Category: Insights
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The felt presence of immediate experience
“When our own goals and beliefs and perceptions and behaviors are functionally integrated such that there is little conflict or contradiction between them that is when we experience this this sense of meaning in life” We have developed behaviours that help us pursue goals (biological, pre-programmed goals: finding a mate, keeping a mate, parenting etc,…
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Notes on appreciation
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Free Energy Principle, Predictive Processing and Meaning notes
This is the synthesis and synergising of various talks about free energy principle, predictive processing and its connection with meaning. By understanding predictive processing and free-energy (as a lens) you can understand other aspects such as addiction or meaning-making (meaning in life). Psychedelics and the Free Energy Principle: From REBUS to Indra’s Net https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/building-a-science-of-consciousness/id1654416860?i=1000586050485 Perception…
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Has inspiring replaced charity
I was watching a show called the world’s greatest challenge where teams have to trek across Fiji in a gruelling 11-day race. I was struck that almost everyone who was interviewed said that they were doing this to inspire others. It struck me as completely bizarre and completely in line with this trend of ‘I…
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The Heroine’s Journey
If it’s true what the cognitive neuroscientists say that story and myths inform you about what to do when you don’t know what to do, then stories are fundamental to decision-making under uncertainty, and that the brain relies on micro-narratives to deal with combinatorially explosive complexity of everyday life, let alone chaos. And so, as they…
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Patterns of behaviour (from child to parent)
Something I noticed when I first started living together with my partner was that there was a clash of certain ways of doing things / approaches or principles, even though we had similar cultures and similar belief systems. It often baffled me how we could be so different on such things. Only now do I…
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The Distant B&W Past
Growing up, the past seemed so far away. There were black and white images of this period before, especially images from the Second World War. The past seemed so distant in my mind. Due to the lack of colour, it appeared awful. I was glad that I didn’t live during that period. But most of…
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Feeling the Timeless
I’m sitting next to a fireplace on Christmas Eve, a time to reflect. I notice that there must have been quite some effort to install the iron fireplace and its chimney into the wall. I’m reminded that Klaus did that. Klaus was one of Dad’s best friends and now I’m staying in the flat that…
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A Tough Lesson about Incentives
I found this line very interesting in a recent conversation with Dominic Cummings when he related his experience of working in Russia: “I also learned about incentives a lot. So everything I had to do with the airline was a total fiasco. And one of the things I figured I learned was — I, like…
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A Lasting Quality
“If you want to preserve a building, you will try to make it in materials which last and last forever. You will try to make sure that this creation can be preserved intact, in just its present state, forever. Canvas must be ruled out because it has to be replaced; tiles must be so hard…