Perception

What is real? How do you define real? If you are talking about what you can touch, see, hear, smell, taste and feel etc, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. We all live in a dream world just like in matrix movie which is different from the reality. Our whole perception of the environment of the external world is based on neural signals. Plato’s famous allegory of cave also illustrates that the world we perceive is different from the reality. For instance, In Schizophrenics when they have auditory hallucinations to them, they are real because their primary auditory cortex is active during hallucinations. Their brains have no means to distinguish between the sound inputs from the outside world and hallucinations.

      Perception is the process by which the cognitive system constructs an internal representation of an outside world. Perceptions are built from sensations (sensory inputs e.g. vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell etc. ) and are influenced by available knowledge, expectations, experiences.  In general, perception is the process of interpreting something that we see or hear in mind and use it later to judge and give a verdict on a situation, person, group etc. It involves a sequence of steps: 1)   Selection of stimuli in the environment – this mainly happens unconsciously 2) Organizing information about stimuli 3) Interpretation

Perception is based on internally driven attention (bottom up processing) and influenced by externally driven attention (top down modulation). Bottom up processing begins with stimulus itself. It is unidirectional and each successive stage carries out more complex analysis of the input. Vision as example : Light → Eye → Retina → Rods & Cones (receptors) → neural activity → primary visual cortex (lines and edges) → successively higher visual areas (up to “face regions” and alike)

Top down processing involves use of previous knowledge, expectations and contextual processing in pattern recognition. “Higher level” brain areas influence neural processing in lower level perceptual areas. For example, Understanding difficult handwriting is easier when reading complete sentences than when reading single and isolated words.

 

Key Issues in perception:

1)  It is not an accurate representation of reality. Instead, perception is an interpretation of sensory input. We know from experiences that senses may deceive us and one and the same input may be interpreted in different ways.

Fig a) It can be interpreted as a duck or rabbit                                                                                                            

 Fig b) this dress may appear golden white  to some or bluish black to others or may be different

 2) Sensation Adaptation: We often don’t perceive stimulus that remains constant over prolonged periods of time. While it reduces our awareness of constant stimulus, it helps free up our attention and resources to attend to other stimuli in the environment. Eg. When you enter a cold swimming pool or into a hot tub, the water may feel unpleasantly cold or too hot, but eventually, your body adjusts to the temperature and it feels only mildly cold or mildly hot. 

3) Signal Detection Theory: The ability to identify a stimulus when it is embedded in a distracting background. Eg. 1) You can hear your friend’s conversation even in a loud party. 

4) Inattentional blindness: It is a failure to notice something that is completely visible due to lack of attention. Eg. In a study conducted by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris (1999), participants watched a video of people dressed in black and white passing basketballs. Participants were asked to count the number of times the team in white passed the ball. During the video, a person dressed in a black gorilla costume walks among the two teams. You would think that someone would notice the gorilla, right? Nearly half of the people who watched the video didn’t notice the gorilla at all, despite the fact that he was clearly visible for nine seconds. Because participants were so focused on the number of times the white team was passing the ball, they completely tuned out other visual information. 

 Psychophysics is a field which studies relationship between physical stimuli and their perception.   Behaviour/percept is a function of stimulus input i.e.

 ψ = f(ϕ)

ψ = percept/behaviour and ϕ =input stimulus

Three central questions in psychophysics:

1)    Detection threshold (Absolute threshold) – What is the minimum strength of a physical stimulation so that we notice its presence? Example: Graph of absolute auditory threshold for people of different ages is shown. It shows that detection threshold increases with aging.

2)    Relative threshold (just noticeable difference or jnd) – smallest detectable difference between two stimuli. It is given by Weber law.

        ∆I/I=k

I = intensity stimulus 1

∆I = difference in intensity of stimulus 2

k = constant (Weber’s constant)

In approximation, the jnd is proportional to the stimulus intensity. The higher the intensity, the larger the jnd and vice versa.

3)    Scaling – How does the perceived intensity change with a change of the physical stimulus? or How much does the physical stimulus need to change to perceive a doubled intensity?

It is not linear: For instance a light twice as intense does not lead to the subjective perception of a light twice as bright.

By experiments it is found that the Perception of the sensory events of an action is different for our own actions and those of others. Our own actions are felt “less intense”, because we already expect its effects. For example: 1) we (usually) can’t tickle ourselves. 2) Lack of this expectation in schizophrenics may explain why they attribute actions to an outside agent

References : Cognitive Pyschology by Andre Szameitat

Power of Atomic habits

Atomic Habits by James Clear is based on the aggregation of marginal gains which is the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. For e.g. if you can get 1% better each day for one year, you'll end up 37 times better by the time, you're done. Conversely, if you get 1% worse each day for one year, you'll decline nearly down to zero. Changes that seem small and unimportant at first, will compound into remarkable results, if you're willing to stick with them for years.

"Habits are a double- edged sword. Bad habits can cut you down just as easily as good habits can build you up." 

What starts as a small win or minor setback accumulates into much more. Therefore, with the same habits you'll end up with same results but with better habits anything is possible.

"Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best are for making progress." 

A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. We need to solve problems at the system level i.e. fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.

"Goals create an either-or conflict i.e. you either achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. "

You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that the actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario, when there are many paths to success.

"True long-term thinking is a goal less thinking."

The purpose of setting goals is to win the game but the purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. It is not about any single accomplishment. It's about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement.

"Improvements are temporary until they become a part of who you are."

True behaviour change is an identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation but the only reason you will stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym once or twice but if you don't shift the belief behind the behaviour, then it is hard to stick with the long-term changes. 

"The biggest barrier to positive change at any level - individual, team or society - is identity conflict. " 

Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity you will fail to put them in action. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity. 

Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that) but because they can change your beliefs about yourself. Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. And if a change is meaningful, it actually is big. That's the paradox of making small improvements.

"Keep your identity small. The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you."

When you cling too tightly to one identity you become brittle. Lose that one thing and you lose yourself. When chosen effectively an identity can be flexible rather than brittle. Like water flowing an obstacle your identity works with the changing circumstances rather than against them. The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to go beyond it. Bruce Lee's advice: "Be water, my friend."

"When you can't win by being better, you can win by being different."

If you can find a favourable environment, you can transform the situation from one where the odds are against you to one where they are in your favour. For example: Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg. You can't control whether you're an egg or potato, but you can decide to play a game where it's better to be hard or soft.

"Work hard on things that comes easy."

We should work hard on things that comes easy. Genes do not eliminate the need for hard work, they clarify it. They tell us what to work hard at. 

"The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom."

We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. Perhaps this is why, we get caught up in never ending cycle, jumping from one workout to the next, one diet to the next, one business to the next. As soon, as we see a slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy even if the old was still working. As Machiavelli noted, "Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for a change as much as those who are doing badly."

"Happiness is simply the absence of desire."

Happiness arrives when you have no urge to feel differently. It is fleeting because a new desire always comes along. As Caed Budris, says:

"Happiness is the state between one desire being fulfilled and a new desire forming."

Likewise, suffering is the space between craving a change in state and getting it.

Note: - We can become rational and logical after we have been emotional. The primary mode of the brain is to feel; the secondary mode is to think. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parmenides' Way Of Truth

Parmenides was born in Elea, probably in the second half of the 6th century BCE. He is regarded as the founder of Eleatic School of Philosophy. Eleatic’s preferred to make use of their reason to respond to the intriguing questions of their time rather than merely relying on the sense experience like the Milesians. Parmenides is the first to employ deductive, a priori arguments to justify his claims, he competes with Aristotle for the title “Father of Logic.”

Parmenides’ only work is a hexameter poem entitled “On Nature” of which only fragments have survived. It consists of three sections i.e. Prologue, Way of Truth or Reality (Alétheia) and Way of Seeming or opinions (or Doxa in Greek). The Proem (prologue) features a young man on a cosmic (perhaps spiritual) journey in search of enlightenment. The second section i.e. truth or  Alétheia is the main philosophy of Parmenides which denies change, motion, and differentiation. Way of seeming or Doxa  concludes the poem with a theogonical and cosmogonical account of the world, which paradoxically employs the very phenomena (motion, change, and so forth) that Reality seems to have denied. But he says  Doxa is supposed to be representative of the mistaken “opinions of mortals,” and thus is to be rejected on some level.

Way of Truth or reality:

Parmenides’ main idea is that All things are One i.e. Being, therefore, he is a true monist. He is also a true rationalist because he trusts mind or logos over sense experience for example: he says Heraclitus’ idea of change i.e. coming to be and perishing and motion are illusion, which is contrary to our daily experiences. What is being? Why did he see being as the unifying principle of everything else? What made him think that change is an illusion? Why does he think that being cannot be differentiated into different objects with characteristics?

Pramenides’ argument is based on two premises:

   1) You have to make a choice between what exists i.e. Being (is) or not-being (is not).

   2) You think (either being or not-being)

Parmenides says  in fragment. 8.5-21, that What Is must be “ungenerated and deathless”: but not ever was it, nor yet will it be, since it is now together entire,/ single, continuous; for what birth will you seek of it?/ How, whence increased? From not being I shall not allow/ you to say or to think: for not to be said and not to be thought/ is it that it is not. And indeed what need could have aroused it/ later rather than before, beginning from nothing, to grow?/ Thus it must either be altogether or not at all./ Nor ever from not being will the force of conviction allow/ something to come to be beyond it: on account of this neither to be born/ nor to die has Justice allowed it, having loosed its bonds,/ but she holds it fast. And the decision about these matter lies in this:/ it is or it is not; but it has in fact been decided, just as is necessary,/ to leave the one unthought and nameless (for no true/ way is it), and <it has been decided> that the one that it is indeed is genuine./ And how could What Is be hereafter? And how might it have been?/ For if it was, it is not, nor if ever it is going to be:/ thus generation is extinguished and destruction unheard of.

To understand his philosophy, we need to ponder over these questions for a while:            

1) Nothing exists

2) Nothing does not exist

3) Where do we come from?

Parmenides’ chief interest is What really exists?

The answer he comes up with is esti i.e. being. All the different things we see around us male-female, trees, birds, animals, mountains and rivers etc they don’t really exist but just seem or appear to exist. The only that exists is being or esti.

What does he mean by being?

Parmenides’ concept of being is univocal. It does not refer to any concrete perceptible reality but only to being as such, to the being which everything possesses since all of them exist. This is the being which encompasses everything –the whole reality.

Where do we come from?

If we think like this: Before being born we were not-being, we become being or exist when we are born and return to not-being when we die.

Then Parmenides points out that there’s a problem of making an assumption that “nothing” or not-being exists. If there was a not-being then not-being would be being which is absurd. Thus, we cannot come from not-being or nothing because something cannot come from nothing or not-being. You can either go from something to another thing or if both (being and not-being) exists, you cannot go from existence to non-existence as there’s no such thing as non-existence or not-being, whatever is, is(being).

Therefore, he describes being as unbegotten and incorruptible; it cannot come from non-being, because non-being is nothing, and from nothing, nothing comes; it cannot come from being because being exists, and what already exists need not be brought into existence. This means that the being has no beginning and no end; it is immutable, perfect, homogeneous and complete, with no need for anything. This follows that time, space and motion are not possible, they are just opinions of mortals. 

What made him think that change is an illusion?

Parmenides rejects the Heraclitus’ idea of change because change (i.e. ceasing to be in one state and coming to be in another state) involves the existence of not being. Not-being is not a thinkable thought and if not-being is not a thinkable thought then coming to be and perishing i.e. change is not a thinkable thought either. As for things to change, we have to make this weird confusion of being and non-being first. You have to cease to exist from your current state i.e. become not-being and then come into existence in order to come to be in another state.

Why does he think that being cannot be differentiated into different objects with characteristics?

There is no plurality of things (ie mountains, rivers, animals, birds and plants etc)  because there is no change. For multiple things to exist, don't they have to be separate from one another?  If you say an empty space separates things from one another then what is this empty space? or there is an absence of things present between me and all the things that aren't me. Then what is this absence of things(empty space) that is present? Isn't this just another fancy way of saying not-being is(exists)? 

Thus, we can conclude that there is no plurality of things there is just one thing i.e. being. Therefore, there is only one sensible thing we can say about the Universe : It is (that's it). What it's like ? Just, just is and it's uniform, not more in one place and less in another. It's a uniform well rounded sphere of being just like sitting there humming with the music of the spheres i.e. B flat note. This is the truth according to Parmenides.

Parmenides’ says whenever we think of something either imaginary or real we think of being. You can’t think of nothing/not-being i.e. thought having no content, even when you can’t think of anything you imagine a black space. So, if you are thinking, the only thing you could think of is being.

To investigate the difficulties when we think of not-being exists we can look at the passage from “Rosencratz and Guilderstone are dead” by Tom Stoppard:

“Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.”

Parmenides’ claims that being is apprehended by the intellect alone. The senses grasp the multiplicity of the sensible; but the intelligence sees beyond appearances, and knows what lies behind them, only one reality: being. “Thought and that by which thought is made possible are the same thing; for thought is expressed in being, and hence, without being, there would be no thought. In other words, being and thought are correlative terms since being only reveals itself to thought and it is this revelation that constitutes the truth. i.e. same things exists for thinking and for being.

 

How Philosophy can help us in our everyday life?

The literal meaning of philosophy is “love of wisdom” but to be more exact it would be “love of wisdom with friends”. The word philosophy was first used by Socrates who invented Dialectic method and developed the idea of moral virtue. Socrates called himself a philosopher to distinguish himself from sophists (wise men). He didn’t say he was wise, instead he said he loved wisdom. Sophists were like today’s politicians and lawyers who would use argumentative questioning to deceive people and win an argument at any cost where as philosopher wishes to be honest. Nowadays, people commonly use the word philosophy to refer to the way of thinking or an attitude, but philosophy is more than that.

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation. To be a philosopher is to have a questioning mind, taking everything with a grain of salt and accepting the most reasonable opinion possible. To refuse to be philosophical is to love one’s own opinion rather than accepting the most reasonable opinion possible. This makes us dogmatic and increases the odds of being fanatical. To be philosophical one must develop two virtues :1) Appropriate Skepticism 2) Appropriate open mindedness

Appropriate Skepticism : It requires finding a balance between being gullible and being skeptic. We should not only be skeptical of beliefs of others but also of our own beliefs.

Appropriate open mindedness: Open mindedness is the tendency to believe or to take other’s ideas seriously. An open-minded person will be willing to consider what others have to say but completely open-minded person will be gullible and would believe anything whatever he is told. People who are gullible don’t need good arguments to believe something and people who are close minded don’t have a reason to listen to other people because they already know not to trust anyone’s opinion. Without these two above mentioned virtues people would have no use of philosophy.

Philosophers are the ones who have revolutionised the world for example : 1) Aristotle gave the idea of golden mean (Moral behaviour is the mean between two extremes- at one end is excess and at the other is deficiency. Find a moderate position between these two extremes and you will be acting morally) ,logic and developed empirical science . 2) Plato’s allegory of cave and the theory of tripartite soul. 3) John Stewart Mill’s theory of utilitarianism explains why certain actions are good and bad . The best decisions have good consequences for the largest number of people i.e. the greatest happiness for the greatest number. 4) Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative – As human beings we have certain moral rights and duties. We should treat all people as free and equal to ourselves and our actions are morally right only if we can apply them universally. 5) Voltaire proposed the idea of the separation of church from the state because according to him number of problems in the present society is because of church / religious denominations. 6) John Locke’s idea of life, liberty and property etc. Thus, we can say that philosophers have played significant role in shaping our present life. 7) Friedrich Nietzsche most famous quotes:

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost anyhow.”

helped in solving the existential crisis by advocating the philosophy of will to power (overcoming your inner dark side) that is still the problem with majority. There were many important philosophers who were also mathematicians, scientists, doctors and astronomers in the past who helped humanity to take giant leaps towards progress.

By studying philosophy, you can find out what philosophers have already thought of and it can help you think of ideas that have never been thought of before. In philosophy we mainly study the nature of reality (metaphysics), logic (argumentative structure), ethics (morality) and epistemology (knowledge). Philosophy doesn’t guarantee that we will attain absolute truth, infallible certainty or a complete understanding of reality. Instead, it merely helps us to be more reasonable, creative and ethical because it helps us attain justified beliefs and justified beliefs are more likely to be accurate than unjustified ones. It is not “people making stuff up” in a haphazard way. It requires justifications and proper reasoning. Philosophy tells us how we should argue and how we can be free to think for ourselves to improve our own lives, relationships and the world. By learning about the answers people have thought of to life’s greatest questions (Is there a best way to live? why do we exist? etc) opens possibilities for new outlook and a better understanding of our problems which helps us being more creative, reasonable and ethical.

In a nutshell, Philosophy helps us be more :1) Reasonable and learning to be reasonable is of utmost importance because we all have to make choices and accomplish goals. Being reasonable enables us to make better choices, accomplish our goals, live a better life and become a better person. 2) Ethical – it is important because our decisions and actions can have a powerful impact on ourselves and others. We want fewer criminals, more people to help the poor, fewer corrupt politicians and cops and judges who accept bribes etc to make the world a better place.

                                                                                                           

 

Dry Souls

Once upon a time, there used to be an oasis in the desert of Rajasthan, India. The village was abundant in everything, had good agriculture and businesses were flourishing thanks to a Caring Water Spirit that used to reside in a well. For them the well was sacred as it had the purest and sweetest water like an Elixir, they even made good money by selling water to other villages. It always helped villagers meet all their demands and brought prosperity to their family and businesses. However, the Water Spirit became fearful of the dry seasons as they began exploiting it often more, without ever worrying that it could go dry.

Always the well had abundant water for those who were thirsty but not for their greed. It was their greed and ungrateful attitude which made the well go dry. Their playful corrupt ways of exploiting the well for all their selfish businesses especially wine making made the Caring Water Spirit leave and never to return again to the well and the villagers.

Many Seasons passed by, the well remained dry and became oblivious to the people. The villagers became desperate for water and eagerly prayed to the Almighty. The Caring Water Spirit was in heavens but not as much happy as she had hoped. She was in her own world, aloof from other spirits and deities as they always used to talk about how much they are worshipped and loved by the people. The Caring Water Spirit had made her mind that she would never trust and care about the Earth dwellings again.

But the Almighty had something else planned for her. It was all going to change when the water spirit would fell in love. As the time passed by, the villagers were dying of thirst and their fields were not producing grains and therefore, they desperately prayed to the Almighty for a miracle. While the water spirit became more aloof and gloomier in the heavens because all Deities kept their distance from her. They feared that she would bring bad luck to them.

Then one day she met the Rain, who cared about her and never flaunted how he is worshipped by people like other spirits. She gradually fell in love with the sweet personality of Rain. She was curious about him and wanted to know everything about the rain as she was madly in love with him.

When she understood the world of Rain, she began to have a change of heart and gradually became willing to return to Earth so that she could she the Rain more often. She would do all sorts of things to gain the love of Rain and was even willing to die for him. But most of the time Rain used to live on Earth and she missed him like crazy. Whenever the Rain returned from Earth, he used to have a big heartfelt smile and the Water Spirit loved him more on those days. Rain began telling stories of Earth when she started asking how was the Earth? The stories of flora and fauna, the happy farmers dancing in their fields with their families. Rain described how happy they were whenever they met rain after a long dry spell.

The Water Spirit changed her mind and decided to return to Earth, to the people who she abandoned and to reside in the well again. The Villagers quickly noticed the Well filled with pure sweet water like before and thanked the Water Spirit and the Almighty. Now the villager became careful in ways of using the Well and always expressed gratitude to the Water Spirit. She now became fearless of the dry seasons as she knew that the Rain would always be by her side in every dry season.  

 

Moral: “Love can you make do all sorts of things which you thought    you will never do again.”

“Never take anyone’s benevolent actions for granted.”