This blog has moved

Hi there,

This blog has now fully moved to http://anamazingming.com/blog/

Enjoy!

Ask The Right Questions

“What is the meaning of life?”

That is just one of many, many questions that have nothing whatsoever to do with this article.

Ok, now how about these questions: “Why can’t I ever get this right?” “Why does this always happen to me?” “Why do I always screw this up?”

Do you know anyone who asks these questions? Or do you maybe even ask them yourself? Be honest. It doesn’t matter if you say them aloud or just think them silently. The effect is the same…

These questions are EVIL! They damage your productivity, your happiness and your success in life. After reading this article, you will know why, and how you can replace them with questions that empower you instead.

Your subconscious mind’s power

When you ask your subconscious mind to look for a creative solution to a problem, it will give you sooo many great answers! It’s amazing! Let’s say you decide to brainstorm ways to stop global warming. Your subconscious mind will probably hand you hundreds of answers, from the obvious (tax on greenhouse gases), to the downright crazy (build a huge reflective surface, then put it on a space ship, shoot it into space and place it between the Sun and the Earth. No more warmth from the Sun!)

Your subconscious mind is a top-grade targeting system. You give it instructions, and it will find anything that matches these instructions. It acts with surgical precision, but beware - It’s also completely cold and impersonal. It will find answers to any questions you ask, whether good for you or bad. Be very careful about what questions you ask.

If you ask “Why can’t I get this right?”, your mind will give you hundreds of reasons why you cannot get it right! That’s going to kill your motivation and chance to succeed right there.

But how about asking “How can I most easily do this right?”. Your mind will suddenly start sorting for all the ways you can accomplish your task. Obstacles will melt right in front of your eyes, and it will become easy.

Here are a couple of questions you want to avoid:

• Why can’t I ever do this?
• Why does this always happen to me?
• Why do I always screw this up?
• Are we there yet?
• Are we there yet?
• Are we th– ouch! What did you do that for?

And some questions you can ask instead

• How can I most easily…?
• What’s the simplest way to…?
• What haven’t I thought of yet?
• If there was a simple and elegant solution to this, what would it be?

These questions are incredibly powerful, because they leverage the basic nature of questions - when you ask any question, there are always some assumptions. For example, if you ask “Why is the sky blue?”, the assumption is “the sky is blue”. Your subconscious mind will never questions these assumptions - so you need to watch for them consciously.

If you ask “Why can’t I get this right”, the assumption is that you can’t get it right. No matter what answers your subconscious comes up with, they will always include that assumption. Uh oh.

But if you ask yourself “How can I most easily do this?”, you assume:

• You can do it
• There are several ways it can be done
• It’s easy

That puts you in one helluva productive frame of mind!

Creativity through questions

“Most people look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
- George Bernard Shaw

The greatest inventors are always asking empowering questions. Everybody used to think that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that other planets travel around it along complicated epicycles attached to circles, and sub-epicycles attached to those, and whatnot. But Kepler looked at the tables of planetary positions and asked himself - “Is there a simple explanation?”. And he found one - Sun is the center of our solar system.

You too can use the same questions to solve your problems! Here’s what you can do right now:

Think of some area of your life where you have a problem to solve. It could be at work, or in arranging work-life balance, or anything else. Now ask yourself the questions:

1. How can I most easily solve this?
2. What haven’t I thought of yet?
3. If there was a simple solution, what would it be?

Your mind will hand you lots of answers. If you don’t like them, keep asking until you’re satisfied. Don’t worry, the hell will freeze over before your mind runs out of creative solutions.

When you have the solution, write it down. Then, as soon as possible, take the next step - action!

So, what problem can you use this on right now?

Making Work Fun (cure procrastination NOW)

One day, back when I still sometimes had to help clean around the house, I had to sweep the living room floor. Except I obviously didn’t feel like it. So I was like “I’ll just read a book for a bit, and then get to it.” After reading I thought “I’m feeling hungry. I’ll go buy some bread and eat. Then I’ll immediately get started on sweeping.” … “Ah, I’m feeling full right now. I’ll just pop online and play some bridge, then I’ll get to it.” and so on, and so on…

I stopped myself! I realized I was procrastinating because sweeping the floor was bloody boring! So I thought about how to make it fun for myself. And I came up with a solution - make it more challenging! So I stood on one leg, lifted the other one up while bending my body forward (forming a T-shape) and swept the floor like that, hopping around on one leg! (I also started talking in weird voices and eventually fell over from laughing at myself.)

The point is, we procrastinate about work. But we never procrastinate about fun! (Ah ha! Could this be the cure to all procrastination? Yes, it could!) How often do you say “Ah, I have to watch TV, but I don’t feel like it right now. I’ll go do some accounting first.”? Wait, don’t tell me! I’ll practice my psychic powers. Ugghhnnghhnngh… got it! The answer you’re thinking is… “never”!

(spooky, eh?)

By the way, when I say “work” in this article, I don’t mean what you do for a living. I use a broader definition. Fun is something you enjoy doing. Work is something you have to do. (feel free to quote me :))

Why work isn’t fun

Interestingly, since work is something you have to do, and fun is something you enjoy doing, they’re mutually exclusive. You can’t have both. You either “have to” do something, or you enjoy doing it.

Yes, I’m sure you can think of many examples where you enjoy doing things you have to do. Bear with me. When you enjoy things like that, it usually means you found a way to put a unique twist on them. Like me sweeping the floor while being bent over and hopping around on one foot. I didn’t have to sweep the floor like that. That’s what made it fun!

Interestingly, it also works in reverse. The moment you turn something into what you “have to do”, it stops being fun. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present you…

How to turn fun into work!

Do you find yourself having too much fun? Do friends and family despise you because you have fun while everyone’s working? Do you feel excluded when your peers complain about how daft and boring life is?

Don’t worry!

I have just the solution for you! With my new, revolutionary, patented turn-fun-into-work^TM system, you can live the life required of you by society in the 21st century!

I know how you feel! I’ve been there. I used to have fun every day for a better part of my life. I even went through periods of time when I was having fun all the time. But now I’m over it! Thanks to turn-fun-into-work^TM, I haven’t had a single bit of fun in over ten years!

So how do you go about it? Following is a list of techniques you can start using IMMEDIATELY to have less fun in your life:

1. Bribe yourself

Give yourself a reward every time you complete a given task! Let’s say you enjoy drawing. Give yourself a dollar every time you complete a drawing. Or even better. Pay yourself by the minute! You’ll stop caring about the process and instead only draw for the end result (money). You won’t believe how quickly this simple technique turns a fun activity into a tedious boring one!

(Serious side note: This is a huge effect in education. In my article about education, I discuss in detail how giving students grades slowly sucks away any willingness to learn they have. Read that section of the article, it’s very useful to know for life in general as well as education.)

2. Think negatively

Do you find that you just can’t help smiling when you wake up in the morning, the birds are singing and find it’s another beautiful sunny day? I’ve got just the solution for you!

Try this simple exercise. For the whole day, just keep saying “This f*cking sucks!” Like at the store. “Good morning.” “This f*cking sucks!” You won’t believe how fast you’ll stop having fun! (Yeah, that’s right, I said the f-word. And by “the f-word” I obviously mean fun. Don’t make me say it again!)

By the end of the day, you’ll feel like crawling into bed and never getting out again. And the next morning, you’ll slowly crawl out of bed, feeling like you were run over by a truck. You’ll curse the annoying birds and the sun in your eyes, then you’ll slowly walk towards the bathroom mumbling “This f*cking sucks!”

Congratulations! You have just made avoiding fun a whole lot easier for the whole day ahead!

3. Plan it

If there’s one thing that’s inherently evil (read - fun), it’s spontaneity. But don’t you worry! You can easily kill spontaneity… by planning it! You’ll never have spontaneous fun again! You’re safe!

Do you accidentally find yourself having fun when you spontaneously go bowling with friends? I can help you cure that! Simply plan every… minute… detail. Plan what are you going to wear. Plan what you’re going to drink. Plan what you’re going to say. If you get your friends to do the same, you’ll never be in danger of having fun again!

So there you go! Armed with the revolutionary turn-fun-into-work^TM system, you’ll never have fun again! You can finally function in the western society without stirring any waves! And once you succeed in not having any fun, I have a great drink to sell you! It’s called Kool-Aid…

(end of sarcasm)

Making work fun and ending procrastination

So how do you make work fun? Well, first of all avoid the stuff mentioned above. You’ve got enough work already, you don’t need any more.

For example bribing yourself is a common tactic (like letting yourself have a cold beer when you’re finished writing an essay). But it’s disastrously counterproductive. You might get yourself to do the work this one time, but the next time you want to do the same task, you’ll only resist it harder.

Aaron Schwartz wrote a great article about procrastination called How to be more productive. He describes procrastination like an invisible force field surrounding a task. If you push harder, the force field only repels you stronger. That’s why advice like “just do it” or “try harder” is useless. To overcome procrastination, you need to be sneaky - walk around the force field, or dig under it.

It’s also why nagging is so ineffective. The more you remind someone of a task, the stronger the force field becomes.

Below are some of my favorite tactics for overcoming procrastination. You’ll outflank the force field and you’ll be doing the task you want before your brain even realizes it! Zero resistance!

1. Set yourself a different task

The biggest factor in booting up the force field is when someone (including you) sets you a task. Let’s say you need to get a 1000-word report done. You tell yourself you need to do it, you write it down, and you think about it. And the invisible force field only keeps growing stronger.

Stop! You can use this effect to your advantage! Set yourself a different task, for example oiling the squeaky bathroom door (note to self: aaargh!). Write it down. Repeat it to yourself. Tell others you need to get it done. Tell a friend or relative to keep reminding you of it.

Soon oiling the door will become the dominant task you’re procrastinating against. It will probably go something like this. “I need to get the door oiled. Wait, there’s a show on TV I really need to watch. I’ll do it after. (…) The show’s ended. I should get the door oiled. But wait, I’m feeling hungry, let me just get something to eat first. (…) I should get the door done now. But I don’t feel like it. Let me just write up this 1000-word report, and then I’ll do it.”

Bam! Problem solved!

You’ll procrastinate against this new task you set… by doing the task you wanted to get done in the first place. You basically replaced the force field around your 1000-word report with a stronger force field around oiling the bathroom door.

2. Be spontaneous and make it fun

This one’s a bit tricky. The whole point of work is that it’s something you need to get done. You can’t be spontaneous about the whole thing. But you can pick one aspect, make it fun, and go for it!

Like in the example with me swiping the living room floor while hopping around on one foot and talking in weird voices. That’s not something I planned three days in advance. I did it on the spur of the moment.

Or, another time, I was really procrastinating about writing a blog post. I sat around for hours struggling with writer’s block. Then I was like “Ah, whatever, I’ll write the post in iambic pentameter.” (here’s the result) I didn’t actually write the whole post like that, but it got me started.

That’s the great thing about spontaneously starting a task in a random way. You probably won’t finish the whole task like that. But it gets you started, and you can just keep going. You already bypassed the force field.

3. Do it for its own sake

This one doesn’t work every time (the previous two do!). But if it works, it’s really great in the long run. Try finding a way that you can enjoy the process in itself, not just the end result.

Maybe pay attention to the smallest details. Get absorbed in the process. Do it slowly and deliberately, while breathing deeply.

The trouble with work is that you’re usually focused on the end result. This prevents you from enjoying the process. But if you find a way to enjoy the process, you’re going to kill the procrastination right there. You’ll turn the task into fun - something you do for its own sake.

This advice is the exact opposite of bribing yourself. When you bribe yourself, you focus on the end result (e.g. drinking a cold beer as a reward), but you build aversion to the task. Here you actually get to like the task and look forward to it!

4. Sleep on it

This is the last resort, if everything else fails.

When you push yourself to do something, you pit your energy reserves (also called self-control in this context) against the strength of the force field. If you can’t find a way to walk around the force field or make it weaker, you’ll have to make your own energy levels stronger.

Positive life attitude does wonders. Unfortunately it’s not something you can change overnight. What you can do overnight is… sleep! You’ll wake up refreshed with more energy!

Battling the force field head-on drains you though. That’s why I always prefer to sneak around.

So there you go. Next time you’re procrastinating, just start jumping around on one foot, start singing, and remember how badly your bathroom door needs oiling (note to self: aaargh!). Until next time.

plop

Hypnosis, Meditation and Sensory Deprivation - (Sik Incredbly Awesome Mind States You can Experience)

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! TV networks have interrupted their broadcast with a special report, international airports have closed down, politicians have stopped lying! (ok, the last bit isn't true). That's right! The final installment of my Incredibly Awesome Mind States series has arrived!

It's delicious and nutritious and pretentious and a dozen other words ending in -ious that I just can't think of right now. (ok, the third bit is true this time)

"But wait!" I hear you say! Isn't this only the fourth installment? Aren't there supposed to be six incredibly awesome mind states?

Oh yes! And you know how I resolve that paradox? No, it's not magic - look, there's nothing up my sleeves! I resolve the paradox like this: Today's article contains not one, not two, not four, not five, not six... (etc. up to one hundred and thirty seven)... but, (you never would have guessed it), three incredibly awesome mind states!

I know, I know. I'm spoiling you. Up until now, I've been teasing you one by one. But now it's time for the huge climax! Three incredibly awesome mind states in one post! Woohoo!

(okay, the real reason I packed the last three together is because they're the ones I haven't experienced yet - so I can't say much about them. That's why they fit in one article.)

Alright, enough teasing!

1. Hypnosis

Sure, today you can get hypnosis pre-packaged as an mp3, or you can do auto-hypnosis or whatever. But I'm talking about the old fashioned hypnosis, where you get up on stage and a hypnotist makes you do things.

I'd love to experience that!

What's it like? I've read Richard Feynman's account in his book "But Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman". He says you keep going along with the hypnotist because you're interested in what's going to happen next. You feel slightly fogged out but otherwise aware of what's going on. You keep telling yourself that you could disobey him but you won't. Which is just another way of saying that you can't. (Feynman's words)

He also describes what it was like when he did finally decide to disobey an order by the hypnotist:

(...) at the end he said that after I came out of hypnosis, instead of returning to my seat directly, which was the natural way to go, I would walk all the way around the room and go to my seat from the back.
All through the demonstration I was vaguely aware of what was going on, and cooperating with the things the hypnotist said, but this time I decided, "Damn it, enough is enough! I'm gonna go straight to my seat."
When it was time to get up and go off the stage, I started to walk straight to my seat. But then an annoying feeling came over me: I felt so uncomfortable that I couldn't continue. I walked all the way around the hall.

Funky!

Say whatever you say, but I'd love to experience hypnosis!

2. Meditation

I've been vaguely interested in meditation for some time. But recently I had my interest really spiked. At my Toastmasters club, when we had our last session before summer break, two of the members said one of their favorite things to do over summer is meditation. I was also browsing self-improvement blogs, and apparently one of the most popular posts at PickTheBrain is called How to Meditate.

So I was like "Booyah! I gotta get me some o' dat shizznit!"

People who tried it say it's a really interesting state of mind. An incredibly awesome one, if you will :)

After you've practiced concentration and learned to focus on one thing at a time, you can proceed to the next stage: no thought at all. Achieving a silent mind is difficult, but when you attain it the experience is powerful. A technique I advise is viewing your thoughts as separate from your self. When a thought appears, make a conscious decision to throw it out of your mind. Over time you realize that you are capable of allowing or rejecting thoughts. Your real I is not a collection of thoughts, but something far deeper. This is the most significant realization of meditation - that you do not have to be a slave to your thoughts

Hell, yeah! That's nuts enough for me to try! Plus, it apparently improves concentration, has great benefits for your health and makes you happier. But let's face it, that's not why I would do it :). I just enjoy the really weird stuff that's beyond anything ordinary people would ever imagine, let alone experience. (Dare to join me? Try lucid dreaming.)

3. Sensory deprivation

Now this is a funky one! It also comes in two main flavors.

Firstly, you could try shutting down all your senses. Some folks specialize in providing this. They have these "isolation tanks", which are basically just baths with a lid. They're neutrally buoyant and the water is at body temperature so that you don't feel anything. Once you close the lid it's completely dark in there. You can't hear anything except your own breath and heartbeat when you're in there. You can't really taste much since you're not eating anything, and you probably won't smell anything there. So there's your five senses taken care of!

Okay, now why would people do this? Here's a list of reasons why I would do it:

1. It's funky!


2. When you cut off all outside stimuli, after a while you start seeing and feeling weird stuff


3. Possible out-of-body experiences


4. It's funky!

Yeah, I know, out-of-body experience is way out in the left field, together with telepathy and UFO sightings. Hey, I'd just like to experience it myself to see what it's like! And all the other weird stuff you start feeling when your senses are shut down is supposed to be a lot of fun too! Without consuming any illegal substances! In fact, sensory deprivation is apparently good for your health, since some alternative medicine folks use it as therapy.

Partial sensory deprivation

In one experiment, scientists put people in a completely dark, soundproofed room. They left them there for 24 hours.

(no, I can't remember how they arranged toilet needs in the pitch dark)

The subject would first lie down and just relax. Then, after some time, they would grow restless. With no sights and no sounds, they would soon start feeling really spooky. They would start walking around aimlessly, apparently because movement at least makes you realize you're there.

I can't remember where I read about this experiment so I can't quote exactly, but one subject described it roughly like this:

I had been in there for what felt like one day. Then two days, then three. When you are all alone, only with your thoughts, time passes incredibly slowly. I kept hoping it would finally be over, but the time just went on and on. I began to think they had forgotten all about me and I would just die in there.
After what felt like a week, suddenly a ray of light appeared. An experimenter opened the door to take me out. They turned the lights down to almost nothing in the corridor, but it felt incredibly bright after the long darkness. I almost fell at the experimenter's feet and thanked him for rescuing me.
When I went out afterwards, everything seemed so wonderful. I saw every mundane object in a completely new light. I admired the colors, the way light reflected off shiny surfaces, the depth and beauty of everything around me. When you spend 24 hours without any eyesight, you really learn to appreciate what you have.

Booyah!

About 80% of all sensory input our brain processes is from our eyes. It makes sense that when we take that away, all sorts of funky stuff happens!

One restaurant used this with great success. They serve their foods in a cellar, in complete darkness. The waiters are blind people - they don't have trouble navigating in pitch dark.

With your eyesight shorted out, and all distractions left behind, even the simplest food tastes absolutely amazing. (that's what their customers say). Plus, it helps that the foods are named like "blue from the sky", so you have no idea what you're ordering :)

I would definitely like to try that once. Wait, now that I think of it - I can just get together some friends and we can do this ourselves! One would prepare some food, and the others would eat it with a blindfold over their eyes. Then we could change the chef, so everybody gets to enjoy it!

Thanks for making me think of that!

Anyway, this was it! TV broadcasts can continue, airplanes can fly again.
Vlad finished writing incredibly awesome mind states, and the world will never been the same.
(yes, this is why I'm a blogger and not a poet.)

###
In case you missed the announcement, my new blog address is http://anamazingmind.com/blog/

That's why the comments here are disabled.

New blog address

I've been with blogger.com for a while, but it's time to move to a self-hosted blog. It offers me more flexibility.

My new blog address is http://anamazingmind.com/blog/ (I know, I know. What a huge change, huh? :))

If you're reading this in your feed reader, you don't need to do anything. You will automatically start receiving posts from my new blog.

I will run the two blogs in tandem (posting the same articles to both) for about a month, then I'll stop posting to the old address. Also, starting tomorrow, comments will be disabled on new posts at the old address. So if you want to comment, do so at http://anamazingmind.com/blog/

Cheers!

Critical Thinking Rocks, But Don't Overdo It! - A Conversation With Ben Seeley

Dear readers, today I've got a very special post for you! I've convinced Ben Seeley to co-write today's blog post with me. Ben is a screenwriter, and has twice won the World Othello Championships (the board game - nothing to do with Shakespeare's play!). He's also very interested in using the human mind to its full potential (wink wink ^^. In case you haven't noticed, that's the new tagline of my blog). In this post we discuss critical thinking, and what happens when we overdo it!

Vlad: Hi Ben, thanks for agreeing to co-write this post with me.

Ben: My pleasure! I've been admiring your blog from afar, and now I can't help but seize the opportunity to jump in, head first.

Vlad: So, what got you interested in the human mind?

Ben: Well, we've all got one, so what is it good for? How can we have as much fun with it as possible? If we don't understand it, we can't use it wisely!
One basic trick I've gotten a lot of mileage out of is to notice when an unusual urge arises. For example, if I suddenly want to eat Mexican food, even though I normally have no attraction for it, I go for it (and I'm usually glad that I did, enjoying it much more than I normally do). If the urge doesn't come from strong conditioning, there is probably a very good reason for it.

Vlad: Hey, I like that trick!

Ben: Now, Mexican food is a very mundane example, but I'm a firm believer that we can't be creative and intelligent on the macro level, if we have no practice on the micro level. Following our inexplicable, spontaneous urges is just as valid for things like- talking to an unfamiliar person, learning a foreign language, playing a musical instrument, or even changing careers (if you do what you safely can, and the urge persists as you keep pulling on the thread of interest, you will be surprised how much your life can change for the better). It's precisely because you can't explain the urge, that it has the potential to rock your world!

Vlad: Yeah, I agree. I found that stuff doesn't need to be rational to be useful. I enjoy acting on irrational desires. Like, I read somewhere online that Toastmasters public speaking classes are great. So I figured "Hey, I'll give them a shot!". I found my local Toastmasters club, went there for one meeting as a guest, and I loved it, so I signed up to be a member. It's one of the best things I've ever done for myself!
Or, some time ago, I heard about the artificial language Esperanto (it's designed to be clean and simple. Apparently it's six times easier to learn than English). So I figured I'd learn it. I learned a bit from on-line courses, and this summer I'm going to a summer camp for Esperanto learners. It's not something you can find a logical reason for. It just felt right, so I went for it! Maybe it will be the next "Toastmasters" for me :)

Ben: That's wonderful, and a great example of what I'm talking about! A critical person would probably mock you for learning a made-up language that has few speakers. Hell, learning Esperanto is pretty inexplicable even to me. But, if you don't have any conscious idea of why you are attracted to it, you will probably find out by doing it. Maybe learning Esperanto will make it easier for you to learn other languages. Or, as happens with a lot of hobbies, you will meet people you like a lot, which rocks!

Ben: I think modern life makes optimism more rewarding. And we need to adapt our minds to the new world, rather than let our brains stay stuck in old-world approaches.
Today, getting separated from the herd doesn't make you prey to wild animals or another tribe, like it once did. With our modern medical care, breaking a bone on an adventure, or getting sick, is not nearly as life-threatening as it once was. You also aren't going to get stoned to death if you offend other people, just by living your life how you want to live it. It isn't even a real problem to get shunned- with 7 billion people out there, there's always lots more potential friends, just WAITING to find another rare, interesting person who is willing to be himself or herself.
In the past, even if being pessimistic, angry, or cautious, was the less rewarding strategy 99% of the time, but it saved your life 1% of the time, it was probably worth keeping. But today, optimism is the better way to go - no matter how stupid a person may be, almost everyone in modern society lives past 50, and hardly anyone ever has trouble finding shelter and food. But, most people don't recognize the new reality, and adjust their instincts to the better life available to them.

Vlad: Yeah, I've written about optimism before. Interestingly, most pessimists I know call themselves "realistic". But I read somewhere that 90% of all negative expectations we have never come true. (And my experiences with the pessimists confirm this.) Who's being realistic now, huh? :)

Ben: Haha, right. The optimist is thinking "Realistic? You're blocking the better reality". I suppose the pessimist's rejoinder is "better safe than sorry", "live to fight another day", and all that jazz.

Vlad: Sure, you need a bit of caution, like not walking on narrow slippery ledges above 200 meter drops, but most pessimists just overkill it. Ever died of talking to a stranger in a public place?

Ben: Sometimes old instincts get triggered for completely inappropriate reasons. For example, some people have a strong fight-or-flight escape urge when confronted by social situations. A sense of overwhelm which used to represent a lion attack, is now triggered by something quite harmless.
This shows up a lot in the realm of "new ideas". A new haircut, a new scientific idea, a new software program- these are not like going into unknown wilderness, or trying to eat an unknown plant. There's very little survival risk; at worst a little time and energy are "wasted". But with our long lifespans, we have plenty of time and energy to spare !

Vlad: Yeah. It's interesting that when you propose something new or unusual, lots of people start to attack you as if you wanted to use their energy or time. I read this excellent article by Bill Beaty, who's a scientist. He's had first-hand experience of the establishment attacking new ideas before even examining the evidence, simply because they didn't fit in with the current ideas. That's critical thinking gone haywire.
Here, let me paste an interesting quote from that article:

In the Encyclopedia of Ignorance, R. A. Lyttleton proposes that one's belief in a particular hypothesis is like a bead which slides along a wire. One end of the wire represents 100% disbelief, and the other end shows 0% disbelief (or 100% acceptance.) Nothing prevents the bead from falling off the ends of the wire. Since all theories are tentative, proper scientists should strive to keep their "beads" somewhere between 0% and 100%. However, many otherwise intelligent people have been convinced to move their beads regarding contemporary science theories to the position of 100% belief, whereupon their "beads" fall off the wire and their beliefs can can no longer be altered. At the same time, they move their "fringe science" beads to 100% disbelief, whereupon the beads fall off the other end of the wire and are nearly impossible to restore. Then, whenever a piece of "fringe" science gives signs of being proved valid, those fallen-bead skeptics must launch remorseless emotional attacks against it. Or, when a piece of solid mainstream science starts to look shaky, they must leap to blind defense of the dogma. This is entirely sensible, because their alternative is to court insanity.

Vlad: You can read the rest of the article. It's really interesting. And I think it applies to everyday life as well as science. Most people realize it's a bad idea to let your bead fall off the end that says "100% belief". We call these people gullible. But we, as a society, haven't fully realized that 100% disbelief is just as dangerous. (By the way there's a great article called My favorite liar. It's about a teacher who had an awesome way of teaching his students critical thinking.)

Ben: Very true. Reflexively critical people have an egotistic, rankist urge. They want to adopt a posture which makes it appear they have superior judgment. They're no different than dogs, always trying to assert dominance by mounting any new dog.
Interestingly, so-called "ignorant" people are usually more willing to entertain the possibility of wacky things being true. Life teaches them humility more frequently than it teaches the intelligentsia.

Vlad: Speaking of pathologically critical people being egoistic, I think it's similar with pessimists. They make themselves feel worse 95% of the time. But the one time out of twenty, they get to say "I told you so!" and feel good. It's almost like gambling. You get to feel good once in a while, so you keep doing it, even though overall you lose.

Ben: Wow, that's an amazing point! I never considered that pessimism could be a form of addiction. But "the feeling of being right" absolutely has the potential to be addictive. So much so, that people would be tempted to assume they were right too soon, just to cut straight to the rush of "Yeah, I'm right, suck that!".
Pessimists also get the idea of "risk" all wrong, because caution is NOT safer than adventurousness. I learned this as a passenger in my friend Eric's car. I have never, ever seen him get passed on the freeway. One day we were on a long road trip, and I asked him how many accidents he had been in, and how many speeding tickets he had gotten. He replied "none, and none". I was shocked! I realized then that since he was always pushing the edge, he was more alert, which made him less vulnerable to accidents and cops. I always felt safe as a passenger when he was driving, and boy was it so much more fun.
So do what wakes you up and makes you feel alive, and don't worry so much about what seems like extra risk. And besides, the conscious mind is not responsible for safety reflexes- our unconscious, autonomous nervous system is responsible for basic physical safety. Evolution does not trust our conscious mind, the slowest one, to do this job. So, relax your conscious worries, and let your reptilian brain worry about the gory stuff.

Vlad: You just totally reminded me of one quote:

"There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."
- John F. Kennedy

I used to be a shy don't-stir-any-waves don't-get-noticed kind of guy. But I found it's much better to take action. It leads to a better life than just coasting along within your comfort zones. Yes, I often get rejected. Yes, I often look dumb in front of other people. I realized that's no big deal. Getting what I want in life is more important than looking "cool".

Ben: People probably admire you for it, anyway. It makes you much more interesting.

Vlad: Okay, back to critical thinking. I always make it a point to keep some doubt about what people say, even if they're world class experts. (I never let my bead slide off the 100% belief side of the wire.) Yes, I trust them. I trust them a lot. But even if they're right a hundred times, they could still be wrong the next time. I watch for that.

Ben: Have there been any times that has paid off big, when you kept the tiniest bit of doubt or hope about something?

Vlad: Off the top of my head, this happened in my high school economics class. The teacher taught us something I thought was wrong. I tried correcting him, but he wouldn't listen, so I just wrote down in my notebook what he said, and I noted down what I thought was really right. Then, when an exam came up, I was the only one who got the right answer. Everybody else just copied what the teacher said. (The teacher meanwhile forgot he taught us the wrong answer.) Sort of reminds you of My Favorite Liar. (except my teacher wasn't doing it on purpose)

Ben: When I was in high school, I was an avid runner. And when I would read accounts of famous runners in history, the authors would always chalk up their performance to "talent", especially the great times they had when they first started competing. But, I really didn't see how genetic talent could explain why they were so fast right off the bat, when most healthy athletes did not have those times after several years of hard training.
So, I researched the backgrounds these "superathletes" had when they were young. It turned out, every superathlete had done a tremendous amount of exercise, usually in some other sport, starting when they were very young. Roger Bannister, the first man to run the mile in under 4 minutes, did no real training until he joined the Cambridge track team at 19. And right away, he was running the mile in under 4:20. But, in his autobiography, he mentioned that as a youth he would ride an old, heavy bicycle around the beautiful countryside, "up to 70 miles in a day". That's a lot! It also explained his ridiculously long, bounding stride.

Vlad: Oh, I just remembered! I'm very very careful when I hear "everybody knows that" truths. Everybody knows that to be a top pianist you need to practice ten hours a day. (Nope. One hour is more than enough. See Fundamentals of Piano Exercise.) Everybody knows you can't gain 34 lbs. of muscle in 4 weeks without taking steroids. (Nope. Read Tim Ferris' account of how he did it. Plus, he only went to the gym for a total of 4 hours!) Everybody knows it's impossible to get by with just two hours of sleep every day. (Nope. Check out my post about Uberman's Sleep Schedule.)
It's one thing believing experts. But believing some ethereal "everybody", that's just silly :)

Ben: Just a couple more examples (I could list dozens)- Alan Webb, American record holder in the mile, didn't start running until his freshman year in high school. But he had been a competitive swimmer before that, and by his sophomore track season he ran the mile in under 4:07, setting the national record for sophomores. Lance Armstrong, winner of 7 Tour de France cycling titles, was a triathlete from a young age. If someone looked at his initial cycling times in his late teens, with no idea he had been running, cycling, and swimming thousands of miles before the switch, they would have assumed he was pure talent. Not true. There is such a thing as talent, but most things are really some form of effort, when it comes right down to it.
I put this insight to good use. I hadn't done much exercising as a kid, but I immediately started bicycling, weightlifting, calisthenics, swimming, swimming with flippers, trampolining, tai chi, even running on the road with a wood pallet strapped behind me (thank God we lived in the country!). Whatever parts of my body had been less-used after running, I used on cross-training. In one year I went from being the slowest runner on my team to the fastest runner my age, for our region.

Vlad: There's one more related thing we talked about that would probably interest our readers. You said that a lot of criticism comes from stress.

Ben: Stress is a feeling of lacking resources, of inherently being at risk. This makes us cautious and critical of anything outside our very narrow comfort zone. Unfortunately, it's easy to feel stressed out, even if we have a great deal of resources. I've personally known at least three millionaires who were so stressed out (from work, poor health, loneliness, paranoia), that they were unwilling to use the resource which they had in abundance (money), to invest in the area which was stressing them out (necessary medical care, a vacation or some other relaxant, fulfilling promises to others).
The physical mechanisms of stress, the hormone cortisol, the higher heart rate, the brain state of stress (which narrows a person's focus, preventing them from seeing the big picture), all impede good judgment. The Programmer's Stone has a lot of information about this phenomena. It mostly deals with the context of programming, but really it applies to any kind of thinking that isn't habitual, easy stuff.

Vlad: Yeah, I can see why depressed or low-energy people would act critical. They're defending their already limited energy reserves. So, if someone feels like being critical a lot of the time, the first thing I would recommend is checking their diet and doing some exercise. It's amazing how much your diet affects your energy levels. And the great thing about exercise is that it leaves you with more energy, not less. (If you're not used to exercising, even a brisk walk does wonders).

Ben: Even using a relaxation technique (like what you detailed in your relaxation article), can do wonders. Feeling good makes it easier to think well, and thus do well. Just to relax improves judgment.

Vlad: Alright, we're running over time, it's time to wrap up. Do you have any last words you'd like to say to the readers?

Ben: My experience, my feeling, is that good critical thinking usually opens better doors than it shuts. The critical consensus of the athletic community, that talent is the best explanation for superathletes, is wrong. And it shuts doors in people's faces, giving them no useful information. My critical thinking about this consensus, my doubt, was different- it opened doors, leading me to discover cross-training, which was very effective for me.
If critical thinking is causing you to be skeptical about every single opportunity, it's almost certainly wrong. Good critical thinking may shut a lot of doors along the way, but in the end it will help you find the door which is worth opening. Life should steadily become bigger and better, not smaller.

Vlad: Ah, yes. As Bill Beaty said: be skeptical of excess skepticism.

Ben: Well said.

Vlad: Thanks for the conversation. I got a lot from you, and I'm sure the readers got a lot, too. Bye, and good luck with your screenwriting!

Ben: Adios, amigo :).

Vlad: plop

Uberman's sleep schedule - (Six Incredibly Awesome Mind States You Can Experience)

How much time do you spend sleeping every day? I'm guessing it's about 8 hours. Would you like to spend less time sleeping, and more time doing stuff you enjoy? Without being tired?

One guy called Uberman thought he would like exactly that. So he did some research into sleep, and found that of the 5 sleep phases that happen during normal sleep, only one is absolutely vitally important. It's the 5th phase, called REM (rapid eye movement). It's the phase during which dreaming happens.

You get about one and a half hours of REM sleep every night, spaced out throughout the night in 10-20 minute chunks. Uberman fiured that if you could remove all the non-essential sleep, and only keep the REM, you would have 22-hour waking days. He experimented for a long time,and finally found a method that works.

It involves taking a 20-minute nap every 4 hours. That's a total of 2 hours of sleep every 24-hour period.

It takes about a week for your brain to adjust. At first, it's trying to go through the sleep phases in normal order. But it never gets to the REM sleep because you wake yourself up after 20 minutes. After a week (by this time you're feeling like a total zombie), the brain finally realizes what you're up to and adjusts. It jumps straight into REM the moment you fall asleep. And voila, you have 22 hours of waking time. Plus, you have actually more energy than normally! By the time you start feeling tired, it's time for another nap.

When I first heard about it, I just knew I had to try it! It's sooo totally nuts! So I did some preparation (like a huge to-do list to keep myself busy during the time it takes to switch) and gave it a shot. I thought I would make it.

Right. I got through my to-do list in about a day and a half, and started getting bored. I aborted the try after 4 days, since I realized I had no idea how I would fill 22-hour days.

Uberman's sleep schedule is not for everyone. In fact, it's for about one person in a thousand. But hey, it's so totally nuts I just had to include it here!

Benefits of the Uberman sleep schedule:

• 22-hour waking days. Seriously, what else do you want?
• more energy than usual (unless you miss a nap). By the time you start getting tired, it's time for another nap. So on average, each hour of your 22-hour day will be more productive than during your usual 16-hour days.

Drawbacks:

• 22 hours is a lot of time. You can get bored very easily.
• if you miss a nap, you'll become a complete zombie until you get the next two naps in on time.
• the schedule is very inflexible. You can't move the naps around much.
• it one week of getting used to. During this week, you'll be a total zombie from sleep deprivation. It takes time for your brain to adjust and realize you want to get your REM sleep as soon as you lie down.
  

You can see there are some heavy drawbacks. The schedule is only for someone determined enough to stick through the transition period (one week is a lot longer than you think). You also need to be the kind of person who can fill a 22-hour day full of meaningful action and still complain about lack of time. Basically the mad genius type who'd accomplish twice as much as a normal human being anyway.

When I tried the switch, I went through some serious sleep deprivation (that's normal for the transition period). I had some fun experiences with that, though.

Like one day I set my alarm clock, lied down on my bed, laid my head on my pillow, and the alarm clock sounded. I slowly got up and looked at it. Twenty minutes had passed in what felt like one second. It was the fastest I've ever gone to sleep in my life.

If you want to know a lot more about Uberman's sleep schedule, check out Steve Pavlina's account of his experiences. He successfully switched to the schedule and slept according to it for about five months. In the end he stopped because he had some changes in his life and couldn't fit in the one-nap-every-four-hours anymore.

You can also find a lot more info there that would help you make the switch yourself, if you want to.

I'll probably try switching again at some point in my life. But before that, I need to figure out how I would fill a 22-hour day!