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Choice is very important in the West

In the West, making choices can make us a little anxious because it defines who we are. However, when people from Asia make choices, it doesn't have this overlay. 

They feel we are less free than they are. They think we are kind of in a prison, because we must define ourselves in every moment. For example, if we take care of the elderly, we want to feel that it's an extension of our great love. Yet, somebody from a more flexi self will take care of the elderly parent because it's their duty, not an expression of themselves.

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The true self vs the flexi self

The true self vs the flexi self

In the West, we continuously feel we should be different from others. We feel that deep inside is our self, our identity to which we must be true. We also see ourselves as unique. In everything we do, we want to reflect that individual self. 

In Asia, people have a flexi-self or inter-depen...

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293 reads

What you think you are, is just a bunch of patterns you've fallen into

What you think you are, is just a bunch of patterns you've fallen into

Many of the patterns you've fallen into could be potentially destructive for you and those around you.  Instead, you should be trying to break those patterns and change the way you interact with the world.

You'll never get to the good life unless you work through these patterns and create d...

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200 reads

The egoless-ness or no self

The egoless-ness or no self

Most people misinterpret the idea in Buddhist psychology of egoless-ness or no-self. They say we don't need the ego or the self at all. 

We need our egos. But we take ourselves more seriously than we need to. The self is not as fixed as we would like to think. The ego is a ...

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The self is an illusion

Most people don't feel identical to their bodies. They feel they have bodies and that they're inside the body, inside their heads. But that locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion, meaning it makes no neuro-anatomical sense.

The processes in the brain can be independently erup...

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We have made things hard for ourselves

Chinese philosophers would say it is extremely restraining to stick to what we think we naturally are meant to be.

Our responses can fall into ruts and patterns that repeat endlessly.  For example, when someone does something against you, it can make you angry because it ...

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Discussing consciousness scientifically

Discussing consciousness scientifically

Consciousness is very subjective. Consciousness is what it's like to be you. Its an experiential internal qualitative dimension to the physical system.

We can't reduce that experiential side to neurotransmitters and states of the brain. So, when you're trying to study human consciousness by...

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CURATED FROM

CURATED BY

noe_vhh

"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver." - Gandhi

The 3 layers of identity: The self in culture, the self in Eastern philosophy, the self in neuroscience.

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The Four Villains Of Decision Making

The Four Villains Of Decision Making

When we make bad decisions is usually because of these 4:

  • Narrow framing: the tendency to define our choices too narrowly, to see them in binary terms.
  • Confirmation bias: we are more likely to select the information that supports our preexistin...

The Romantic script is delusional

The Romantic script is delusional

It's normative points include:

  • we should meet a person of extraordinary inner and outer beauty and immediately feel a special attraction to them, and they to us
  • we should understand one another intuitively
  • we don’t need an education in love
  • we should have no sec...

Status is a very old game and a zero-sum game.

Status is a very old game and a zero-sum game.

We’ve been playing it since monkey tribes. It’s hierarchical. Who’s number one? Who’s number two? Who’s number three? And for number three to move to number two, number two has to move out of that slot. So, status is a zero-sum game.

Politics is an example of a status game.

They play ...

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