The Grand Theory of Human Mind

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 by simpleblob

Or, my little model of human mind I just thought up myself during my train ride home -- without any evidence to support the model. (well, I haven't looked it up yet)

OK, my belief is that our mind has 2 parts: the conscious-logical mind, and the jungle-like pattern matching unconscious mind. These two are separated physically, but not in a clear cut way like left & right brain.

1st part is responsible for aceing the IQ test, doing math, and critical thinking. Anything that is reasoning and "careful" logical thinking. I stressed careful because that implies you have to be fully conscious when you are using this part of the brain. Most scientist-types are proficient in using it. As you can tell, it is most suitable for analyzing information and making "perfect" decision. The downside is time. You need to consider everything, slowly.
[Programmer talk: This is like a deterministic algorithm. Can find optimal conclusion, but computationally expensive]

2nd part, this one is interesting. It does pattern-matching for you without you knowing what's going on, hence operating (mostly) unconsciously. What you usually get is a "hunch". Ex: Something is off about this guy. I don't like him. This place is somehow odd, I'm not sure I wanna rent it. And many more example. The people who has the most advanced form of this part are the intuitive type -- usually women. They are great at guessing things, but they can't tell you why they "think" that way.

Most people downplay the importance of this 2nd part. It actually is another form of intelligence. Very useful for quite a few things -- Like interpersonal skills. Most salesperson use it to read the customer and react accordingly -- without knowing it themselves. It's fast, almost instant. The decision is good, but not the best. Mostly "good enough"
[Programmer talk: This is a heuristics part. Plenty fast and cheap. but might stuck in local maxima]


This is why scientists can't sell and salesmen can't do science! Their brains are completely different! (Well, to be more accurate, they only like to use one part of their brain and try to use it to solve every type of problems. When you're a hammer, everything you see is a nail.)

I'm a scientist type. Everyday, I try to approach the people-problem using the analytical part of my mind. I think I gain some insights, but it's usually too slow, and so DAMN tiring. With people, it's like solving 3 differential equations at the same time without knowing the variables. I can see the benefit of the "ituitive" brain, but I don't know how to use (or activate) it. I'll be researching more of this.

Hoo boy, I'm taking a brain dump here. It's hard to write something coherent when you're tired, and this is especially a hard concept to explain. Hope I can read it later and still gets it.

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My iPod gone

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by simpleblob

My iPod got stolen today, during my evening walk back home. Damn the Bangkok thieves! I had my hands full today and left my iPod in my messenger bag. He probably saw my white headphone line disappeared into my bag -- pinpointing the device location.

I was a bit upset at my bad luck, but now I revel at how the thief's luck is equally bad. You see, my Ipod is an obsoleted 5-years ago model. He probably couldn't sell it through a 2nd hand market, or if he could the price would've been dismal. Plus, my songs are mainly in English and Japanese, which I presume is not his kind of music anyway.

So what he essentially stolen is a 5 years old hard drive. And what I got is --- an opportunity to buy a new iPod! (gotta pay for it though, hmm or is stealing a choice?)

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Money vs Time (vs Quality of life)

Saturday, August 29, 2009 by simpleblob

Reddit, Being Frugal.

I've said it before on /r/Frugal and I'll say it again.

Being frugal is not about saving money. Not one bit. Being frugal is about saving TIME.

HOWEVER... when you think on the relation of time vs. money... you need to factor in something that many people leave out... how much TIME did it take you to EARN the money? You need to convert costs to time, not dollars. The oil change may cost you 35 dollars... but if it takes two hours to earn that money back then you may be losing in the long run.

We are frugal not because we want to save money. Money is essentially an infinite resource. If we spend what we have we can always make more. The catch is that we have to spend time to make money. Time is a very, very finite resource. Most of us will only get about 70 years worth, and if you're old enough to be living the frugal life you've probably already spent 20 or 30 years of it.

We are frugal because we want to avoid spending money and essentially eliminate the need to make more of it.

If you're frugal because you want to spend all of your time saving money so you can stockpile it then I think you have the wrong idea. I also think you have the wrong idea if you're being frugal so that you can build up enough money to buy "things". Or, maybe you want to retire young but you don't wanna look back and think that you wasted the best years of your life earning money so you can spend the most increasingly difficult years of your life saving money to leave behind. I certainly hope you aren't visiting /r/Frugal on a regular basis because you want to save up enough money to buy a great big house so you can spend time making money to fill it with more "things".

You can get money back. You can't get time back. But being frugal is about not being wasteful with money so that you don't have to spend time.

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Another Sowell gem

Saturday, August 08, 2009 by simpleblob

If you could knock a little something into the heads of young liberals, what would it be?

I'd like to get them to think in terms of incentives and empirical evidence, and not in terms of goals and hopes. Over the years, I've reached the point where I can hardly bear to read the preamble of proposed legislation. I don't care what you think this thing is going to do. What I care about is: What are you rewarding, and what are you punishing? Because you're going to get more of what you're rewarding and less of what you're punishing. -- Thomas Sowell

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Google wave developer = Viking Legend

Sunday, May 31, 2009 by simpleblob


I was just watching Google Wave keynote, and noticed that Lars Rasmussen, the creator, looks so much like Askeladd, the character from Vinland Saga manga.

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