Asking a Good Question The art of asking smart questions often underappreciated. We live in a society that values receiving answers, explaining things, and solving problems. However, knowing how to produce a decent line of inquiry in order to do these tasks, a question that allows us to use our faculties in a productive manner, isn't actually a skill that was expressly taught, despite being an important component of the process. What distinguishes a good question from a bad…
Prediction Markets Throughout his career, Stephen Hawking made several famous public wagers on various topics in astrophysics and cosmology. The stakes were never truly life-altering. Hawking, on the other hand, was notorious for his willingness to stake some scientific speculation. That's a rare occurrence, which is strange given how much time we spend speculating about the future. Consider this. Every political discussion, every disagreement over where to eat for dinner,…
Switching Modes of Inquiry We've all run into a dead end while trying to figure out something, figuring out how to move forward, how to get rich, how to pass the exam and a lot more. The transition from humming along on all cylinders, rapidly closing in on the answer, to a grinding, painful crawl as our muses abandon us, and we're left quietly pounding our temples in futile frustration with nothing to show for hours of agonizing effort is often painful. Nobody enjoys that…
My Consciousness on Consciousness The term consciousness is used to describe a broad number of interconnected phenomena that all have to do with minds. If your patient appears to be awake and able to parse the world around them in some way, you can check this box on your diagnostic criteria. However, it can also refer to a variety of significant and seemingly related aspects of the mind's operation. Many mental processes have been mechanically explained by science, but the…
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