expertise and genius

Intelligence is just general mental health. With that, expertise is achieved through directed effort. Genius is creativity plus expertise. So:

Intelligence + Effort + Creativity = Genius

Genius - Creativity = (plain old) Expertise

interpretation

How exactly do those lyrics from Colin Hay's song describe exactly how i feel? Let's do a simple line-by-line analysis.

I drink good coffee every morning

That would simply mean I actually enjoy life! Strange isn't it? How can somebody like me possibly enjoy life?

Comes from a place that’s far away

Esoteric experiences, eclectic tastes and abstruse ideas i guess...

And when I’m done I feel like talking

And of course, it is human nature (i'm human) to want to share how we experience our lives.

Without you here there is less to say

The reason why i am seen to be so quiet is because i realized quite some time ago that people just don't get what I try to say. Or they don't see the point of getting so excited over the things i get excited about. Now that's not entirely true, i say and share many different things to and with many different people. But such narrow bandwidth! As such my messages are robbed of context. The reason why I see as beautiful the things I see as beautiful is in large part the way I see the world. Most of what i try to say thus is misquoted... So remember, i'm not incoherent, you are just not properly tuned in.

(exactly) how i feel

I drink good coffee every morning
Comes from a place that’s far away
And when I’m done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say

—"i just don’t think i’ll ever get over you", colin hay

ego - the secret to happiness

To summarize, traditional conceptions of mental health assert that well-adjusted individuals possess relatively accurate perceptions of themselves, their capacity to control important events in their lives, and their future. In contrast to this portrayal, a great deal of research in social, personality, clinical and developmental psychology documents that normal individuals possess unrealistically positive views of themselves, an exaggerated belief in their ability to control their environment, and a view of the future that maintains that their future will be far better than the average person's. Furthermore, individuals who are moderately depressed or low in self-esteem consistently display an absence of such enhancing illusions. Together, these findings appear inconsistent with the notion that accurate self-knowledge is the hallmark of mental health (Taylor and Brown, 1988).

the messiness of human nature

From Rehabilitating Introspection, Phil Roberts, Jr.

Presumably, Mother Nature has gone to a lot of trouble to evolve our capacity for reflective thought precisely because it renders it possible for us to have a fairly good idea of what will be in our long range best interest and, just as crucially, to be able to act upon that information when undertaking a prudent course of action. But if this is so, why then are there motivational states such as fear, anger and sexual arousal, that urge us to engage in random acts of strategic stupidity on those innumerable occasions when, at some later point in time, we end up having to ask ourselves, "Now why did I do that?" If prudence is such hot stuff from an evolutionary standpoint, why isn't Mother making it a bit easier for us to exercise it more prudently?

The answer, I believe, is pretty much what you might expect. The reason the lower emotions seem so out of context with our more reflective concerns is precisely because they are remnants of a prereflective survivalist heritage -- vestigial remains of ancient stimulus response mechanisms which, prior to the advent of prudential insight, were chiefly responsible for perpetuating ourselves and our genetic blueprints. And their lack of continuity with our more reflective concerns is because, at some point in our dark and distant past, survival was not the result of any overall intention or "will" to survive, but simply the non-intentional cumulative effect of a number of independent intentions or "wills" to exhibit stereotypical responses to immediate stereotypical stimuli, but which were probably undertaken with little if any understanding of the overall objective they were “designed” to achieve.

In other words, the reason the lower emotions so often urge us to do stupid stuff is because, in a manner of speaking, they don’t know what they are doing. Their strategic incoherence is due to the fact that the id is not so much an evil monster as a bunch of bungling idiots (Larry, Curly and Moe come to mind), and in which case Freud's mistake was not in positing little men in the brain (the id, ego and superego), as Ryle (1949) and Dennett (1969) have maintained, but in not positing enough of them.

...

3. To further confuse matters, it appears that, in her infinite wisdom, Mother Nature has apparently exapted (jury-rigged) a number of the lower emotions to assist in the shepherding of self-worth (fear of asking for a date or giving a speech, anger over an insult, sex as a basis for endearment, etc.), a task for which they are often understandably illsuited. But then what else would you expect from a blind mechanical process?

idealism?

Even Einstein thought this...

Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. —Einstein

But this is not idealism. Note that he said "physical concepts".
What is reality then? Well I don't know. I just see it as something that is "just there". Something that behaves in a certain way. Something that we are forced to live with.

insignificance

You would be just as insignificant if the universe were billions of times smaller. If you are not lonely, your life would be just as meaningful if the universe were infinitely larger than it is already infinitely large. Similarly, your life would be just as meaningful, and just as meaningless, if God were to exist or not.

overcompensation

I present a sketchy theory of overcompensation here.

Paradigm shifts, fashion, moral sentiment, social and economic theory, religion. They all obey the "Law of Overcompensation".

This law states that (almost) every time we dispense with a perspective on an issue, we overcompensate (or at least have the tendency to).

Behaviorism after introspection. Laissez-faire capitalism after Communism. "Culture" (or Nurture) after Biology (Nature). Relativism after Racism. Modernism after Romanticism. Postmodernism after Realism. New Age after traditional monotheistic religion.

Why do we overcompensate? I think it's because we tend to view perspectives as factions, like in tribal warfare. Our tribal legacy definitely manifests in our argumentation. From "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson:

"ARGUMENT IS WAR

Your claims are indefensible.

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

His criticisms were right on target.

I demolished his argument.

I've never won an argument with him.


you disagree? Okay, shoot!

If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out.

He shot down all of my arguments.

It is important to see that we don't just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war. Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument--attack, defense, counter-attack, etc.---reflects this."

So instead of the logic of the argument prompting a change in perspectives, it is the subjective evaluation of the credence of artificially dichotomized polar-opposite sides of an issue. Whereupon the "winning" side would be absolutely and unequivocally accepted, and the other side absolutely and unequivocally rejected. Thus leading to overcompensation.

Even synthesis (after thesis and antithesis, in Hegel's theory) can overcompensate. Relativism is an example. I'm right. You're right. We are both right (in our own ways, yet absolutely so).

Nature? Haha. Yes but through conscious effort and with awareness, we can (somewhat) ameliorate or avoid overcompensation.

miraculous?

It is said that for ourselves to exist, the physical constants of this universe have to be exquisitely fine-tuned. But here, probability only makes sense as frequency. I'm not trying to be a frequentist. Only the frequentist interpretation of probability makes sense here. Do we have access to other universes? If we do, we would be able to see in which of all these universes, life did form. Could it really have been any other way? The universe just is. Asking why only makes sense if asking "why not" is worse. "Why is the universe so?" and "Why not?" are equally good questions, of which the answers are equally hard to imagine.

Are necessary truths really necessary? Hardly, they are only the accidental workings of our minds. But if we take that into account, then anything is possible! Anything at all. Even God! To a lot of people, unfortunately, the existence of God is already so obvious as to be impossible to doubt. That's why I advocate apathetic atheism. Emphasizing the irrelevance of God in our lives, even if He does exist. There really is no "ought" from "is"...

Fortunately though, our universe seems to be consistent. And there are necessary truths. But only within this particular universe. Anything outside is just...anything. Conclusion? Only what affects us can possibly matter. Therefore only what does affect us matter. The supernatural is thus necessarily irrelevant. As irrelevant as (but not more than) fiction.

Hallucination in Education

Besides teaching informal logic and cognitive biases. It would also be helpful if students can experience (safe) induced hallucination to show them how phenomena such as near-death experiences or mystical experiences can be so convincing. This is of course, not yet possible. Haha. But it would be great if it does become so.

protectionism and creationism

What do protectionism and creationism have in common?

They are a defense of outmoded institutions in spite of more efficient ways of achieving exactly the same thing.
Creationists believe religion integral to morality and the meaning of life. Protectionists believe preserving (artificial) local market conditions to be protecting the livelihoods of local suppliers.

Both seek what they want in the wrong places. Morality and meaning doesn't exist in how life came into being. Demand doesn't exist in the non-existence of import supply.

Both need to find proper solutions for the pursuit their own true cause. The morality inherent in human nature. The meaning inherent in a good life. Real demand available through participation in the global economy.