Curious Idiot

See these nice flowcharts about blind-faith and Science.

When I read this Paul Graham's essay I understood that I was seeking wisdom rather than domain specific intelligence. If I refer to my earlier post named "Three levels of Consciousness" , I can say that seeking wisdom is in the "third level of consciousness" and seeking "domain specific intelligence" is in "second level of consciousness". In the past 6.5 years I simply could not spend much time in seeking domain specific intelligence. I was completely addicted to reading books from different fields only to understand how exactly this world is working. Which I think has paid off when I finally ended my book reading stride with "Consciousness Explained". I still will read books but the rate of seeking wisdom may not be high. So finally I started applying whatever Ideas I have learnt till now. I will have to see what I end up with in my life :-)

The following concepts and facts made me think about what exactly is happening in this earth. 1) Universe might have formed during big bang ( Big bang theory ) 2) Living things are formed from non-living molecules which in turn are formed from basic elements. 3) Living organisms formed and evolved over 4 billions years in earth 4) Our Brain is not a complicated system but is a complex system. So whole is more than the sum of its parts. That extra in the sum is the consciousness. So consciousness is just a side effect of the working of the subsystems of our brain. 6) Second law of thermodynamics says that "In a closed system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system " 7) Living organisms are examples for decreasing entropy. (Of course in an open system) 8) Human beings have the capability to decrease entropy due to their own actions which in turn results in our illusion of having "Free will" and "Consciousness". So here is m...

Today many theories exist to describe human consciousness. Some are: a) Mind/Brain dualism b) Cartesian theatre c) Hard problem of consciousness d) Multiple drafts theory e) The society of mind ( In these theories I do not find any difference between Daniel Dennett's "Multiple drafts theory" and Marvin Minsky' s "The society of mind" ) In June 2007 I finished reading "Consciousness explained" by "Daniel Dennett" and came to know that it could be the last book which would change my life forever. We might take two or three decades to have more strong evidences for the "Multiple drafts theory". Following are the facts I consider as strong points for this theory:- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) None of the cells in the brain(Neurons) bother about the brain or the body containing the brain. They just do three things. a) Energy absorption and Survival. b) ...

I read a useful way of dividing our consciousness into three different levels. The idea is from the book "Visions" by Michio Kaku . First level: ------------- The lowest level of consciousness is the ability of an organism to monitor its body and its environment. By this definition, even a thermostat has some consciousness since it monitors the surrounding temperature. Examples of this level: a) Bacteria going away from higher temperature area or going towards food. b) Humans taking away the hands when accidentally kept on a hot surface. c) Babies moving hands and doing other things when born. These are mostly hard-wired functions. Second level: ---------------- The second level is the ability to carry out well-definted goals, like survival and reproduction. Higher up on this second level lies the entire animal kingdom. Once the primary goals ( e.g., finding food and mates) are preprogrammed into the animal brain, they determine the complex plans to carry...

I can find only the following three things to be causing worries for anybody in this earth. 1) Wrong goals 2) Unrealistic goals 3) Not working towards realistic goals Examples for Wrong goals: ------------------------------ a) Being rich would satisfy all my needs and wants. b) My team will succeed if all my subordinates in the team do what I assign them to do without pushing back. Examples for Unrealistic goals: ---------------------------------- a) My children who are not disciplined today would be disciplined 10 years later, without any effort from anybody. b) Expecting that manager would always give the work which we like. c) Expecting that best things would always come to me automatically. d) Expecting that we will do our best even when we are tensed up. e) Expecting that if I get good grades I will get the best job in the best company. f) Expecting that others will measure my intelligence 100% accurately. g) Expecting that we would get the best knowledge from our elders and paren...

Amygdala is the part of the brain where emotions arise. Emotions arise by way of secreting chemicals. For simplicity sake we will assume that only the following emotional states are present. Pain - We always try to go away from this state. Peace- Might be boring after sometime. So we generally try to find something better than peace/boring state. Pleasure- We generally try to be in this state most of our life. All these states would have different chemicals secreted in Amygdala which is a part of the lymbic system . This is true for all mammals. And this is what is happening for any kid/adult in this whole world(earth). There is nothing like SOUL in the brain to recognize these chemicals. Pain: ------ Caused by some problem in Real World- Following are some 1) Hunger 2) Injury 3) High/low temperature 4) Many other physical problems/sufferings 5) Seeing that our friends/relatives are suffering. Self Induced Example: 1) Not achieving the set goal. - If achieved, it will lead to pleasu...