Observations on the world and its inhabitants
You need to thank one man for your current existence – a Russian. On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer at Serpukhov-15, the Soviet command bunker for early warning satellites. Just weeks after serious NATO actions, his Oko satellite system reported that the United States had launched five intercontinental ballistic missiles from ...
Most of the time, we think we’re reacting to the world as it is right now, but we’re usually just living out the consequences of a past that refused to fade. A single event—maybe a project that blew up or a warning heard in childhood—somehow stops being just a memory and hardens into a universal ...
The “Scout Mindset” is a compelling idea in modern self-improvement. Julia Galef (2021) [2] coined the term. It presents a powerful metaphor for how we process information. It contrasts the curious truth-seeker with the defensive soldier. The idea is simple, but its implications are profound. It touches everything from our relationships to scientific discovery. At ...
Alan Turing’s 1950 proposal was not an attempt to define intelligence in abstract terms. Instead, it offered a pragmatic approach to recognising intelligence through conversational indistinguishability. The central question posed was whether a machine that could converse indistinguishably from a human should be considered intelligent. This reframing allowed Turing to sidestep metaphysical debates and focus ...
Some will be going ‘That has to be the stupidest question yet on your blog!‘ – as if I would give a flying flamingo. The question came up in passing, on a forum somewhere when someone referred to water being wet as a way to say ‘naturally so and so is the case’ on some ...
In September 1990, Marilyn vos Savant, known for her “Ask Marilyn” column in Parade magazine and her record-high IQ, received an intriguing question from reader Craig F. Whitaker about the now-famous Monty Hall problem. The problem The question was something like: Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: ...
The fallacy of misplaced concreteness, also known as reification, is a logical fallacy where an abstract concept is treated as if it were a concrete, tangible object. This error involves attributing a physical reality or concrete qualities to something that is abstract. Alfred North Whitehead introduced the term to critique the way certain abstract scientific ...
The question “If a tree fell in a forest but no one saw or heard it fall, did it fall?” is a philosophical thought experiment that explores the nature of reality and our perception of it. I approach this problem from the angle of logic and reasoning: Based on these logical arguments, some would argue ...
This bias is quite common. Have you ever been in a conversation where you make a thoughtful point, only to have the other person latch onto a single word or phrase and totally miss your intended meaning? This common phenomenon is known as focalism bias, and it can lead to frustrating misunderstandings and derailed discussions. ...
Thought disorder is not a diagnosis nor do I allude to a mental condition in Bloggs below. In psychiatry when thought disorder is observed, it may point to any of a dozen underlying mental disorders. But note carefully that the environment of observation would be clinical and not extend into the wider world. However, many ...
In the following weeks I’ll be doing an exploration of several logical fallacies and errors of thinking. I’m returning to this area because it is a difficult one to recall a taxonomy of categorised fallacies and errors. There are some 300-plus logical fallacies on record. Most people cannot name one. What’s the importance of this? ...
I’ve touched on ‘justification‘ in several posts over the years. A recent event last week, made me think even more about it. As always I try to define or refine what I mean by words like justify or justification. Google addicts may now pause to check what the words mean. What is the concept? To ...
The pandemic period has assaulted me with stupidity – left, right, centre, top and down. It has been a very painful period. Some will say, “Well, you didn’t have to take in all that stupidity. You could have just looked elsewhere.” Before I get into that get into the interview with Piers Corbyn’s below. If ...
This is scene killer for Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 14. You have been warned. Summary There are two main themes running through the film. First theme T’pol – the Vulcan science officer on Enterprise is discovered to be suffering from a slow-burn dementia that eventually turns to madness, as the result of a ...
I’ve touched on evidence before but I had not actually dealt with ‘what it is’. I also explored what ‘facts’ were. None of the following means to diminish the value of tangible evidence. In other posts I would have shown what people do with hard evidence when they do get it shoved in their faces. ...
It’s usually a good idea to define what one is talking about. Fallacy is derived from the Latin word, fallacia which means trick, deceit or fraud. Logical fallacy is an argument containing faulty reasoning. Also note that ‘reasoning’ itself depends on applications of the rules of logic – which stand rather separately. So – misapplication ...
Right – so I don’t really know exactly why I come up with topics like these. It is probably about ‘stuff’ that I’ve come across and have been thinking about for some time. Then something happens and I get some sort of inspiration to write. So, with the recent warm patch of weather I was ...
For quite some time I’ve been looking at the rules of logic in relation to how people reason on various things. Repeatedly I came up with a gap between the rules of logic and the application of reasoning. In retrospect I discover that I unknowingly made an assumption, that if the rules of logic were ...
Some don’t like me studying the ‘humans’. That’s not news. And why? Well the humans do not like to be seen as they really are. A few things have come up in the last few months. The Future The humans believe that the future is a particular time. The reality is that no one can ...
I’ve been up to no good as usual – exploring the thought processes of the good and great. It’s been a fascinating time, lurking among the most intelligent group in the country. And whaddayuhknow – they are very much plebs at heart. I have conclusive and hard evidence in my hands! I’ve seen them in ...
It’s one of those posts again. I just realised – even more – that the human being is content to live in a dream world. What’s that – somebody is bound to ask. Ok – so let me distract myself to explain. A dream world is one where your own reasoning matters the most. You ...
I continue to despair for the human race. They seem incapable of distinguishing what is fact from what is inference. Yes – of course that is a generalisation. I can’t deal with each human – some 6 Billion of them! Get real. If Joe says that Jane says – does it mean that Jane said ...
I sometimes become despondent about the human race – for a number of reasons. I think to myself, that people of average intelligence surely must be able to read, understand, and apply some logic to what’s going on. Surely that sort of activity is what differentiates us from all other animal lifeforms on this planet. ...
The following mindmap condenses some of my thoughts on the nature of expertise. It is for sure not complete – and thank you, I need no assistance or references. And because I’m not here to teach you who reads this, don’t be daft and expect me to unpack every part of what follows. I’m not ...
Within the last 24 hours I received an email from someone asking for some thing or the other. It caused a waste of my time. How? 1. I had to read it about 4 times in attempting to understand what was being asked. 2. In the end I did not understand. 3. I had to ...
“It is a myth that problems perpetuate themselves. It is people, in general, who perpetuate problems. People need to start thinking and activating themselves to solve their problems.” …. Captain Walker
Human nature absolutely fascinates me!! As I have said in various ways before, we’re still ‘animals’ confused by the demands of a modern world requiring cognition. Some will get my drift by observing the following conversation – and others will argue blindly that it was a reasonable mistake to make. The scene is me shopping ...
This is brutal – as you might have come to expect. This is the situation. You send an email to someone. You double check that it’s left your email box and it shows as ‘sent’ in your sent box. You wait on a response. There is no response or acknowledgement after several days, which is ...
I’m giving an example of how the humans assess risk. Recently I came across a human who would not drink tap water, especially from hotels for fear of contracting Legionnaire’s disease. In a nutshell there are 500 cases of the disease in the UK per year, of which 160 cases are contracted abroad. There is ...
In conversations with several others over the last month the above theme has come up several times. I’ve been thinking about it – and have put some thoughts together here. This is not advice. It appears to me that the avoidance of immediate or impending pain and discomfort is a major driver in decision-making. That ...
Captain Walker
Captain Walker
