Tag Archives: thinking

The answer doesn’t seem right

Back in December I shared that we really don’t understand exponential growth. Well I’m about to share a question with an answer that will boggle your mind. All I ask is that you make a guess at the answer before looking at it.

Imagine we get every single human being on earth to play a ‘winner play on’ game of rock-paper-scissor. First, let’s round up the population to 8 billion. And let’s assume every one of them can play.

A game of Rock-Paper-Scissors with 8,000,000,000 people.

So the first round will be 4 billion pairs of people, with 4 billion losing, and 4 billion winning and moving on to the next round. The question is:

How many rounds of rock-paper-scissors will the winning person have to win consecutively in order to be the world champion?

Guess.

I’ll give you a hint: it’s less than 100.

What do you think?

Here is the answer.

Well, what if we added another 1/2 billion people? That would be 500 million more players, or 8.5 billion total. The answer would still be the same!

Hard to believe. It’s so difficult to wrap your mind around needing this many games to whittle 8 billion people down to one winner. It just doesn’t seem right… but it is.

What’s between our ears is the last frontier

That’s a quote my dad often shares,

“What’s between our ears is the last frontier.” ~ Abraham Truss

Isn’t it amazing how much we know about the complexities of life, the universe and everything, but we don’t know where consciousness comes from? We still debate whether or not we have free will.

There is so much we still don’t know about the last frontier.

Beliefs, facts, and free will

I’m not sure that I’m going to do this topic justice in a short daily-ink, so I’m just going to mind dump and see where this takes me.

I’ve written about the Bell Curve of Free Will, where I stated,

If we have free will then I believe that how much choice we have will be influenced considerably by our circumstance and by how virtuous we are.

I won’t try to explain this too much further here, visit them post if this idea interests you. The image I added tried to do too much with a single chart, but my main points were that 1. You have more choice when you have more wealth (better circumstances); and, 2. You have less free will when you are more virtuous. Example: A very virtuous person can’t choose to take advantage of someone for profit the way a less virtuous person can, but the less virtuous person can make the choice to do so, or to not do so, or to maybe be 1/2 ‘generous’ and take advantage for less profit than possible, because they consider themselves as being nice.

But where do beliefs fit in? And what does this have to do with facts?

I think we might have less free will than I originally thought because our belief system alters our view of what truth is. When you believe that your religion is the only path to your salvation, then the information that led you to this belief are going to seem like facts… and these facts limit your choices and free will. If you follow Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Judaism, you have beliefs about the world we live in that are different from the other faiths. Based on your interpretation, there are things you can and can’t do, such as dietary restrictions. In many cases, your choice of partner are limited, by faith, or even by gender.

But I’m just using religion as an example. We have many beliefs that affect our perception of facts, and that affect the choices we make. Conspiracy theories work like a religion. They paint the picture of a world that limits our choices and our ability to see alternative views. If you wholeheartedly believe the world is flat, you need to build a whole world model around how international flights arrive on time, and you have to construct entire belief systems around space flight and images of round stars and planets, and how gravity works. And when you do this, you literally create ‘facts’.

Other constructs of our beliefs alter the way we look at at facts, and how much free will we have to make choices. Because if we construct a world where we also construct the facts we choose to pay attention to, these created facts then limit the choices we can make.

If we don’t share the same beliefs then we don’t share the same truths. We alter facts to fit our beliefs.

How does someone on the political left vs the political right define the following:

  • Communism
  • Socialism
  • Fascism
  • Democracy
  • Social welfare
  • Liberty
  • Freedom
  • Religion’s place in politics

The definitions of these terms are very different on the political spectrum. Beliefs alter facts. Interpretations of these so-called facts limit our choices, our free will.

We don’t perceive the world as it is. Our beliefs define our world, define the things we are willing to accept as facts, and determine the choices we believe we have to make. Beliefs alter what we perceive as facts and limit our ability to make free choices.

We don’t really understand

We don’t really understand exponential growth. It’s too hard to comprehend because when we look at growth, we tend to focus on what we’ve seen already, and project forward, but what has already happened is always less significant in length or size than what is still to come. So when we compare what has happened already to what is still to come, we are not comparing equal things.

Fold a piece of paper in half 6 times. How thick do you think the stack would be? Let’s have some fun and look at the folding paper challenge:

It was an accepted belief that folding a piece of paper in half more than 8 times was impossible. On 27 January 2002, high school student, Britney Gallivan, of Pomona, California, USA, folded a single piece of paper in half 12 times and was the first person to fold a single piece paper in half 9, 10, 11, and 12 times. The tissue paper used was 4,000 ft (1,219 m; 0.75 miles) long. ~ GuinnessWorldRecords.com

So she needed a 4,000 foot, (1,219 metres) long piece of paper to achieve this. It’s easy to look at this image of her folded paper and figure out how big it was at 11 folds and before that 10 folds, by halving the amount once then twice. But what if she were to fold the paper more times? How many more times would this image represent?

This image represents folding the paper just 3 more times… a total of just 15 folds.

At 23 folds this would be about a kilometre high (3,280 feet). At 30 folds, you would be entering space. 42 folds gets you to the moon. The 51st fold would get you to the sun. Beyond that it doesn’t matter because our brains won’t truly appreciate the scale anyway.

So I can see the difference that folding a piece of paper just 6 times (64 pieces of paper high) to 12 times (the first image of Brittany above) looks like, but I really struggle to extrapolate from this that 24 folds would be 2 kilometres high.

So when we look at things like technological advancements, we don’t really see well into the future. When I bought the 16k adapter for my Commodore VIC 20 computer to get me to a whopping 36k of memory, I could not fathom the idea that I’d one day be buying 2 Terabytes of memory to store photos that were 8 megabytes large. And I’ll have an even harder time imagining what kind of data I’ll be storing 10 or 20 years from now.

Watch out Metaverse here we come! What does this mean? It means that in 20 years we’ll look back at the technology we have right now in the same way someone who lived 160 years ago would look at our technology today.

That’s mind blowing!

Mind occupied

Yes, it’s the long weekend before school starts, and I should be resting up for what promises to be a challenging year… but I’m not able to let my thoughts of the days to come out of my mind. I’ll be going into work today, and making sure that everything I need to do the first couple days goes seamlessly. I know there will be distractions. I know there will be a lot of conversations and connections that will take time. I know that there are new members to the team that I’ll need to support, and that need to know how easy it is to get support. And ultimately, I know that no amount of planning will make the coming days go exactly as planned.

That’s why I’m going in today. I want the students first visit to the school this year to be something that makes them feel welcome. I want my first staff meeting to demonstrate that I was prepared and ready to support my staff. I want to be ready in such a way that when unexpected interruptions to my plans happen, things can still go smoothly.

I could sit at home and think about work all day today and tomorrow, or I can go to work, fell like I’ve fully prepared myself, then take tomorrow completely off. If my mind is going to be occupied with work, I might as well use my time effectively.

Work on the brain

It has started. While I’m still not heading into work quite yet, I’ve reached the part of my summer where I am starting to think about and do work. Today I’m not spending a lot of time directly doing anything, other than a little email and some follow up on a request by the ministry for committee representation by fellow BCDLAA members, (I’m currently president and the request came to me late last week). So it’s not like I’m dedicating a huge amount of time. But that doesn’t stop my brain from thinking about work.

I’m thinking about the start up of the school year. I’m wondering if we are going to see some Covid-19 restrictions implemented, with the Delta virus expected to peak in late September or early October. I’m not sure the after-vaccine normalcy we were wanting to see is going to be anything like we expected or hoped for.

I’m thinking about how my online job could dramatically change as new ministry rules come into effect over the next year. Furthermore, like the end of last year, my teachers are going to start the year quite busy, right off the start. Enrolment will be quite high agin this year.

I’m thinking about the culture shift at Inquiry Hub when our biggest cohort of new students is coming in, and we have grade 10’s that have only seen our school in an isolated covid response, and grade 11’s that only saw our school operate normally for half of their grade 9 year. We have much more students that don’t really know our culture than we do students who truly experienced it. This problem creates an opportunity for change, but with very few student role models for that change… and we’ve also had the biggest change in staff we’ve had in years. We really need to think about how we foster our culture, and can’t expect it to be known. This is hard in a very small school.

I won’t pretend some of these things haven’t crept into my thoughts before this week, but I’m definitely thinking more about these things as regular work days approach. It also doesn’t help that I finished my book and have gone back to reading for educational purposes rather than reading a novel… my way of helping with the transition back to school.

When the whole year is ahead of us, this is a time of great potential and opportunity. And while I still have a little bit of holiday left, work is slowly taking up more of my thinking time.

Beyond space and time

Part 1 – Time travel

When people imagine time travel, they often don’t realize that they are also talking about space travel as well.

How Fast Is the Earth Rotating on Its Axis?

The Earth rotates on its axis once each day. Because the circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles, a spot on the equator rotates at approximately 1,037.5646 miles per hour (1,037.5646 times 24 equals 24,901.55), or 1,669.8 km/h.

At the North Pole (90 degrees north) and South Pole (90 degrees south), the speed is effectively zero because that spot rotates once in 24 hours, at a very, very slow speed. (Source)

In addition to this rotation, the earth is hurling around the sun at 30km (19 miles) per second! And, our sun isn’t stationary in the galaxy, it travels 792,000 km (483,000 miles) per hour (and still takes 230 million years to complete a rotation).

These numbers are mind boggling. Now, going back to the idea of a time machine, if I was able to go back in time to only 5 years ago, the earth that existed back then was millions of kilometres away from where the earth is now. I’d have to travel through time and space.

Part 2 – The light of the stars

When we look at the stars, we only see their history. The closest star, our sun, is not where we see it, it is where the sun was 8 minutes ago, because that’s how long it took the light to reach us. For stars that are light years away, they could already have gone super nova, and wiped out their solar system, and generations later our ancestors will still see that star, not knowing it no longer exists. We are literally looking back in time when we look out into space.

Part 3 – the edge of the universe

A concept I can’t wrap my head around is what’s beyond the edge of the universe? And if you have an answer for me, what’s beyond that? This to me is the definition of infinite… the idea that no matter how far away something is, there has to be something still farther away.

If you had a string that was infinitely long and you cut it in half, you’d have two strings that are infinitely long. Think about that for a while… then try to forget it. 😜

Why should we believe that our universe is the only universe? Could there be multiple universes in the empty void beyond our own? Could our entire universe be an atom in a massive other universe? What secrets do the edge of our universe hold? We will never know because it takes too much time for the light way out there to reach us.

—

These are 3 ideas about space and time that peak my curiosity and make me marvel at life, the universe, and everything… while we hurl through space on an insignificant rock around an insignificant sun, in an insignificant galaxy… thinking thoughts that significantly challenge my intellectual understanding.

Cloudy thinking

Yesterday at my archery practice my thoughts were my enemy. I got into a negative flow of thinking that I couldn’t break. It seemed as though every thought I had related to reasons why I would not hit the center of the target. My scores weren’t horrible, but they also weren’t anything close to what I’m capable of. It wasn’t so much the score that bothered me, it was my inability to get out of a negative loop of thinking.

I often wonder what goes through other people’s heads when they think. Are their minds as busy as mine? Do they have a constant internal dialogue that doesn’t shut up? For me, there is always a dialogue going on, and it isn’t always helpful. I sometimes wonder if I have some kind of attention deficit issue, with my mind bouncing from idea to idea.

Sometimes I feel like this is a super power, because I can make lateral connections to things others don’t see. Other times it’s more like a disability, with an inability to truly focus. And still other times (though less common) my thoughts can sink me into a zone of singular focus. This can happen when I’m writing, and I can start to put words on paper, intuitively knowing the beginning, middle, and end, before the world can get from my mind to the page. I love these moments, but they don’t come often.

What comes most often is a busy, somewhat clouded mind that is easily distracted. One that requires constant reminding to stay on task. I’ve figured out how to manage this, how to be effective, even when my mind wants to wander and wonder. But sometimes, like yesterday’s archery practice, I become my own worst enemy. I try to convince myself that I can focus and get away from the negative thoughts, but I can’t. Negative thoughts prevail. Negative internal dialogue persists.

I can get this way with meditation too. I can get so that every attempt to focus on my breath lasts only seconds before I’m fighting off distraction. And then the distractions become the only thing I can think of. These sessions don’t prove to be very meditative. They become 10 minutes of thinking that I need to be better at mediating, rather than actual meditation.

Yesterday, a clouded mind took over my archery practice. I didn’t practice archery, I practiced the art of negative thinking. The art of getting in my own way. The art of distraction. I need to learn a strategy to get my head out of these dark clouds when they come. I need to metaphorically clear the skies, and let the sun shine through… or at least pack an umbrella.

Cycles of energy and interest

This was the first weekend all year that I didn’t shoot arrows. I could have made the time but I didn’t. I’ve also been going through the motions for my workouts, getting my cardio in, but not doing a lot more. I think I need to change things up a bit. I am also finding my daily blog a lot harder to get started each morning, the blank page feels daunting.

I tend to be an even-keeled person who doesn’t hit extreme highs and lows, and so it can be hard to know when I’m feeling low. Often it’s only after I recognize my own lethargy towards the things I enjoy doing that I realize that I’m in a bit of a funk. While there are disadvantages to not feeling the high highs, there are advantages to not feeling the low lows… I can identify where I am and make small adjustments to unstick myself.

I’m going to wake up a bit earlier so I feel less rushed. I’m going to shoot arrows after school 3 times this week. I’m going to give myself a physical challenge that reinvigorates my workouts. I’ve hit a low cycle and I’ve realized it. I’m going to act my way into a new way of thinking, because that’s easier than thinking my way into a new way of acting.

I’m lucky that I’m able to do this, I know many who struggle to do the same, some who simply can’t. They get consumed by anxiety or depression and can not (as opposed to will not) move themselves out of it easily. For those that struggle in this way, we are unhelpful when we tell them to snap out of it, or just to think of something else, or to cheer up.

For them we can be helpful by listening, not judging, by acknowledging, not instructing, and by engaging in active conversations, going for walks, being outside, and being social. We can share our energy and time. I think too often we don’t give people we care about our time.

For me, I need to give myself the time to do things I enjoy… and I need to remind myself that I enjoy these things. It’s like I need a reminder that I get joy out of the things I enjoy. I like shooting arrows, even if my score doesn’t constantly get better. I enjoy writing daily, it’s a positive outlet, not a chore. I enjoy getting my heart rate up and feeling the endorphins of a good quick workout. And I’m blessed that I can cognitively make this shift simply by thinking about it.

And so my workout beckons. I’m going to try my new headphones on my treadmill, then do a light all-around workout keeping my heart rate up the whole time, rather than pushing any one muscle group. And I’ll put my current audio books on hold and listen to some music today.

It’s time to shift into a good cycle, and I’m already on my way simply by writing about it today.

Meditation and a drifting mind

I’ve struggled with my morning meditation recently. My mind drifts and wanders, and I can’t seem to keep my thoughts on my breath for more than 30 seconds. Today was the 3rd day in a row that my mind wandered so much that I could barely call it meditation.

I like the Calm App, and use the 10 minute Daily Calm meditation. It starts with focussing on your breathing and for the last couple minutes there is always a lesson or topic that Tamara Levitt shares. Today’s was on Mudita. However I can’t tell you what that means despite the fact that I’m writing this immediately after meditating. I have no idea what Tamara spoke about? My mind had drifted for the entire lesson.

I know that bringing my focus back to my breath is meditation as much as staying focused. In the past couple years I’ve gotten better at doing this without being angry at myself, and understanding that this is a natural part of meditation. I’ve also started catching myself drift and bringing my thoughts back to my breath before Tamara reminds me. But my past few sessions have all seemed to involve my mind drifting, and me completely forgetting that I’m meditating. Then I catch myself and almost immediately drift again, unaware that I’m doing this. I’m hoping that writing this, and thinking about my intentions to stay focused will help… but I’m also open to suggestions.