social behavior

Excerpt from the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow

Today most humans live in large, crowded cities. In many cities, a single neighborhood could encompass the entire world population at the time of the great human social transformation. We walk down sidewalks and through crowded malls and buildings with hardly a word, and no traffic signs, and yet we don't bump into others or get into fights about who is going to step through the swinging door first. We hold conversations with people we don't know or hardly know or wouldn't want to know and automatically stand at a distance that is acceptable to both of us. That distance varies from culture to culture and from individual to individual, and yet, without a word, and usually without giving it any thought, we adjust to a distance of mutual comfort. (Or most of us do, anyway. We can all think of exceptions!) When we talk, we automatically sense when it is time to typically lower our volume, stretch out our last word, cease gesturing and look at the other person. These skills aided to our survival as a species, and it is still these skills that allow us to maneuver through the complex social world of the human. 

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Right. Our social behavior is so automatic and unconscious. Even without any conscious efforts, our unconscious is a storehouse of nonverbal communication. And its like me watching foreign language movies without any subtitles and yet I could understand the complete story. 

Srik

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of what we remember and forget

Excerpt from the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow

Moments in time may be forever forgotten, or viewed through a hazy or distorting lens, yet something of them nonetheless survives within us, permeating our unconscious. From there, they impart to us a rich array of feelings that bubble up when we think about those who were dearest to our hearts - or when we think of others from whom we've only met, or the exotic and ordinary places we've visited, or the events that shaped us. Though imperfectly, our brains still manage to communicate a coherent picture of our life experience. 

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It is interesting to read through the whole chapter on 'Remembering and Forgetting' from the book. I am trying to remember a lot of things and I get hazy pictures of them. Trying to remember what I've forgotten is very difficult and some times, my unconscious mind tries to create them for me there by making it a false memory. 

Srik

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the world we perceive

Excerpt from the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow

The world we perceive is an artificially constructed environment whose character and properties are as much a result of unconscious mental processing as they are a product of real data. Nature helps us overcome gaps in information by supplying a brain that smooths over the imperfections, at an unconscious level, before we are even aware of any perception. Our brains do all of this without conscious effort, as we sit in a high chair enjoying a jar of strained peas or, later in life, on a couch, sipping a beer. We accept the visions concocted by our conscious minds without question, and without realizing that they are only an interpretation, one constructed to maximize our overall chances of survival, but not one that is in all cases the most accurate picture possible. 

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Mind is like a scientist, it creates its own model of world around us. How do we believe that what we perceive is true? If my unconscious is to fill the gap where there is incomplete information to construct a picture of reality, how can I be confident that my picture is a true one? 

Srik

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the unconscious

Excerpt from the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow

We all make personal, financial, and business decisions, confident that we have properly weighed all the important factors and acted accordingly - and that we know how we came to those decisions. But we are aware of only our conscious influences, and so have only partial information. As a result, our view of ourselves and our motivations, and of society, is like a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. We fill in blanks and make guesses, but the truth about us is far more complex and subtle than that which can be understood as the straightforward calculation of conscious and rational minds. 

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Well, what I perceive, experience, the judgments I make and my actions are (to a certain extent) influenced by factors I'm not aware of. What I know is always limited.

and the unconscious is wonderful!

Srik

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explore

Excerpt from the book Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow

There is a flip side to the comforting knowledge that everyone is stumbling through the fog, and that is that it is a pretty good bet that many of them are not stumbling in the right direction. Who is going down the blind alley and who is on the road to success? Whose work will be remembered and whose forgotten? What is worth doing, and how do you know? - Leonard Mlodinow

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Explore. And like what Feynman says - 'Check out what other people are doing. Open yourself to others'.

Srik

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finding potentiality

Excerpt from the book Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow

A scientist's work is normal activities of humans carried out to a fault, in a very exaggerated form. Ordinary people don't do it as often, or, as i do, think about the same problem every day. Only idiots like me do that! or Darwin, or somebody who worries about the same question. "Where do the animals come from?" or "What is the relation of species?" A scientist works on it, and thinks about it for years. What I do, is something that common people often do, but so much more that it looks crazy! But it's trying to find the potentiality as a human being. - Feynman to Leonard

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Finding the greatest potentiality of human beings' activity in a certain direction is the key. It is to do something with an intensity that is out of the ordinary. 

Srik

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the ordinary world

Excerpt from the book Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow

Don't think it is so different, being a scientist. The average person is not so far away from a scientist. He may be far away from an artist or poet or something, but I doubt that too. I think in the normal common sense of everyday life that there is a lot of the kind of thinking that scientists do. Everyone puts together in ordinary life certain things to come to conclusions about the ordinary world. They make things that weren't there, such as drawings, such as writing, such as scientific theories. Is there something common in the process? I don't see such a big difference between that and the scientist's work. 

For instance, an ordinary person can lie, and lying takes a certain imagination. And you have to make up a story that is sort of reasonable with nature, and it might even have to fit with certain facts. Sometimes they do a good job. They don't have to be scientists or writers.

-Feynman to Leonard -

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Well, there is a lot more an ordinary person can perform. All of us are ordinary in someway or the other. All it takes is to be and make! (SV's saying)

Srik

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control

Excerpt from the book 'The Drunkard's Walk' by Leonard Mlodinow

"Our desire to control events is not without purpose, for a sense of personal control is integral to our self-concept and sense of self-esteem. In fact, one of the most beneficial things we can do for ourselves is to look for ways to exercise control over our lives - or at least to look for ways that help us feel that we do."

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Well, I know its completely dependent on ones ability. I may be completely in control in an environment I am more comfortable with and I may be completely out of control with the same activity elsewhere. 

Srik

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Purpose

"We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves?"


This is an excerpt from the book - The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Sigh! I do try to think, analyse and even try dreaming about it asking myself on the existence of myself in this world. The whole me is just another 'thing' in the world or the nature that got created by an unknown source to me. But why did that happen is still a mystery! and the ultimate question to me was, Was there nothing before something at all?

Srik

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