These pieces can be read independently of each other, or together- you’ll find recurring subjects and trains of thought, such as:
  • the reasoning that goes into our everyday decisions and social interactions,
  • the flexibility, working memory, and data storage capabilities of our brains,
  • beliefs and how they change or remain stable,
  • the idea that knowledge is essentially a physically-embodied, quantifiable, examinable thing- even when contained within the innards of the mind, and
  • the observation that our mental abilities and beliefs are very similar between individuals, even though on a moment-to-moment basis we tend to focus on differences, in the effort to keep learning and pushing at the boundaries of our understanding.

A sense of personal loss: deletion of an external neuronal repository

When someone close to us dies, or their personality and mind change due to Alzheimer’s or some other disease, we experience grief for a variety of reasons. For example, we feel regret at the thought that had they lived on, they could have made further contributions to the world and those around them. We feel loneliness and emptiness, knowing that a companion is gone from future conversations and activities. We may feel sadness at the suffering they underwent while still alive. However, there's an additional component to this grief. Regardless of what the other person went through or could potentially have accomplished, we often feel a profound sense of personal loss- one which directly affects the ones remaining, who still have lives to lead.

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As I mentioned already, this is partially due to the loss of anticipated pleasures and the irreversible quashing of previous expectations (e.g. ‘my mother passed away before she got to see her first grandchild,’ or ‘my son didn’t survive his teenage years and never had the opportunity to fall in love, graduate, and have kids’). Demolition of dreams about the future accounts for only part of this sense of personal loss. What about the painfully personal component?

I’m going to take a slight detour here, and look at how we share our memories with others. A large proportion of the content of our conversations consists of recounting our activities, many of which can be fairly trivial- places we've visited, things we ate, people we met. For the moment, let’s think specifically about the kind of information which would typically be of little interest to strangers, the kind which can be retained in our personal memories and remain un-propagated beyond the boundaries of individual brains, with relatively little loss to anyone. Why do so many of us feel compelled to share our experiences and narrate our day’s activities to somebody- a companion, a relative, a friend on the phone- if it makes little difference to them what the details were, and when the content is such that, if they did not know you personally, they could not care less?!

I see this as an attempt to make duplicate copies of our memories, to use the brains of friends and acquaintances as a form of backup storage. Think about the times when a group of friends who haven’t seen each other for a while decides to gather and reminisce about the past- each person delves into a personal memory bank and contributes a portion of the experience from one perspective. Parts of perspectives from different individuals overlap, other parts do not. Collectively, an experience is reassembled from the memories of different individuals. Having multiple, slightly different copies of memories is extremely useful- knowledge that was forgotten or missed by one individual may be retained by another, and knowledge that one possesses can be verified by comparing it against that held by others. One’s personal life, thoughts and experiences, are greatly enriched when given access to larger volumes of storage (in the form of our friends’ brains) than to one’s own mind alone.

Outsourcing of personal memory takes place constantly, and of course not just with friends- we jot notes down on paper, type out prodigious quantities of information and capture images, and save them on our computers. The act of finishing a job is not only enacted in the external world, it also creates changes in our mind- once we we know that ideas have been safely captured and stored externally, on paper, hard disk, or a friend's brain, we proceed to delete material that need not be permanently retained by our memory stores. Just think about how efficiently students forget crammed material right after an exam, or how we flush out addresses, numbers, and other trivia from our system once they've served their purpose. Having a good memory is not just contingent on storage volume and quality, it's also about stock-taking and shifting excess supplies.

Our brains change constantly- the connections in our neuronal circuits and the chemicals coursing through them are continually updating and remoulding the information represented. Although we may be able to ‘revert to a previous mental state,’ for example by believing something temporarily, then disbelieving it, the neuronal circuitry cannot revert to exactly the same state that it was previously in.

We're well aware (consciously or not) of the limitations in our ability to recreate certain mental states once we have already ‘lived them,’ especially ones that lasted for prolonged durations, or that required lots of creative energy. Often, we find it difficult to exert exactly the same amount of energy, and summon up the same level of brilliance, to recreate a product which has already been generated in the past, and has presumably been dealt and done with. That's why acting and portraying genuine emotion (such as surprise) is a skill.

Concrete example: after writing pages of notes, using a combination of inspiration, hard work, and diligent editing, one’s mind takes satisfaction in the fact that the necessary energy has been expended and there is something to show for it- one should not need to go back and relive the process. This explains the sinking feeling one gets when work is inadvertently deleted and can't be retrieved- not only does one feel reluctant to face the prospect of putting in the effort all over again, one is also uncertain of being able to achieve the same level of quality. Some things come out best the first time round, when an idea is fresh in one’s mind. We take care to practise and prepare, but avoid over-rehearsing.

So what does this have to do with the sense of personal loss when someone we know (or their essence) is no more?

It amounts to the deletion of an outsourced memory storage, akin to having your hard drive wiped out by a computer virus, a laptop stolen, a data bank obliterated. And since we use each other's mental processors to analyse data in slightly different ways from our own, it amounts to the loss of valuable hardware and computing algorithms as well.

Your backup copies, if they exist, are incomplete or just aren’t the same...


Bestial instincts

Working with monkeys has taught me so much about human nature- helped me to understand how acts of great violence can occur in our society- murder, rape, theft, and organised forms of those activities. I never used to be able to even imagine how the Holocaust was perpetuated, or how child soldiers in the DRC could kill and rape old women, or even how someone could justify the intellectual loss of documents in my laptop by the monetary gain they derived through stealing it. But now I'm slowly beginning to understand..

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It was only very recently in our evolutionary history that people began to live by the moral code that we subscribe to in everyday life- at least, to the version we're familiar with today, with standards such as, 'if you leave litter lying around, you're stealing time and energy from those who clean up after you,' and 'if you buy precious jewellery, you're supporting the supply of arms in war-torn regions in Africa,' or 'if you eat a plate of seafood, then remember that 9 times that amount has been dumped back into the sea as by-catch.' The fact that we are aware of and concerned about these everyday issues, let alone those that we more typically associate with war crimes, makes it even harder (for many of us) to imagine what people in more 'extreme' situations must be thinking, when they carry out direct acts of brutality.

I've spent numerous hours observing and interacting with the monkeys in the department. On one hand I see them as members of a completely different society- one that hasn’t evolved in physical proximity with ours (unlike domesticated species), and with a genetic make-up that reflects that separation. Yet, I see countless similarities, which not only lead me, very naturally, to anthropomorphise their behaviour, but which also lead them to 'anthropomorphise' (non-human-primatomorphise?) when they look at me. The hilarity that results when they interpret my actions in the context of their own understanding is a reminder that my physiology (which includes my thinking) is similar enough to theirs, for my intentions and actions to be mistaken for something completely different.

One common example of how they misread human behaviour: prolonged eye contact is seen as a form of aggression, so when a curious human visitor takes the liberty of staring in fascination at one of the monkeys, as at the zoo, the monkey responds with bared teeth, a jerk of his head, a straightened back. In addition, all the other monkeys take note of what they perceive as your 'challenging' of that monkey, and stare back and forth in theatrical alarm between the two of you. Some gallop around their cages, uttering sharp cries, which to my ears sound like expressions of astonishment, till the whole room is filled with discordant noise and chaos. It makes me wonder how much more of my behaviour goes mis-interpreted, without my noticing.

Here are some maxims by which many of them live, some more vigorously than others:

1. If something is a potential threat to you, attack it.
2. If something seems foreign to you, destroy it.
3. If you see something of interest, take it as quickly as you can.

Why do I find these maxims (bestial to the point of being funny) so interesting? In order to survive, we need to possess a strong sense of entitlement. The fact that our species exists today demonstrates the ability of our ancestors to exploit their resources and endure. Urban dwellers now have the luxury of spending little time on core survival strategies because of the defence systems we've errected- cities, transport networks, electricity, sanitation. Our basic needs are taken care of, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve lost our sense of entitlement, it merely means that our expectations regarding the things to which we are entitled have shifted. Now, we expect to be able to transfer data and money securely, track the movements of digital documents and physical goods, access information and services through our phones, sort through masses of data with our desktops, and report crimes to receive brisk, sympathetic responses from the authorities.

People who examine human evolutionary history and make comparisons between modern-day humans and their ancestors often debate about the degree to which genetic change has occurred. I’m of the opinion that the human brain was essentially as capable thousands of years ago, as it is today- just based on the levels of introspection and clarity of thought in the work of authors who lived millennia ago, for instance. (Note: I said ‘thousands of years,’ not ‘tens of thousands.’) There seems as much variation between the mental capacities of people past and present, as exists among people now. If one took a human embryo from its existence several millennia ago and transplanted it into modern society, I’d guess that the child would grow up as comfortably with current technology, as any one of us today (and probably be more comfortable than most of us who are reading this).

Similarly, if one of us were teleported back at an early age to a prehistoric civilisation, I should think we'd be as successful at adapting to their environment as one of the natives. In other words, just because we find little need to tap into our more aggressive, brutal side, that doesn’t mean that we’ve lost the ability to do so, or that the reinstatement of those instincts is particularly difficult.

To end off, here are some examples of behaviour exhibited by my monkeys, to illustrate each of the 3 maxims, and draw parallels to human behaviour.

1. If something is a potential threat to you, attack it:
I work only with male monkeys our department- another lab has female monkeys, and I do see them as they're housed in the same area as 'the boys,' but I'm a relative stranger as I rarely get to hang around observing them. Great care is taken in the way our monkeys are housed in their cages- they need companionship, but if the hierarchical system between monkeys within the same cage isn't clear, they'll end up fighting. Often, an older male is housed with two youngsters- that way, the older one gets priority in everything and keeps the order, and the two younger ones are too preoccupied with keeping the older one happy to squabble violently between themselves. Alternatively, several older ones may be housed together- as long as they're used to each other and are closely monitored, their happy relationship can last for a long time. One of my monkeys used to live with two of his mates, of similar age and weight, but eventually he started fighting with the others and we took him out and paired him with two younger ones instead. One monkey in particular is incredibly ferocious by nature- he attacks anyone and anything that comes within reach. If your sleeve or your collar gets too near the cage, he'll grab it and you'll be yanked forcefully over- and he only weighs 8 kg! He's not big, compared to some others his age, but he'd attack anything regardless of size. It's impossible to house him with a companion, so he lives in his own space, separated from but adjacent to others.

2. If something seems foreign to you, destroy it.
This applies to the ferocious 8-kg monkey I just described, and also more generally to each of the others, when it comes to inanimate objects. If you lose something soft and destructible to one of the cages, such as a glove or a piece of paper, you can abandon hope of ever seeing a trace of it again. As long as the object can be moved, torn apart, and smashed up, it will be.

3. If you see something of interest, take it as quickly as you can.
The concept of original ownership does not seem to exist. If I accidentally drop a key near one of their cages, it will be jingling through the air in a second, passed between several individuals, and kept far beyond my reach. Despite the fact that they have seen humans with the key countless times, that they are unable to use it to manipulate the locks themselves (they are neither dexterous nor mentally astute enough), that the human who has lost the key keeps looking at it, and that the key is inedible, it will not occur to any of them to hand the key back. The rule is: if you are holding onto something, then you possess it. If someone else is holding onto something which you want, then you should try to take it from them. The concept of 'biting the hand that feeds you' is clearly applicable here- when a human walks into the primate area with a piece of food, the monkey that receives it does not feel obliged to the human who delivered it- rather, the monkey feels entitled to it. The monkeys do have certain things in common with humans, however- for instance, they come to associate particular human individuals with the monkeys whom that human works with. When I bring grapes into the room, only my monkeys really expects to get the food- the rest know that I never give food to them. Note that this sense of entitlement is distinct from the notion of ownership that I described regarding the transfer of food between my monkey and I.

Thought experiment: think of a technological gadget which you would love to get your hands on- perhaps you're planning to buy one, or comparing various models. Now imagine that you're walking on your way home, and today is a rather unusual one- for political reasons, mob behaviour is emerging across certain parts of the city, the police are trying their best to contain outbreaks of violence, and most people are staying at home and out of the way. You're passing a store on a street corner when a gang of looters appears seemingly out of nowhere, smashes the window, and starts lugging the latest slick gadgets out of the shop. The owners are nowhere to be seen and now other passers-by, instead of calling the police, are getting in on the action. Within your reach in the window is the object of your desires. Should you grab it before the other looters get it, and plan to hand it over to the police, so that they can return the equipment to the shop owners once order is restored? What if the whole country is in turmoil, and order is never going to be restored?

Regardless of how refined and emphatic we consider ourselves, acts of theft and murder, like anything else, exist on a spectrum of behaviours, and actions that are unjustifiable in one context can, within the correct context, appear appropriate and rational. Sending a person to jail seems like one of the gravest things one could do and extinguishing life seems like a terrible thing. But for the sake of public safety, criminals are incarcerated or executed.

Our everyday decisions directly or indirectly stem from or result in life being lost, somewhere on the planet. We're all capable of killing and stealing, as long as the stakes are right and the situation is couched in acceptable terms. I learn more about the emergence of such violent behaviours, the more I watch my monkeys.


Hierarchies of knowledge

Being human beings and infovores, we devote a great deal of energy towards maximal knowledge acquisition and storage. Some of the information that we possess consists of content which is known to only one individual- but the vast majority of it can be simultaneously found within the consciousness of other individuals, whether in a highly similar, or in a somewhat modified form.

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The ability to speak English, for example, is shared by millions around the world, and different people make use of the language with varying degrees of success. The time table for your local bus route may be utterly useless to someone on the other side of the globe, but this packet of information is kept handily in the memory of multiple inhabitants of your neighbourhood. Some of the neighbours recall the arrival times with higher levels of precision, while others with less, but ultimately, if one pooled the data possessed by all members of the group, the numbers would likely converge and closely approximate those posted at the bus stop.

Other types of information may be much more specialised, depending on your line of work. If you are designing software for a particular client, for example, perhaps only you and a few other people are familiar with the specifics of the project. However, the members of your team employ skills which are shared by software designers all over the world, such as being able to write code using certain types of programming language, or being well-versed in business management techniques. If, say, you’re engaged in research which yields discoveries which have never before been known by another human mind, then the implications of your findings may, for a period, be contained only within yourself and your immediate contacts, and if the details are only comprehensible to a relatively small number of experts in the field, then this may remain the case for an extended length of time.

Thus, as one delves deeper into a specialty, whether it be through scientific research, technological innovation, or artistic expression, one may start to make a distinction between two main types of novel information: 1. the information which, due to emergence of technological know-how, social impetus, and favourable financial conditions, emerges (often near-simultaneously) among separate groups of people, i.e., knowledge that would eventually have been generated even if the first informant had not been around, and 2. the information which, if not for its originator, is likely not to have been discovered by anyone else, in the foreseeable future, due to its uniqueness and reliance on brilliant insight.

In essence, some types of knowledge exist in abundance, with multiple copies presently being stored across the minds, documents, and memory sticks, of huge numbers of people. Some forms of knowledge have a common underlying structure (for example, how to read a time table, how to catch a bus), while the particulars are different, depending on location and situation. Yet other pieces of information are dependent on ideas of such complexity, that it requires years of study or experience in order to fully grasp them. Even among the most advanced and specialised of these, one can differentiate between those for which the time is ripe for discovery, and those which are truly far ahead of their time. If so much duplication exists in the world, is it only the very rare, non-inevitable insights that hold real value?

Let’s turn for the moment to the concept of a collective human consciousness. Forms of information are transferred constantly across individuals, passed through speech, the written word, live demonstrations, and electrical connections. We outsource as much as possible, in order to free up memory space for subjects which are top priority and which require the highest levels of computation and deliberation that the human mind is capable of performing (where possible, computations which exceed our limits are outsourced to computers). Yet, despite our awareness of how valuable and scarce our mental real estate is, many of us are driven to accumulate ever more bucket-loads of information, and we maintain a sub-conscious sense of desperation, to 'stay on top of things' and avoid missing out. We end up worrying about our state of perpetual ignorance and lack of awareness, despite attempts to remind ourselves that, of course, no one human being can possibly know everything. One may start to feel that it is almost pointless to try so hard- all efforts will end up being inadequate.

I for one am guilty of maintaining a mental model of an ideal 'know-it-all' individual, with whom I can’t help but constantly compare myself. I’ve a mental trick which helps me stay sane and focus on everyday activities, which is to look forward to a time in the (extremely distant?) future when people have the technology to transfer knowledge with great ease and in large quantities, between each other and between computers. I imagine that all the amazing bits of information which are not presently stored in my brain will eventually be available for download, and that similarly, pieces which I currently possess will be made available for the benefit of others, and I’ll be able to select and discard items of information as and when required.

I cope with the limited amount of time that I have, in a similar way to that of brain capacity- when I hear about or watch other people engage in activities and accomplish things that I’d greatly like to try myself, if I only had the time, I instead consider their accomplishments an extended part of my consciousness- as long as people derive enjoyment from what they do and contribute to our body of knowledge, then by virtue of their having done it, I myself may derive a sense of enjoyment and enrichment. I think of this as ‘outsourcing enjoyment.’ We do this all the time, anyway- parents take pride in the accomplishments of their kids, partners bask in the reflected glow of their spouses, people watch their pets play in the grass..


Protecting ourselves with limiting beliefs

There are numerous hypothetical scenarios which people conscientiously (whether consciously or sub-consciously) avoid considering, or even imagining. Common taboo subjects include incest, infidelity, racism or sexism, questioning of authority (political, religious), and confrontation of death, sickness, and old age. Examples: that one may have contracted a particular disease, be suffering from a terminal illness, that the leader of one's religious institution is untrustworthy or deceiving his followers, that one’s next trip in a car might be the last. Much of the time, a key reason why we skirt around such issues, refusing to contemplate such possibilities, is that the probability of the scenario coming to pass is very slim, so worrying about the issue is a waste of energy. By suppressing our doubts, we save ourselves some valuable time.

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This isn't always the case though. Consider how many people, as they get older, remain uncomfortable with, or adamantly opposed to, making a will or planning for an unpredictable mishap. Think of the number of people who consistently put off going for health check-ups and screening tests, yet find plenty of time to get a drink at the bar. For many of us, technological advancements and the resulting abundance of opportunities to predict and plan for the future, or discover something heretofore unknown to ourselves, have outpaced our willingness and capacity to make optimal use of the resources available to us.

When you makes jokes or comments about the possibility of some unpleasant event having occurred, or having the potential to in the future, why do some people not giggle, but shriek and insist instead that you stop being so morbid? My intuitive understanding is that this is an instinctive self-protection mechanism which shields us from debilitating levels of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. This is why many of us do not jabber away incessantly at kids about poverty and war (topics that they may not be able to comprehend or do much about), or chat with our parents about age-related diseases (topics that would unsettle them). In other words, the contents of our thoughts translates into the way we live our lives and make our decisions.

Our brain has evolved mechanisms which are responsible for installing safe-guards to generate powerful and oft-obeyed feelings of aversion when we approach the limits of our comfort zones. Regardless of whether they remain largely beneficial, relevant, and functional, these mechanisms are widespread- they control the dexterity of our paradigm shifting, the reconfiguring of our belief systems, perspectives, and principles, and the extents to which our realisations and mental discoveries are incorporated into memory stores.

We’re all strongly aware of the power of suggestion, and take great care to erect boundaries in our minds beyond which we refuse to cross, for fear that the mere thought of something coming to pass will inexorably propel us towards it. Which parts of our neural circuitry are responsible for implementing these largely self-protective, but occasionally detrimental, cut-off points? What sets off flashing alert signals as we foolishly try to approach these barriers? The beliefs that we hold about the world are the guiders and shapers of our behaviour. The knowledge we have about an object governs the nature of our interactions with it. A wild monkey, for example, may not consent to accept food straight from the hand of a human being during its first few encounters, but may choose to do so with the help of some peer-pressure, patience, and coaxing.

What exactly is happening at the neuronal level when we incorporate a new set of beliefs, especially ones which may cast almost everything we feel and perceive about the world, in a new, unaccustomed light? What massive rewiring is taking place within the information-sorting, attitude-generating, decision-making areas of the brain, and what local centres of enzyme synthesis and chemical secretion are being shut down, duplicated, or relocated? Which pathways of neuronal shunting are being rendered defunct, and which are clamouring to be built, reinforced, and repeatedly traversed?

There are basic life-support functions which are carried out by relatively autonomous, pre-wired brain circuits, and operate more or less independently of the thoughts that go on at a more abstract level. Our instincts for self-preservation probably endure regardless of our particular political ideology. That’s not to say that our thoughts about abstracted, higher-level matters have no impact on the more concrete, lower-level processes.

When revelations in thought are broadly encompassing and affect our attitudes towards a plethora of events in life, their adoption necessitates major reorganisation of prior mental configurations. When we’re forced to reconsider and alter higher-level beliefs which were previously thought to be fundamental truths and thus unshakeable, sometimes this entails making such widespread, fine-tuned adjustments to our belief systems, that under some circumstances, the resources of our brain circuitry get overwhelmed. Certain routes within the circuitry are stressed beyond their capacity, leading to irreversible breakdown of some integral component in our brain, bringing the entire system to a standstill or dragging it into utter chaos, rendering it incapable of producing logical thought or reasoning (i.e. we go crazy, get depressed, and go into denial).

Think about people whose understanding of the world is forced to undergo dramatic, unprecedented change. People who unfortunately lose a spouse or a child, people who are subjected to abuse or torture, or who receive a serious medical diagnosis, which affects their outlook in life and alters the way they value or view themselves. This requires a massive overhaul of previous assumptions, within an unaccustomedly short span of time. Such upheaval within the system places one in a state of disequilibrium, stunned shock, and upset, and sometimes numbness and denial, which act as buffers to slow the infiltration of mind-boggling realisations and thus soften the blow.

Such a state of disequilibrium tends to be seen as a stage to be passed eventually (the sooner the better), in order to minimise its incapacitating and emotion-inducing or -impairing effects. Readjustment and acceptance of the new facts are considered necessary for the continuation of one's affairs, as far as normalcy and a return to a stable state are possible. Friends and acquaintances gather around, show their support, and try to ease the transition into an altered world.

Yet, there are times at which the trauma suffered is too great for an individual to cope with. The devastation and sense of utter loss and hopelessness- the accompanying belief that life ahead is not worth continuing with- this results in abandonment of productive, future-centred thought, and triggers a mental breakdown.

My point is that our systems of denial, our sub-conscious refusals to consider alternative views of reality and alter current beliefs- these mental blockades that are uncompromisingly set up to prevent our thoughts from crossing certain rarely-challenged, sometimes intentionally ill-defined, limits, are, at their essence, protective mechanisms that are ultimately there to save us from going round the bend.


The flexibility (or rigidity) of emotional language

Isn't it strange how strictly we're governed by the limits of our emotional capacities? Our language only employs a finite, rather small set of possible words for criticism, excoriation and condemnation, or to express exhilaration and euphoria, yet we can assign meaning and intent to our words to encompass the full range of emotions, and adjust their scope to suit our purposes- just like Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

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The mere use of a select set of unpleasant words is enough to elicit the full spectrum of rage, grief, anger, hatred, and hopelessness, and drive a person to insanity or suicide. How do adjectives and nouns evolve to collectively cover the required range, so that regardless of culture and genetic make-up, we can recognise the emotion conveyed by a speaker of a different language and judge its strength? And some words lend themselves to a variety of meanings and contexts more readily than others. What determines the potential applicability of a given word?

Furthermore, different things act as triggers for different people. Just push someone to the limits of what they find acceptable, and all consciousness of our being, our self-worth, our confidence and self-perception, is rearranged, or galvanised for battle, or flattened. That our emotions are able to exert such control our all the rest of our biological activities makes one really curious about the underlying mechanisms that control their nature and their extent. I see it as an indicator of how malleable and readily adaptable, and tuned to social cues and stimuli, we are. We've evidently arrived at a limited range that is equilibrated to generate certain characteristic emotional responses, regardless of the factors that triggered them (and the interactions of these factors with retrieved memories), and which are synchronised across our repertoire of reactions, equipping us with a common, valuable emotional language.


How fiction writers can test ideas in human psychology

I read predominantly non-fiction material, but have been thinking a bit about aspects of the writing process that are particularly characteristic of fiction-writing. Writers of fiction have potentially immense freedom to make their content ambiguous, like artists and musicians. Even when their intention is phrased in fairly direct terms, readers are likely to find several alternative interpretations. This is partly because of the way readers approach the genre- with the expectation that a breadth of interpretation is inevitable and often invited.

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Anyhow, back to the main point- many excellently-crafted pieces of work are able to engage their audience because they have two features- they offer enough substance and fresh information to arouse one's interest (novelty- since we're incurable infovores), and they offer enough familiar substance so that the new insights can be integrated effectively with the previously-acquired knowledge, memory, and experiences of one’s mind (manageability). (‘Novel but manageable’ is a recurring theme in my reflections- ever since I heard it phrased that way in a book, or by one of my professors, or both. It would make a very good book title.)

Thus, excellent writing has managed to strike the appropriate balance between those two aspects, for its audience. Very powerful writers have the ability to verbalise ideas and take on concepts that are positioned right on the boundaries of an audience’s limits of understanding. When an author or creator has a deep understanding of which concepts have only been partially explored to date, an idea of where the limits lie, and an awareness of which concepts and limits are held in common across a large number of people, then that subject matter is ripe for discussion and captures the attention of many. Interestingly, specific groups of people share fairly well-defined limits, for a given subject, while other groups have knowledge that extends beyond those limits and which has limits of its own, albeit more accommodating ones. In the minds of the individuals who have the wider ranges, issues which rage at the boundaries of concepts held by those with narrower ranges have already been resolved- the difference is that diffusion of the solution has been prevented, by lack of communication, or acceptance.

Those of us who are particularly competitive and infovorous may frequently indulge in tormenting ourselves in the knowledge that there will always be others who have wider ranges, in some areas. Growing older has possibly helped me reconcile myself with that- though it’s still pretty bad, as you can tell from the fact that I’ve typed this sentence. (Another good thing about ageing is, in my opinion, improving one’s ability to accomplish more, at the last minute, and in a more relaxed state than you previously thought possible.) Anyway..!

What I've said so far also applies well to non-fiction and technical writing, or any kind of work that aims to make an impact and contribute to the volume of shared human knowledge- let’s get back to the fiction aspect of it. What fiction writers are able to do is to exploit that license for ambiguity, and feed just enough information into the system (their readers’ cognitive machinery), to generate output, a majority of which, one would expect, coincides with the author’s intended effect, but some of which does not (the proportion depends on the specificity of information, the language and phrasing, the contentiousness of the subject matter, the creative and associative powers of their audience, how accommodating or restrictive the author is, etc). What more fertile breeding ground for ideas than a field of brains?

field of brains
Field of brains, nurtured by the little guardian creature

In essence, people like artists and fiction writers are constantly conducting experiments of their own (or have the opportunity to do so). First, by exploring the boundaries of their own understanding (younger, or less-experienced writers/artists- let’s call them creators- spend the initial part of their career grappling with their personal boundaries and discovering that their questions have already been addressed and satisfactorily answered by others before them- effectively ‘getting it out of their system,’ before moving on to new fields and making unique contributions). Next, by articulating their questions coherently and attractively so that others (as many as possible) absorb the material and reflect on it. Then, creators who are good at their game collect feedback by drumming up publicity, arranging readings, receiving email from readers, responding to comments, blogging, overseeing production of a new movie, and so on.

Creators, consciously or not, form initial hypotheses about how their material will be received by others and what reactions will emerge. Audiences may understand precisely what the creator was getting at, even though concepts and conclusions were not explicitly spelt out- thus confirming the creator’s initial hypotheses. Audiences may come up with interpretations which, though unforeseen, are as profound and valuable as the author’s- sometimes more so. They may find applications for the creator’s provocative statements in domains outside the material’s original context. After all, an exceedingly important component of knowledge-gathering is the identification of pertinent questions in the first place- the question shared during all our forays is: ‘What do I ask?’

It’s also fascinating how, when the template designed by the creator happens to meet the needs of individuals so well that it seems tailor-made for them, audience members can easily believe that the creator’s original intention is identical to their particular interpretation. The fact that we have so many knowledge-processing mechanisms in common- e.g. in the realms of logical deduction, association-formation, pattern-detection- makes us extremely good at reading each other’s minds, and yet at times also makes us prone to forming connections that do not hold true in reality. The benefits of shared mental faculties and hardware exist alongside the dangers. Confidence in our deductive abilities can harm us during encounters with contexts too far beyond our grasp, as we extrapolate from previous successes and assume that a good track record implies future successes. Furthermore, in the absence of further (or contradictory) input, we tend to run whatever information is available through the system in iterative loops, reinforcing the beliefs already in place.

I feel that fiction writing is unique in the sense that it has the potential to reach a very wide audience, and harnesses the power of language to address questions rather more specifically than text-less images typically do. Technical, scientific literature, on average, lies at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of accessibility and reach, while non-fiction writing intended for a large readership occupies a position in between. At the end of the day, we’re all engaged in research.


Lack of controlled environments for people to explore technology

Let’s imagine that an employee of a large organisation is placed in a position for which he or she is under-qualified, and handed responsibilities that are far beyond his or her ability to deal with. Let’s say that as a result of that mismatch, the employee ends up making poor decisions, steers the organisation towards ruin, and that eventually all kinds of damage-control measures have to be implemented. Blame would ultimately directed at the management and human resource department for having placed that employee in an inappropriate position to begin with.

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This example is an analogy for the creators and users of technology. Let’s examine some of the headlines that one finds in the news these days:

  • Court bans Facebook stalker from contacting victim or posting any material that mentions or is directly related to the victim.
  • Stalkers make use of social networking sites and mobile phone GPS systems to pinpoint a victim’s location throughout the day.
  • Parents are aghast at the bullying tactics amongst children, carried out via email, social networking sites, and text messages, and feel that the situation is beyond their control.
  • Rise in hacking activity observed, as attackers make use of software that is freely available for download over the internet.
Human beings require many years to reach full emotional maturity. The ability to see things from someone else’s perspective, to consider the impact of one’s actions on the environment and other people, to understand issues that extend beyond oneself- all these skills are gradually built up and refined through experience and exposure to cumulative feedback.

Children and young people are naturally inquisitive, and when examining the world around them, tend to take their explorations to the limit. In this way, people can gradually learn where the boundaries lie, and develop an accurate understanding of the repercussions that follow if the limits are breached.

This is why we place children and young people in carefully controlled environments, and remove potential sources of danger- they're then free to explore their surroundings and are at lower risk of injuring themselves.

Sometimes these explorations involve conflict between individuals- arguments, fights, and bullying. When these battles are carried out on a small scale and children have enough emotional and physical support to recover and learn from losses, then such conflict helps make them stronger and equip them for adulthood. However, if their backup support systems are inadequate or non-existent, then such conflicts are detrimental and instead of growing stronger, children become damaged. Young people engage in verbal and physical fights, and always have. However, the location of the battlefield has expanded and the size of the impact is potentially much higher.

Many forms of technology do not have child-specific, built-in safeguards, as they were developed by and intended primarily for adults. Concerned parents install internet content filters and monitor messages on their kids’ mobile phones and social networks, in attempts to restrict access to information that is otherwise readily available. Maintenance of a safe, healthy environment for one’s children has become dramatically more difficult within recent years, and even parents who are technologically savvy, and are determined to protect their children from information that they are not mentally ready for, face a constant, increasingly frantic struggle.

Children who, in a less technologically-connected world, may have been able to escape from bullying once outside the school environment, may now be targeted continuously through text and online messages. Interactions that previously took place in a more private setting, face to face, or over a phone, with an attackers, are now on public display, and rumours, news of fights and humiliations, and insults, are propagated rapidly to numerous individuals. Repercussions are larger and persist for extended periods of time. In the past, periods of time in between confrontations were often periods during which nothing more happened, and people were given the opportunity to cool off. Now, instead, there are no ‘down times’- in the absence of direct contact, things are still able to escalate and those involved often lack the time and opportunity to defend themselves. Bad behaviour among individuals is not unnatural, but the context in which it now occurs is novel and largely unprecedented.

Before I go further, let me list a few key reasons why it is important and necessary to shield children and young people from certain types of information during their developing years.

  • Our bodies and brains mature gradually, starting from the time of conception. Thus there are experiences and conceptual realisations that are better understood by adults than by younger people, on average. Furthermore, the more experience one accumulates, the better-equipped one is at dealing with various situations.
  • As one’s knowledge base increases, one’s levels of power and control increase, allowing one to influence events more effectively. On the opposite side of the matter, when one is still fairly young and inexperienced, one’s ability to influence events is relatively small.
    Young people who are exposed to information about less-than-optimal situations in the world and are as yet unable to make positive contributions towards these situations (because they have yet to acquire the prerequisite levels of time, energy, experience, and money) may feel dispirited and discouraged, because they want to make a difference but are not able to, and may not be able to visualise a time in the future when they will be in a position to do so. Under such circumstances, it would be better if they were allowed to focus on acquiring the skills that they are ready to develop, and gain exposure to information that would encourage them and maintain their levels of hope, inspiration, and determination. Premature exposure to difficult issues that are beyond their current scope of influence can simply be counter-productive at this stage in life.
  • Each individual has a limited amount of time and resources to devote to information acquisition.
    Young people, in particular, benefit most when the allocation of their attention resources follows the priorities determined by people who are extremely wise and experienced, and who use their hindsight to help prevent younger people from wasting valuable time. Youngsters often may not have had the opportunity to consider a variety of options, when making decisions, due to lack of time and experience. In the absence of information about the variety of options available, it is easy for them to simply pick an option that they happen to know about, but which they might not have chosen if they had known about other the potential choices out there. Those with enough experience and understanding of the bigger picture need to help young people by acquainting young people with the range of choices available, or, if that is not feasible, by maximising the likelihood that youngsters select an option that serves their best interests, and minimising the likelihood that they pick a route that distracts them or wastes their time. In an ideal world, if each individual had an infinite amount of time and energy to explore any and every option that presented itself, this would not be an issue. In reality, however, in the interests of maximising each individual’s opportunities and potential for success, these constraints on one’s resources have to be considered and constraints on how young people spend their resources also have to be implemented. An obvious example of this is through school curricula, where overseers of the education system determine which subjects and topics are most important for children to learn.
  • When one is young, one's more inclined to take things personally.
    Whether one’s situation is good or bad, it is easy to believe that one’s situation is somehow determined by one’s actions. Similarly, when events occur, one tends to intuitively believe that one played a role, however indirectly, in bringing them about. As people grow older, with experience and hindsight, they come to realise that this is often not the case, and that they just happened to be affected as a matter of coincidence. For young people who have not yet grasped this insight, it can be very hard and demoralising for them if they believe that negative events result from their own actions. When they are exposed to unpleasant facts, if they are not simultaneously taught that the existence of such information is not their own fault, their levels of self-esteem may drop. Thus, if youngsters are at a stage in life where they are not equipped to understand that they are free of blame, then it might be best to shelter them somewhat from information that could lead them to think that they are responsible.
Some people think that young people of all ages should have unrestricted access to all kinds of information. As we've seen, such an approach would clearly be detrimental to the wellbeing of many children.

Let’s return to the topic of unlimited access to information and tools of technology.

Many forms of technology have developed rapidly and have not been accompanied by advances in support systems that make repairs in the event of failure or misuse. Tools such as Facebook are open to anyone, and yet no systematic system exists to deal with stalking, bullying, indiscriminate and unauthorised exchange and storage of content, or exploitation and misuse of that content. We do not have adequate ways of dealing with abuses of technology, in our legal systems, and have not discussed these issues thoroughly enough to reach a widely-held consensus within informal settings. Users of technology are rarely given clear information and instructions regarding the scope of their responsibilities when they make use of technology. They are not clearly and explicitly informed of their rights, restrictions on their use of technology, or the degree to which the information they upload then becomes available for public use. Potential users are simply presented with attractive lists that describe the benefits of using the technology, without being warned about the potential difficulties and abuses.

In my opinion, sites that offer their services (software downloads, free social networking accounts, etc.) should provide such information upfront, on their sign-in pages, alongside their advertising spiels, alluring Flash demos, and Quicktime movies. If I were a founder or was part of the committee of such sites, I would consider that a vital part of the site’s policy and implement that practise, so that potential and current users are informed of the possible repercussions, both good and bad, of using my technology. It strikes me as being a very basic part of one’s responsibility to the public, and yet I practically never come across instances where organisations take the initiative to provide users with critical information about the pros and cons of their technology. Instead, users are presented with information taken from the most flattering possible perspective, and, in a sense, prevented from receiving information about the disadvantages, without being shielded from experiencing those disadvantages.

Obviously, that applies to all advertising campaigns and marketers of products, but my focus here is on the exchange of information as a commodity, because consumers and providers are less used to thinking of digital and personal information as a resource, in the way that physical products are.

Many inventors and developers of technology believe in the existence of a shared aim to strive for the common good. Noble concepts such as intellectual commons and unrestricted distribution of information are born from such ideals. I definitely believe that it exists and that many people are strongly motivated to do the right thing and take the welfare of others into careful consideration. However, this does not erase the fact that many people do not share this vision or have not yet attained the right levels of mental maturity.

I think that people are gradually realising that regardless of how wonderfully well-intentioned releases of such technological tools may be, it may become less and less laudable for people to do so while absolving themselves of the responsibility of educating others about the ethics involved, and simply trusting that humankind’s natural inclinations towards good will win over those to perpetrate harm. If developers of technology habitually leave it to others to come up with solutions and fixes to the havoc that stems from misuses of their products, then there is no guarantee that positive effects will predominate or even just manage to outweigh the negative.

So, back to what I was saying about the fault ultimately lying with the way management placed their employee in an unsuitable position within the organisation.

Parents, educators, and developers and distributors of technology have the insights gleaned from years of experience to predict how technology might be misused. Primary responsibility lies with them, rather than with their children, in regulating its use. If we give our children tools at a stage in their lives when their mental maturity does not prohibit them from misusing the tools and hurting other people, and when they are naturally inclined to push these technologies to their limits at the expense of other considerations, then we should not be surprised when they do so.

Mobile phone companies, social networking sites, and all purveyors of technology should wake up and take on the responsibility to educate consumers of all ages about the ways in which the tool usage may be acceptable or unacceptable. We see clearly now that when misuses take place and all parties are put on the spot, each party tries to argue that the blame lies with the other parties. Children state that they were simply using technology in whatever ways were available to them. Parents blame technology for failing to tailor their products towards the needs of young, developing minds. Phone companies and various producers of technology blame parents for choosing to provide their kids with tools that are inappropriate for children. Everyone blames parents and schools for failing to instil the right moral values in children.

What has happened here is that each individual has acted thoughtlessly- when technology becomes available, people rush to exploit it just because it is there, and use it indiscriminately in all situations just because it has been shown to work effectively in some situations. When potential users of technology (children) are identified, sellers of technology rush to export it and capture a share of the market, just because monetary profits can potentially be made. No thought is given to the social consequences or implications. People need to consider long-term effects and implement necessary procedures in advance of widespread adoption of technology, and engage in discussions to identify possible problems and pre-empt them. The reactive way in which people are adopting and then criticising or recoiling at technology demonstrates how greedy we are when it comes to short-term profits, and how poorly we plan for the future, even though we have the resources and insights to do so.

Schools should require students and their care givers to sign contracts governing the use of technology, and clearly specify what types of behaviour are off-limits. At the very least, they should have plans of action in place to deal with difficult situations if the need arises, rather than completely wash their hands of the affair and claim powerlessness.

An entire generation of children is growing up with textual and visual details of their lives being posted freely online, from the time they are born, or even earlier, entirely without their consent. Just imagine how the situation will be ten years into the future, when facial recognition software is widespread and performs exceptionally, when data mining and pattern detection software are ubiquitous, and the data is readily available to anyone who takes an interest. Think of how children, particularly girls, will be stalked from early childhood into their teenage and adult lives, and copious amounts of information about their private lives will be accessible to stalkers, bullies, employees, acquaintances, and just about everyone else. Does this sound alarmist? Ask people who have been victims of abuse whether they felt alarmed by what was happening to them.

One might argue that we will eventually reach a time when almost everyone’s lives are so widely and publicly documented online, and this state of affairs will be so normal and acceptable that no one will bother to exploit the information- much like how in some affluent cities in the world, people don’t bother to steal phones or laptops which get lost in public settings because they are well-off and generally don’t have the inclination to. Well, we are not entering that comfortable stage in the history of human development anytime soon.

People who export and upload personal, private information now need to start projecting into the future, thinking about where things might be headed, and, as soon as possible, stop doing things just because technology allows them to, marketing tactics persuade them to, and everyone they know seems to be doing it.


How disparities between personal and collective goals may foster criminal activity

Complex, novel patterns emerge when individual units are aggregated together- human beings, for example, behave differently depending on whether they are operating independently and are motivated solely by their own interests, or whether they have formed bonds with other individuals and thus have to consider the effects that their actions have on others. When people share similar goals and mentalities, their interests may be closely aligned, so that decisions that benefit the individual members also benefit the group as a whole. When people have competing interests and adopt strategies that are mutually incompatible, then events that work in the interests of one individual will disadvantage another. This phenomenon underlies a lot of the conflict around us.

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Criminals and their organisations are adept at exploiting this disparity between the interests of the individual and those of society. Each of us maintains a set of ideals and tries to maximise the benefits accrued by ourselves, as individuals, as well as those that benefit society at large. Under certain circumstances, we place our personal wellbeing at the forefront, regardless of the harm that might befall others, while at other times, we believe strongly in the common good and are prepared to sacrifice our own interests for the sake of others. In tough, complex situations, the pros and cons of looking after our own interests and those of others are roughly equal and balance each other out, so it is difficult to organise one’s priorities and select an optimal solution. It may not be possible to find a win-win solution- sometimes we simply aim to minimise the overall harm caused.

Much of the time, we may consider certain acts so immoral that we firmly believe ourselves to be capable of carrying them out, or be party to them. However, it may be possible for the stakes to be set such that the harm that results from preventing or avoiding immoral acts from occurring is perceived to outweigh the negative effects of the acts, or the good that indirectly results from the acts compensates for the bad. Our attempts to strike a balance between good and evil may allow us to carry out activities of which we would otherwise never approve or in which we would refuse to get involved. Thus, there exists a range of activities that occupy a grey area- deeds that we perform only under desperate circumstances, very unwillingly, and because we feel that there is no other choice.

Criminals identify areas in which such conflicting interests exist, and adjust the stakes to their own advantage- in favour of wrongdoing. After all, people do not jump breezily from being innocent, blameless, upright citizens, to engaging in flagrantly illegal activities. Often, the first step towards becoming involved in criminal activity starts with engagement in some legal, perfectly acceptable activity- one may receive a gift from or do a favour for an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member. As this relationship evolves and the parties engage in activities that are mutually beneficial, a sense of trust and interdependence emerges. The introduction of criminal elements may be subtle, and not repugnant and condemnable enough to fracture the relationship completely.

In this way, innocent individuals establish ties with those who are not quite as blameless, may become witness to illegal proceedings. Once one is ‘guilty’ of having been present at unsavoury events, however, if one does not report wrongdoing, then one turns into a silent accomplice. This involvement, however minor, provides leverage for those who are more actively involved in criminal activities to perform some hand-twisting, and the bystander may coerced into taking on a more active role. Thus, one goes from being a witness to being an accomplice. One gets more heavily involved, feels trapped in the situation and unable to extricate oneself, and so becomes more easily manipulated into doing things that are in conflict with one’s morals.

Family loyalties are a good example. When someone commits a crime, relatives may feel obliged to help that individual because the interests of the family unit outweigh those of society, from the point of view of the family members.

Bribery exists because monetary rewards compensate the individual for guilt caused by the indirect harm that befalls others.

People become willing to adjust their belief systems and forsake their original values because they recognise that the situation is complex, the stakes are not clear-cut, they are not mentally prepared to forsake interpersonal relationships in order to uphold moral values, and they do not know how to deal with situations that involve numerous other individuals and seem to lie beyond their sphere of influence.

It takes courage and a strong sense of social responsibility to dissociate oneself from one’s personal drives (greed, fear of retribution, cowardice) and stand up for the common good. In fact, this quality so rare that when we come across examples of it, we feel moved and inspired, and celebrate it, instead of treating it as something to be expected as a matter of course. Behaving altruistically is easier if one realises how disproportionately hyperinflated our individual senses of self-worth are, compared to the contribution that the average individual actually makes to society as a whole. I try to adopt the perspective that other people’s successes are achievements shared by the whole of humanity, whereas jealous struggles and counter-productive competitiveness and sabotage are detrimental to progress.

We typically find it easiest to act on our own interests, followed by those of our family, followed by those with whom we share similarities (in culture, geographical location, belief systems), followed by those species with which we have most in common. Why is it so hard to act in ways that place collective interests at top priority? A major reason is that the representation of any concept requires the dedication of valuable mental resources. In order to act altruistically, we need to have mental representations of other people, an understanding of their motives, needs, and desires, and a capacity to understand how our actions affect everyone else. The more people in whom we take an interest, the more computational power and memory storage devoted to them by our brain. Why are some people so selfless, while others are apparently so selfish? Regions of the brain that are responsible for representations of others are developed to a greater or lesser degree, across individuals, so there exists some variation in our mental capacity to feel compassion and concern for those besides ourselves.


Transhuman bodies as insurance against unexpected attacks

We often come across comments, enthusiastic and disparaging, about the trajectory of technological development, and read predictions about the continued merging of humans and machines. Many of us consider ourselves a type of biological machine (supplemented by our beloved and indispensable gadgets), and look forward to a future of augmentation, enhancement, and replacement.

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Sometimes people think that such enthusiasm belies a lack of appreciation for our unenhanced human bodies. In contrast, I think that the vast majority of the time, the opposite's true- it stems from the placement of great value on the human mind, and is accompanied by a strong awareness of the frailty of our physical bodies.

Many of us are fortunate. We go about our daily lives without worrying too much for our safety. Our anxieties revolve around the meeting of project deadlines, landing of contracts and grants, the reception strength on our mobile phones, and the availability and affordability of our favourite beverage.

Even those of us who struggle to pay rent and loans are often free of gnawing, primal anxieties regarding our physical safety. We do not expect to encounter vicious assailants and suffer physical abuse unless we are extremely unlucky.

Shedding of blood is carried out with benign intentions- a medical check up, a blood donation, onset of a menstruation cycle. Sometimes, we have accidents- unpredictable events devoid of any real intention to hurt. Rarely is the integrity of our skin or blood vessels compromised for gratuitous reasons. The idea that another person could physically lift a finger against our gentle, sensitive selves is simply impossible, outrageous, and incredible. It belongs to the realm of fantasy, a parallel universe where Boolean logic, math, and computer programming do not exist. We can no more imagine someone striking us, than we can envision ourselves maliciously attacking someone else.

I dislike the way the phrase ‘back to reality’ is used to convey the perception that good exists purely as an ideal, while the ‘real world’ is crawling with subversive, scheming agents. It implies that those of us who are seldom exposed to malicious elements are oblivious and naive in a way that is somehow to our detriment, and we would benefit from a sharp yank back to earth.

I believe that a long-term aim of humanity is to progressively minimise each generation’s exposure to unhappiness, fear, boredom, and hopelessness. The higher the proportion of people who are involved in minimising the hardship endured by humanity at large, while themselves remaining relatively free from suffering, the closer we are to that ideal.

Note that freedom from personal hardship does not equate to ignorance about suffering. If increasing numbers of people get through life, experiencing minimum levels of personal affliction, and this freedom from personal suffering results in more resources being allocated towards alleviation of pain felt by others, then progress is inevitable.

If, however, people remain unaware and unconcerned about their responsibilities towards the less fortunate, then gains derived from their freedom from hardship are lavished solely on themselves. Insulation from the fact that a comfortable life is often obtained at others’ expense (knowingly or not) makes some of us believe that such privileges are innately deserved, and furthermore, that the tribulations of others are equally deserved. This misconception is too widespread.

Back to the topic of human vulnerability and our perceptions of strength or weakness. When we feel confident and capable mentally, we tend to perceive our bodies as being strong, impenetrable, alert, and responsive. When we feel uncertain and afraid, our bodies seem more vulnerable and prone to injury and disease- physically passive and sluggish, rather than active.

When I feel shaken by some unexpected and unpleasant event, for example, I tend to be very careful when crossing the road or undertaking any kind of strenuous physical activity. In contrast, when we feel particularly indestructible, or are with groups of friends, buoyed by emotion and security in numbers, we are often able to dash together across streets in front of traffic with little fear for our wellbeing.

What happens when we become suddenly aware of another reality? (I’m avoiding use of the phrase ‘return to reality.’) When, instead of perceiving every face as a potential ally, we see a potential threat? When we realise that our sense of invulnerability is temporary and subjective, and we are as mortal as any other living organism?

It sends a shock to the system to recall that a blow to the body can paralyse, a bullet to the head can kill, and a weapon controlled by a maniac whose beliefs and priorities are vastly different from ours can dramatically change or cripple our lives. In fact, this knowledge can be so overwhelming and frightful that we suppress our ability to absorb its implications. Instead, we’re overcome with feelings of disbelief and incredulity, which prevent our minds from dwelling on or exploring scenarios that seem too dire.

Those of us who, for whatever, reason, have had the opportunity to visualise these hypothetical scenarios in greater levels of lurid detail than most, inevitably reach the realisation that the human body is regrettably vulnerable and susceptible to the whims of misfortune. The investment we pour into building stores of knowledge, accumulating experiences, and implementing ideas for the eventual benefit of others, is disproportionately huge, relative to the trivial ease with which an unexpected encounter with a deranged individual can cut off one’s life.

This is one reason why it's so essential that we eventually develop the ability to move our repositories of knowledge from human wetware, which exists in the form of unique and hard-to-replicate copies (each ‘copy’ being distinct from every other), to software, which can easily be duplicated, stored, retrieved, and transmitted.

This is an obvious issue when one considers the loss that results when an extremely talented individual dies due to old age or disease.

However, death is inevitable and we may all plan for the occasion with a high level of confidence that it'll occur. One may write books, train mentees, give lectures, draft wills, record podcasts, and so on, in preparation. One can usually undertake some advance preparation, before departure, whereas the planning that one can carry out prior to an unexpected incident, in comparison, is minimal.

We're relatively poorly equipped to plan for accidents and emergencies, by their very nature.

My emphasis here is on the importance of mind-machines interfaces for preservation of our knowledge bases, as insurance against sudden and unforeseen events. This ties back to my earlier point about how mistaken is the belief that the drive towards development and integration of machines with our bodies stems from an undervaluation of our physical bodies-

It comes, instead, from a highly realistic confrontation of our mortality and vulnerability, and the realisation that we can eventually circumvent this biological limitation with the aid of and increasing reliance on technology. This is the meeting of hard, cynical appraisement of our bodies’ shelf life, with bright unabashed hope for what is to come.


Gentle vs brutal: Mindsets that characterise personalities and dichotomise behaviour

To me, the idea of a human being hitting another, without provocation, is out of this world. The idea of a human being hitting another on the head, for any reason whatsoever, is staggering. It’s unthinkable- the damage that might result to our vulnerable, unprotected, biological system- eye injuries, brain damage, aesthetic insult. Till now I honestly find it hard to believe that such a thing could happen. Finally, the idea of someone hitting another person on the head and unprovoked is beyond all belief.

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I’ve thought about brutality and violence in the past, and these are my semi-developed conclusions:
  • Some physically aggressive people have low self esteem, and possess high levels of hatred that is directed externally, even at strangers.
  • People who perpetrate violent acts tend to have little respect for others. They assign low value to objects and individuals whom they encounter, especially when they lack the knowledge that's required to appreciate skill, beauty, and utility, or estimate potential worth. This makes them more likely to engage in destructive acts- vandalism, injurious behaviour, and theft. Instead of valuing things and recognising their inherent potential, the hard work and effortful reduction in entropy that they represent, or making the effort to imagine the existence of these qualities, these individuals tend to see mere targets for their misdirected anger.
  • These destructive individuals often have the strong perception that another’s loss is their gain, and vice versa. This is a condemnable and widespread myth. You often see it in contexts that involve tribe behaviour, where there are in-groups and visible enemy out-groups. Humans are highly socially-conscious and easily get brainwashed into accepting and abiding by the lowest-common-denominator of standards to which we are exposed. Thus people become indoctrinated by the perception that victory necessitates triumph over the enemy, and an enemy’s success constitutes loss, shame, embarrassment, and injury to oneself. This false conception brings ruin, suffering, and misery, in numerous contexts, around the world. Consider how personally people take the ‘defeat’ of a favoured sports team. How inflated our sense of prowess and well-being when our team ‘wins.’ People engage in all kinds of rituals that we typically fail to recognise as disguised instances of superstitious behaviour. Take the way fans dress up in team colours and decorate themselves with symbols which represent their side- from mascots, to shields, to logos, to face paint, to players’ names, to rallying chants and music. People carry out little routines that they believe will bring luck to their team- despite their overt awareness that whether a fan puts on a shoe on the right foot first, or on the left, that morning, could not possibly make any significant difference to the outcome of a game, in the overwhelming majority of cases. Professionals such as lawyers and doctors enact little rituals too, but the boost delivered to their psyche has direct and tangible effects on their performance at work- thus such practices are far more rationally-grounded than those performed by fans, of the type I just mentioned.
  • Most of the criminals and hoodlums I’ve encountered- the vast majority- are incredibly cowardly. They drive by in cars, on bicycles, in packs, while I am alone and on foot. It still surprises me that they do this- how do they live with themselves, knowing that they aren’t confident or brave enough to face someone on their own, to challenge someone their own size, or to face up to consequences after they have been caught? The surprises never end. I guess it goes back to the issue of low self esteem, or a lack of awareness of what self esteem constitutes. Fortunately, I’ve mostly lived in countries with dependable, efficient law enforcement systems, and am equipped with determination.
I imagine that abusive, destructive individuals have little respect for themselves, just as they often harbour low regard for others. I might be mistaken, though- maybe it’s just that my definition of self-respect and the components that define it are vividly different. Some factors that boost one’s self-respect (in my mind) include:
  1. Confidence in one’s ability to handle a variety of situations and maintain control over one’s thoughts, perceptions, and actions.
  2. Development of the ability to perceive good and potential for good in difficult situations and settings.
  3. Acquisition of knowledge that equips one to handle life’s events adeptly, and possibly influence things for the better.
  4. Development of a strong internal moral code, which one is able to defend and apply. Bonus points if one is able to articulate the reasoning behind this code in substantial detail.
  5. Ability to continually learn and assimilate new pieces of information, to modify and refine one’s beliefs.
  6. Ability to build on prior knowledge and experience, whether encountered in person or indirectly through others.
All this is so painfully obvious, it should bore a reader to death, except for one thing: There're lots of people out there who don't find these statements obvious and don't live by these maxims. To many, the items I've listed are incomprehensible, laughable, or unsound. Living by such principles, in the minds of such individuals, would predominantly bring about personal loss, suffering, and undesirable defeat, in the grand competition against others in the game of life.

I imagine that some individuals enhance their self-esteem using opposing strategies and ways of thinking. Maybe they truly believe that:
  1. Violence can be applied indiscriminately and successfully in every situation, and those who exert the greatest levels of physical force come out on top.
  2. Beyond a select group of favoured individuals, no one else matters, and no one else’s wellbeing, safety, progress, or enhancement should be considered a priority.
  3. One’s reservoir of knowledge remains more or less static. One already knows everything that one needs to know, for the rest of one’s life. Recognition of gaps in knowledge is akin to admission of weakness and cannot be tolerated.
  4. One’s moral code consists primarily of doctrines that are absorbed and internalised unquestioningly from others. Verbal attempts to defend the principles by which they live are insubstantial and incoherent. Or, one’s moral code simply revolves around the perception that anything that benefits oneself is good, and all else is bad or useless.
  5. Since ‘admission’ that one does not know something is a weakness, the only alternatives are to downplay the value of that knowledge, or perceive the knowledge as being too intangible, ungraspable, and irrelevant to acquire.
  6. Instead of learning from the difficulties of others and celebrating and sharing their victories, their trials are perceived as defining characteristics of their person, and their successes are to be disparaged and mocked. This stems from the perception that life is a zero-sum game and another’s gain is necessarily one’s loss.


Rise above these: diffusion of responsibility, the bystander effect, overactive instincts for self-preservation, & excessive fear of litigation

I’ve experienced enough to now form hardened, critical views of people who have extremely low thresholds for triggering of self-protective behaviour, such that their willingness to investigate uncertain situations and examine their potential for helping others becomes strongly suppressed.

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What on earth do I mean? I’ve been in several situations where I’m dealing with individuals who have just committed a crime. This has occurred in public places, in broad daylight, in city centres with plenty of pedestrians milling around. Whenever I've had the opportunity to cry out for help and to do so repeatedly, I've taken it. I’ve called out to people to help me stop criminals as they run, or cycle away. I’ve explicitly asked to people to help me keep watch over a criminal I’d caught, and to help me detain him until the police turn up. I’ve appealed to people to call the police; at the very least, anyone with a mobile phone and a few seconds to spare should be able to do that.

There was not a single time, out of all these instances, when I’ve been able to rely on the support of others. Not one. It’s astounding.

It makes you wonder what would have happened if the crime perpetrated had been worse- more violent, more aggressive, more brutal. If that person had had a knife, or a bottle. It makes me sick to think about these things in much depth. Yet, after some unfortunate experiences, I’m forced to ponder these issues, albeit in a fairly vague, non-committal way.

On the most recent occasion, for instance (such instances are NOT common! They’re rare and bizarre!), I called out to numerous passers by, none of who bothered, from their relatively safe location across the road, to pull out their phone and call the police. Not one person stood by my side to make sure I had company while and after I called the police myself, even though I was physically attacked and bleeding. This is partly because there are legions of ridiculous, thoughtless kids around who cry wolf perpetually, and one tends to block them out. (Local slang refers to them as ‘chavs.’) Minutes after I made my call, my assailant returned to deliver more punches. Fortunately, I’m fine, and all injuries were superficial. A quick check up and set of x-rays at the hospital, a wasted evening, and possibly testimony in court. Things routinely are worse for people around the world. But it’s incredible when people do not take the effort to evaluate a situation, recognise its severity, and feel compelled to do something.

I’ll say it out loud, publicly, once and for all: I despise people who do not do what is within their power to help someone or prevent harm from taking place. Despise them.

A note of thanks to the readers out there who, if they had been nearby, would have rushed to offer support. I know there're lots of you but I just haven’t been fortunate enough to have such people around on these occasions. Keep on doing what you believe is right. Never give up!!!


Counter violence with courage: Banish misconceptions about criminal behaviour and report attacks immediately

A point that I frequently make to people: I’ve realised that, if nothing else, as long as you live in a place where the criminal justice system is adequate, you HAVE to take the appropriate formal measures to report a crime. Criminals are people, with habits, tendencies, psychological attitudes and predictable (to an extent) behaviours. They tend to commit crimes over and over again. Those of us who encounter them sometimes feel as though we are the only ones who are being targeted. I assure you that this is NOT the case. People who cheat and steal do so when they see the opportunity, and the longer they go without being stopped, the bolder they get. I personally appeal to each of you who read this: if you encounter someone who commits a crime, report it at once.

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Here are some typical thoughts that run through the mind after an unpleasant encounter:
  1. That perpetrator picked me for some reason, I must have triggered this unpleasant event. Thus this situation is partly my fault.
  2. This is a one-time occurrence- a blip on the radar. I was just unlucky to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  3. I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. If that person goes on the rob/ assault/ kill/ rape/ torture someone else, then those other victims should be responsible for turning that person in. I want no more to do with this matter.
  4. My time is too valuable to be wasted in pursuit of the matter, I should cut my losses.
  5. If the criminals find out my identity, they'll bring their groupies back and strike with a vengeance. The likelihood is not worth it.
  6. The perpetrator has had a life fraught with difficulty and almost certainly been the victim of abuse and neglect. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on him/her/them. I don't want to press charges after all.
  7. There is nothing I can do.
Each of these is wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is how perpetrators are able to get away with their deeds. This is how their crimes escalate in severity until they finally get caught and everyone puzzles over why they weren’t stopped earlier. This is why people continue to be oppressed, victimised, and have their hopes crushed- because those who were in a position to prevent future harm failed to take a stand.

They failed to make their positive contribution to the welfare of society by buying into the beliefs I just listed. They could have put up a flag, made a report, signalled a warning- and didn’t. Don’t be like that. If you have in the past, don’t be anymore.

Do you seriously believe that allowing wrong doers to get off scot-free will make them grateful, give them the chance to rise out as phoenixes from your ashes? That they will lie in bed thinking, "That girl was soft-hearted enough not to report me. I won't attack another innocent, vulnerable human being from now on, in memory of her decency"? If you are inclined to think along these lines at times, I understand- such tender thoughts drift through my mind occasionally too. Such thoughts serve to appease the area of my brain that generates my most paranoid and selfish instincts. It's self-perceived matyrdom minus any tangible external benefits.

Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that we encounter strangers on a regular basis. Lack of accountability and influence upon a stranger’s social sphere leaves us feeling ill-equipped to pass judgement and carry justice to its conclusion. People assume that someone else is responsible for dealing with bad behaviour- the police, the government, other unlucky victims. Guess what? It is you, you are responsible. If nothing else positive comes of a tough situation, at least you can gain the satisfaction of knowing that you have, maybe in a small, but nevertheless substantial way, brought an issue of accountability to the attention of authorities who are equipped to deal with such matters.

You may think in terms of the particular circumstances, e.g., if I bring someone to justice today, the offender may react by causing harm to someone else tomorrow. This misses the bigger picture. Prevention and reporting of crime brings benefits to society, on average. That is what counts- the collective decision, made by upright individuals, to work towards the common good and remember that even if benefits accrue to some unknown person in the indiscernible future, they are worth it. Who knows how much the actions of some stranger in the distant past have benefitted you, without their knowledge or their having received any form of appreciation? When one considers the picture in this broader context, one comes to realise that the reasons for not reporting a crime listed above are less selfless than they initially seem, and it would be more selfish to keep the information toineself than to pass it on to authorities who have extensive experience in handling such matters.

There’ve been a few times when I let an incident pass, without pursuing the matter, because there really was little I could do under the circumstances. However, I could never feel satisfied with my lack of action- I’d keep replaying the situation in my head, thinking of how, if some small factor had varied, I might have caught the person. And I think of ways in which, in future encounters, I'll have faster reflexes, clearer memories, sharper wits, and minimal reliance on others to see the process of apprehending someone through to the end.

I’ll end on a sober note: Sometimes (for me, all the times so far) the only person you can rely on is yourself. No matter how much you think that having a partner or a group of friends is going to protect you, there are times when you are just alone.

And besides, I tend to think that ultimately, the strategy of surrounding yourself with protection simply deflects a violent individual’s actions towards another target. Deterring criminal behaviour by sticking to a group and feeling reluctant to stand and walk alone is no way to live. It sends signals to others that they can dominate using strength of numbers, fear, and oppression. It reinforces the mindset that one has to and is willing to conform to certain (irrational and unjustifiable) expectations (how one looks, talks, and behaves).

That said, the fact that you may be physically alone from time to time DOES NOT mean you are isolated and unsupported in spirit. If you have been oppressed, beaten down, and forced to endure evil, then no matter what anyone says- family, acquaintances, friends, enemies, society- your plight is recognised by people around the world as being wrong and unjust. International organisations that offer support and services include Amnesty International, UN Women, CARE International, the World Health Organisation, and the Global Fund for Women.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have protection from our governments and access to our freedoms:
Formulate your standards with compassion and rigour, believe in them, and always do as you know is right.


Parsing of personal attributes: An analogy between browser capabilities and our ability to interact with people

Human beings have physical characteristics, which I’ll call ‘attributes.’ Attributes include:
  • One’s belief systems (political, religious, cultural, national affiliations).
  • Features that closely associated with one’s appearance.
(Note: By listing ‘belief systems’ separately from ‘physical features,’ I’m drawing an arbitrary distinction for simplicity’s sake. Our mentalities and beliefs systems are part of our bodies as they emerge from the physical structure of our brain and the arrangement of its components, and overlap with one’s appearance.)

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Certain attributes emerge from physical components that are readily modifiable. By ‘readily modifiable,’ I mean that changes can take place to a large extent and/or rapidly.

For example, our beliefs are embodied in networks of neurons and the cells and chemicals that surround them. The number, location, and strength of connections between neurons can be altered rapidly- this confers relatively high levels of flexibility upon our thoughts and belief systems. The exact shade of our skin, for many of us, is also modifiable to a degree. Our body sends signals to melanin-producing cells, depending on the amount of sunlight to which our skin is exposed. The more sunlight detected, the more melanin produced. Our physical location might be a highly variable parameter, particularly for those of us who are geographically mobile. Attributes such as cultural identity, language spoken, and national identity are susceptible to modification.

Other attributes are less easily modified, as they depend on aspects of our biology that are resistant to change, or change very slowly. Our gender identity, for example, tends to stay constant for extended periods (if not throughout an entire lifetime). Our racial identity, though often complex and impossible to define (should one care to try), is, after all, dependent on each individual’s particular genetic makeup, and could be considered fairly stable with time as well.


Why do I find the degree of modifiability of attributes so interesting?

Think about what happens when we want to adjust our personal parameters. For instance, we might desire to change neighbourhoods or countries. We might feel like altering some aspect of our appearance. We might want to renounce prior beliefs, and adopt new ones.

If we’re dealing with easily-modifiable characteristics, we adjust the settings and move on.

If, on the other hand, we’re unable to make the desired changes, we may experience prolonged frustration and suffer the effects of our predetermined condition. Instead of identifying most closely with attributes that one possesses, one identifies more with those that have not been attained. This disparity between reality and our ideal state leads to dissatisfaction with oneself, resentment, jealousy towards individuals with our ideal attributes, and the feeling of being trapped.

Regardless of how easily modifiable various attributes may be, we make judgments and form perceptions of others based on these attributes.

With experience, we grow better at recognising whether attributes are of the readily-modifiable, or the hard-to-change variety. Importantly, we are able to separate attributes that cannot easily be changed, from ones that can. We learn to devalue judgments that are based primarily on factors that lie beyond the control of the individual, and rely more heavily on those that lie within.

Furthermore, the degree to which particular attributes can or cannot be adjusted differs with the individual. Some people are adept at leaping from one mental state to another, while others take longer to assimilate concepts. Some of us can modify our physical appearance quite dramatically if we choose to. Our degree of flexibility can also be improved upon with practise (‘meta-flexibility,’ anyone?)

If, when dealing with a particular individual, we have an understanding of the degree of control they possess over factors that determine their attributes, then we can see where they’re coming from, and empathise and identify with them more closely.

Great confusion arises when we're unaware of another person’s perspective and influences. We make significant errors when we try to estimate the degree of control that such a person has over his or her attributes.

We tend to assume, for instance, that individuals who share certain attributes are similar across a number of other attributes. Fairly often, this assumption is valid, and helps us when we’re trying to ‘size up’ someone. This occurs when the attributes under consideration are well correlated.

For example, let’s consider the attributes ‘fluency in Javascript’ and ‘fluency in HTML.’ Both of these are web programming languages. HTML is a crucial component in your average web programmer’s toolkit. Javascript is also widely used, but is not quite as essential. If I met someone who was familiar with Javascript, I’d probably be safe in assuming that they also knew how to code in HTML.

What happens when, instead, there’s a low degree of correlation between the attributes being considered, or when I meet an individual with outlying attribute values? Lots of Javascript users are also adept at using Photoshop (an image-editing software). Similarly, lots of Photoshop users are able to programme in Javascript. However, there isn’t as strong and direct a link between the two capabilities, as there was with HTML and Javascript fluency- one can be an expert in one without having any real experience with the other.

When one considers attributes that have even lower levels of correlation, such as level of education and Javascript fluency, or nationality and Javascript fluency, or gender and Javascript fluency, then one’s ability to infer a person’s other characteristics dwindles to zero.

Obvious and yawn-inducing, isn’t it? But look at how frequently we make assumptions about others based on attributes with low levels of correlation. Some of us are barely aware of the frequency with which we get our inferences wrong. I’m not claiming that the tendency to make generalisations is wrong- it serves us well on many occasions, but only when the context is valid.


We can often test the accuracy of our assumptions about people within carefully defined contexts- when we’ve time and resources at our disposal to interact extensively with others and examine their points of view.

However, in order to save ourselves time and energy, we often extend our predictions to contexts that lie beyond the scope of our investigative powers. Our confidence in our estimates becomes misplaced, without our consciously realising it.

It’s regrettably common, for instance, for people to sample the range of characteristics and personalities encountered amongst their schoolmates during childhood, and then to carry these preconceptions into adulthood, where they no longer hold true.

Similarly, people glean information about others through one-time encounters, and fail to identify which attributes are readily modifiable, which are resistant to change, and the degree to which attributes are correlated.

Someone who has pleasant encounters with individuals of a particular background, for instance, and who has not had any negative experiences with people of that nationality, may erroneously assume that everyone of that background is as lovely and pleasant.

Erroneous judgments can be far more detrimental than we typically realise- we perceive gentle, compassionate individuals as hostile and dangerous, and vice versa. In fact, we’re so bad at identifying our weaknesses in judgment that we build up inaccurate mental representations of ENTIRE NATIONS of people- and act on them.

We’re so used to perceiving the world intuitively that we fail to appreciate the value of questioning our assumptions, let alone actually question them. Our techniques make sense within one context so we apply them indiscriminately to others. We rarely stop to challenge the accuracy of our beliefs or examine the mechanisms that generate them.


Now, let’s think about how our mode of interaction affects our access to and interpretation of somebody’s attributes.

The nature of our interactions with others changes continually. We assimilate the language spoken by our family members and encounter individuals from a similar background face-to-face. As we grow older, we encounter more and more individuals who vary along numerous attributes. We continue to meet others in person; we also interact long-distance, through audiovisuals and text.

The interface through which we interact with others determines which of our personal attributes are accessible to them. If we provide photos and descriptions of physical characteristics, we allow others to internalise these attributes and parse them accordingly. If we provide write-ups, resumes, and text-based documents, we supply people with a different (though often overlapping) set of attributes.

It’s akin to the way different internet browsers (and versions) are more or less equipped to handle lines of code- some may be able to parse certain commands and execute them correctly, whereas others simply ignore the commands that they are not designed to interpret, or they make heroic, inadequate attempts and trigger fatal errors.

When we bring new experiences, tools, and insights, to our interpersonal dealings, it’s just like writing useful new scripts in web programming languages and/or upgrading your browser, so that you can compile and display a larger number of web pages more accurately!


Sunlight heightens our sense of adventure

Have been thinking about why levels of sunlight in our environment exert such strong effects on our mood. One reason relates to the amount of visual information.

Imagine that you’re cycling through fields in an area that’s obscured by clouds- murky grey filters cast a gloomy pallor over the scenery- it’s like swimming underwater.

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But in an instant, the clouds shift, and light cracks over the landscape, suddenly etching objects into vivid relief, with concentrated patches of light reflecting off their upper surfaces, and crisp shadows deeply and darkly underlining their forms. In the distance, you see floodlights of sun over patchwork hills and grazing cows. At closer range, you see quivering slices of grass and aerated clumps of soil.

This transforms our perception of the world around us- previously, it was harder to discern the depth and structure of objects in the environment. A uniform layer of shade blended objects into each other, attenuating their complexity, compressing our sensations of depth, and narrowing our perspective.

Addition of light increased our spatial resolution, added visual cues about the relationship between objects, their degree of overlap, their distinct identities, and enhanced our ability to discern their shape. Luminance and colour, and consequently, other visual parameters, become sharply magnified, and our brain gains more information about our surroundings.

The more information received, the more aware we are of the things around us, and thus the more control we possess. This helps us feel more engaged with our environment, more confident and curious, and less inclined to hibernate under a blanket. When we’re used to absorbing high volumes of visual stimulation from the environment, it’s particularly hard to operate with reduced input levels- our brains feel underworked. It’s like the difference between watching early CG graphics, and the lavishly-detailed renderings achievable today.

Note that the range of stimulation to which we’re accustomed is key- with prolonged exposure to stimuli under a particular range of illumination, our brains learn to discriminate contrasts at the resolution necessary for everyday life. It’s when we change environments and rely on sub-optimally-tuned visual apparatus, that we notice the consequences of this mismatch.


Helpful vulnerability and the wedding formula

Social beings that we are, we seek to win and maintain the approval of our fellow human beings. To demonstrate that we're of use to society, we engage in and strike a balance between two activities: First, we broadcast our skills and assets, showing others that we’re capable of making valuable contributions. Second, we make known our vulnerabilities. We would not want to appear so talented and resource-rich that others become antagonistically envious or jealous. Thus, we play down our qualities by acquainting others with our flaws and reminding them of challenges that we often have to grapple with.

Think about weddings, for example.

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I attended a ceremony recently, and watched a movie with a wedding scene, so have been drawing on them for inspiration. Why is it, when the bride and/or groom have to pick a friend or relative to make a speech, that they so often choose a person who has known them for a long time, someone who is intimately familiar with their quirks, annoying habits, and past and present faults? Someone who is, moreover, guaranteed to make gleeful references to these imperfections, and offer the audience a laugh at the couple’s expense?

Examine the types of statements made and anecdotes recounted, in greater detail. Attributes could be things like, ‘She is obsessed with detail and has OCD tendencies,’ ‘He used to love playing with dolls and dressing up in his mother’s clothes,’ ‘She can’t stop nagging,’ ‘He was always the joker of the class.’

The ‘flaws’ described tend to be non-fatal, in the sense that under most circumstances, or according to an indulgent-enough observer, these traits may be construed as funny, endearing, and on the whole, definitely not unpleasant enough to outweigh the numerous overtly positive qualities of the person being described. No one brings up fatal, potentially deal-breaking flaws, or frames negative characteristics that way- people who could conceivably have poor-enough judgment to make things awkward are not invited to make uncensored speeches about the bride and groom.

The amusing, embarrassing, or annoying traits brought up by the speaker may be ones that remain highly characteristic of the subject, or may have grown less applicable, as the person matured and changed over time. Either way, they inform the audience that at some point in the subject’s life, he or she was imperfect. We tend to think of people’s personalities as being relatively consistent- even if traits are particularly childish and were prevalent mostly when the subject was much younger, the listener tends to associate personal attributes with a degree of innateness, as if our understanding of genetics and their causal effects on behaviour and disposition were intuitively encoded.

Children are often held to lower standards, due to a perceived lack of maturity and/or experience. We are more forgiving and accepting of flaws in younger people, and may dismiss their faults more casually, with the reasoning, ‘They can’t help it- they’re that way naturally, and haven’t had the time to learn to correct themselves.’

Outlining the bride and groom’s flaws works to their favour, regardless of whether the flaws are still flagrant, or have subsided. In the former case, their mention alerts the audience to the fact that these traits are widely recognised, have been tolerated by close friends and family for some time (so it must be possible to get used to them), are characteristic of the person under discussion (perhaps endearing), and can be turned into the subject of a joke (thus they can’t be all that bad, and the subject must have a sense of humour to listen to this). It also attests to the stability of the subject’s personality- the continued existence of less-than-positive traits may imply an improbability of the emergence of new ones? As for the instances where imperfections have diminished over the years, in the latter scenario, the subject appears all the more attractive for having improved with time- let’s just hope that the predisposition to nag, throw tantrums, behave selfishly, or descend into an angst-ridden stupor, isn’t seething beneath the surface, waiting to explode back!

This is what I call ‘helpful vulnerability’- when public acknowledgement of one’s imperfections is made in such a way that the audience perceives these shortcomings as controllable, tolerable, and even likeable (i.e. non-fatal), these traits act as a ‘handle’ with which others can safely interact, comfortable in the knowledge that you are, after all, a fallible human being, and which they may use to take you down a peg, if necessary. Ultimately, it lubricates the workings of our relationship with others.

The controlled environment offered by a wedding ceremony is ideal for this mild display of vulnerability. As mentioned earlier, the speaker is carefully selected for acerbic wit tempered with deep-seated love and good taste. The audience is in a receptive mood- eager to respond well to attempts at humour, deprecation, and sincerity in depictions of people. Throwbacks to childhood, simple times, and simpler minds, help to soften the heart.

This ritual, typically held in front of dozens of people, assembled from different facets and periods of our life, brings numerous benefits- we appear humble, having been made light fun of by our rascally friend or humorous relative. Our audience is reminded, both verbally and through images, of how we looked and behaved as children, and is thus primed to view us through kinder, more doting eyes, due to the power of the ‘awww’ factor. Having chosen a speaker who references earlier events and characteristics, we are subtly presented as ones who ‘do not forget our roots,’ and who give credit to old friends and family where it is due- a graceful way of flattering our listeners and engaging their attention.

All in, these speeches serve to assure those who are present that the flaws mentioned constitute the worst that one can expect from the individual in question- which surely bodes well for the new spouse, doesn’t it?


Building and maintaining mind dams for cognito-electric energy:

Delays in thought processing to allow accumulation of half-formed ideas, in anticipation of gushing cascades of mental power. Also: my dream for a bracelet-implemented virtual keyboard.

Constraining of one’s mind can be dangerous when taken to the extreme, but well-calibrated control over the speed and trajectory of our thoughts can yield benefits in quality and efficiency in their production and consolidation that time-strapped ponderers and writers learn to value highly.

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People have a keen understanding of how to curtail their trains of thought or delay their passage down a particular conceptual tunnel, in order to extract the maximal benefits from these deliberations when the time is ripe.

Two main factors here:

The ability to brainstorm and examine related cognitive avenues (a process which primarily involves mental machinery, such as storehouses of knowledge, insight, and inspiration, and which sometimes takes place quite rapidly, as our flitting inner gaze touches on and burrows through multiple avenues), and

The ability to capture and represent them in full vivid detail in an external medium, such as in writing (a process which typically requires more than one’s mind- pen and paper, a laptop, or a voice recorder).

Sometimes our output is best when the actions undertaken are novel and unrehearsed- take certain types of writing, for example. The flow of words may issue forth, natural and unimpeded, in perfect prose, when rendered with a clear fresh mind for the first time.

Often, too, our delight in forging our way down a path of new discovery fuels our enthusiasm for the journey. Attempts to generate energetic sentences, commit them to memory, and then reconstruct them after an unreasonable delay, may render them stilted, or the ideas disappointingly obvious. Once ideas have been elaborated on and taken firm root in our mind, it may be too boring an endeavour to verbalise and preserve them formally in non-biological substrate on subsequent occasions.

Furthermore, newly-glimpsed ideas are unploughed soil over which we roam, in the luxurious knowledge that we’re preparing our minds for the exploitation of previously-unrealised potential. The senses are stimulated by novelty at every turn, the energetic rewiring, indexing, and allocation of memory banks are clamouring for the delivery and mobilisation of newly purchased raw materials. No confusion arises over whether we have tread this route before- no false memories to blur our recollection of the number of times these thoughts have occurred.

This makes the task of gathering and documenting our thoughts much easier, in the sense that we need worry less about the possibility of leaving out some crucial piece of information due to unfortunate hackneyed oversight. When ideas are fresh, they have not yet been sorted, pored over to the point of exhaustion and contempt, and packed safely and indistinguishably away, unable to trigger jogs of the mind. When they arrive gleaming off the press they’re like new photos that we display appreciatively, upon which our eyes linger, as we pass by in the hallway.

If we force ourselves to examine an issue prematurely, our minds may not have the energy to summon requisite resources into its exploration and thus we fail to give it a fair amount of consideration. Once the first opportunity has been squandered through reckless foraging, the second time may not offer the level of reward promised by a clean first. We may have caught sight of a vision through a door left half-open, but by shutting it, while promising vaguely to return to it the next time, we sketch out a placeholder in our mind, forgetting that the knowledge that the door exists is no substitute for the knowledge that lies behind the door itself. Better, then, to avoid going into the corridor itself- and to save oneself for a calmer adventure to which one can currently fully commit.

My solution: when on the bus, or taking a shower, or placed in any situation where my eyes may not have recourse to a book, be sure to have scrap paper handy either during or immediately after the situation.

My ideal solution: wear a bracelet which measures and transmits MEG signals from muscle groups that control your fingers, to a decoder. Generate positional information each time any finger taps downward with sufficient force, mimicking the depression of a key on a keyboard, to a gadget such as a phone, for storage in external memory.

Travel in smug cerebral comfort, able to ‘type’ under almost any everyday circumstances (except maybe while driving)- while standing in a packed space on a commuter train, while watching the scenery go by instead of constraining one’s field of view to a small digital screen, while navigating through crowds of passersby on a busy commercial street, or while strolling through countryside that necessitates watching one’s feet amidst mud-covered ruts or pointy stones. Imagine being surrounded by people, not merely texting or typing on their clunky, inflexible, non-split keyboards, but punctuating the air with their fingers in a symphony of thoughtful, documentative silence.


Human programmes and stereotypical behaviours

Ever since I started working with monkeys and had the opportunity to draw comparisons between our species and one that is highly fluidly intelligent, yet in numerous recognisable ways much less mentally agile, I’ve realised several key things:

1. Human beings are organisms like any other.

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This used to be an insight that I constructed through a dry, logical process of deduction. The more I observe, the less this realisation falls under the category of knowledge acquired through experience-independent abstraction and reasoning, and the more it grows into a concept that reasserts itself with increasing frequency- sprung upon me by external events, through pleasant hijacks of my pattern recognition system.

Before moving on, I should qualify that a little- what do I mean by ‘like any other’?

I don’t mean that we occupy the exact same ecological niche as other creatures- there are defining characteristics that make each species, and each organism, clearly distinct from others. What I mean is that we are all governed by underlying principles in physics and biology- determinism, genetic programming, existence within and confinement to certain dimensions- we have definite limits, and within those limits (even if relatively large compared to many other organisms), we have a finite degree of control over our behaviour, a bounded capacity to exercise what we think of as autonomous thought, but are able to incorporate a certain amount of randomness into our activities which often yields the illusory perception of possessing boundless free will.

2. (Related to the point above:) We have mental capacities that operate within limits that can’t be breached, no matter how hard we strive and creatively writhe.

In the fantasy world of our imagination, we can glibly conjure up mental images of deity-like people who are remarkably gifted and dazzling; we could come up with extremely long glowing lists of talents and create ever-more-brilliant hypothetical personalities. Yet, even if the most amazing fantasy person conceivable could exist in real life (whether instantiated in wetware or software, it doesn’t matter), with all the powers of human aspiration and imagination, that being would have its own limits- constrained and drawn by the boundaries of our conceptual abilities.

I see this in my monkeys when they bump up against the limits of their own capacity to engage in abstract thought. When they fail to generalise from one task to another, to connect the dots and detect patterns that could help them solve the puzzle. Similarly, when observing humans at various stages of development, I recognise how fairly predictable chains of thought are set in motion by a given stimulus, and how the meandering cognitive path is carved out of human-grade material, by manmade tools. Flow-chart-like, one can trace out the sequence, answering a series of yes/no questions to derive the final result. A diagram of possible trajectories, elegantly depicted by the diagrammed books carried around by characters in the movie The Adjustment Bureau.

(It's fascinating how media depictions of glamour, sophistication and finesse revolve around the possession of knowledge. Whether it's a spy/ hacker/ sci-fi movie about specialists who are able to exploit loopholes in the system, or a medical/ legal tv drama, access to uncommon knowledge and the ability to act on it are associated with control, confidence, and enhanced potential to seize attractive opportunities. I've heard too though, that there're genres of entertainment that glorify the opposite- the lack of knowledge possession. Maybe their popularity lies in the stark contrast they provide to the sometimes-worrying drowning-in-data scenario.)

People talk about folk physics, in humans- when we intuitively believe, for example, that an object with a given mass falls faster than a less massive one- and folk physics in apes (check out video footage of experiments in which chimps have a sometimes ticklishly poor grasp of principles of gravity and weight, cause and effect).

No matter how much we may laugh at those chimps, whose efforts to obtain a piece of food are thwarted by the inability to envision more than several steps ahead, we’re essentially no different. We rely on a patchy model of how the world operates, and get along fine most of the time. When we encounter sticky situations in which the model breaks down and our predictions miss the mark, we sigh in frustration and either give up or rally our resources to try again.

It may seem as though other organisms are sadly cognitively lacking and ill-equipped to navigate our complex world, but in reality, until you throw the overwhelming and accelerating effects of habitat destruction and climate change into the mix, most species/individuals have mental capacities that are well-suited to the niche they occupy. How often does a chimpanzee have to perform a ‘trapdoor task’ to obtain its food in the jungle? How often does a human being have to employ the adjoint approach to solve nonlinear objective functions before being able to pay the rent? (Why on earth do we refer to ourselves to ‘human beings’? How about monkey beings, non-human primate beings, and worm beings?)

An episode from college which stayed with me: During a seminar series on cognitive neurobiology, one of my classmates was waxing on about the extraordinary powers of memory formation that humans have at our disposal, and I listened in agreement and uncritical approval. Our professor, with a quick glance, cut through the awe, smoke and mirrors, and pointed out that this was far from the case- our short-term memory is limited to a few handfuls of objects, and our longer-term memories are undeniably larger but similarly finite. Once he mentioned this, it was blindingly obvious. And yet embarrassingly enough, it came as a surprise, a stop-and-blink moment, at the time.

I’ve written about ‘base’ impulses that are shared across humans and monkeys- greed, aggression, fear- in the section Bestial instincts. This provided me with insights on how human behaviour closely matches that observed in a closely-related species, so that everywhere I looked, I saw primates rather than mere humans: a scene in a movie with characters flirting in a crowded bar amidst a haze of alcohol-fuelled passion, and the main thought in my mind was, ‘little dancing primates engaged in a courtship ritual.’ Teenagers behaving badly in the street, throwing litter, cans, and verbal abuse, evoked images of my monkeys, shredding objects into uncountable irretrievable pieces and scattering them with the efficiency of crop dusters. The frenzied behaviour of grabby, personal-space-oblivious shoppers in the supermarket reminded me of the rapidity with which monkeys extricate food from each others’ cheek pouches. Parents who use their baby strollers as battering rams, leaving in their wake trails of caught-unawares bystanders as collateral damage...the list goes on and on.

Now that insights derived from observations with monkeys have integrated themselves firmly into daily life, I’m starting to draw parallels between less-closely-related organisms.

On holiday in Croatia, I stayed in an apartment that was surrounded by a constant, vigilant brigade of scrawny cats- and my friend was generous (undiscerning) enough to offer some of them food. Their swirling attentions, initially sleek and not unpleasant, catapulted into a desperately insistent barrage of nipping, scraping claws and teeth. After my friend escaped into the house and shut the door, the cats continued pawing around and mewing, as I sat outside observing them. Then, almost before I was able to grasp what I was seeing, the eddy currents of food-intent cats dissolved into a clear line of cats, seated along the wall, spaced equidistant from each other, and their vexed noisy efforts relaxed into various forms of grooming behaviour. I felt exactly as though I was viewing a computer simulation:

groom_behavs=[face; flank; rear; front_paw; hind_leg];

while(starved==1)
{
	switch(food)
	{
		catch(absent)
		{
			hide_in_bushes=1;
		}
		catch(potentially_present)
		{
			set_attempt_timer();
			while(get_attempt_timer()<120)
			{
				paw=1;
				mew=1;
				swirl_speed=high;
				location=food_location(end);
				inter_cat_distance=low;
				eat_speed=max;
			}
		else
		{
			paw=0;
			mew=0;
			swirl_speed=sit;
			location=wall;
			inter_cat_distance=seated_footprint*3;
			eat_speed=0;
			set_groom_timer(1);
			if (mod(set_groom_timer,30)==0)
			{
				groom_spot=groom_behavs(random(0,5));
                		clean(groom_spot);
			}
		}
	}
	if(satiated==1)
	{
		starved=0;
	}
}   

And, half-enjoyably half-disturbingly, I’m starting to detect ‘computer simulation-like behaviour’ almost everywhere, including during human social gatherings. More pseudocode ensues:
stand_in_circle=1;
is_speaking=0;
while(small_talk==1)
{
	if(!isempty(find(people_introduced)==0))
	{
		set_remember_names(overdrive);
		introduce_to(find(people_introduced)==0);
		set_remember_names(0);
	}
	set_last_speaker(last_speaker);
	if(is_interesting(last_speaker))&&(get_last_speaker()!=self)
	{
		if(contribute_new(self))
		{
			new_speaker=self;
			wait(2);
			talk(self);
			set_last_speaker(self);
		}
	}
	else
	{
		set_timer_silence();
		while(get_timer_silence()<20)
		{
			[start_thread new_speaker]=random(0,2,num_people);
			if(start_thread==1)
			{
				is_speaking=1;
				break;
			}
			if(get_timer_silence()==4)
			{
				if(get_last_speaker()==self)
				{
					smile(self);
				}
				elseif(find(get_last_speaker()==friends))
				{
					smile_at(get_last_speaker());
				}
				look_away();
			}
			if(get_timer_silence()==7)
			{
				shift_posture();
				wait(2);
				check_watch();
			}
			if(get_timer_silence()==12)
			{
				check_phone();
			}
		}
		if(is_speaking==1)
		{
			talk(new_speaker);
			if(is_interesting(new_speaker))
			{
				listen(new_speaker);
			}
			else
			{
				wait_till_silent(new_speaker);
			}
		}
		else
		{
			suggest_leave();
			wait(5);
			if(group_herd_instinct==high)&&(group_likes(self))
			{
				group_agrees=random(0,4);
			}
			else
			{
				group_agrees=random(0,3);
				if(group_agrees>1)
				{
					small_talk=0;
					exit_all();
				}
				elseif(impatience(self)==high)
				{
					exit_self();
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Organisms behaving as programmable autonomous agents, with associated parameter settings that govern their behaviour and interactions- that's nothing new, and pop culture is full of references to human beings as complex pieces of code. But as I said, vaguely 'knowing' it as a fact without really analysing my own experiences within this framework, versus seeing it play out increasingly in everyday situations, recognising 'if' statements, 'while' loops, switches and timers, as I interact with the environment- puts things in a pretty different and often amusing perspective.

In my opinion, being consciously aware of the existence of boundaries that confine our thought capacities to predefined spaces, should not detract from our appreciation of the vastness of the playing field that remains accessible. It's amazing enough that we're able to map out intended routes and navigate towards end points. Lifetimes of experience would not be enough for us to cover more than the tiniest fraction of the total potentially traversable space anyway. All the more reason to run as hard in as many directions as possible.


Alien earth light

It had been a wonderful summery day. British summer, that is.

Our institute’s annual garden party was held in the afternoon, children ran around a field that looked more like a swampy lake with grass pushing past the surface instead of rushes. Parents scurried and ducked, winding up car windows that had been left open and setting the foldable table tennis table aside to drip dry.

click for more/less

Strangely, the flooding of the pitch made its criss-cross mown patterns more striking- reflective geometric pools, instead of deep stripes of verdant green.

That evening, in my bedroom, at around 21.00, I observed the strangest phenomenon.

A blaze of cuttingly-bright yellow light appeared on my wall, with the intensity to reset circadian clocks and rouse far-off birds. The sky in this part of the world is often overcast- so thick with cloud that light from the sun penetrates as though through multiple sheets of tracing paper. The god of so many ancient civilizations passeth over, like a king unwilling to face his subjects, or a beautiful girl one gets to embrace only once a year.

This creates the most marvellous spectacle early in the morning when the sun rises, at 4 am, and again late at night when it sets. At these times, when one looks towards the horizon, the earth forms a vast boundary across the lower half of the visual field, while a dense layer of cloud presents an almost equally-severe upper bound, and the sun is positioned right at the slit between the bandpass filter.

For two brief intervals a day, if conditions are right, the light floods across the land, illuminating surfaces at a sharp angle, casting shadows in the horizontal dimension- against walls, against blades of grass- suddenly, the vertical edge of a roadside curb gains prominence over the pavement.

I had seen this effect before and it always astonishes me. But today, something was different. The light was so bright- not the fiery red of rising and setting sun- and at such an acute angle, that the trees outside my window were illuminated as though by the high beams of a vehicle at night.

At its source, the light was so intense that I couldn’t make out the location of the sun- it streamed from some place far in the distance, between the earth and the clouds- but no well-defined strip across the landscape was discernible.

After a minute, things shifted- the sun’s position, cloud formations- and the light shrank away, allowing me to see the pattern in the distance. I finally understood. The cloud cover was so dense that it stretched as far into the horizon as the eye could see, providing not a strip of passage, but a chink. A little gap, blocked off in all three hundred and sixty degrees, focusing the light like a torch.

Imagine standing at the edge of a mineshaft, shouting, ‘Are you alright down there, Sun?’ and Sun shines his light back up through the hole, jiggling it to show that he’s okay.

I threw open the window to take photos. I started thinking about what the sun was, in not-particularly-technical terms- a vast combusting ball of nuclear fusion, uninhabitable, providing heat and warmth to our cold, needy planet- and suddenly realised that I had no power to comprehend it- no way to understand the sun.

sun torch
Looking at the sun through a crevice

The sun. The object that influenced my sitting position at the beach, the planetary body that emanated energy and allowed decreases in entropy in localized regions of the planet. This marvellous creature, experienced indirectly through its overwhelming bearing on our existence, remained in essence inconceivable in substance, scale, and location.

For the first time, I no longer felt as though I was looking up or even sideways towards the horizon, at the sun. Instead, I felt like a creature, hanging off the face of this planet, glued to it by the knee that was pressed against the window ledge by gravity, looking back down at the sun. It was what I imagine astronauts feel, from their outpost in space or on the lunar surface, looking fondly back at earth. I was visualising myself from a heliocentric point of view. The richly moving leaves on trees outside- they too were local denizens of this alien planet. Rippling because they had to, moving when air currents interacted with their structural growth patterns, absorbing certain spectra of energy and reflecting green light- just because they were encouraged to do so at certain stages in their evolutionary history.

Our visions of life on a utopian alien planet are oases of verdant vegetation, jungles filled with exotic plants and fruit, jewels of glistening red and yellow against unfurling fronds of green, sparkling rainbow-coloured glorious citizens with surprising combinations of features found in earthly beings. Those of us who recognise the fact, that we are here, right now, on this dream planet, are the luckiest of all.

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