Sam Harris’ podcast Waking Up is utterly brilliant. I don’t always understand everything they talk about, and it does tend to be a bit of a sausage-fest, but I learn about 12 things every episode!
The one I listened to recently gave me so much to think about, but one little throw away line about self-censoring got me thinking. I am a huge fan of self-censoring! The way I see it, this isn’t the same as the inner-critic. This is an awareness that we shouldn’t believe everything we think and we certainly shouldn’t say everything that pops into our minds, like virulent verbal diarrhea! We should all use Rumi’s Three Gates of Speech.
“Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:
At the first gate, ask yourself “Is is true?”
At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?”
At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?”
~ Rumi
But in writing, they say the story we’re afraid to write, is the one we should write. I am still ruminating (ooo, I wonder if that’s how Rumi got his name…) on this one. I feel writing could Non-Fiction could do well with passing through the same gates.
Some more new words…
Did you know that retrodict is a word? Yup!
Who knew? I’m not really sure how I would use it in a sentence…
In retrodiction, getting drunk last night might have been the reason my brunch meeting didn’t go well…
This is what happens to me when I listen to Sam Harris’ podcast. I end up with a huge long list of words to research!
Heuristics
First a little note for whoever wrote this particular dictionary on the web…
This does not help people…
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a heuristic process or method.
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the study and use of heuristic techniques.
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Cambridge Dictionary was far more helpful, describing it as a method of teaching allowing students to learn by discovering things themselves and learning from their own experiences rather than by telling them things. Thank you, Cambridge!
Intersectionality
The way in which different types of discrimination (= unfair treatment because of a person’s sex, race, etc.) are linked to and affect each other:
The theory of intersectionality highlights the multiple avenues through which racial and gender oppression are experienced.
Epistemology
The part of philosophy that is about the study of how we know things.
Prisoners dilemma
I’ve heard this so many times on Sam’s Podcast and I feel we really should know what this is! The prisoner’s dilemma is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher while working at RAND in 1950.
I guess it’s like this – You are playing Monopoly with your significant other and two friends. Your Love has bought half the board and the rest of you are struggling to pay them, every time you land on a game square. But you’re determined to win, so when another player offers to swap you say, Oxford Street, for your two railways… you say NO, even though you could make a little money that way… Have I got it? I fear I have not…
Then there’s the prisoner’s dilemma used in Economics. This is a paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interest pursue a course of action that does not result in the ideal outcome. A bit like Bernie and Hilary…
Here’s my post from Medium that I thought was pretty good, but it’s received no reads. I thought I’d give it an airing here, because I am still struggling with my Facebook addiction.
I wrote this intro two weeks ago and I am happy to relate that after deleting the app from my phone and timing myself when I use Facebook on my PC I have greatly cut down my cat-meme watching and still increased my followers to 2220! I schedule posts for the day ahead and get outta there.
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