Mind, Incompetence, and the Rise of AI: Navigating Mental Clarity in a Measured World In our previous blogs, we have covered the aspects of the mind, every person deals with, in their day to day life. As we move on to more general open ended topics/concepts, for a single point of view there may be contrary, supporting and thousand other point of views. That is the way the mind and logic is and the way the discussion should be. Incompetence and handling it Competence in simple terms can be defined having the required ability combined with a minimum quality standard, when the either the standard is not met or the ability is missing, it is termed as incompetence . This is not a blog about do it yourself tips in handling the perceived incompetence. There is no magic wand to handle incompetence. Only solution is to objectively look at what is lacking, the ability or the minimum standard, or both, then get to work on it. Excuses, procrastination are all milestones in the journey towards co...
Why We React to Words: A Mindful Look at Interpretation and Memory
In our previous blog we looked at what type of relationship we need to nurture with our mind for the times we live in. In the current and upcoming blogs we look at the aspects of the mind which are deeply personal in nature.
Words and its Interpretation
It is often said that one of the gifts that distinguishes Humans from animals is the gift of speech and smile.
Many times I find myself preoccupied and wondering how communication would happen with the other person if there were no words or languages ? May be communication happens through signs, symbols or through sounds but what would we communicate to the other person?
Information, links and memory
In present times with the vast information available to us in different forms (words, pictures, videos, animations, etc.) we are constantly exposed to this information and our mind keeps adding this information as memory, in addition to that it builds links to the stored memory in a way that is personal and unique to the individual.
The information which is turned into memories by the mind are linked and stored as sensations, emotions, knowledge, vivid images.
Communication
Say suppose two friends out on a long evening walk, are engaged in a deep discussion about something they saw during their walk say a tree. What is happening here ?, Each person in his own mind is looking for links in his stored memory which has something to do about the tree.
The link can be an emotional one, or something which he has observed about the tree, or an event that happened near the tree, Each person then using his mind recollects it, reorganizes it and shares it to the other person. Just for perspective the time frame of this entire sequence of process happening is with in a blink of an eye or two.
Words, Meanings
We saw how the mind transforms information to memory, Words are unique in the sense the mind finds links to the stored memories very quickly, Say when we hear the word "ice cream" the mind can bring up so many things about the ice cream, the taste of it, the experience of eating it, where it is available, plans for eating it. It brings up so many secondary memories associated with the word "ice cream".
In case of words, mind has a free reign words to bring up all kinds of memory links, but in case of an pictures the mind limits it memory links to the picture on display. Say we display a beautiful picture of mountain the mind limits itself to finding memory links about mountains, in case of the hearing the word beauty the mind starts its memory link finding without any restrictions.
Triggers and Madness
Mind doesn't discriminate between storing pleasant or un pleasant experiences, it just stores it as memories. While bringing up the memory links it brings up everything with no discrimination. Where and why the discriminations happens are a topic for a different blog.
This has been observed so many times people really getting mad at hearing an opinion (a set of words) they would go off like pop corn in hot pan, but the same person if they view an alien from Mars subjecting his alien enemy to extreme torture in silence will be shocked to silence. For the sake of not promoting violence we are using aliens from Mars and his enemies.
The point here is for vivid images the mind needs time for processing but that is not the case for words, So we currently seeing lot of bursting pop corns on hearing an opinion. Just understanding that the mind is bringing up memory links which is its job reduces the compulsive need for us to be a jumping pop corn.
Happy minds make happy people and the planet a pleasant place to live.
If this reflection sparked something in you, consider supporting the journey — one coffee at a time
Links to previous blogs
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