Eight Easy Things Studying Science Has Taught Me.

ertwro (62)in #science • 7 years ago (edited)

1. A case against empathy

It's believed that empathy is the biggest source of well being we can bring to our fellow human beings. An asset. We protect our fellow human species if we feel empathy for them and we expand our sense of what's good thanks to it. It can extend even to non-human existences.
Science tells a different story. from a moral stand point, It's a liability.
Dr. Paul Bloom, developmental cognitive psychologist. Professor at Yale University argues that it makes the world worst.

Putting yourself in the shoes of another person, feeling their pain is what's normally called empathy in everyday usage. It seems obvious it would make you a better person because you would care and get more interested in another person. But one of the problems of empathy is that it makes you focus and blinds you to the possible future consequences of your actions.
For empathy is that we care more for a baby that fell in a well or for an abducted child than for more pressing complex subjects like:

Global warming
The space debris and the Kessler syndrome that could destroy our satellites or make space travel in the future impossible.

It creates what's called "glow altruism" when your good deed is so small or insignificant that it has an opposite effect.
Suppose you give to multiple charities, a little bit for blind babies, a little bit for animal protection, a little bit for hospitals. The fact that you don't concentrate your donations makes the cost in many cases a net loss for those that need to collect them.
In comparison "effective altruism" cares for finding solutions to a problem taking into account the limitations of the real world, something like Elon Musk.

If you examine properly most of the awful things that happen in the world, you would find that they are a consequence of a moralistic rush. Something bad happens to someone close to you if there's a culprit to be found you need not only retribution but revenge. You imagine the pain and now is your own. This is one of the sources of burn out in doctors. Overload of pain by empathy.

There's an alternative is compassion. Cold, rational care for others. There's neuroscience research that shows there's a clear distinction between compassion and empathy.

Amazon link
Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Professor Paul Bloom's Lecture Against Empathy

2. Everything is subjective but some subjective takes are exponentially better than others.

There's no canon version of Shakespeare. If the reading of literature is affected by its reader than even for the author themselves there's no canon version once the work is published.

This was philosopher Jacques Derrida's position. By using his method of deconstruction his position affected literary studies for ever. His position was mainly against privileging a particular class of input and accused philosophers since Socrates of this. They preferred speech over writing. Vision over tact. To him, everything was equally valid just different and that this contrast was not only useful but the right way.

Unfortunately for Derrida's position on contrast, Computer Science has an extremely different and Powerful take on this.

Learning to see by Welch Labs:

The problem of computer vision is much more complex than anybody thought in the beginning. In this beautiful series, you would see that given a finite amount of computational power, in other words in this reality, most approaches to anything don't bring in new information and are not different from randomness. To learn is to generalize, have biases and make compromises (bias-variance dilemma). It's a beautiful animated series on Computer Science.

3. Our creativity is severely limited by our experiences of the outside world

We may be tempted to appreciate an art object and think of the creator as a genius without realizing how mundane and lacking magic this object is for its creator. Artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Michel for family and friends said, "If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all."

Many discoveries in science have occurred simultaneously and independently many times in the past. Those at the peak of a skill get exposed to the important ideas first, they recognize the utility of such development and advance it. Just to find out that it was a race to discovery.

Isolated genius is not the norm, is an accident of a focused environment that's disrupted or varies after a long and hard period of incubation.

This is explained by biologist Dr. Stuart Alan Kauffman as the "Adjacent Possible". Explored in this talk by Steven Johnson on where good ideas come from.

4. Exploring your passion is dangerous

Indulging in your inner desires in a constructive manner seems positive, but is it? repressing the monster within is a major source of frustration. Reliving the experience and feeding it, even by artificial means or creative outputs strengthens the neural pathways in our brain where it lives. Carving and boring deeper and deeper inside with a loop the prison of our memory.

The sci-fi series Westworld depicts a thematic park where people go to explore their fantasies in a virtual world where robots are trapped in a story to serve the purposes of those in a higher dimension of control.

"These violent delights have violent ends..." No Fear Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet: Act 2, Scene 6

One doesn't need to go as far as robots. People who suffer OCD are trapped in this loop. Their compulsion is a way for them to deal with a mixture of past and present. Some cases of Alzheimer attack the more recent memories and the people only live in their past, a never ending dream inhabited by people alien to them.

The stoics warned people of the problems of following your passions since they cage you in a prison of resentment.
Dr. Cal Newport explains this in his book. So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

'follow your passion' is wrong: Cal Newport speaks at World Domination Summit 2012

5. Biases are necesary but dangerous if they go on loops

I wrote an article on the nature of violence and its basis in game theory and as "Learning To See" shows, biases are an important part of learning and interacting with reality. Nonetheless, unchecked bias is the source of most of our repeated mistakes because it makes learning an impossibility. This is quite common in the art. Where artists live and breath bias and gloat in it. Finding patterns is a natural part of human cognition. e.g.

I've mentioned Elon Musk, whose ex-wife acts in Westworld where they constantly cite Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet quote "These violent delights have violent ends..."

Given enough time we could find an existential crisis in everything.
One could take this rabbit hole further but comedy comes in threes.

Forbes' article source
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In here a video explanation of art and loops as seen by Google's Deep Dream.

6. Early adoption of good ideas is key

One might think that the way to improve one's life is to explore actively by reading and engaging in all the things that interest you to select what you oughtta continue using. Developing a taste.
This is a path to poorness.

In his book based on a series of conferences given at Stanford University, Peter Thiel mentions what are the important things in order to keep going this Ponzi scheme we call civilization, Vertical growth. Development and expansion are something everyone can do given enough time.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

How do we find this ideas as they present themselves? By trying them all? Impossible. We have not enough time and resources. As mentioned before some subjective ideas are better than others because they provide more information and the possibility to learn.

In a space like technology choosing the right idea early and investing heavily in something you trust is the difference between millions and billions. The same goes to research. Pether Thiel made 119.500% return on his $5'000.000 investment on Facebook.

He did acquire this skill by first becoming extremely good at whatever he pursued competitively. The hard work polished him. It wasn't what he choose for him but how he did it. After all failing an internship at the supreme court was what made him become an entrepreneur.

Here are the note's of the class for free
http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup

7. Be bored, is good for you

Most people hate and blame our education system as a source of failure. If anything the schools are extremely good at boring kids and killing their interests. The problem with this take is that if people are free from focused restriction by their personalities alone they will engage in a never ending loop of attention waste.

This waste is transformed to work by smarter and more profitable people.

Tristan Harris was a Design Ethicist at Google, here he explains how normal people are being farmed for attention.

Deep work is a "muscle" that requires embracing boredom. Without it, meaningful, powerful innovation can never occur. You become a slave of your passions.

8. Always give more

In an ever more competitive world, the utility of human beings comes into question. As automation progresses you might be surprised at how human life is objectified a discarded. We don't need to get resentful about it. Selection of life is outside of our control and probably will forever be. Why should humans have utility? because that's reality.

The selection can be random or driven by choice. It doesn't matter, when complexity is high enough any success is not driven by anything but luck.

Today I lost something precious that can't be replaced. I could have done things differently but now there's no use in blaming myself. There are things outside my control and I can only control how I react to it. I chose to react with a smile while my guitar gently weeps. Even if everything else goes to waste, for a limited period of time we can at least share good emotions with those.

You can be what Albert Camus dreamed of for humanity.

Appreciate your reading, if you like this please check my other writings. They are pretty cool.
See you.