1. The Hidden Beauty of Constraints
On the benefits of constraints. This topic has popped up before in relation to creativity, but here it's about engineering too.
A quote from the book about how you can view constraints.
- Victim: Someone who lowers his or her ambition when faced with a constraint.
- Neutralizer: Someone who refuses to lower the ambition, but finds a different way to deliver the ambition instead.
- Transformer: Someone who finds a way to use a constraint as an opportunity, possibly even increasing his or her ambition along the way.
Using a baker as an example:
The rent for the premises went up.
Victim: gonna have to pay more, nothing you can do about it.
Neutralizer: maybe open an online store?
Transformer: I'll sell only online and by subscription
2. Why we should stop worrying about our wandering minds
Why we shouldn't worry that the human mind is forever wandering back and forth.
Once again, it's about my beloved neuroscience, which through the efforts of journalists sometimes turns into astrology capable of answering all questions. Keep in mind that this is far from the truth for now, and studies are just peeking through a keyhole into the workings of the brain, and only a tiny bit into consciousness.
Anyway, the article discusses how the brain never rests, and there is a ton of electrical activity going on in it in a state of doing-absolutely-nothing. The question is — why?
There are many theories, one of them is the modeling of unknown situations based on thousands of known ones already recorded in memory (the same is sometimes said about dreaming). If we record a virtual memory in advance of how to behave in a new situation, it will be easier later.
So maybe Buddhists are worrying about a floating mind for nothing (although true Buddhists, as we know, don't worry deep down, even when they worry).
3. 5 books on the modern philosophy of mind
Download a copy in PDF
What to read from recently published books on the philosophy of mind, recommended by PhD in Philosophy Dmitry Ivanov
No comments. Maybe I'll read them someday, but for now I have neither the energy nor the desire. Though, my Kindle is arriving soon, maybe that will spur me on.
4. How a Neural Network Works: Deep Dream
Trees overgrown into multicolored pagodas, dogs and sheep in the clouds — and also eyes, eyes and the muzzles of beasts, seen and unseen. News feeds and social networks are overflowing with weird pictures resembling the creations of either a genius or a madman — strange fantasies.
Truly sharp color vision covers only a small cone with an angle of about fifteen degrees, surrounded by vague, blurry, indistinguishable spots. On top of that, the picture ends up upside down and heavily marred by a rather extensive blind spot. But it is precisely from this rough semi-finished product that the entire three-dimensional, image-filled visible world we live in emerges.
Indeed, the striking resemblance of the images generated by Deep Dream to some examples of the art of the mentally ill or people under the influence of "psychedelic" drugs catches the eye. This is no mere coincidence: among the many effects these substances have on the brain, the disruption of the coordinated work of the visual centers plays a significant role.
Nowadays you can shoot the breeze about neural networks, so I'll drop a link too. When I was studying to be a programmer, the sum of my knowledge about them was this: so far, no great success has been achieved in this field. I think everything changed because of commercial companies that got massive computing power, money for research, and highly practical tasks that can be solved using neural networks. That happens a lot, though.
5. What Is Social Anxiety?
What social anxiety is, an interview. It's useful to know even for those who don't suffer from it, unlike me, so you can understand those who do (and there are a lot of them).
Treatment with cognitive therapy, by the way, is very effective, the doctor here says, 75%.
Curiously, it's less common among Asians, because they are collectivists by culture.
We do know, however, that there are interesting differences between cultures, which tells you a little bit about how society also shapes and influences that. We know that [some] Asian cultures, such as Japan and China, report social anxiety disorder less often. In more collectivist cultures, where the individual is not in the center, social anxiety disorder is less of a problem. In individualistic cultures, where it’s important that you are your own, unique person, in those cases social anxiety becomes more of a problem.
Also interesting
The definition of a mental disorder is that it causes either significant distress, and/or significant interference in one's life.
A mental illness, by definition, is something that severely interferes with living. If it doesn't interfere that much — then it's just a personality trait. A shaky boundary that you often cross during mental storms and upheavals.