First Blog

1. Introduction. The setting is that you have a problem to solve. Not from the textbook, this problem is possibly open-ended and has no straightforward solution. It’s complicated, involving what you know and what assumptions you can make, constraints on resources you can use, and your time to solution. At the beginning, you consider what you can assume is true, you need to consider testing your solutions, and a host of other factors. Let’s look at the assumptions state. This is more familiarly called the "what if" stage.  It is a crucial phase in the creative and exploratory dimension of inquiry. It represents the moment when a problem-solver steps beyond what is already known to speculate, imagine, or hypothesize possibilities. It is driven by curiosity, imagination, and the desire to simplify and explore alternative explanations or pathways. Hopefully, you may discover you already follow these steps. Yet, in real-life problems they happen, almost always without an instruct...

  A.   For most of us, receiving a bit of wisdom appears like a stroke of genius. For those with wisdom, it is little more than a simple conclusion. B.   Beliefs come in two forms, spiritual and material. Survival requires humans to have the capacity for material beliefs, though many are incapable of spiritual beliefs.   C.   Experience is a form of wisdom that serves as a crucial damper for the acceptance of quick, ready, and wrong solutions.

Suppose you are looking for a new job, but you’re not fresh on the market, or from college, or like twenty-something. You have years of experience in the workplace.  You will need to explain your value to a prospective employer.  Actually, experience has great value, when you express it in the right terms. Especially, experience serves as a crucial damper for the validity of quick, ready, and amateur solutions for several key reasons. Reveals Nuance and Complexity. Beyond the Surface: Inexperienced individuals might only see the most obvious aspects of a problem, leading them to jump to a straightforward solution. Experience, however, teaches you that most real-world problems are rarely simple. There are often hidden variables, interdependencies, and long-term consequences that aren't immediately apparent. Context Matters: What worked in one situation might not work in another, even if they appear similar on the surf...

A.   If all you want is money, attention, and approval, you’ll spend your life chasing them, never having enough. B.   You will never know the gifts of love, affection, and friendship unless you first give them to another. C.   Thinking is the nursery of great ideas. You never, ever hear of the “accidental” genius.

A.     "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle B.     Progress is fueled by persistence.  C.     Snippet from a future history book about AI, “At first AI seemed like a performance-enhancing drug. Then, side effects were noticed. Spreading like a disease, it began as a reliance, rapidly moving to dependence, and finally, helplessness set in. Something had to be done. … “

  What is Genius? 1. Introduction. Genius is one of those ephemeral items in the human inventory of gifts together with skills and talents, abilities and intelligence, proficiency and cleverness. Hard to define, genius is both specific and contextual. It is not generally abstract. Genius can reveal itself anywhere, in science, business, politics, war, and literature though often along separate channels. Some of our greatest philosophers were challenged by the concept and addressed it with notably interesting, though somewhat obscure interpretations. Immanuel Kant in Part I of his Critique of Judgment tells us "Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other." In his Twilight of the Idols , Nietzsche writes, "Great men, like great epochs, are explosive material in whom tremendous energy has been accumulated; their prer...

A.     It is probable that life on Earth began multiple times before it sustained. This is only because it finally emerged as adaptable. B.     One day not long from now, we may regard the Atomic bomb (big) and gain-of-function research (bigger) as small fry threats next to the damage potential of AI. AI could be a later-day allegory of the  Golden Goose . C.     Persistence is the bridge between vision and reality. It transforms potential into progress and intention into impact. P.S. This is my 1000th blof on blogspot

  A.     On bumper stickers, you sometimes see, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” However, 21% of adult Americans cannot read, while 54% of American adults read at below the sixth-grade level. Who do we thank for that? B.     What is the crowning achievement of sustained life on earth? Intelligence? Resourcefulness? Aggressiveness? Speed? No. It is adaptability, a property undetectable under the microscope. 

  Top Ten Wars – listed by total casualties, civilian and military 1. World War II (1939–1945)   Estimated deaths: 70–85 million 2. Mongol Conquests (13th century)   Estimated deaths: 30–60 million 3. Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) Estimated deaths: 20–30 million 4. World War I (1914–1918) Estimated deaths: 15–20 million 5. Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) Estimated deaths: 15–20 million 6. An Lushan Rebellion (755–763) Estimated deaths: 13–36 million 7. Qing Conquest of the Ming Dynasty (1616–1662) Estimated deaths: 25 million 8. Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) Estimated deaths: 8–12 million 9. Russian Civil War (1917–1922) Estimated deaths: 7–12 million 10. Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) Estimated deaths: 3.5–6 million ------------------------------ For comparison, the American Civil War (1861–1865) resulted in an estimated total of 620,000 to 750,000 deaths , making it the deadliest conflict in U.S. history. Key points: Union deaths: ~360...

  Here are some markers for having a good memory.        Quickly learning, retaining, and recalling new information. Remembering dates, numbers, and events comes naturally, without struggle.        Recalling past events with vivid detail.        Rarely needing reminders for tasks or commitments. For example, you can recall your shopping needs without writing them down.        Remembering past event details when your peers cannot.        You easily create mnemonics* to help recall events. Also, there are memory tests you can take, like the Wechsler Memory Scale or online tools such as MemTrax, Cambridge Brain Sciences. These measure short-term, long-term, and working memory by recalling sequences or patterns. Luck does not seem to be a factor involved with memory. Of course, you can get a test answer correct be...