous sounds carry further, in accord with the tendency of people in warm climates to spend more time outdoors and keep greater distances apart
The genetic basis of human language acquisition did not coevolve with language but predates the emergence of language. Language has evolved to fit the human brain, rather than the reverse
Chapter 23: The evolution of cultural variation
In the castes of any colonies, there exist major workers (giant soldiers that perform tasks outside of the nest) and minor workers (timid workers that perform tasks in the best such as nursing majors). Majors have a higher death rate, and are thus produced at a higher per capital rate than minors, maintaining an optimum balance in numbers between the two castes
Cultural variation is determined mostly by two properties of social behaviour: the degree of bias in the epigenetic rule (e.g., low in dress fashion or high in incest avoidance) and the sensitivity to the usage pattern (i.e., the likelihood that group members with imitate others who’ve adapted a particular trait)
Chapter 24: The origins of morality and honour
The conflict between the poorer and better angels of our nature stem from the conflicts arising between individual and group selection
Individual selection is responsible for much of what we call sin; group selection is responsible for much of what we call virtue
Group selection shapes instincts that tend to make individuals altruistic toward one another (but now towards members of other groups); individual selection shapes instincts in each member that are fundamentally selfish with reference to other members
Iron rule of genetic social evolution: selfish individuals best altruistic individuals, and groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals
The countries with highest quality of life (in terms of education, health, crime, collective self-interests) also have the smallest divide in wealth between the wealthiest and poorest citizens
A naturalistic understanding of morality doesn’t lead to absolute precepts and sure judgement but warns against basing them blindly on religious and ideological dogmas. When such precepts are misguided (as they often are), it usually stems from ignorance—i.e., important factors are unintentionally omitted during formulation
Examples of these ideological dogmas include:
- Opposition to artificial conception (sex without the intention of conception) with the (well-intended) reasoning being that sex is made to make babies. While this is true in most species, primates included, humans are slightly different in that women have concealed genitalia as to mask their fertility. This is to encourage sexual intercourse as a bonding mechanism without the intent to necessarily conceive a child. This strengthens the partners’ bonds, which is important since raising a human child requires long term support (due their relative helpless in early years) and thus additional investment from the father
- Homophobia: under the same guise, condemning homosexuality since sex doesn’t produce offspring is misguided. Homosexuality is heritable and occurs too frequently to be the result of mutations alone. Thus, natural selection must be acting to select for homosexuality in populations. Homosexuals occupy niches and roles that support groups more than had they been absent—hence homosexuality is natural and healthy within societies
  Chapter 25: The origins of religion
The illogic of religions is not a weakness, but their essential strength. Acceptance of their bizarre creation myths is what binds followers together
The core of traditional organized religions are their creation myths. Creation myths come about in part from folk memories of momentous events, like mass emigration, wars, and natural disasters; stories of devils and angels likely spawn from hallucinations invoked by sleep paralysis, mental illnesses (schizophrenia), or hallucinogenic drugs (mushrooms, fungi, hemp, etc., which were commonly consumed in the Middle East when Abrahamic religions were being crafted)
Around the late palaeolithic era humans started to reflect on their mortality, as suggested by ritual burial sites aged around ~95000 years ago
Thus humans would have asked where dead people go, and having still seen the dead in their dreams or hallucinations, they concluded the dead must be in some spirit realm, the same inhabited by dreams or hallucinations
Religious faith offers the psychological security that uniquely comes from belonging to a group
Chapter 26: The origins of the creative arts
“Art is the lie that helps us to see the truth” - Picasso
Part 6: Where are we going?
Chapter 28: A new enlightenment
On free will: we are free as independent beings, but our decisions are not free of all the organic processes that created our personal brains and minds
The opposition of the two levels of natural selection, individual and group level, has resulted in a chimeric genotype in each person, rendering each of us part saint and part sinner
Every person feels the pull of conscience, of heroism against cowardice, altruism against greed, truth against deception, and commitment against withdrawal. These dilemmas stem from the conflicting objectives of multilevel selection
To question the sacred myths of a religion is to question the identity and worth of its followers, which is why skeptics (including those from other tribes with equally absurd myths) are so righteously disliked

Consilience

Published: June 11, 2023

Consilience, E.O Wilson

Consilience: a “jumping together” of knowledge by linking facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation
Chapter 3: The Enlightenment
Francis Bacon (1561), a founder of the Enlightenment, believed that we must understand nature, both around us and within ourselves, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement
Bacon emphasized to beware of the idols of the mind:
- Idol of the tribe is assuming that more order exists in chaotic nature (i.e., being allured to simple answers that seemingly describe complex issues)
- The imprisoning cave is getting caught in the idiosyncrasies of individual belief and passion
- The marketplace is where the power of mere words are used to induce belief in nonexistent things
- The theatre is an unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstrations
- Bacon urged to observe the world around you as it truly is and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it—approaching and transmitting truth is Nature’s calling
Chinese scholarship focused on holistic properties and on the harmonious, hierarchical relationships of entities, from stars down to mountains to flowers and to sand. The entities of Nature, in this view, are inseparable and perpetually changing, not discrete and constant as perceived by Enlightenment thinkers (who adopted a more reductionist approach)
Our species and its way of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution
The “Anthropic principle”: the laws of nature, in our universe at the least, had to be set a certain way so as to allow the creation of beings able to ask about the laws of nature
“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world” - Einstein
To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.
- Questions that can’t be answered are generally better than answers that can’t be questioned
Wilson suggests that there are two kinds of original thinkers: those who upon viewing disorder try to create order, and those who upon encountering order try to protest it by creating disorder. The tension between the two is what drives learning forward. (Ying and Yang)
Chapter 4: The Natural Sciences
Reductionism is the search strategy employed to find points of entry into otherwise impenetrably complex systems
“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”
Optimum intelligence for normal sciences: bright enough to see what needs to be done, but not so bright as to suffer boredom doing it
Natural selection built the brain to survive in the world and only incidentally to understand it at a depth greater than or equal to what is needed to survive
- The goal of a scientist should be to diagnose and correct the misalignment between human subjective experience and free-standing reality
  Chapter 5: Ariadne’s Thread
The activation-synthesis hypothesis suggests that dreaming may be a side effect of the reorganization and editing of the brain’s memory banks
- During sleep, with most sensory input lacking, the conscious brain is still activated internally by impulses originating from the brain stem. Lacking instantaneous sensory information, yet attempting to perform its usual function (?), the brain does its best to create images that move through coherent narratives—creating fantasy
  Chapter 6: The Mind
The thalamus, comprising of two egg-shaped masses of nerve cells near the centre of the brain, functions as a relay center through which all sensory information (other than smell) is transmitted to the cerebral cortex (i.e., the conscious mind). Even dreams are triggered by impulses passing through the thalamus
Neurotransmitter: a chemical that either excites an electric discharge in a receiving nerve cell or prevents one from occurring (acts within the synapse, the points of connection and microscopic space between nerve cells, at the ends of their axons)
Aggregates of neuron circuits gather in flat assemblages (layers) and rounded assemblages (nuclei), mostly placed at or near the surface of the brain. This is why the gray matter of the brain is gray, with the white colour coming from the myelin sheaths that insulate axons. These aggregates include sensory relay stations, memory modules, and emotional control centres.
Three primitive divisions of the brain are found throughout vertebrates, from fishes to mammals: hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
- Hindbrain regulates breathing, heartbeat, and coordination of body movements
- Midbrain controls sleep and arousal, also parts regulating auditory reflexes and perception
- A major part of the forebrain is composed of the limbic system, comprised of the amygdala (emotion), hippocampus (memory, especially short-term), hypothalamus (memory, temperature control, sex drive, hunger, and thirst) and thalamus (awareness of all senses other than smell, be it temperature or pain)
- Forebrain also includes the cerebral cortex, covering the rest of the brain. The primary seat of consciousness, storing and collating information from the senses. It directs voluntary motor activity, speech, and motivation
The self is the main character in the winning dramas taken from the litany scenarios generated by the subconscious mind. The hidden preparation of these scenarios gives the illusion of free will. We make decisions for reasons we often sense only vaguely, and seldom understand fully
Can AI generate a human mind equivalent? Seems unlikely, as the mind’s emotions are driven by the senses (touch, sight, smell, taste, sound) and a computational neural network is unlikely to have access to these senses, especially at the resolution of a biological system that has fine-tuned its sensory organs over hundreds of millions of years. The AI may be able to mimic what a human mind is capable of, but without human senses and thus human emotion, it doesn’t seem like it would be conscious in the human sense; though, it could gain consciousness in the computational sense
Chapter 7: From genes to culture
Culture is created by the communal mind, and each mind is the product of the genetically structured human brain; genes and culture are thus inseverably linked
As a part of gene-culture coevolution, culture is collectively reconstructed each generation in the minds of its individuals. Writing and art allows culture to grow indefinitely large and even skip generation, as opposed to solely oral tradition. However, the fundamental biasing influences of epigenetic rules, being genetic and ineradicable, stay constant
Some individuals inherit epigenetic rules that enable survival and reproduction between in their environment and culture than individuals who lack those rules. As such, the human species has evolved genetically by natural selection in behaviour, just as it has anatomically and neurologically
Some cultural norms also survive and reproduce better than competing norms, causing culture to evolve on a track parallel to (and much faster than) genetic evolution. Culture allows rapid adjustments to changes in the environment through cultural adaptations without correspondingly precise genetic prescriptions. This is one reason why humans differ fundamentally from all other animal species
On epigenetic rules, i.e., innate genetic predispositions: o By four months old, infants prefer harmonious tones, and sometimes react to out-of-tune notes with a disgusted facial expression (the same as elicited by a drop of lemon juice on the tongue) o The startle response from a loud noise closes the eyes, opens the mouth, drops the head, sags the arms and shoulders, and buckles the knees, preparing the body as though to absorb a coming blow o Newborns prefer sugar solutions over plain water in the following order: sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose o Within ten minutes after birth, infants fixate more on normally drawn facial designs than on abnormal designs o Two days after birth, infants prefer to gaze at their mother rather than unknown, other women o Smiling, used primarily to signal friendliness and approval and indicate a general sense of pleasure, appears cross culturally; environment has little influence in the maturation of smiling
Reification, i.e., the aggregation of ideas and complex phenomena into simpler concepts, is a quick and easy mental algorithm that creates order in a world otherwise overwhelming in flux and detail
The dyadic instinct, a manifestation of reification, is the proneness to divide classifications into two parts: in-group vs out-group, child vs adult, kin vs non-kin, married vs single, sacred vs profane, good vs evil. The boundaries of each division are fortified with taboo and ritual (initiation ceremonies, weddings, blessings, rites of passage)
Chapter 8: The fitness of human nature
The significant acceleration of cultural evolution in historical times may seem to imply that humanity has transcended its genetic instructions or found a way to suppress them. That is an illusion. The ancient genes and the epigenetic rules of behaviour they ordain remain comfortably in place
Through homo habilis, homo erectus, homo ergaster, and homo sapiens, cultural evolution was slow enough to remain tightly coupled to genetic evolution, until around 40000 to 10000 years ago, where Neolithic agricultural advances upped the tempo of cultural evolution
There is no evidence that our paleolithic genes simply disappeared during the “creative revolution” ensued by agricultural development. They remained in place and continued to prescribe the foundational rules of human nature
Chapter 9: The social sciences
The social sciences—anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science—strive to provide the power to predict what will happen if society selects one course of action over another
The social sciences lack consilience because they aren’t built upon, and don’t share, a solid foundation like the natural sciences do (e.g., medical sciences can build off molecular and cell biology)
As such, the social sciences are built into independent cadres with limited common ground, stressing the precision in words within their specialty yet seldom speaking the same technical language in another speciality. They mistake the overall atmosphere of chaos for creative ferment
The paradox of the social sciences is that it seems easier because we can talk with other humans but not with photons and atoms, yet this familiarity bestows a comfort that in turn breeds carelessness and error. People believe they know how they themselves think, and how others think, and how institutions evolve; they are wrong.
James S. Coleman, a distinguished sociologist from the University of Chicago, stated that the study of societies require “that the explanatory focus be on the system as a unit, not in the individuals or other components that make it up.” (i.e., holism)
- Imagine if the same were done in biology, “the essential requirement is that the explanatory focus be on the organism as a unit, not in the cell or molecules that make it up.” Biology would have remained stagnant around 1850 with that perspective. Biology is instead a science that traces causation across many levels of organization, from ecosystem to atom
Epigenetic rules are innate rules of thumb that direct the individual towards quick and accurate responses most likely to ensure survival and reproduction. Sometimes, especially in complex societies, they no long contribute to health and well-being; the behaviour they direct can militate against the best interests of the individual and its society
The practical role of evolutionary theory is to point to the most likely location of epigenetic rules within a culture
Chapter 10: the arts and their interpretation
Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs. In this sense, the arts are the antithesis of science
A potential formula for the driving pulse of the arts: imitate (generally something in nature), make it geometrical, intensify
The dominating influence that spawned the arts was the need to impose order on the confusion caused by intelligence
In a study on physical attractiveness of female faces, the features though most attractive were relatively high cheek bones, a thin jaw, large eyes relative to the size of the face, and a slightly shorter than longer distance between mouth and chin and between nose and chin
Though, these qualities are rare in the general population. Why, then, hasn’t natural selection directed facial features to this optimum? It’s possible that attraction to these features is an attraction to a super-normal stimulus—-much like how male butterflies can be tricked into trying to mate with a mechanical butterfly who’s wings are larger and flap faster, while ignoring the real female butterflies that surround it. Perhaps we follow a similar epigenetic rule as do other animals, i.e., “take the largest, or brightest, or most conspicuously moving individual you can find.”
- The author suggests that women with large eyes and delicate features may have less robust health (?), especially during childbearing; but they present physical cues of youth, virginity, and the prospect of a long reproductive period. This is why the beauty industry thrives: they manufacture super-normal stimuli by imitating the natural physiological signs of youth and fecundity
  Chapter 11: Ethics and religion
The dangerous Christian devotion of ”I was not born to be of this world” can encourage the notion that with a second life waiting, suffering can be endured—especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised
Ethical and religious beliefs are created from the bottom up, from people to their culture. They do not come from the top down, from God or other no material source to the people by way of culture
Tribes cooperate with one another through carefully defined treaties and other conventions, quick to imagine themselves as victims of conspiracies by competing groups, and prone to dehumanizing and murdering their rivals during periods of severe conflict. They cement group loyalty by means of sacred symbols and ceremonies. Their mythologies are filled with epic victories over menacing enemies
There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose, as such our brains were shaped by evolution to be groupish and primed for religious adoption
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods; it did not evolve to believe in biology. Religiosity conveyed genetic advantages throughout prehistory, and biology is a modern product and thus not reflected in our genetic algorithms. The two are not factually compatible, therefore those who hunt for both intellectual and religious truth will struggle to acquire both in full measure
Wilson believes that the competition between science and religion will lead towards the secularization of the human epic and religion itself. Science will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition, and in time uncover the foundation of moral and religious sentiments
Chapter 12: To what end?
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely
The Ratchet of Progress: the more knowledge people acquire, the more they can increase their numbers and alter the environment, whereupon the more they need new knowledge just to stay alive. In a human-dominated world, the natural environment steadily shrinks, offering less and less per capita energy and resources
A principal principle of organic evolution is that of habitat selection, that all species prefer and gravitate to the environment in which their genes were assembled. This is likely why so many people gravitate towards nature and the outdoors
The colonisation of space will be impossible without massive supply lines. The Biosphere experiment in the early 1990s, costing $200M, attempted to create a synthetic environment isolated from the real world (except for electricity and communication). Only 8 individuals participated in the experiment. The concentration of oxygen depleted five months into the experiment, and oxygen from the outside had to be pumped in to continue the experiment. Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide increases to dangerous levels. 19/25 vertebrates and all animal pollinators vanished, and cockroaches and ants multiplied explosively. The conclusion of the experiment was that “No one yet knows how to engineer systems that can sustain human life like the natural ecosystems that produce it for free.”
The wall toward humanity is evidently rushing toward a shortage of not only minerals and energy, but of food and water. Humankind is like a household living giddily off vanishing capital. The idea that “Life is good and getting better, we’re still expanding and spending faster…don’t worry, we’re a smart bunch, something will turn up; it always has.”
- It’s helpful to imagine the lily pad arithmetic riddle in this situation. A lily pad doubles itself each day after being placed in the pond. On the thirtieth day, the lily pads cover the pond entirely, unable to grow more. On which day was the pond half full and half empty? The twenty-ninth day.
Humanity will attempt to invoke every techno local fix for an over-populated planet that genius can devise. They will be driven by venture capital and government subsidy in the free market economy, and reduce the risk of short term economic calamity. Though, these man-made procedures will enlarge the carrying capacity of the planet, and as human beings are typical organisms, their reproductive response will be to expand to fill the added capacity, and the spiral will continue
The more biodiverse an ecosystem, the higher it’s productivity and the greater it’s resilience to environmental stress. Since we depend on functioning ecosystems to cleanse our water, enrich our soil, and generate the air we breathe, biodiversity is something we shouldn’t discard carelessly

Starry Messenger

Published: June 11, 2023

Starry Messenger, Neil deGrasse Tyson

Cloud 9 originates from when cloud taxonomy was documented by a Scottish meteorologist in 1896. The greatest cloud of them all, the cumulonimbus, landed at the highest spot—-number 9. The most divine cloud of them all, the term cloud nine appropriately refers to a state of divine bliss
Science denial happens on both sides of the spectrum: on the right, climate change and Darwinian evolution (for Christian fundamentalists); on the left, crystal healing, magnetic therapy, homeopathy, astrology, anti-GMO

The Analects of Confucius

Published: August 29, 2023

The Analects of Confucius

Confucius was likely a private person who trained the sons of gentlemen in the virtues appropriate to a member of the ruling class. Though, it is clear that he longed for a more public position to disseminate his teachings
Chün-tzu, or gentleman, are recognized by freeness from violence or brusqueness, open and sincere expression, and speech free from vulgarity (careful and considerate speech)
Those who behave as a chün-tzu should find themselves welcomed everywhere. The alliances of ‘small people’ are directed against others, hostile and destructive in intent; but those of the gentlemen exist only for mutual satisfaction
Chün-tzu have no politics, but side with the Right wherever they find it
Softness, the unwillingness to inflict pain or take life, carried to its logical conclusion involves extinction, as does hardness, the indifference to the infliction of death and suffering
The downfall of liberalism (a rational meeting in the middle) has been due to the failure to associate it with any strong emotion. Extremes, not compromises, evoke the strongest emotional impulses
“If the distant do not submit, cultivate the power of wên (culture, the arts of peace) to bring them to you.” XVI
When one sees people who are better than oneself, one should instead turn their attention towards equalling them
If one learns but does not think, one is lost; if one thinks but does not learn, one is in danger
Keep order among them by chastisement and they will flee from you; keep order among them by ritual and they will come to you of their own accord.
Clever talk and a pretentious manner are seldom found in the Good
Be cautious in giving promises and punctual in keeping them
A gentleman who doesn’t continue eating after he is full, does not demand comfort in his home, is diligent in business and cautious in speech, and associates with the Good thereby correcting his own faults
Do not grieve that other people do not recognize your merits, the real tragedy would be to not recognize theirs
He who by reanimating the Old can gain knowledge of the New is fit to be a teacher
A gentleman can see a question from all sides without bias, the small man is biased and can see a question from only one side
To recognize what you know, and what you don’t know, is knowledge
Do not mind failing to get recognition, be too busy doing the things that entitle one to recognition
Rotten wood cannot be carved
The Middle Way: to exceed is as bad as to fall short, moderation is key
Lavishness leads easily to presumption, as does frugality to meanness. But meanness is a far less serious fault than presumption
- Does frugality lead to meanness?
Be affable yet firm, commanding but not too harsh, polite but easy
If the Way prevails in your land, count it a disgrace to be needy and obscure; when the Way does not, then count it a disgrace to be rich and honoured
The gentleman brings attention to the good qualities in others, not the bad
When asked how to avoid burglary, build up qualities that cannot be stolen, rather than ostentatious material goods that can be.
In vain have I looked for one whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire
- This will generally be the case. Individual selection has a first order effect on our behaviour, group selection (which forms morals) has a second order effect (we abide to social rules because we must, otherwise our genes would perish)
Demand much for oneself and little from others to banish discontent
The demands that a gentleman makes are upon himself; those that a small man makes are upon others
A gentleman is proud but not quarrelsome, and aligns himself with individuals but not parties
3 profitable pleasures: pleasure from ritual and music, pleasure from discussing the good points in the conduct of others, and pleasure from having many wise friends
3 harmful pleasures: pleasure from profligate enjoyments, pleasure from idle gadding about, and pleasure from comfort and ease
3 mistakes that can be made in the context of speech: forwardness (speaking before being called to do so), secretiveness (not speaking when called to do so), and blindness (speaking before noting others’ facial expression)
Love of uprightness without love of learning degenerates into harshness
Love of courage without love of learning degenerates into turbulence
Even minor walks of knowledge (specialized knowledge) have an importance of their own, but if pursued too far they tend to prove a hindrance; for which reason a gentleman does not cultivate them
- This same idea prevailed until the 19th century in England, where specialized knowledge was deemed incompatible with true gentility
One who studies widely and with purpose, who questions earnestly, and thinks for himself about what he has heard
When the small man goes wrong, it is on the side of over-elaboration
A gentleman seen from afar looks severe, when approached is found to be mild, and when heard speaking is found to be incisive

Why We Get Sick

Published: August 29, 2023

Why We Get Sick, The new science of Darwinian medicine (1996), Nesse & Williams

Chapter 1: The mystery of disease

Proximate explanations answer “what?” and “how?” questions about structure and mechanism; evolutionary explanations answer “why?” questions about origins and functions
Most medical research seeks the proximate explanations about how a body part works or how a disease disrupts function. The other half of biology, that tries to explain what things are for and how they got there, has been neglected in medicine
One may worry that evolutionary explanations are mere speculation, however studies are showing that evolutionary hypotheses can predict what to expect in proximate mechanisms (e.g., morning sickness evolved to protect the developing fetus from toxins during its most vulnerable state)
6 categories of evolutionary explanations of disease:
1. Defenses: while not actually an explanation of disease, this is listed because it is so often confused with other manifestations of disease. An example provided is that of a pneumonia patient who has blue-ish skin and a cough. The blue skin comes from a lack of oxygen in the hemoglobin which leads to darker blood. This is a problem that should be addressed, lack of oxygen is no bueno. The cough, however, is a defense, evolved to expel foreign material from the respiratory tract. Coughing is not a problem, and suppressing this defense puts the body at more risk
2. Infection: we evolved defenses to counter viral and bacterial threats, viruses and bacteria have evolve ways to overcome our defenses and even use them to their own benefit. This evolutionary arms race explains why eradication of all infections is futile
3. Novel environments (i.e., evolutionary mismatch)
4. Genes: some of our genes are perpetuated even though they cause disease, as some of their effects were “quirks” that were harmless in our evolutionary environment
5. Design compromises: walking upright gives us the ability to carry food, tools, and babies while walking, but predisposes us to back problems. To better understand diseases, we need to understand the hidden benefits of apparent mistakes in design
6. Evolutionary legacies: evolution is an incremental process and cannot make huge jumps. As such, some designs at this point can be sub-optimal, e.g., our food passes over our windpipe. Once a system is in place, it is costly to re-engineer the evolutionary history

Thinking in Systems

Published: August 29, 2023

Thinking in Systems, Donella H. Meadows

If we consider that a system causes its own behaviour, we need to consider that politicians don’t cause recessions or booms; oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil prices—consumers are as well; and pathogens do not solely attack you, but you set up conditions for them to flourish within you
A diverse system with multiple pathways and redundancies is more stable and less vulnerable to external shock than a uniform system with little diversity
The least obvious part of the system, it’s function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behaviour
- To understand life, we need to identify the ultimate cause—life’s purpose: to survive and reproduce!
Someone trying to fix a system is intuitively attracted to a policy lever that has a strong effect on the system, and well-intentioned fixers often pull the lever in the wrong direction! Think, over-reactions to stock fluctuations. We are often surprised by the counterintuitive behaviour of systems when we start trying to change them
Economies are full of balancing feedback loops and delays, companies react in lieu of delayed responses, and those reactions produce oscillations of system outputs. This is why economies are cyclical—not because of this president or this company, but because the interconnected system is full of signal delays.
No physical system can grow forever in a finite environment
The real choice in the management of a non-renewable resource is whether to get rich very fast or to get less rich but stay that way longer
- When competing with other systems, the most likely choice made is getting rich very fast, because the competitors who make this choice will confer immediate advantages over those who do not.
Resilience provides a large plateau upon which a system can play, performing its normal functions in safety and surrounding the system with gentle, elastic walls, that bounce it back if it wanders too close to a dangerous edge
A system that loses resilience sees its plateau shrink, and whose protective walls become lower and more rigid, restricting the freedom of the system
When a subsystem’s goals dominate at the expense of the total system’s goals, the resulting behaviour is called suboptimization
Too much control can also harm a system. If a cell is not free to perform self-maintenance it will die; if stringent rules prevent students or faculty from exploring fields of knowledge freely, education will falter; over-control by governments has led to some of the greatest catastrophes of history
A highly functioning system requires enough central control to achieve coordination toward the large system goal, and enough autonomy to keep all subsystems flourishing, functioning, and self-organizing
Hierarchies form so that their originating subsystems can perform their jobs better
Hierarchies evolve bottom up. The top layers evolve to serve the purposes of the lower layers
Long term behaviour provides clues to the underlying system structure, and structure is the key to understanding not just what is happening, but why
We are too fascinated by the events systems generate, and insufficiently skilled at prospecting their history to find the structures from which behaviour and events flow
If we’re to understand anything, we must simplify. We must invent boundaries for clarity and sanity; but boundaries can produce problems when we forget that we’ve artificially created them. When you draw boundaries too narrowly, the system surprises you
National boundaries mean nothing when it comes to ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, or ocean dumping
Think of how many arguments have to do with boundaries—national boundaries, trade boundaries, ethnic boundaries, public vs. private
Boundaries are of our own making, and they can and should be reconsidered for each new discussion, problem, or purpose
If a company offers a perfect product or service at an affordable price, it will be swamped with orders until it grows to the point where some limit decreases the perfection of the product or raises its price
If a city meets the needs of all inhabitants better than other cities, people will flock there until some limit brings down the city’s ability to satisfy peoples’ needs
Bounded rationality is the idea that we act rationally with the limited data we have available to us, but that our acts can be irrational when considering the decision at a broader scope
The US and Soviet Union for years exaggerated their reports of each other’s armaments to justify more armaments of their own. Each side was escalating itself to the detriment of their local economies and to the entire globe with the evolution of unimaginably destructive weapons
Addiction can appear in large systems, such as:
- The dependence of industry on government subsidy
- The reliance of farmers on fertilizers
- The addiction of western economies to cheap oil
- The addiction of weapons manufacturers to government contracts
Modern medicine in general has shifted the responsibility of health away from the practices and lifestyle of each individual and onto intervening doctors and medicines
Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem (not the root cause), which prevents or distracts one from the longer and harder task of solving the real problem. Addictive policies are insidious, because they are so easy to sell, and so simple to fall for.
Like a drunk ransacking the house in hopes of unearthing just one more bottle, we will pollute our beaches and invade the last wilderness areas, searching for just one more big deposit of oil
Seeking the wrong goal is a system trap. For example, attempting to maximize GDP is harmful because it is a poor indicator of overall social well-being. More car accidents, and thus more spending on medical and repair bills, increase GDP. More parents hiring help to bring their children up increases GDP. An expensive second home for a rich family is better for GDP than an inexpensive basic home for a poor family. An efficient light bulb that both reduce electricity cost and lasts a long time makes the GDP go down.
GDP measures effort rather than achievement, regardless of whether that effort was put to good use or wasted, and regardless of whether the achievement is helpful or harmful; gross production and consumption rather than net/efficiency
System delays cause oscillations. When I receive delayed information about the state of the system stock, I overshoot or undershoot my goal. A system can’t respond to short-term changes when it has long term delays. This is why massive central-planning systems, such as the Soviet Union or General Motors, necessarily function poorly
Insistence on a single culture shuts down learning and cuts back resilience, leading to failure over the long term in highly variable environments
This means encouraging variability and experimentation and diversity, which is scary because it means “losing control”. This is why it’s so hard for people to adopt this highly effective leverage point
Collect as many explanations as possible and consider them all to be plausible until you find evidence that rules them out. That way you will be emotionally available to see evidence as it truly is, not clouded by entanglement with your own identity
Honouring information means above all avoiding language pollution—making the cleanest possible use out of language
What Wendell Berry calls “tyrannese”
- My impression is that we have seen, for perhaps a hundred and fifty years, a gradual increase in language that is either meaningless or destructive of meaning. And I believe that this increasing unreliability of language parallels the increasing disintegration, over the same period, of persons and communities…
He goes on to say:
- In this degenerative accounting, language is almost without the power of designation, because it is used conscientiously to refer to nothing in particular. Attention rests upon percentages, categories, abstract functions. . . . It is not language that the user will very likely be required to stand by or to act on, for it does not define any personal ground for standing or acting. Its only practical utility is to support with “expert opinion” a vast, impersonal technological action already begun. … It is a tyrannical language: tyrannese.
The first step in respecting language is keeping it as concrete, meaningful, and truthful as possible; part of the job of keeping information streams clear. The second step is to enlarge language to make it consistent with our enlarged understanding of systems
Our culture is obsessed with numbers, giving us the idea that what we can measure is more important than what we can’t measure. If we motivate, rate, and reward ourselves on our ability to produce quantity, then quantity will be the result. Quantity is not necessarily as important as quality, however (e.g., when we maximize GDP and sacrifice quality of life).
Be interdisciplinary. Penetrate the jargons of other disciplines, integrate what they tell you, recognize what they can honestly see through their respective lenses, and discard the distortions that come from the narrowness and incompleteness of their lenses—they won’t make it easy for you