In the spirit of The Checklist Manifesto, I will keep this summary short. High stakes mean that margin of error is low. Surgeons and pilots must minimize error because of high stakes. They love checklists. If your work doesn’t save lives, it’s okay. You can still improve the quality of what you produce. Use checklists … Read more
In Thoughts Without a Thinker, Mark Epstein makes the case that what is missing from psychoanalysis is Buddhism, that the two are complementary. Psychoanalysis is a reversion to the past, but a study of the past, while necessary, can be infinite and ineffective. There must be a focus on the present, this is the idea … Read more
Improvement of the Mind by Isaac Watts is an early text about how to learn, and it was recommended by Faraday, who claimed that it had provided him with the framework and tools he needed for his eventual discoveries. No one can learn everything, it is neither possible nor desirable, but everyone should try to … Read more
Television and radio do not stimulate your mind or force you to think. They provide you with pre-packaged opinions that give you the illusion that you are thinking. How to Read a Book argues for switching to the written word, and to doing it right. You are enlightened, not when you know what the author … Read more
In ancient Chinese rituals, straw dogs were used as sacrifices to the gods. ‘Gaia’ is the name of a goddess in Greek mythology, and the Gaia principle, by Lovelock, suggests that the earth is a self-regulating, complex system that is influenced by its habitants. And that human beings, are merely organisms in this system, that … Read more
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom is about the inevitability of a technological dystopia unless serious action is taken. Imagining a technological dystopia is not original.Huxley and Orwell, have been able to write about the end of the world we love in novels, that people to this day refer to, they even have debates about who was … Read more
The idea of deception is easy for most people to understand. It is not a puzzle that some people are able to deceive others. It is not difficult to think of many reasons why they would do so. But why self-deception? It appears paradoxical, that a person would harm themselves. Why would you, an intelligent … Read more
The perception of mental illness has changed across time. According to Foucault in Madness and Civilization, this change has more to do with social and economic needs, than any humanitarian feelings towards the mentally ill. From the discovery of that necessity which inevitably reduces man to nothing, we have shifted to the scornful contemplation of … Read more
Thomas Szasz was a physician who later became a psychologist. The Myth of Mental Illness is a controversial book, and it is famous for having changed the way people have viewed psychiatry for decades. For some, the arguments give them more confidence in accepting themselves as they are, by seeing the social stigmatization does not … Read more
This is a graduation speech by David Foster Wallace that was made into a book. In this speech, Wallace relates to us to what we need to me aware of throughout our lives. What to Think The purpose of a liberal arts education is to teach you what to think about. It has nothing to … Read more