I Suck At Blogging

Philoso-Rant's Mascot

Let's face it.  I am not a good blogger.

Over the past several years, on this very blog, I've written about economics, data, math, science, philosophy, dreams, the universe, jokes, resumes, business, futurism, and The Onion.    I even wrote one article where literally every sentence was semi-randomly generated (with the help of some custom JavaScript code that I wrote), so the article was entirely different every time it was read… I've never seen anybody even attempt something like that before!

But nobody gives a flying fuck.  Total crickets.  I've written precisely 60 blog entries and have 6 comments TOTAL.  It's sad.


You can think of my blog as a party.  I had envisioned that I'd be the hip maître d'hotel, sashaying about, serving scallops wrapped in bacon (aka, my delightfully witty blog entries) to a crowd of  high-powered and exclusive guests (my message board commenters).

But the reality seems to be that my party is on par a sub-par Marching Band / Color Guard mixer, where several attendees are wearing orthodontic headgear and others are having a depressingly passionate discussion about Boba Fett.  And instead of scallops wrapped in bacon, my posts are more like a bag of Utz potato chips and some french onion dip straight from a can, with the CVS price tag still on it, set atop a rickety card table.
 

So, if these words find their way to your eyeballs, then right at this very second you are attending arguably the lamest party on the Internet.  Congrats.

In related news, I am presently in discussions with my publicist, evaluating the merits of me posing nude to boost readership.  However, some preliminary A-B testing of the idea suggests that that's a terrible strategy.  Perhaps I should just pose topless, and see how that goes first.

Anyway, in each of my articles, I try to present an imaginative comparison or analogy, to provide my readers with some novel perspective.  So, here goes: There are likely several hundred Japanese scat-themed sites with substantially larger readerships than my sorry, sorry blog.

tl;dr:  When it comes to blogging, I am bad and should feel bad.

Thoughts on Glasses

To the left is a picture from the priceless Onion article  Time Traveler: Everyone In The Future Eats Dippin' Dots

If you've ever seen Dippin' Dot's marketing (in real life), it's all about how this is how we will eat ice cream in the future.   It's seriously just a matter of time. Perhaps they are right. 

So the Onion explored it, where a traveler comes from the distant future, and while he recognizes a few differences, he is most struck by our barbaric means of consuming ice cream.  Here is a passage:  "and I began to weep, for I realized that I am a stranger in a strange land where Dippin' Dots are not a popular and universally beloved dessert.". 

Anyway, my POINT is that he's wearing a visor.  This picture of Dippin Dot Adventurer From The Future.   And maybe we all will, some day.  Some of us do now.
Consider a special visor...


Imagine a visor that you could put on, which just "zooms in" a bit, in crystal clarity.  Somehow just naturally focuses you a bit more narrow, but in a directed way.  I'm not sure if it would be for everybody, but I bet many people would want it.  Consider such a visor for a moment.

Now, I wear glasses.   If you're keen to have a piece of metal and glass as your constant companion, these are optimal, as far as I'm concerned.   It's just a minimalist gold frame and glass. To a great extent, glasses ARE such a special visor -- blocking out things outside the lens and attenuating (gathering your attention) inside of the lens. 

But it's not all good news; about 30% of my vision is outside the lens.  It is relegated to Blurryland.  But not all is lost, since I never look there anyway, and still have full peripheral vision for light and movement (which is all you need that information for anyway).

So I'm starting to wonder if that might not have its advantages.  I wonder if, cognitively, my brain is able to attenuate a bit better to the focused middle portion -- like if literally more brain synapses are attenuated to that input rather than the outer.  And as a result, it has like a focus-attention-enhancement effect.

Glasses:  What Are They Like
Obviously, you have worn glasses once or twice, if only sunglasses.  You might wear glasses all the time.  But unless you're wearing them right now, you might forget what it is like, because your brain generally focuses out such details.

So, I tried to find a picture online of what it feels like to wear glasses.  There are tons and tons of pictures, but I knew precisely what I had in mind, and couldn't find it.  Finally, it drew it (first in Visio, then refined in Paint).

This is kind of what it's like.

So that's it.  That's what it's like to wear glasses.  Every now and then they will ride down your nose.  You have to keep them with you at all times.   I search for them occasionally -- more often than I'd like to admit.  You should keep them clean.

Helloo Visian ICL

There's a new way that you improve your vision, called Visian ICL. It involves putting a lens behind your eye that gives you instantly flawless vision.  Unlike LASIK, it involves virtually zero material impact to the eye itself.  

This is a link to a marketing video about the procedure.  

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/VNZMCZY-Oqo

 

I think this sounds amazing.  I am seriously considering this, to hell with my financial future.  This may be worth it.  I heard a rumor that you can get the lenses POLARIZED.   OMG, it would literally take the glare off of everything you ever see in bright light.  I'd be 20% towards being RoboCop.

Are Glasses A Form of Targeted Reticle?

So let's explore the earlier question a bit more:  Could glasses actually help someone focus better?  And here, I don't mean in the sense of focusing a lens, but in the sense of focusing your attention -- better known as concentrating?

I've read that blind people have far great attenuation of their other senses.  They hear better, touch ridiculously better -  even without knowing braille, and if they do, even better.  On some cosmic level, this is a re-routing of neural activity -- kind of the brain paying attention.  I'm not saying that this improved attenuation 100% makes up for the lost sight input, but it's certainly there.

Maybe that phenomenon is happening with my glasses.  And the net result is that, if I were to get this procedure, that I'd "see" much better, but would have a marginally harder time focusing upon what is right in front of me, because I get distracted more easily from details in the periphery, that are now more easily shut out.

I bet a formal study would conclude that I do indeed have a 3.2% higher input attenuation while wearing my glasses.

...But it would no doubt also observe an average -7% reduction, because I don't clean my damn glasses nearly often enough.

I know, I know.  I keep meaning to clean them.

The Classic Data Mistake

Discovery & its consequences
In 1932, a breakthrough discovery was made:  A team of researchers discovered that by altering the level of light in the workplace, productivity skyrocketed.  Whenever brighter lighting was used, productivity was higher.  

Companies pounced upon this information, and substantially invested in brighter lighting -- to see virtually no benefit whatsoever.   It was a huge waste of money.

Brighter lighting was correlated with productivity, but didn't cause it.  They later discovered that the workers were (temporarily) more motivated because more attention was being paid to them, now known as the Hawthorne effect (here's the Wikipedia article).

Knowing right, yet doing wrong
The problem here, of course, is that correlation does not equal causation.   You probably already knew this.

The interesting part is that you might make the mistake, anyway.   Even people who are well-aware that correlation does not equal causation will routinely conflate the two.  It happens in the corporate world all the time, even to the savviest of business analysts.

So what gives?  Why do smart people keep making such a fundamental mistake, despite knowing the exact mistake they're making?

Brains have needs, too 
The answer is that our minds crave to understand how things work.  This is not a cognitive need (controlled by the cerebral pre-frontal cortex); it's a visceral need (controlled by the more primal limbic system).

We subconsciously WANT to generalize, to stereotype, to model, to simplify things around us.   And for good reason, as explained by this hilarious Onion t-shirt:

Stereotypes, generalizations and patterns make our mental lives much easier.  It's a mental burden to reserve judgment and evaluate situations on a case-by-case basis.  And as a result, our brains constantly search for shortcuts. 

Viewed from that perspective, racists and sexists aren't so much evil as they are lazy.  But such generalizations pervade most aspects of how we see the world:

• Financial: Buying groceries at CVS is expensive.
• Social:  Southerners are friendly.
• Local:  Seattle is a rainy city.
• Misc:  French press coffee tastes good.

Every one of these generalization makes our world a bit more understandable -- even if this "understanding" sacrifices accuracy, and are sometimes flat-out wrong.

Identifying the right path
It might sound bizarre, but the root of this mistake isn't cognitive, it's emotional.  We know that correlation does not equal causation, but we simply give into the temptation to "know".
 
As such, the best you can do is to recognize this emotional urge, steel your nerve, and try to think through the situation carefully.

This doesn't mean you should ignore the correlation -- just treat it as as kind of a hunch.  Perhaps the cost/benefit nature of your situation warrants proceeding anyway.  Perhaps there are ways to rule out other causes, and increase your odds.

Whatever happens, by controlling your innate urge to understand (even if falsely), you're likely to make a better decisions.

Mario has a Soul

Yes, "It's-a-me Mario" from 1985 Nintendo NES.

Here's the gist:  Having a soul is when somebody on one dimension temporarily controls someone on another dimension.   When the character in that other dimension "dies," the original one lives on.  Consider this:  If you've ever played any Super Mario Brothers, then Mario had a soul while you were playing him.  YOU were his soul.  When he died, part of him went with you.

Reaching In
Consider when you type out an email.  You are, in a manner of speaking, "reaching in" to the computer to type it.

Reaching in is, of course, the wrong metaphor.  I'm not sure what to call it.  But you're interacting through the computer.  Like, if someone would to ask "Who wrote that email?" we'd be hard pressed to say that the computer wrote it, even though, all you did was touch the keys and worked the mouse.

Why is that, exactly?  Because the control was from you -- operating from a different ...dimension, as it were.  (Ooh, I love saying the English "as it were."  It's such a classy expression, ten grammar points Brett!)

Inter-Dimensional Signal   (Very Nerdy Segueway, Please Skip)
If you want to get more technical:  You typing into Google is the very definition of an inter-dimensional interaction, even though people don't usually think of it as that.  Reading is, too -- transforming a one-dimensional signal (if you think about it, reading is just a long ribbon: information in one dimension), temporarily translated through a four dimensional signal, and then (depending upon how you want to think of it) possibly into a weird uni-dimensional signal which is consciousness, in which we reside.  Television is a two dimensional signal.  Radio is a one dimensional signal, translated into a three dimensional signal.  (Note: You can add another dimension to each if you wish to include time as a dimension.)

 Back to Google
 So consider this:  When you wrote something into Google, clearly that was you and not the computer.  What about if you play a game online?  A game like Mario Brothers?  Is that "you"? Are those "your" actions?   Or are those the actions of that character?  It's both.  Mario is himself, but he's also you. You live on, even after you totally led him into one of those goddamn biting flowers that come out of the pipes.

Well, it has been demonstrated (in several ways, in fact) that the universe is a richly detailed rendering.   (There are enormous consequences to that, which I've written about lots on this site -- four links, right there.)    If so, then the possibility remains that we are being controlled from without.  Just like how you control Mario.

That could be.

Screw You, Religion
Now, technically, there are a lot of people who would say something quite similar to this.  Indeed, many Orthodox religions would. "Yes, that's Heaven.  Are you ready to welcome into your heart now?"  

Yes, maybe it's real.  But I'm pret-ty sure (and that "pret-ty" implies an ever-so-slight pause between the t's, which is unbelievably annoying if you're on the wrong end of it) that it's not some goddamn Middle Eastern text (or Chinese or Tibetian or whatever) text.  And even if there ARE parallels, that demographic's credibility is total crap because until super-recently (historically speaking) they believed in Adam and Eve and Satan.  They fail the logic test, out of the gate.

The only one I'd give a pass to is Taoism.  They're cool.

What About Us?  Do We Have A Soul?
All of this, of course, begs the question:  Do we have a soul?

Well, I've though about this.  I've thought about it a LOT, from as many angles as I could.  And in the end, I reached a conclusion that I've actually quite confident in:   I have absolutely no idea.

I could really go either way on this one.  I could totally see that when we die, that we simply discorporate and that's that.  Or I could see when we die, that we discorporate here, but on some level our awareness pops out on some cosmic Playstation 4, and goes to get a sandwich.

However, what I have concluded is that if there is another dimension as such, that curiously the laws of religion apply:  You can't take material things with you.*  But clearly if you helped someone here, they would appreciate it up there.  Goodness passes through, even though material things don't.  And if you want to get serious, it wouldn't surprise me if you can Find Out What Happened.  Boy would that suck for, like, every person on the planet.


So if you're a colossal asshole down here, and you wake up there, they might still think you're a colossal asshole.  But if you're kind down here, maybe they'll buy you a cosmic beer.  So I'm going to try to be nice, if only to be the first trans-dimensional ingratiatingly nice person -- and I bet the beer is way better.

The Ultimate Analogy

Do you know how you understand things?  Do you know what your brain is doing, to take a concept and really get it?

Partly, the answer is rote memorization -- there's plenty of that.  But to the extent that you can intuitively grasp a concept, the answer is simple:  Your brain makes comparisons.

It's like this.  It's like that.  It's like a ball.  It's like a rope.  It's like running alongside a moving train.

Put simply:  You make analogies.

What the heck is an analogy, anyway?  
Most people think that an analogy is just a colorful example of some phenomenon or dynamic.  It's just a more vivid picture.  And indeed, it is that, without a doubt.  But it's more than that, too.  Or, at least, the process of finding an analogy is more than that.

Finding an analogy requires grasping the nature of something, and then seeking out something else with a similar nature.  Matching patterns.

It's actually the process of understanding something, laid bare.  You first observe, and then you "try on" (i.e., apply) various analogies:  You hold them up to the light, look them both from a variety of perspectives, and assess how faithfully they match.  Quite often, you discard a potential comparison, because there's a flaw:  the analogy does not sufficiently hold.

Oh here's another tidbit about analogies:  They cannot be perfect.  The only perfect analogy would be to compare something to itself, which wouldn't technically be an analogy -- it would be something known as a "tautology."

Nevertheless, some analogies hold up only from very limited perspectives, and other analogies go deep -- where even under varied circumstances the patterns continue to match.  I'm always delighted when I find a particularly deep analogy -- it happens so rarely, though, that I can't even think of a good example. 


I'm The Analogy "Type"
I'm a fan of the Meyers-Briggs psychology tests, and am an ENTP.  That means:

• Extroverted (vs. Introverted)
• iNtuitive (vs. Sensing)
• Thinker (vs. Feeler)
• Perceiver (vs. Judger)

See that "iNtuitive" up there?  Yeah, those're the people who use analogies.  Sensers (the other type) don't.  While Intuitives seek hidden patterns, Sensers are concrete observers.  They live in the clarity of the now, and pay close attention.

Indeed, Sherlock Holmes is the quintessential Senser: he had a preternatural ability to observe the world around him, at all times, to the finest detail.  Albert Einstein would be the quintessential Intuitive -- grasping the hidden laws of the universe, while no doubt forgetting where he parked his car.

Worst.  Analogy.  Ever. 
I once worked with an extreme Senser.  Hyper-literal and concrete, he was very precise, but often hard to fully understand.  Speaking to him was like reading the 2004 Acura TSX Drivers Manual, or reviewing a summary of your federal taxes:  Factually correct yet any comprehension comes only with much concentration.

Anyway, someone suggested that this person try to use more analogies like me.  He asked me if he could try some out.  I said sure, I was delighted to help!

So he says, "Okay, let me try one:  The reporting system is like a car."  Then looks at me, eyebrows raised for feedback, and there's a pained silence.

So I said, "Um, you have to say how it's like a car."  Oh!   He hadn't know that.  Good to know.

Needless to say, his analogies greatly improved, even if I usually winced at even the best of them.

Seeking the Ultimate Analogy
Anyway, I mentally compare a lot of stuff.  Especially when it comes to the Very Big (e.g., galaxies), the Very Small (e.g., quantum physics), and the Very Profound (e.g., meaning of life).

So consider this question:  What state of matter is life?  What is life "like"? 

I mean, if you had to draw an analogy to another state of matter, what would it be?  Granted, it's a part-solid, part-liquid mishmash, but neither solid nor liquid really captures its essence.  First and foremost, those states don't die and discorporate like we do.   You might be skeptical that there's any state of matter that dies.

But there is:  Fire.

Life is a very slow burn.  This fire can be transferred to new life (e..g, having children), but once it's out, it can't be lit again.  So if we have to compare ourselves to anything else that's out there in the universe, I think that Fire is our closest relative.

I'm not sure what this tells us.  Does it mean that perhaps stars are alive?  I don't think so.  I think they are unfocused burning.  But perhaps other forms of burning could also be considered life.  I do think that any form of life must involve some sort of burning -- life requires a flame.

I think this must be what those kids meant back in high school, when they called me a flamer.   I had no idea how right they were.

How Can Someone So Smart Do Something So Stupid?

Most people I know think that I am smart, but that I do stupid things.  You could describe many of my friends the same way.  If you're part of a particular clique of super-smart WPI twenty-something engineers, I bet you could be described this way, too.  (Note:  I hear that you do jello shots on garage roofs -- I rest my case.)

Anyway, take a look at the Title Question.  Has that ever been said about you?

My wife says that phrase approximately once every six hours about me.  And she means it every time.  I've heard my friends' wives say it about them.  Hell, I've heard our wives commisserating about how we're all that way.   What the heck does that mean?

In other words:  How the hell CAN someone "so smart" do something "so stupid"?

I think I've figured it out!

Before I go any further, I don't think this is necessarily a man / woman thing.   I have little doubt that literally millions of times per year, men say that about their wives.    At the very least, we can debate that some other time.  I just want to describe the phenomenon, not start World War III.

The So-Smart-So-Stupid Answer
The answer is that there are many dimensions of intelligence, and two are breadth and depth.  (There are probably many other meaningful dimensions, but these are two.)

For a given set of raw brain-processing ability, it can be divvied up into different attention-chunks.  So two people with IQ's of, say, 140, can allot their attention in different amounts -- and either to a few topics deeply, or more topics not-quite-as-deeply.

So here is precisely what happens, which leads to the Blog Title Question.

1. A "Deep" person can demonstrate a few tasks extremely well.
2. The "Broad" person observes that this person is really good in a very precise area.  Even if she has this skill herself, she senses the depth.
3. However, the "Broad" person also sees that there's some really basic things that said Smarty is totally screwing up.
4. This seems like a contradiction.

And hence:  "How can someone so smart do something so stupid?"

Epilogue  (I wrote this later)
So I wrote this post and was feeling pretty good about the article -- then I went back a few hours later and noticed something a bit ...untoward.  (Whoa, there's a word you don't hear much.)  Anyway, if you take the picture above (of the woman) totally out of context, it looks like I'm saying "This is the stuff that broads talk about."

That is not how I meant it.  And lest anybody say, "Yeah, but I bet I that's where the term 'broads' probably came from, so you're just as bad!  We're not broads!"  I would like to say that I'm pretty damn sure that the phrase "broad" originally referred to a woman's decolletage, not her perspicacity and parallel mental processing abilities.

Brett Finds God

All of my life I have been an avowed atheist -- well, at the very least, I'm unaffiliated from any run-of-the-mill Gods. 

Yet, I have read countless times about the benefits of praying.  Praying helps you focus your thoughts, and helps you live up to your own ideals.  Nevertheless, for the longest time, I thought this was one of the downsides of atheism:  No praying.

Then, a few years ago, I decided to forge ahead with praying anyway.

Nothing In Common With "Capital-G" God
I quickly concluded that if I were going to pray, it certainly would not be to the Judeo-Christian God.  I have virtually nothing in common with that Guy.   I mean, how boring is He: totally all-powerful, all-knowing, all everything. I cannot relate to Somebody like that whatsoever.

I need a lower-case-g god:  A god who is more human, more flawed, with strengths and weaknesses, not one who checks every goddamn box in the Awesome column.  Not somebody for whom I gotta capitalize my frickin pronouns when I refer to Him.

God Shopping

I'll Pass

So I went god shopping. I inspected a few of the Hindu gods that had promise -- but nothing panned out.  I discovered that I have a natural aversion to praying to any god with any of the following:

• A trunk
• More than two arms
• A pastel complexion

Then I investigated the Christian saints: So lame.  Christian saints are to mythology what Thomas the Tank Engine is to children's toys -- they took something that could be cool and made it uptight and stodgy. 

But then I hit the treasure trove: the Greek gods!

Here's my take on each God:

Asshole Divorcee

Zeus:  The ultimate father figure, but more of a selfish, divorced dad than Mike Brady.  Too philandering and bossy -- kind of an asshole.  If he were a mortal, I have little doubt he'd drive a Corvette, date twenty-something waitresses well into his late 40s, and occasionally have chlamydia.

Hera:  Meanwhile, if Zeus is the prototypical divorced dad, then Hera is the bitter ex-wife.  It seems like she spends all of her time bitching about Zeus (not that he doesn't deserve every bit of it), rather than just getting on with her life.   Hardly inspirational.

Achilles:  Sure, Achilles is a great warrior, but in kind of a single-dimensional way.  He doesn't really represent my values. Plus, do you know why Achilles sat out the first half of the Trojan war? It was because Agamemnon filched his most attractive slave (Brisies) for himself! I could hardly worship somebody who took sex slaves in the first place, much less was happy to stand by while a war raged, because his harem was a bit light.

Hercules:  Great, you're really strong, we get it.  Maybe I'll pray to him if the lid gets stuck on the pickle jar again, or if I want to carry three boxes up from the basement in a single trip.   But otherwise I'll keep looking.

Attractive Dingbat

Aphrodite:  She's the stereotypical brainless hot chick, who almost got herself killed by a mortal (Diomedes) because she wasn't paying attention.  Put on some decent clothes and get a job, you trollop.

Hephaestus:  Not cool himself, per se, but he has all sorts of neat stuff:  he was the armorer for the gods, and makes some really slick weapons. But he himself is weird and moody.  Worshiping him would be like hanging out with a creepy kid just so that you can play his Xbox One.  Nope.

Paris / Helen of Troy:  Fuck no.  Choosing them would be like worshiping Jason Priestly or Shannon Doherty.  Out of the question.

Apollo / Ares:  I could never quite figure out Apollo, except for the fact that he was typically pissed about one thing or another. And Ares was even worse.  A bunch of meatheads, if you ask me.

Hades:  He's like a creepy goth kid, with whom nobody wants to hang out.  So he gets this angry dog (Cerebus) to make some sort of statement. Get a life.

God Found!
So far, I had no luck.  I needed a god who was strong, yet clever. Someone who could not rely on power alone, because in the real world, nobody can.  Someone who was cunning at times, but clearly had a very good heart.  Someone who did important things.  Someone I could relate to, and be inspired by.

At long last, I found my god -- or, as it turned out, goddess: Pallas Athena.

About Pallas Athena
Pallas Athena is the goddess of Just Warfare, which is awesome.  In other words, she fights, but she fights nobly.  Also, while she's not quite strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Ares (who is the primary god of war), she typically gets the best of him anyway.  

Totally Awesome

She's kind to mortals, and isn't always bitching about sacrifices, like some other gods I could mention.  Generally, she wants to avoid bloodshed, and tries to help the mortals to get along.

Her symbol is the owl, which is an awesome creature in its own right:  An owl is a quintessential predator, yet is known for its wisdom.  (Plus, have you ever seen an owl up close?  Man, those things are cool.)   It captures her spirit perfectly.

Oh,  and she's not some hussy.  Aphrodite or Hera were always tramping around with the other gods, or seducing mortals, but not Athena.  Hephaestus tried to throw himself at her once, but he was no match for her, and just ended up embarrassing himself.  She very well might be a lesbian.

Even how she was born is awesome: She sprang from Zeus's head in full battle armor, and pretty much had a not-to-be-fucked-with demeanor from the get go.


Worship 101
I'm still figuring out how to best worship her.  I'm treading a bit lightly -- I certainly don't want to piss her off.  But I hope she doesn't hold me to ancient Greek standards, as I can hardly afford to be sacrificing hecatombs, like they did back then:  I looked it up: a hecatomb is 100 cattle.   My wife would be pissed if I bought 100 cattle and then slaughtered them in the back yard.

But I did buy a statue of her decked out for battle, with this awesome owl.  I pray to it now and then, when I need strength or focus -- like before a big presentation at work.  I like to think that she's rooting for me, too.

However, if you ever hear that I've been struck dead by a bolt of lightning, you can conclude that I either offended her, or one of the other gods heard I was talking smack.  For my sake, please do NOT forward this blog to any dieties.