<ul><li>“Consciousness” is often used in the literature as if it implied more than just the qualities of experience.</li><li>The key distinction between conscious and unconscious thought is that “Conscious thought is thought with attention.”</li><li>If a thought escapes attention, then it is unconscious.</li></ul>However,<ul><li>Is the mere lack of attention enough to assert that a mental process lacks the qualities of experience?</li><li>Couldn’t a process that escapes the focus of attention still feel like something?</li></ul>

Conscious and Unconscious thoughts

Consider your breathing right now- the air flow and the movement of your breathing organs.<ul><li>Were you not experiencing these sensations a moment ago, before I directed your attention to them?</li><li>Or were you just unaware that you were experiencing them all along?</li></ul>By directing your attention to these sensations, did I make them conscious or did I simply cause you to experience the extra quality of knowing that the sensations were conscious?

An Example of consciousness 

<ul><li>Both conscious and meta-conscious entail the qualities of experience, however, meta-conscious processes also entail what is called re-representation.</li><li>Re-representation of consciousness is in which one interprets, describes or otherwise characterizes the state of one’s mind.</li><li>Attention plays an important role is in re-representation; that is, the conscious knowledge of an experience which helps in introspection.</li></ul>

Conscious and Meta-conscious

<ul><li>Attention plays an important role in re-representation; that is, the conscious knowledge of an experience and introspection.</li><li>Subjects cannot report—not even to themselves—experiences that aren’t re-represented.</li><li>However, conscious experience does occur even without re-representation: For example, Dreams lack re-representation, even if they are experienced in consciousness.</li><li>This gap between reportability and consciousness has led to “no-report paradigms” in neuroscience.</li></ul>

Consciousness and Re-representation

<ul><li>We assume that consciousness is limited to re-represented mental contents under the focus of attention.</li><li>This confuses meta-consciousness with consciousness.</li><li>Conscious processes that lack re-representation and truly unconscious processes are different. However, both are equally unreportable to self and others.</li><li>A mental process is not unconscious just because we’re unable to report it.</li></ul>

Confusion in Consciousness 

<ul><li>It’s debated in neuroscience whether babies are born conscious or whether they develop consciousness at some point (generally said to be five months of age)</li><li>It is hard to think that a newborn feels nothing. Newborns clearly seem to experience their own bodies, their environment, presence of their parents etc.</li><li>This means they are conscious since birth, but are unable to report it due to lack of a meta-cognition process. </li><li>What we see as rise of consciousness may merely be the rise of metacognition.</li></ul>

Consciousness in babies

<ul><li>Consciousness may never arise because it may always be there to begin with. For all we know, what arises is merely a metacognitive configuration of preexisting consciousness.</li><li>Consciousness may be fundamental in nature—an inherent aspect of every mental process, not a property generated by arrangement of structures in the brain (brain physiology).</li><li>Reducing consciousness to brain physiology may have little to do with consciousness proper, but with mechanisms of metacognition instead.</li></ul>

Summary of consciousness

Awareness can be part of it, but it’s much more than that.

Psychology

Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think

<ul><li>It's inaccurate to assume that everything chemical is bad, and everything natural is good.</li></ul>Eg: Poison ivy is natural, but that's not something you want to put on your skin.<ul><li>Ingredients are not intrinsically bad, it's about how they're used and in what quantity.</li></ul>Eg: Think of a puddle of water — not a big deal, but a tsunami can be catastrophic.<ul><li>A product labelled as 'natural' tells us nothing about ingredient safety or sustainability but it makes patients and consumers feel better.</li></ul>

All Chemicals aren’t bad, all things natural aren’t good

<ul><li>The term ‘natural’ or ‘clean’ or ‘green’ doesn’t have a clear definition today.</li><li>Third-party organizations and Retailers have released standards that include lists of ingredients that meet their definition of ‘natural.’</li><li>Here, we look at what dermatologists think about ‘natural’ skin-care.</li></ul>

Definition of Natural

<ul><li>‘Natural' is more of a cultural concept — it extends the belief in the superiority of the natural world and that human modification and inference inevitably causes harm.</li><li>'Natural' products also allow people to connect themselves with a perceived healthy lifestyle, as well as certain favoured values like harmony with the environment, a spiritual connection with nature, and altruism.</li><li>When you buy a 'natural' product, you're buying everything that 'natural' products represent.</li></ul>

“Natural” is a cultural concept

<ul><li>Don't automatically assume that because something's ‘natural,' it's safe.</li><li>Understand the product, make sure you've done a little bit of research.</li><li>Public regulation of ‘natural’ products — including a universally agreed-upon definition for the word — would empower us all to make more informed decisions.</li><li>When in doubt about if a product is right for you — ‘natural’ or not — you should visit a dermatologist to assess the ingredients. Because it's what's inside that counts.</li></ul>

Understand “natural”

Quirky things

What Dermatologists Think About "Natural" Skin-Care | Allure

<ul><li>Difference between investing and speculation is a matter of risk tolerance, with speculation being closer to gambling.</li><li>The truth is that there’s no clear cut line between them, as all investing carries risk.</li><li>Still, there are differences worth knowing about, no matter what your financial goals might be.</li></ul>

Investing and Speculating

<ul><li>Investing is most commonly thought of as an attempt to profit on transactions, stocks, or assets.</li><li>Often, there is a “safety first” approach, as the most conservative-minded investors will trade off higher returns in exchange for reduced risk.</li><li>Safe investments can include bonds, buying property, loans to low-risk borrowers, or investing in blue-chip stocks.</li></ul>

Investing is a long-term play

<ul><li>To ensure the highest margin of safety, choose an investment that gives consistent returns.</li><li>The most conservative investor will avoid short-term market volatility by investing in assets over the long-term, often decades, called “passive” investing. </li><li>This strategy has performed well for investors like Warren Buffett.</li><li>The longer the money is invested, the more it will compound, making it less susceptible to short-term, double-digit dips in the market.</li></ul>

Passive Investing

“I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”

<ul><li>Speculation follows the saying: “With great risk comes great reward”</li><li>Speculation is the act of putting money into investments that have a higher probability of failure, while also sometimes paying off with a big reward.</li><li>Speculators tend to trade more frequently, and they’ll wager on higher-risk markets such as commodities, cryptocurrencies, or in shares of small or distressed companies.</li></ul>

Speculation is focused on short-term gains

<ul><li>Just because speculation carries a higher risk doesn’t mean it’s all gambling, however.</li><li>The same level of scrutiny and research that’s applied in long-term investments can be applied to short term cycles and market behaviour.</li><li>However, when people make trades based on zero knowledge of what they’re investing in (like crypto, often times), then it’s basically gambling.</li></ul>

Speculation is not Gambling

<ul><li>The difference between investing or speculating, is not about what you buy, but why you buy—and that varies for people based on their financial goals.</li><li>For example, a low-income earner near retirement won’t want to chase a short-term upswing. In contrast, someone with more wealth might want to reduce their exposure to just stocks or bonds, so they might be happy investing a small portion of that wealth in high-risk intangible assets like crypto.</li></ul>

Risk is a spectrum

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Know the difference between low-risk and high-risk investments.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Knowing your own risk tolerance.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Your risk tolerance depends on your age, financial status, and retirement goals</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Consider consulting with a financial advisor to walk you through the trade-offs that come with investing and speculating. </li></ul>

Know your risk appetite

Whether you're investing or speculating, you'll want to know your risk tolerance.

Money Matters

The Difference Between Investing and Speculating (and Why It Matters)

The love stories you encounter in The Betrayals are not made for fairy tales. There is no love at first sight. It doesn’t soothe or swoon or serenade. Their love is “full of desire and hostility, reflections and shadows.”According to the author, “The Betrayals is in part a book about the joy we find in our playmates, in moments of shared humour or creativity, in seeing and being seen.”

Darker side of love

The Betrayals depicts what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world, where even a normal mistake you make will be attributed to your gender - Being the pioneer in a path where no women has traveled before.Magister Claire Dryden goes through all the facets of this predicament.

A Woman in a man’s world

The book talks about a kind of arcane game called the grand jeu. It’s unlike any magic system we have read about. In fact, one initially wonders if it is magic or really good science.It’s unlike the world of Harry Potter, the <a href="https://amzn.to/2SanIyG" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">scholomance</a> world of Naomi Novik or the <a href="https://amzn.to/35z4GVM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">world of Lev Grossman</a> or the world of <a href="https://amzn.to/3q8cPdn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern</a> though I found a lot of parallels.According to the author, The Betrayals was inspired by Hermann Hesse’s novel <a href="https://amzn.to/3vF2d6T" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Glass Bead Game</a>

A different kind of Magic

In the world of The Betrayals, Grand jeu is a mixture of literature, music, maths, philosophy and everything else that’s complex yet beautiful in this world.You are taken through a journey of surprises, vivid descriptions and poetic language.According to the author, it’s “an elusive game that combines maths, music and ideas in an atmosphere of meditation.”

Real magic is knowledge

The book is set in late 1930s in an alternate world and one can draw many parallels between the persecution of Jews in real history and that of Christians in the book. The Prime Minister aka Old Man could very well be Adolf Hitler.

Alternate interpretation of History

In summary, The Betrayals unravels slowly with one glorious twist after the other. Some are predictable, some not so much. The book itself resembles a tantalising gothic structure.

Glorious twists

“Dizzyingly wonderful . . . a perfectly constructed work of fiction, with audacious twists . . . Collins plays her own game here with perfect skill.” — The Times (UK) An intricate and utterly spellbinding literary epic brimming with enchantment, mystery, and dark secrets from the highly acclaimed author of the #1 international bestseller The Binding. If your life was based on a lie, would you risk it all to tell the truth? At Montverre, an ancient and elite academy hidden high in the mountains, society’s best and brightest are trained for excellence in the grand jeu—the great game—an arcane and mysterious competition that combines music, art, math, poetry, and philosophy. Léo Martin once excelled at Montverre but lost his passion for scholarly pursuits after a violent tragedy. He turned to politics instead and became a rising star in the ruling party, until a small act of conscience cost him his career. Now he has been exiled back to Montverre, his fate uncertain. But this rarified world of learning Léo once loved is not the same place he remembers. Once the exclusive bastion of men, Montverre’s most prestigious post is now held by a woman: Claire Dryden, also known as the Magister Ludi, the head of the great game. At first, Léo feels an odd attraction to the magister—a mysterious, eerily familiar connection—though he’s sure they’ve never met before. As the legendary Midsummer Game approaches—the climax of the academy’s year—long-buried secrets rise to the surface and centuries-old traditions are shockingly overturned. A highly imaginative and intricately crafted literary epic, The Betrayals confirms Bridget Collins as one of the most inventive and exquisite new voices in speculative fiction.

Reviews of books

The Betrayals

<ul><li>Most of us haven't been taught how to apologise</li><li>Our efforts tend to be harmful: vague, intrusive, demanding, or full of warnings that can leave the recipient of an apology feeling even worse.</li><li>When the apology is absent or it's a bad apology, it puts a crack in the very foundation of a relationship and can even end it.</li><li>That's why it is critical to get an apology right.</li></ul>

Good apology or No apology

<ul><li>A good apology is an opportunity for us to take clear and direct responsibility for our wrongdoing</li><li>We shouldn’t blame, evade, make excuses or bring up the past.</li><li>A good apology brims with accountability, meets the moment, and can transform our relationships.</li></ul>

A good apology

<ul><li>We listen for what we don't agree with, so we can defend ourselves and correct the facts.</li><li>Keep an open mind and listen with an explicit intention to understand the other person.</li><li>Try to wrap your brain around the essence of what that hurt party needs you to get.</li></ul>

Drop your defences

<ul><li>Show genuine sorrow and remorse.</li><li>It feels vulnerable to not be in control of the outcome, but it is also courageous.</li></ul>

Be real.

<ul><li>A sincere apology does not include caveats or qualifiers.</li><li>'But' almost always signifies a rationalisation, a criticism, or an excuse</li><li>It doesn't matter if what you say after the 'but' is true, the 'but' makes your apology false.</li></ul>

No ifs or buts

<ul><li>Keep your apology short and mind the histrionics. </li><li>Over-apologising is not only irritating — it disrupts the flow of the conversation and shifts the focus away from the person who needs to be attended to</li><li>You've hijacked the hurt party's emotionality and made the apology about you.</li></ul>

Less is more

<ul><li>Your attention when apologizing should be on the impact of your words or deeds, not on your intention.</li><li>Zero in on the situation at hand and stay attuned to the needs of the person who is hurting.</li><li>It's not the two words 'I'm sorry' that heal the injury. The hurt party wants to know that we really get it, that we validate their feelings and care.</li></ul>

Stay Focused

<ul><li>An apology isn't the only chance you ever get to address the underlying issue. The apology is the chance you get to establish the ground for future communication.</li><li>An apology creates an opening. When done with attention and care, it can be a conduit for greater understanding and deeper connection.</li></ul>

Remember: A good apology is a beginning, not an end.

We all screw up. What comes afterwards can make or break a relationship. In this episode, psychologist Harriet Lerner shares her tips for apologizing well and moving forward.

Being human

You're Apologizing All Wrong. Here's How To Say Sorry The Right Way : Life Kit

<ul><li>Much of modern economic theory is based around Utility.</li><li>British Philosopher Jeremy Bentham was the inventor of Utilitarianism.</li><li>To an economist, utility simply means how much people want something.</li><li>Modern economists tend to assume that utility is good — that people should get what they want.</li><li>More egalitarian economists tend to value the utility of the poor and disadvantaged more than the utility of the wealthy, but fundamentally it’s still about giving people what they desire.</li></ul>

Utility and Economics

…need not make you happy.<ul><li>People sometimes make choices they come to regret.</li><li>We need to question whether society should just feed human desires all the time.</li><li>Bentham’s utilitarianism conceived of a good society as one that makes its people happy.</li><li>But what if the things people desire don’t bring them happiness?</li></ul>

Getting what you want…

﻿Man was made for Joy &amp; WoeAnd when this we rightly knowThrough the world we safely goJoy &amp; Woe are woven fineA Clothing for the soul divine.Under every grief &amp; pineRuns a joy with silken twine.

<ul><li>There’s no clear consensus on how to measure happiness.</li><li>Some neuroscientists have tried to link it to various measures of brain activity.</li><li>Economists tend to use a cheaper and quicker method, sending out surveys and questionnaires asking people how happy they are.</li><li>People seem to reliably seek out things which make them happy. </li></ul>

Happiness research

<ul><li>In 2019, a few economists (Hunt Allcott et al.) investigated how much money they had to pay Facebook users in order to deactivate the Facebook app for one or two months.</li><li>They found that the median amount was $100, and the average was $180.</li><li>This suggests that Facebook generates a huge amount of utility.</li></ul>

An interesting research

<ul><li>Allcott et al. found that the people who deactivated Facebook as part of the experiment were happier afterward, reporting higher levels of satisfaction and lower levels of depression and anxiety. This was 25-40% of improvement reported for psychotherapy.</li><li>Why are people willing to pay money for something that reduces their happiness? Because..</li></ul><ol><li>Social Media acts like an addictive drug.</li><li>People are motivated by something other than happiness.</li></ol>

Social Media and Happiness

<ul><li>Having a bigger house and more money doesn’t necessarily make people happy.</li><li>Just like social media, things that bring utility need not bring happiness.</li><li>Surveys show that people usually predict that the things they say they’d pay money for would also boost their happiness — but not always.</li></ul>

Utility and Happiness

<ul><li>Happiness is hard to measure.</li><li>Happiness surveys don’t reveal the measure of true happiness. Because people say what they think they should say due to cultural expectations. </li><li>People could gradually lose their ability to gauge how much happier or sadder they are.</li><li>One should stop making mistakes that leads to a less happy self, no matter how badly one wants something.</li></ul>

Ensuring happiness

A basic principle of economics keeps getting turned on its head.

What We Want Doesn’t Always Make Us Happy

<ul><li>Commute initiates a sequence in which the feelings and attitudes of home life are deactivated, replaced by thoughts of work. This takes time, and if it doesn’t happen, one role can contaminate the other—what researchers call “Role Spillover.”</li><li>Most people engage in “Role-clarifying prospection” during their commute deliberately thinking about plans for work day, which makes them highly satisfied. Skipping this task leaves them in limbo.</li></ul>

Dangers of Role spillover

“You get a very strong feeling of two lives with the train as a bridge.” - Gail Sheehy (1968)<ul><li>A commuter lives two lives: The distance between those two lives is explored in a body of research loosely known as “Boundary Theory”.</li><li>All of us have multiple selves, all of them authentic. Crossing between these lives isn’t normally easy.</li></ul>

A Commuter’s Double Life

“Overslept, so tired.If late, get fired.Why bother? Why the pain?Just go home, do it again.”--The Commuter’s lament inscribed in New York City’s 42nd Street StationDaily commute seemed to be the bane of our existence till the pandemic bonded us to our homes.

Commuter’s Lament

<ul><li>During/After the pandemic, many people who have lost their daily commute experience have felt a void.</li><li>Without commute, there are no beginnings or endings. Life is continuously happening.</li><li>“No commute may be hurting, not helping, remote worker productivity,” a Microsoft report warned last fall.</li><li>Without commute, employees are burnt out with no separation between life and work.</li></ul>

No commute hurts

<ul><li>Throughout history, humans have shown a willingness to spend roughly 60 minutes a day in transit.</li><li>Known as Marchetti’s Constant, 60 minutes are usually understood to describe what people will endure as commute.</li><li>The reason why people might like longer commute are: the feeling of control in one’s own car; the time to plan, to decompress, to make calls, to listen to audiobooks.</li><li>As per research, the commute has some “Positive utility.”</li></ul>

Some like longer commute

In order to make up for role spillover due to lack of commute, you can:<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Match your surroundings with the task at hand</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Create a soothing ritual to transition between life and work.</li></ul>”Rituals are friction, they slow us down. They’re so antithetical to most of our life, which is all about efficiency and speed.”<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Use Technology’s help. Microsoft’s SwitchBot (2017) poses simple questions to help transition into productive work mode and to detach at day’s end</li></ul>

Cure Role spillover without commute

Many people who have been working from home are experiencing a void they can’t quite name.

The Psychological Benefits of Commuting to Work

<ul><li>Usually, all productivity advice says: “Say NO often, make time for other things.”</li><li>This sounds smart but isn’t always practical</li><li>Eg: You can’t always say NO to your boss. You can’t always say NO to your partner in doing household chores.</li><li>What to do instead? : Learn to ask a better question.</li></ul>

“Just Say No” Is Bad Productivity Advice

<ul><li>There are two kinds of workers: Schedule Makers and Schedule Takers</li><li>Schedule Makers make their schedule. They have flexibility of time so long as they get the work done. Eg: most white collar jobs- engineers, designers</li><li>Schedule Takers have their schedule made by someone else. They are paid hourly and don’t have control over their hours. Eg: blue collar jobs</li><li>Most jobs are a combination of Schedule Makers and Takers.</li></ul>

Figure Out What Kind of Worker You Are

<ul><li>Schedule Takers have less decisions to make since they are paid for their time. If you put in an hour of work, you’ll be paid accordingly.</li><li>Schedule Makers have to decide what to work on, when and how. They apparently have more flexibility but since their managers don’t know how they are managing their time, they are often over-burdened.</li><li>If you do the right things, you can save yourself from this.</li></ul>

Schedule makers have more trouble..

<ul><li>First ask yourself: Which end is your job skewed - Schedule Making or Taking?</li><li>Are you burned out and troubled with frayed nerves and broken relationships because you’re overwhelmed with work?</li><li>Doesn’t your manager have any idea of how much work you’re doing because you’re managing your own time?</li><li>Learn to ask the right questions to yourself and to the one who gives you work. </li></ul>

Questions to manage your schedule 

<ul><li>Instead of saying “no” to your boss or family member, try schedule-syncing.</li><li>Make sure you block your calendar for meetings and specific work. Sync this calendar with your boss or family member.</li><li>Make sure you have time sheet to report on what you’re doing during your working hours.</li><li>After this, if someone gives you work, ask politely: “When?”</li></ul>

Instead of Saying “No,” Ask “When?”

Saying no to tasks and interruptions isn’t always possible, whether they come from your spouse or manager. Here’s a better way to stay productive.

To make life better

"Just Say No" Is Bad Productivity Advice

We all have a voice inside of our heads that seems to comment on everything it sees. It also loves to criticize you or push you to go after things it desires - Things like more food, money, sex, alcohol, drugs, travel, entertainment.This dialogue distracts us from the present. It makes us less focused and even disappointed in ourselves by making us question our self-worth.

A Voice inside our heads

Have you noticed that your thoughts never say something like, “Wow, it’s such a wonderfully normal and mundane day? Let’s enjoy that cup of coffee. Don’t get worked up about stupid things like traffic. Just enjoy yourself!”The mind never says things like that by itself. You need to TRAIN your mind to speak to you like that.

Train your mind-voice

Notice that your mind always loves to go to the past or the future because that’s where it can get your attention.It always tries to escape the present which is your most valuable asset. Train your mind to come back to the present.

Notice where the voice likes to wander

Train yourself to think about your thoughts in a way that it’s not a part of you. You’re the consciousness who’s noticing the thoughts. You’re not the thoughts. You merely notice them.But most of us identify ourselves with our thoughts. We actually listen to the thoughts, and as a result, we’re hardly present.

How to train to think?

”When you resist the trend, you become distracted, restless, and dissatisfied with the present. No good ever came from a mind that’s lost in thought. It only causes suffering” - Eckhart TolleWhat’s the trend? That which is present. That which is bigger than you. That which is important.

Follow the trend

Following the trend doesn’t mean to blindly follow others. It means to follow your trend. Your present. Your immediate needs.Always work with the trend. Stay in the present, and make it your friend. Every time your mind is trying to take you to the future or past, become aware of it, and say, “You’re not my friend. The present is. Goodbye,’ and snap back to what’s in front of you.

What’s “follow the trend”?

I was on a run the other day when I started to observe a dialogue in my head. I’ve been practicing Eastern Philosophy and Mindfulness for several years, and observing the mind is one of the skills…

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

srividya g
@srividyag

Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think

What Dermatologists Think About "Natural" Skin-Care | Allure

The Difference Between Investing and Speculating (and Why It Matters)

The Betrayals

You're Apologizing All Wrong. Here's How To Say Sorry The Right Way : Life Kit

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

srividya g@srividyag

Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think

What Dermatologists Think About "Natural" Skin-Care | Allure

The Difference Between Investing and Speculating (and Why It Matters)

The Betrayals

You're Apologizing All Wrong. Here's How To Say Sorry The Right Way : Life Kit

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

srividya g
@srividyag