Observations on the world and its inhabitants
After many years of working with all sorts of flow charting and mapping software, I recently discovered yED quite by accident. If Draw.io is a Jaguar, then yED is a Rolls Royce and a Lambo all in one. Teslas are not in this race! 😊 What’s in the ‘tin’? It’s best to say how it ...
Nobody hands you a manual for the mind. Go looking and you find a billion-pound industry on the shelves pretending otherwise. Here is a small everyday event but a manual here may not help. You see the sign in some shop: 80% off. The coffee machine, or the coat; it makes no difference. Before you ...
It is 17 January 1998. President Bill Clinton sits in a deposition in the Paula Jones civil case. A written definition of “sexual relations” has been placed before him. As narrowed by the judge, it states that a person engages in sexual relations when that person knowingly engages in or causes contact with the genitalia, ...
The word ‘code’ is enough to send people into sudden panic attacks. If you had one, or are about to, please act in your own best interests and leave now. What is presented is a pathway and method for analysing documents, creating diagrams and gaining insights into their contents. It’s reusable, and tweakable. If you ...
Imagine it is 1989. I am sitting before an Amstrad PCW, a cream-coloured machine with a small green screen, a substantial keyboard and a three-inch floppy disk drive. When the disk is accessed, the machine whirs. When the printer begins, it clatters with mechanical determination. I do not think of it as a computer. People ...
Mono no aware o shiru hito (物の哀れを知る人) means, literally, “a person who knows the poignancy of things” — but the knowing it encapsulates is of a different kind. It is not knowledge from books or doctrine; it is knowing the way one knows grief, or a friend’s face — by acquaintance, not by information. Nor ...
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 ...
🎬 Introduction: A Society on the Brink In an age defined by speed, noise, and digital saturation, the ability to think critically is quietly vanishing. This video offers a sobering exploration of what happens when a society surrenders its intellectual independence—not through ignorance, but through passive acceptance. The original video is here – full credits ...
Decision-making is something I’ve explored before. I go deeper this time. Everybody believes that they are making the best decisions for themselves. But how good are those decisions, actually? No psychologist is coming to tell you what’s what in the confines of your own cranium. We humans make countless decisions every day, from the trivial ...
Situations where authority trumps logic continue to weigh on my mind. As a doctor, I often find myself in situations where I need to break down complex concepts into simple, digestible pieces of information for patients and staff. Despite my best efforts to avoid medical jargon and make these explanations as clear as possible, I ...
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 ...
I’ve written before on justification. If you don’t like thinking, then what on earth are you doing surfing this site. You are a disgrace to the human race. I couldn’t give a flying flamingo if you don’t like thinking right now because you have a zillion other things on your busy agenda.
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. ...
Some will be going, “What’s this? What’s he on about this time?!” Tough – this is not a 30 second read for those in a majority, whose minds have been addled by the likes of X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Dog to bathe? Clothes to put in the washing machine? You go there and stay ...
No – you don’t need to know all the details. I became concerned that maybe – just maybe it was possible for someone else to be me. So, I had to double check and think about it. The following is from a forum where I sought an opinion (not advice).
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? ...
If you’re looking for a tutorial depart now and save yourself time and bother. Instead head to Pure bias at Wikepedia and you’ll get your tutorial there. But if you stay on to read this post, you are warned as always that you’ll be putting up with my own thoughts about the concept (and the ...
I’m always fascinated to learn new words. When I say ‘new’ I mean words that I did not know or use, or words that I had forgotten about. The following is a recent list, which is being updated as I discover new words: Ham-fisted Bucolic Hagiography Obstreperous Rapscallion Bloviation Skedaddle Sinecure This post is not ...
I marvel at the way the humans think. But then – are they actually thinking? The way you work that is to say, “Some do – some don’t.” Giant orbiting teapot So – there is a massive teapot orbiting the Earth and it is about to pour tea on everybody. How do I know? Well, ...
People use the word ‘mindset‘ fairly often. But what does it mean? Many will now reach for their dictionaries and Google. When I think about how others refer to mindset, I get the impression that they mean the person’s mind is set in a certain way. I think that’s partially true. People use mindset often ...
Well, I know that I do not throw away things that are/were of value to me. I found the book FALLACY: The counterfeit of argument, in a storage box in my garage today 2022-05-29 around 12:30PM. It means I’ve kept that book for just over 40 years! Snapshots below. It is/was an important book because ...
One of the big reasons I hang out and interact on social media, is to explore cultures and ways of thinking/behaviour. So when you see some of the same represented in the utterances of Stupid (that imaginary impish figure in my mind), you know where that came from. The example below shows that individuals feel ...
This post is going to be updated at regular intervals. I found a way to hide text from posts until they are properly completed. So – what’s seen at this time is only what I want to show. Yes – I can do non-published drafts. But I find it better to show as I go, ...
As some may know, I spend a fair amount of time on social media forums. I’m bewildered about the sort of ‘thinking’ – if you can call it that – that goes on up there. The following was a classic. HM I don’t understand why hardly any of the comments get deleted. American company. Clearly ...
I should have been spending time on Netflix – but over the last few hours (near midnight on 22nd Jan 2022), I came across the video below (which could disappear). It is about Dawkins among a panel and a bunch of people in the audience. This triggered me to explore – again – the nature ...
It’s not for everybody!! And this is not a book review. Do your own reading. Or avoid it!
Captain Walker
Captain Walker
