Corrective Actions - by C.A.: The truth about the mind - does the mind exist
For more in depth explanation, please visit
http://iiresources.blogspot.com/2007/08/secret-of-human-mind.html
The paradox of insular language
7 months ago
Thursday, July 31, 2008
intellectual.INNOVATION.resources: the secret of HUMAN MIND
intellectual.INNOVATION.resources: the secret of HUMAN MIND
Very nice article. Here's a thought - does the human mind truly exist?
http://correctiveactions.blogspot.com/2008/07/truth-about-mind-does-mind-exist.html
Very nice article. Here's a thought - does the human mind truly exist?
http://correctiveactions.blogspot.com/2008/07/truth-about-mind-does-mind-exist.html
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Are you E.T.?
Steven Spielberg did a wonderful job in educating people about the term “E.T.”. Say E.T. to a group of ppl between the ages of 30 and above, chances are they will visualize the cute looking extra terrestrial on the left.
Using the same acronym, I would like to introduce Emotional Terrorist. I am unable to find a concrete definition for Emotional Terrorist, other than Errin Pizzey who wrote a book with the title “The Emotional Terrorist”. There are many articles on Emotional Terrorist on the Internet but I have neither the time nor the patience to read through ALL. I thought to myself, why don’t I define what is an E.T. (not the cute looking alien).
In my opinion, an Emotional Terrorist is a person who is adept in coercing other people’s decision making process by resorting, intentionally or otherwise, to physical actions or verbal statements or total inaction that will emotionally traumatize the other person in order to gain a favourable outcome.
Scenario 1:
A young child throws a tantrum, in an empty toy store, when the parent refuses to buy a toy for the child. The parent physically punishes the child for throwing a tantrum as the shopkeeper and the assistants are staring at the young child and the parent.
Scenario 2:
A young child throws a tantrum, in an empty toy store, when the parent refuses to buy a toy for the child. The parent gave a verbal warning to the young child to behave or be punished. The young child behaves.
Scenario 3:
A young child throws a tantrum, in an empty toy store, when the parent refuses to buy a toy for the child. The parent did nothing but to allow the child to bawl.
Each scenario is similar in the sense that:
There is a typical young child and a parent shopping in a typical empty toy store. And typically, the typical parent refuses to buy the typical young child a toy. However, what is interesting is there are three different outcomes:
* Physical punishment
* Verbal punishment
* Total inaction
What to do when you encounter an Emotional Terrorist? Should you run? Should you challenge the E.T? In my opinion, it is necessary to find out E.T.’s root of the problem. In order words, engage E.T. in a conversation to find out his / her actual needs. If E.T. is not feeling chatty, choose a better time to communicate about it (face to face, over the phone, email, texting, and etc).
Using the same acronym, I would like to introduce Emotional Terrorist. I am unable to find a concrete definition for Emotional Terrorist, other than Errin Pizzey who wrote a book with the title “The Emotional Terrorist”. There are many articles on Emotional Terrorist on the Internet but I have neither the time nor the patience to read through ALL. I thought to myself, why don’t I define what is an E.T. (not the cute looking alien).
In my opinion, an Emotional Terrorist is a person who is adept in coercing other people’s decision making process by resorting, intentionally or otherwise, to physical actions or verbal statements or total inaction that will emotionally traumatize the other person in order to gain a favourable outcome.
Scenario 1:
A young child throws a tantrum, in an empty toy store, when the parent refuses to buy a toy for the child. The parent physically punishes the child for throwing a tantrum as the shopkeeper and the assistants are staring at the young child and the parent.
Scenario 2:
A young child throws a tantrum, in an empty toy store, when the parent refuses to buy a toy for the child. The parent gave a verbal warning to the young child to behave or be punished. The young child behaves.
Scenario 3:
A young child throws a tantrum, in an empty toy store, when the parent refuses to buy a toy for the child. The parent did nothing but to allow the child to bawl.
Each scenario is similar in the sense that:
There is a typical young child and a parent shopping in a typical empty toy store. And typically, the typical parent refuses to buy the typical young child a toy. However, what is interesting is there are three different outcomes:
* Physical punishment
* Verbal punishment
* Total inaction
What to do when you encounter an Emotional Terrorist? Should you run? Should you challenge the E.T? In my opinion, it is necessary to find out E.T.’s root of the problem. In order words, engage E.T. in a conversation to find out his / her actual needs. If E.T. is not feeling chatty, choose a better time to communicate about it (face to face, over the phone, email, texting, and etc).
If you thought that the young child was the E.T. for the above scenarios, you are partially correct. If you thought the parent was the E.T., you are partially correct as well. Because both the child and the parent was the E.T. Think about it.
Are you E.T.?
Are you E.T.?
Monday, July 28, 2008
The truth about consciousness - what it is
I had many sleepless nights about the definition for consciousness (visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness ). The first sentence says it all:
Consciousness defies definition.
Doesn’t it just blows your mind? Sorry, according to my previous post, none of us actually have a mind. I should say, doesn’t it make you wonder what consciousness is? I came across the following concepts:
1) Unconscious mind
2) sub-conscious mind
3) conscious mind
4) super-conscious mind
Since from a scientific point of view, the mind doesn’t exist, and that consciousness defines definition, what the heck are the above concepts?
It is indeed amazing how we try to define something, the mind, that cannot be measured with man made inventions with one or more of our known senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch); to top it all of, we introduce a concept called consciousness, which according to experts, defies definition.
My point is, we tend to simplify matters but are concepts pertaining to the mind and consciousness something that can be simplified? When it has baffled experts for centuries, if not millennia, and we have no concrete answers as to what is the mind and consciousness?
You may ask why is it important for each and everyone to learn what defines the mind and consciousness. To me, the answer is simply because if we do not know what is the mind and consciousness, how are we going to fully harness the power of our mind and / or consciousness? Time and again I am bombarded by the media, internet, books and conversations with friends of the ugly truth that the average human being only utilize a tiny fraction of their potential (ranges from 1% to 5% of the mind’s potential).
That scares me – that the average human being only utilizes a tiny fraction of their potential. Assuming that we can increase our potential by tenfold, at most, we are only using half our actual potential – makes me wonder what can we achieve with that…. World peace perhaps? End of diseases maybe?
How can we increase our mind / consciousness potential to higher levels? The corrective action would be to continue to ask questions and seek for answers. One of my favourite quotes are:
‘Questions are eternal, answer changes”.
It means that questions remain the same regardless of time and context, but the answer changes with time and context. This is proven with the mind and / or consciousness question. Question remains unchanged, answers have been evolving throughout time and context.
Consciousness defies definition.
Doesn’t it just blows your mind? Sorry, according to my previous post, none of us actually have a mind. I should say, doesn’t it make you wonder what consciousness is? I came across the following concepts:
1) Unconscious mind
2) sub-conscious mind
3) conscious mind
4) super-conscious mind
Since from a scientific point of view, the mind doesn’t exist, and that consciousness defines definition, what the heck are the above concepts?
It is indeed amazing how we try to define something, the mind, that cannot be measured with man made inventions with one or more of our known senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch); to top it all of, we introduce a concept called consciousness, which according to experts, defies definition.
My point is, we tend to simplify matters but are concepts pertaining to the mind and consciousness something that can be simplified? When it has baffled experts for centuries, if not millennia, and we have no concrete answers as to what is the mind and consciousness?
You may ask why is it important for each and everyone to learn what defines the mind and consciousness. To me, the answer is simply because if we do not know what is the mind and consciousness, how are we going to fully harness the power of our mind and / or consciousness? Time and again I am bombarded by the media, internet, books and conversations with friends of the ugly truth that the average human being only utilize a tiny fraction of their potential (ranges from 1% to 5% of the mind’s potential).
That scares me – that the average human being only utilizes a tiny fraction of their potential. Assuming that we can increase our potential by tenfold, at most, we are only using half our actual potential – makes me wonder what can we achieve with that…. World peace perhaps? End of diseases maybe?
How can we increase our mind / consciousness potential to higher levels? The corrective action would be to continue to ask questions and seek for answers. One of my favourite quotes are:
‘Questions are eternal, answer changes”.
It means that questions remain the same regardless of time and context, but the answer changes with time and context. This is proven with the mind and / or consciousness question. Question remains unchanged, answers have been evolving throughout time and context.
The corrective action would to adopt an attitute of never afraid to ask questions.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The truth about the mind - does the mind exist
There are many definitions about what is termed as the mind – I visited http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:mind&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title and was amazed with what I saw.
I learnt from a selfless man who shared his wisdom freely and he taught me many things. From his teachings I came up with a concept that I termed MALT which is an acronym for open my Mind to Analytical and Logical Thinking. Since the first alphabet in MALT stands for mind, it stands to reason that I have to prove the existence of mind.
From a scientific perspective, for something to exist, it must be able to be measured according to one of the five known senses to humankind (vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch). As of 24th July 2008, there has been no known successful attempts to scientifically prove the existence of the human mind with any man-made inventions – I would love to be proven otherwise.
If we cannot prove the existence of the human mind, that means we do not know what it is, how it looks like, how large it is, what are its limits, what are its dimensions, what are its functions etc. Since we have no idea what the mind is, then why the heck do we say things like:
“Do not close your mind”, “do you mind”, “wandering mind”, or in my case “open your mind”?
I did not stumble upon the arguments myself; the arguments was beaten into my head by a group of final year university students. I was attempting to explain the MALT concept to them and to my amusement, and theirs, their explained that there is no mind to begin with. I did enjoy the sharing session for I would like to believe that I am a person who keeps an open “mind”.
As analytics and logic play a significant role in MALT, I agree with the students that for MALT to work, it is only logical to analyze what is the mind; in order words – to prove its existence. Since the existence of the mind cannot be scientifically be proven to exist, my MALT concept cannot work as MALT requires a mind in order to work.
For MALT to be credible, I take it upon myself to argue logically that the mind truly exist. This may take some time though……
I learnt from a selfless man who shared his wisdom freely and he taught me many things. From his teachings I came up with a concept that I termed MALT which is an acronym for open my Mind to Analytical and Logical Thinking. Since the first alphabet in MALT stands for mind, it stands to reason that I have to prove the existence of mind.
From a scientific perspective, for something to exist, it must be able to be measured according to one of the five known senses to humankind (vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch). As of 24th July 2008, there has been no known successful attempts to scientifically prove the existence of the human mind with any man-made inventions – I would love to be proven otherwise.
If we cannot prove the existence of the human mind, that means we do not know what it is, how it looks like, how large it is, what are its limits, what are its dimensions, what are its functions etc. Since we have no idea what the mind is, then why the heck do we say things like:
“Do not close your mind”, “do you mind”, “wandering mind”, or in my case “open your mind”?
I did not stumble upon the arguments myself; the arguments was beaten into my head by a group of final year university students. I was attempting to explain the MALT concept to them and to my amusement, and theirs, their explained that there is no mind to begin with. I did enjoy the sharing session for I would like to believe that I am a person who keeps an open “mind”.
As analytics and logic play a significant role in MALT, I agree with the students that for MALT to work, it is only logical to analyze what is the mind; in order words – to prove its existence. Since the existence of the mind cannot be scientifically be proven to exist, my MALT concept cannot work as MALT requires a mind in order to work.
For MALT to be credible, I take it upon myself to argue logically that the mind truly exist. This may take some time though……
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The truth about being honest - I cannot tell a lie
"I cannot tell a lie" said George Washington to his father when his father asked who chopped down his favourite cherry tree. (http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/washington/advice.html) I have always wondered what George Washington would say to the numerous politicians in his country if he were to live till today, especially if George were to meet Bill Clinton - that would have been interesting.
I have always imagined what would he say to doctors who have to resort to 'lying' in order to give hope to terminally ill patients in order to give them hope to continue to their losing battles with their terminal diseases. What about those politicians who promise the moon to their supporters (voters) before they are elected but once they are elected into the office, they conveniently forget about promises made? Or the 'little white lies' each of us have conveniently used every now and then to get us out of tight spots?
The challenge in the 21st Century isn't about "I cannot tell a lie" anymore. It is about "I need to lie to keep my sanity" syndrome. E.g. from the doctor's perspective - in order to ensure that his / her patients continue to battle the losing fight against terminal diseases, doctors may suggest "experimental treatments" or drugs under human trial tests. Or the doctors may even suggest that the patient has 2-3 months to live when the actual fact may only be 2-3 days. I am not sure if doctors are trained to tell the brutal honest truth to patients who may not be psychologically fit to receive the news that he/she has a terminal disease. But what I am sure is that doctors are trained to be professional and that it not to be emotionally attached to their patients. Watching the movie Patch Adams made me change my mind and I am glad to be proven wrong that not all doctors are 'professionals'.
Not sure if politicians are trained to lie; I am unable to find a political class in any university that specializes in lying. In drama class perhaps but in politics? Could it be politicians lie because they have never been caught? Do we tell "little white lies" because we can get away with it?
George Washington may have lived in the 18th century but what has not changed is that all of us started life as an innocent being with a conscience. What has become of our conscience that we can justify lying? As the saying goes, practice makes perfect so every time we get away with 'little white lies' we are honing our skills in telling the untrue statements.
Perhaps people tell lies because they fear the outcome if they were to tell the truth? I would believe this case for the scenario shared above for the doctors. But what about politicians? What about ourselves? Something interesting I read some time ago called 'Children Learn What They Live'. http://www.empowermentresources.com/info2/childrenlearn-long_version.html
If we want to improve ourselves presently, we should look into our past actions and think of a remedy so that we are better prepared for the unknown future.
When I have a kid, (planning one in year 2010, hoping to be 10th October 2010), I will bear this poem in mind. Hope that you will too.
I have always imagined what would he say to doctors who have to resort to 'lying' in order to give hope to terminally ill patients in order to give them hope to continue to their losing battles with their terminal diseases. What about those politicians who promise the moon to their supporters (voters) before they are elected but once they are elected into the office, they conveniently forget about promises made? Or the 'little white lies' each of us have conveniently used every now and then to get us out of tight spots?
The challenge in the 21st Century isn't about "I cannot tell a lie" anymore. It is about "I need to lie to keep my sanity" syndrome. E.g. from the doctor's perspective - in order to ensure that his / her patients continue to battle the losing fight against terminal diseases, doctors may suggest "experimental treatments" or drugs under human trial tests. Or the doctors may even suggest that the patient has 2-3 months to live when the actual fact may only be 2-3 days. I am not sure if doctors are trained to tell the brutal honest truth to patients who may not be psychologically fit to receive the news that he/she has a terminal disease. But what I am sure is that doctors are trained to be professional and that it not to be emotionally attached to their patients. Watching the movie Patch Adams made me change my mind and I am glad to be proven wrong that not all doctors are 'professionals'.
Not sure if politicians are trained to lie; I am unable to find a political class in any university that specializes in lying. In drama class perhaps but in politics? Could it be politicians lie because they have never been caught? Do we tell "little white lies" because we can get away with it?
George Washington may have lived in the 18th century but what has not changed is that all of us started life as an innocent being with a conscience. What has become of our conscience that we can justify lying? As the saying goes, practice makes perfect so every time we get away with 'little white lies' we are honing our skills in telling the untrue statements.
Perhaps people tell lies because they fear the outcome if they were to tell the truth? I would believe this case for the scenario shared above for the doctors. But what about politicians? What about ourselves? Something interesting I read some time ago called 'Children Learn What They Live'. http://www.empowermentresources.com/info2/childrenlearn-long_version.html
If we want to improve ourselves presently, we should look into our past actions and think of a remedy so that we are better prepared for the unknown future.
When I have a kid, (planning one in year 2010, hoping to be 10th October 2010), I will bear this poem in mind. Hope that you will too.
Monday, July 21, 2008
The truth about high oil prices.......
I find it bewildering that while the masses are suffering from increased oil prices, oil companies are literally laughing to the banks; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1167984.stm http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets/article.html?in_article_id=429878&in_page_id=3 http://themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysian-news/34-malaysian-news/1841-petronas-posts-record-profit-of-rm61b The reason for the oil companies to laugh is because they are consistently reporting new record breaking profit levels that dwarfs many nations GDP. And these oil companies justify their profit levels because they say oil is in limited supply. That is, what they (oil companies) want you and the rest of the world to believe in.
With the media drumming up the fact that 'the world will run out of crude oil", (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/) I beg to differ. The world will not run out of crude oil supply but it will run out of easily accessible crude oil. That means oil companies need to venture out further and deeper to extract oil and at a higher cost and risk. But I don't see any oil companies announcing that they will be venturing further and deeper into the ocean to extract oil thus increasing the cost of oil extraction leading to higher oil prices now. In fact, not a single oil company in the world dares to venture to deep sea oil exploration and / or extraction due to many unknown factors involved. So this possibility will not be considered, for now. Perhaps this possibility for causing oil prices to skyrocket is likely in year 2025-2030. Let's explore the next possible reason for oil prices to shoot sky high....
Some say that oil price increase was due to the fact that demand for oil spiked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_price_increases_since_2003 but was it really the cause? If the demand for oil spiked suddenly, why then did OPEC say that they will not increase production? http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/23/content_8035466.htm Extracted from the article:
OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri dismissed such demands as unfounded; claiming more oil on the market would not mean lower prices and the hike in prices had nothing to do with supply and demand. "OPEC will not hesitate to increase production if we think the higher price is caused by the shortage of oil in the market, but we are confident that it's not a shortage of oil. It's something else," said al-Badri.
Now that we have heard from the horse's mouth that there is no shortage, which means that there wasn't a spike in demand, that leaves only one possible reason for the oil increase: speculators. Surprisingly, there has been a barrage of articles defending speculators: http://www.newsweek.com/id/143786 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/lets_shoot_the_speculators.html http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1998.cfm http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/forecasts_trends/archive/2008/07/08/are-quot-speculators-quot-controlling-oil-prices.aspx
Since it is crystal clear that NOBODY (whether it is OPEC, or oil companies, or speculators) is to be blamed for the high oil prices, perhaps we should really think whether or not we have been misled all these while. Perhaps we should really reflect whether we have done enough to bring down oil prices. Sure, there are more gadgets that save petrol for your car but no one seems to forget that with high oil prices, we are buying fewer items with the same amount of money because everything went up in price! I don't see anyone coming up with a gadget that says "Enjoy 30% more tomatoes at no additional cost".
The truth about high oil prices is simple: GREED.
Think about it - the oil companies are making mega bucks and are reinvesting their profits to generate better returns, OPEC members are investing their easily attained oil profits into emerging economies for higher yields, and speculators are channelling their profits for a quick return.
Who is to be blamed? Apparently in this day and age of nanotechnology, there is no room for logic. Logically, high oil prices will hamper economic growth. Logically, high oil prices will drive inflation up. Logically, with low economic growth and lower purchasing power due to high inflation, it will drive employment down. Logically, with high unemployment, crime rate will shoot up. Simple logic isn't it? No? Uh, I forgot. All these aren't in $$$$$.
Can someone explain to oil companies, OPEC, speculators and governments? That would be the Corrective Action.
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