Action Figure Daniel

Category: Reading

  • “The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe” by Dr. Steven Novella

    • Skeptics accept new ideas as long as their methods support them
    • We have separate memory stores for facts, truthfulness of those facts, and fact sources; this is why we sometime jumble where we heard what
    • Memories are subject to co-fusion, confabulation, and co-opting from others
    • Confidence and vividness have little bearing on accuracy
    • Only the eye’s fovea captures details, it is the size of a postage stamp at an arm’s length, all other details are made up
    • The brain does pre and post processing, enhancing the image based on what we think we are looking at
    • Pareidolia is the brain trying to make sense of noise
    • Beware of defenses that are created on the fly
    • When ranking things we want, if our first choice is not available, we tend to skip the third. Maybe because we already had to dismiss the second when picking the first.
    • “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” Ronald Coase
    • Anomaly hunting goes wrong when we ask “what are the odds [this] happening?”. The good question is “What are the odds that any anomaly would happen?”
    • Random data is “clumpy”; expect to see weird things together
    • P values indicates the quality of the data, not the truthiness of the hypothesis
    • Hybrid seeds cannot be replanted because they will have unpredictable gene expression
    • We tend to confuse the knowledge of experts with our own knowledge

  • “The Shortest History of India” by John Zubrzycki

    • India has the longest continuous civilization
    • India comes from the word Hindu
    • Chess derives from an India game
    • India pushed vegetarianism and religious freedom
    • The Caste culture displaced the notion of being self-protective
      • (My [caste] position is not that great, so why bother to defend our land?)
    • Fasting became a powerful tool that could be used by everyone, including the poorest

  • “Of Orcas and Men” by David Neiwert

    • Orcas are often viewed as ancestors
    • Dolphins have acoustic signaling but maybe not language
    • “Orcas are not really smart humans but humans are really stupid orcas.”
    • Killer whales have been the dominant predator in the ocean for three times as long as humans have been on land
    • Whale brains are literally structured differently, making it difficult to compare to humans
    • Orcas have a lot more of brain power through interconnectivity
    • Echolocation literally paints a picture in their minds
    • They are very emotional creatures, according to trainers and brain scans
    • Orca skin literally lets water flow through it
    • Orcas “hear” through their hollow jaw bone which is enlarged to better capture and relay vibration information
    • Orcas share echo sounds with each other and can “point” with it
    • We can learn cooperation from the whales

  • “Intuitive Listening” by Christiane Northrup and Mona Lisa Schulz

    • We recreate things that are not resolved so we can try to fix it
    • We need someone to be able to call and ask, “Am I crazy?”
    • When coupled, we tend to balance each other
    • Life is about generating, retiring is about not generating, focus on the generating
    • Your Money, My Money, and Our Money is very important to maintain
    • You need separate “dance spaces”
    • Self-esteem needs to be balanced across
      • Intellect
      • Body
      • Prowess
      • Spirituality
      • Relationships
    • Emotions are energy in motion
    • You cannot rely on your original tribe forever
    • Being opposite of you family does not make you better, just different
    • A script gives you infinite freedom; You can act it out however you want
    • Premature cognitive commitment to being trapped
    • Keep pushing your life until just before you are not effective

  • “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt

    • We have so much “wisdom” that it is no longer useful because it is not accessible
    • The brain has a confabulator that makes up stories about what it is doing
    • Controlled processing is limited but automatic is not really
    • Controlled processing requires language
    • We need to learn how to distract the elephant to manage stimulus
    • Whenever we have a goal, the automated system monitors your progress towards that goal
    • The elephant really holds the reigns but the rider can piece words together
    • “No, I dropped them back there but the light is better over here”
    • “Our life is the perception of our mind”
    • People often hurt themselves base of their behavior
    • “Nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it”
    • Elephant is all about like/dislike or approach/withdraw
    • You have to change your repartee to change your outputs
    • Be nice on the first interaction, then do reciprocity
    • Reciprocity is a way to extend evolution’s familiar bonds
    • Language may have been a replacement to physical grooming
    • Gossips is mostly critical
    • We do not generally approve of gossips even though we all gossip
    • Concession counts as reciprocity
    • Scandal is great entertainment because we get to flaunt our morals
    • You can only react to what we think someone did
    • The elephant leans on a position and then looks for confirmation
    • We overestimate our own virtue but do well as estimating others’
    • We create “makes sense” stories and then stop looking for explanations
    • Children use touch to return to baseline
    • Romantic love can be “passionate” or “companionate”
    • Learn to make sense of trauma
    • “Self” interferes with our ability to have awe
    • Religion does not need God
    • People need a clear goal
    • Staying grounded requires us to have vital engagement