Category: NOTEBOOK

Herrnstein, R. J. (1990). Rational choice theory: Necessary but not sufficient. American Psychologist, 45(3), 356.

1. The theory of rational choice is normatively useful, but fundamentally insufficient as an account of behavior
2. Rational choice theory holds that organisms strive to maximize total utility (behaviorally, this is reinforcement)
3. Utility cannot be observed directly but must be inferred by observing choice behavior
4. Rational Choice Theory provides a rule for inferring utility: Utility maximization is simply what organisms are doing when they behave, subject to certain constraints
5. Most disciplines dealing with behavior rely on the idea that humans and other organisms maximize utility according to the axioms of the rational choice theory 
6. Rational choice theory evolved to also try to explain irrational behavior not guided by self-interest. This is possible because subjective utility differs from objective value. As a result, maximizing subjective utility may lead to irrational behaviors, such as overeating, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as overspending, which leads to undesirable consequences like obesity, addiction and debt. In this context, rationality is revealed preference
7. Like utility, rational choice theory also posits that the probabilities by which value is discounted by uncertainty is also subjective. Hence people worry and overpay to avoid low-probability events, but ignore high probability events
8. Subjectivity of utility is motivational, while that of probability is cognitive
9. Why rational choice theory continues to survive:
   • It aligns with common sense in simple settings. For instance, FI-5 is better than FI-10 every time¹
   • The axiomatic formalization of the theory are elegant and this has a great appeal to theories
10. If discounting is rational, the rate should be fixed per unit time
11. According to the matching law, behavior is distributed across alternatives so as to equalize the reinforcements per unit of behavior invested in each alternative. That is, the proportion of behavior allocated to each alternative tends to match the proportion of reinforcement received from that alternative
12. Experiment described in Herrnstein & Prelec (1989):
    • Subject presented with concurrent schedules of reinforcement² (a few cents whenever response key was depressed after the trial light was illuminated)
    • Each trial separated by intertrial interval (t + C)
    • Intertrial interval for Key-1 (A) was 2 seconds shorter than that following the choice of the other Key-2 (B). So, delay for A = t – 2 + C; delay for B = t + C; because the intertrial interval for either choice was a linear function of the proportion of A chosen in the preceding 10 trials. So, if A was chosen continually (impulsive choice), delay to both A & B would both be increased. However, if B was chosen consistently, delay to A & B would remain the same!
    • Optimal “rational” strategy = choose B all the time. Most people did not do this. In fact, some subjects exclusively chose A!
    • Subjects know their choices are influencing intertrial interval, but do not know what to make of that information.
13. Organisms allocate more behavior to alternatives that provide higher rates of reinforcement. This is referred to as melioration
14. Although melioration is commonsensical; however, it does not maximize reinforcement and it leads to an equilibrium dictated by the matching law
15. Melioration suggests that choice is driven by a comparison of the average returns from the alternatives.
16. Equilibrium occurs when one alternative has displaced the others (then choice will be at the extremities of the graph) or the alternatives in the choice set are providing equal returns per unit consumption (choice will be in the middle of the graph)
17. Because of melioration, organisms tend to disregard the overall returns (global utility) and only focus on the current average returns (local utility) from the alternatives.
18. Melioration explains suboptimal behavior, especially in cases of distributed choices where organisms do not make a once-and-for-all decision about alternatives, but rather, repeated choices are made over a period of time.
19. No single choice is responsible for obesity, alcoholism, spendthriftness, etc.

20. Graph above:

• Allocation to VI: proportion on alternative that needs to be sampled only occasionally (Impulsive choice)³
• Reinforcement: Rate of reinforcement from impulsive choice while the subject is choosing it. The less time spent on this alternative, the higher the rate of reinforcement when it is eventually sampled. This models a source of reinforcement that gets depleted when it is sampled and restores itself when unsampled, or a motivational state that fluctuates with deprivation and satiation.
• VR⁴ linear curve – Reinforcement only occurs when the alternative is sampled. There is a fixed rate of return per unit time invested on it.
• When behavior allocation to VI is low, the rate of return is higher than VR⁵. Due to melioration, the subject allocates even more behavior to VI. However, doing this causes the rate of return to fall below VR. As a result, melioration causes the subject to stop allocating behavior to VI. Within both extremes is the equilibrium point where both alternatives provide equal rates of return per investment
• To maximize, the subject has to find the highest point on the “joint” curve. That is, the subject would have to resist the temptation to allocate more behavior to VI. In practice, however, most organisms fail to resist this temptation.

21. Rational choice theory describes distributed choice only in situations where the distributed nature of the choice is immaterial (i.e., returns do not depend on frequency of sampling)
22. Rational choice theory can only provide guidance on how choice behavior should be allocated (normative), rather than how it is allocated (positive)
23. We may need rational choice theory only because we often act suboptimally

FOOTNOTES:

1. In layman’s terms, a fixed interval (FI) schedule implies that a decision maker will get access to a choice option after the passage of some fixed unit of time (e.g., seconds, minutes, hours, etc.). All things being equal, waiting for a fixed interval of 5 minutes before accessing your choice is obviously better than waiting for a fixed interval of 10 minutes ↩︎
2. Schedules of reinforcement refer to the rules governing access to a particular choice option. When they are concurrent, it implies that there are at least two different rules, in operation at the same time, governing access to the available choice options. ↩︎
3. In a variable interval (VI) schedule, the decision maker will get access to a choice option after the passage of some variable unit of time. From the perspective of the decision maker, there is a lot of uncertainty in estimating when that access will be granted. This implies that continually expending effort towards an option governed by a VI schedule is likely going to be an exercise in futility since the passage of time, not effort determines access. ↩︎
4. In a variable ratio (VR) schedule, the decision maker will getter access to a choice after some variable amount of effort. Here, what determines access is the expenditure of effort, rather than the mere passage of time. Therefore, the more effort applied towards accessing a choice option, the greater the likelihood of getting access to it ↩︎
5. Because the choice under the VI schedule is solely dependent on the passage of time, the decision maker is better served by expending little effort on this option. ↩︎

Staddon, J. (2012). The Malign Hand of the Markets: The Insidious Forces on Wall Street That Are Destroying Financial Markets–and What We Can Do About It. McGraw Hill Professional.

Preface

Introduction

1. The malign hand appears wherever benefits are immediate and discrete for an individual/a group, while costs are delayed and/or dispersed for others (p. xxi)
2. Reinforcement contingencies are simply the rules by which rewards and punishments are given or withheld (p. xxii)
3. Seeing financial instruments as reinforcement contingencies shifts the analyses of economic behavior from the rational-irrational dichotomy to one of adaptation (p. xxvi)

Part I

Chapter 1 – The Malign Hand

1. Bureaucracies increase because the incentives of bureaucrats do not align with the incentives of the organization they are a part of (p. 4)
2. Competition is the natural antidote to the malign hand (p. 4)
3. Politicians divert national funds to their districts. This leads to immediate concentration of benefits to the members of the district and a delayed dispersion of costs to the larger nation as a whole. Of course, those who bear the cost have less influence than those who incur it (p. 6)
4. There is a tradeoff between efficiency and stability which is not too removed from the tradeoff between immediate gains and delayed benefits. As global systems become more interconnected, they will become more efficient in the short-run at the risk of instability to the system in the long-run (p. 11)
5. Organisms prefer positive reinforcement to negative reinforcement (p. 15)

Chapter 2 – Democracy, Fairness and the Tytler Dilemma

1. Alexander Tytler, a 18th-century Scot aristocrat, is attributed to saying have said that: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.” Staddon interprets that private good as immediate benefit from public treasury, and collective bad as public bankruptcy (p. 23)
2. Problems arise when benefits received by an individual/a group is not linked to the behavior of that individual/group and is paid by other (p. 26)

Chapter 3 – Value and Reason

1. Defining value in objective terms is referred to as the naturalistic fallacy (p. 40)
2. Adam Smith defined value as the work done to acquire a commodity. This is also referred to as the labor theory of value. However, oxygen is freely available to everyone and doesn’t demand much effort, while gold is scare and requires much effort to attain. Yet, one will not conclude that gold is more valuable than oxygen. Some economists then made the distinction between value in exchange (gold) and value in use (oxygen). Another way to see Adam Smith’s definition of value is to lay more emphasis on the willingness to work (a property of the decision maker), as well as the commodity’s reinforcement schedule, as opposed to the real work done to obtain the commodity. In all, value is not a property of the commodity itself. Thus, to make an assessment of relative value, both the effort, as well as the reinforcement schedule must be considered. When reinforcement schedules are similar, oxygen will be more valuable than gold (p. 41)
3. A decision maker has a set of different strategies (variation) and some means of comparing them (selection). If the strategy set is rich and the selection rule appropriate, the resultant behavior will be apparently ‘rational’. However, if the strategy set is limited, or the selection rule inappropriate, the behavior will appear to be biased, or based on a heuristic (p. 48)
4. There nothing like purely rational behavior. If the task is simple and close to something encountered in one’s history, behavior will come close to a rational optimum. However, when the situation is complex, subjects will act irrationally, or rational in the short-run (p. 49)
5. Behavior can be rendered rational once the currency and the constraints are salient (p. 49)
6. Maladaptive behavior is a consequence of recent history and feedback effect of present behavior on the future. Staddon calls this ‘leverage’ (p. 53)
7. There is no single rational strategy, multiple ones depending on the what is maximized and the constraints (p. 54)

Chapter 4 – Efficiency and Unpredictability

1. In everywhere, except economics, efficiency is usually a ratio. In economics, it is defined in as the extent to which commodities’ prices are reflective of information (p. 55)

Chapter 5 – The Housing Bubble

1. Frank Knight (1921) distinguished between risk, where the odds can be calculated; and, uncertainty, where the odds cannot be calculated (p. 79)
2. The future is like the past over a short period. The present will at some point fail to match with the past – but we don’t know when that will occur (p. 80)

Chapter 6 – Market Instability and the Myth of Comparative Statics

1. Greed is a constant of human nature and as a result, market bubbles cannot be solely explained by them. What is more likely is a malign schedule of reinforcement. For many brokers, individual upside outweighs personal downside. But for the financial system as a whole, the situation is reversed. Similarly, brokers have leverage because they control large amounts of money while only responsible for a fraction of it (p. 95)

Chapter 7 – Growth and the Conservation of Money

1. Instead of looking for the causes of boom and busts, it might be better to explore the kinds of constraints that can stabilize markets (p. 101)
2. Hobbes and Rousseau’s conceptualization of man ignored the role of markets and the need to for individuals to trade (p. 107)
3. Staddon is suspicious of any measure of economic growth reliant on money. The Incas and Aztecs probably had a higher GDP than their conquerors. Yet, their wealth made them more of an easy target. Rather, growth can be better assessed with freedom (people aren’t spending all their time looking for food or housing) and resilience (people can better adapt to change) (p. 107-8)

Chapter 8 – Debt, Inflation and the Central Bank

1. Inflation functions like a flat tax on both wealth and income. Thus, even when people get salary raises, their wealth remains constant. (p. 121-2)
2. Constantly falling price are not hazardous to the economy. The price of clothes and electronic products have declined over the years, yet their markets have not stagnated (p. 127)
3. Deflation is only bad for debtors since as time passes, the worth of their debts will increase. On the other hand, inflation hurts people who save money (p. 128).
4. The Central Bank (Feds in the US) controls interest rates by buying up short-term treasury bills. Since the Feds use cash reserves to do this, banks have more money to lend at a low interest rates. As with the law of demand and supply, the increase in supply of loans drives its price (interest rates) low (p.134).
5. Quantitative easing occurs when interest rates are close to zero and the economy is still in a recession. Rather than only buying short-term treasury bills, the government buys other types of securities, e.g., corporate bonds, etc. The money to do this doesn’t come from the reserves, but is simply created by the Central Bank (p. 135)
6. When the Central Bank buys short-term treasury bills, it is usually a sign that business will be bad in the future (p. 137)
7. The more complex a security or asset is, or the greater the uncertainty about its value, the more its price will be determined by other people’s behavior (p. 139)
8. Two cause of bubbles – herding and a new money supply. Again, since herding is human nature, the problem may be better solved by looking at the way governments supply money (p. 140)

Chapter 9 – J M Keynes and the Macroeconomy

1. Adaptation is the result of variation, which is endogenous; and, selection, which is determined by the environment (p. 151)
2. Neither the pattern of incentives, nor the market sentiment on its own can explain economic behavior – we need to understand what people are willing to try, what informs/motivates this willingness, and the consequences of people’s actions (p. 153)
3. The problem for the political system is how to restore confidence in the economy while harming as few innocent victims as possible, while punishing those responsible for causing economic slumps (p. 158)
4. If the economy is like a leaky bucket, the solution is to either reduce the leak (structural changes) or permanently increase inflow (inflation) (p. 160)

Part II

Chapter 10 – Financial Markets are Different, I: Problems and Some Solutions

1. Information has to be converted to action. Saying, like the Efficient Market Hypothesis, that stock price reflects all information about the underlying stock is borderline religious (p. 180)
2. Complexity of financial markets should be subject to some check, such as tests for comprehensibility (p. 186)
3. Technology in agriculture reduced agricultural employment since farmers became more efficient. The same cannot be said about financial markets where technology is used in complexifying (p. 192)

Chapter 11 – Financial Markets are Different, II: Risk and Competition

1. In a competitive market, injury to one firm will make others more profitable (p. 202)
2. Bloated profits of the financial industry come from the future. A few people’s current payouts will be suffered as debt in the future – in the form of debt defaults, higher taxes or inflation (p. 206)

Chapter 12 – Financial Markets are Different, III: Regulation by Rule

1. There should be a tax on financial risks – negligible tax on small risk and large taxes on large risks (p. 232)

Newport, C. (2019). Digital minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world. Penguin.

Introduction

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity” – Henry David Thoreau

“You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and revenant life” – Marcus Aurelius

Digital declutter: Aggressive action of stepping away from online activities for 30 days.

Part 1 – Foundations

Chapter 1 – A Lopsided Arms Race

• Many of the changes caused by social media were unexpected and unplanned – even as they were massive and transformational.
• Social media apps/site make us use them more than we think is healthy.
• People are susceptible to social media’s compulsion because a lot of money has been invested into making their use inevitable.
• ‘…checking your likes is the new smoking…’ – Bill Maher (2017)
• The two drivers of social media addiction are intermittent positive reinforcement and drive for social approval.
• The thought process that went into building these applications was… ‘How do we consume as much of your time and attention as possible”
• Early-stage social media had no “like” button. People focused on just finding and sharing information. This is what is salient in people’s mind when they think about the benefits of social media.
• Human nature evolved to attach importance to social cues, including signals of social approval.

Chapter 2 – Digital Minimalism

• The goal of digital minimalism is to spend your online time on selected activities that supports things I value (for me, this should be Christian rhema, notes from books I have read or highlights from books I have written or plan to write).
• In Thoreau’s book ‘Walden’, he describes an economic theory built from the following axiom: “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it – immediately or in the long run”
• When people extol the virtues of social media, the opportunity cost of the time and effort spent on social media is not readily salient to them
• The goal is to treat the minutes of our lives as a tangible, concrete resource which we must best allocate to the ends that are most valuable to us.

• Amish philosophy: Start from values and work backwards to see whether a new technology supports or hinders those values

Chapter 3 – The Digital Clutter

No notes taken.

Part 2 – Practices

Chapter 4 – Spend Time Alone

• Solitude doesn’t necessarily mean physical separation. Solitude is more about what’s going on in your mind as opposed as to what’s going on in the environment. It connotes a state whereby the mind is free from input from other minds. It requires moving beyond reacting to other people’s thoughts and focusing on your own thoughts and experiences.
• “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” – Blaise Pascal
• Rejecting close bonds during solitude provide a greater appreciation for interpersonal relationship when they eventually occur.
• “… we are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate” – Thoreau
• Consumer goods can change the culture of a people. Not many people wore headsets to work in the early 1990’s. That changed with the iPod and portable music
• Previous technologies only interrupted solitude occasionally. The iPod was one of the first new technologies capable of interrupting solitude continually
• Solitude can clarify problems, regulate emotions, help build moral courage and strengthen relationships. By continually interrupting solitude, we miss out on these.
• Humans were not “not wired, to be constantly wired”
• “Only thoughts reached by walking have value” – Friedrich Nietzsche
• The art of writing is one of the most potent tools for forcing oneself into productive solitude

Chapter 5 – Don’t Click Like

• When not engaged in a specific cognitively demanding task, the brain reverts to the “default network” (technically called the task induced deactivation network) which is essentially the same parts of the brain that lights up during social cognition experiments
• “We are interested in the social world because we are built to turn on the default network during our free time” – Matthew Lieberman (2013 book, Social)
• It just happens that social media hijacks the brains tendency to switch to the default the network when not engaged in cognitively demanding work
• Social media tends to take people away from more valuable real-world socialization
• In-person communications require sensitivity to a lot of information in order to respond appropriately. Online communication, on the other hand, is dependent on low bandwidth pixels
• Chronic online communication simulates real in-person communication and can deceive one into believing that one is already serving their in-person relationships adequately – which may not be the case
• There is a difference between low bandwidth online interactions (connection) and high bandwidth real-world encounters between humans (conversation)
• Conversation is the only form of interaction that will maintain a relationship. This is because in conversations, the two parties exchange high bandwidth cues such as voice tone or facial expressions. Any communication that does not allow the transmission of high-bandwidth cues (social media, email, text) falls under connection
• Connection interactions are not bad themselves. They can be used to set up high bandwidth conversations, or to transmit practical information (e.g., location or time of meeting)
• The more you invest in conversations, over connections, you develop ‘relative price sensitization’ where the more time and effort you devote, the greater the increasing magical returns.

Chapter 6 – Reclaim Leisure

• Philosophy of the financial independence movement: “If you can reduce your living expenses, you can increase your savings rate and attain your financial independent goals quicker”
• Expending more energy on leisure can energize you. A good example of this is craft
• “Boasting is what a boy does, who has no effect in the world, but craftsmanship must reckon with the infallible judgement of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away” – Matthew Crawford
• Social media is marketed as how they facilitate connection. Yet, no one who spends a lot of time engaged in social media connection will be able to achieve anything of value
• It is good idea to schedule ahead of time, periods for low-quality leisure (e.g., social media, streaming etc.)
• In as little as 40 minutes per week, one can maximise the benefits of social media use
• The more intentional you are about leisure, the more of it you find

Chapter 7 – Join the Attention Resistance

• Before 1830 (when Benjamin Day launched the ‘New York Sun’ – the first penny press newspaper), publishers saw the publication as the product which they sold to willing consumers. What Benjamin Day did was convert his readers to the product and then sell their attention to advertisers
• Market valuation of Facebook at a point (circa 2019) was greater than that of Exxon Mobil. In other words, attention is the new oil. In 2024, Exxon Mobil’s price per share was $120 compared to Facebook’s $511
• The general innovation of the computer was the fact that it was general purpose
• The Dunbar number of 150 is the theoretical limit on the number of people a human can maintain social relationships with. Social media tries to inflate this figure for everyone, but the tradeoff is the quality of conversations that one is able to make.
• The slow media philosophy: Shift attention away from the casual consumption of fast, ephemeral social media to producing and consuming higher quality media
• An example of high-quality media is reporting done after journalists have had time to process it (compared to faster breaking news that is always lower in quality)
• Focus attention to a small number of people who have proven to be world-class on the topics you care about
• For news-related media, look for the best argument against your preferred position.

Hall, C. S., & Nordby, V. J. (1973). A primer of Jungian psychology. Penguin.

Chapter 1 – Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961)

• Jung uses his autobiography ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ (MDR) to analyze and describe his life through the subjective world of dreams, visions and spiritual experiences
• Schopenhauer influenced Jung with his philosophy of suffering, confusion, passion and evil
• Jung developed the word-association tests, where patients were asked to give a verbal response to a word prompt. If they hesitated or expressed an emotion before answer, it indicated the presence of a complex
• Jung went to Tunis, the Sahara Desert, and New Mexico to also study the behaviors of the native people – especially the level of the mind called the ‘collective unconscious’ (reminiscent of Paul’s visit to Arabia after his conversion?)
• Jung spent more time learning new things, rather than systematizing his concepts

Chapter 2 – The Structure of the Personality

• Understanding personality entails 3 levels of enquiry:
  • Structural: What are the components of the personality?
  • Dynamic: How are the components of personality activated?
  • Developmental: How does personality develop and change over time?

The Psyche

• This embodies feelings, thoughts, behavior and adaptation to the physical and social environment
• The psyche of an individual is a whole, not an assemblage of parts built from experience
• Man does not strive for wholeness. He already has it and must develop to his psyche to attain and maintain this wholeness.
• When the psyche lacks wholeness, it leads to a deformed personality. Hence, the goal of psychoanalysis is psychosynthesis
• Three levels of the psyche are
  • Conscious
  • Personal unconscious
  • Collective unconscious

Consciousness

• This is the part of the psyche know directly by the individual
• Conscious awareness has 4 mental functions
  • Thinking
  • Feeling
  • Sensing
  • Intuiting
• The most dominant mental function determines how character vary from person to person
• Two attitudes determine the orientation of the conscious mind
  • Extraversion which orients towards the objective world
  • Introversion which orients towards the subjective world
• A person’s consciousness becomes separated from other people through individuation. This is vital for psychological development
• The goal of individuation is complete self-consciousness
• Ego
• Ego refers to the organization of the conscious mind. It is comprised of conscious perceptions, memories, thoughts and feelings (collectively called psychic material)
• Unless the ego acknowledges a psychic material, the individual is not aware of it
• By selecting and eliminating psychic materials, ego provides a sense of identity and continuity that can be called the individual personality
• Selection or elimination of psychic material depends on:
  • The dominant mental function (thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting)
  • Degree of anxiety that the psychic material elicits. If high, it is eliminated
  • The level of individuation (separation from the other; self-consciousness) that the individual has already attained
  • Intensity of an experience. Strong experiences can force their way into acceptance by the ego

The personal unconscious

• Experiences and psychic material not selected by the ego are stored in the personal unconscious
• The personal unconscious contains psychic materials not selected by the ego, as well as psychic activities that were once conscious but have been either repressed because of the pain they cause, or ignored by the conscious because of their irrelevance
• Material in the personal unconscious can be recalled as the need arises, as well as during dreams
• Complexes
  • Groups of psychic material in the personal unconscious may clump together to form a complex
  • Jung elicited complexes through the word-association tests
  • He found that psychic material in the personal unconscious act like separate autonomous personalities within an individual’s personality. They can also control an individual by driving behavior towards another direction that might be separate from the ego
  • An aim of psychoanalysis is to dissolve complexes so that the person may be individuated fully
  • Complexes are not always bad. They can be drawn upon for drive and motivation as the need arises
  • Strong complexes can motivate an individual towards high quality behaviors, while a weak complex has the opposite effect

The collective unconscious

• The content of the individual’s mind is linked not only to his personal history, but to also his evolutionary history
• The collective unconscious possesses psychic material not acquired through personal history
• The psychic material of the collective unconscious is comprised of primordial images inherited from man’s ancestral history
• These psychic materials predispose the individual to act and respond to the world in a manner similar to how his ancestors might have done
• The more experiences a person has, the more chances he has to dislodge contents in the collective unconscious which can play a role in facilitating individuation. One way to get these experiences is through an environment with opportunities for learning.
• Archetypes
  • These are the contents of the collective unconscious
  • The contents of an archetype are only known when they are brought to the conscious
  • Although separate in the collective unconscious, the archetypes can form combinations
  • Archetypes are universal. Everyone inherits the same types of archetypes
  • Archetypes can only be brought into conscious behavior only after combining with complexes containing the relevant psychic materials and experiences
  • 4 Archetypes relevant to everyone’s personality include:
    • The persona
      • This helps the individual portray a character that is not necessarily his own
      • This is a person’s public appearance that enables social acceptance
      • It is also called the conformity archetype
      • People often lead dual lives – one dominated by the persona, and the other dominated by activities that satisfy the psychic needs
      • When a person becomes too involved with the persona, the ego begins to identify solely with it at the expense of other aspects of the personality. This results in inflation, whereby the persona is overdeveloped and other aspects of the personality is underdeveloped
      • Parents often try to project their personas onto their children. Society and groups do the same through customs and laws
      • A person with inflation might also feel inferiority when he’s unable to meet up with the standards of the persona
    • The Anima & the Animus
      • This is the feminine side of the masculine, and the masculine side of the feminine
      • A man who only exhibits masculine traits will have feminine traits that remain underdeveloped. Consequently, the unconscious become weakened.
      • This is typified in the externally macho man who is weak and submissive on the inside
      • A man’s first projection of the anima is his mother; a woman’s first projection of the animus is her father
      • In Western culture, the anima and animus are often deflated because society frowns upon expressions of femininity in men and masculinity in women. A consequence of this is overcompensation whereby the man becomes more feminine than masculine – even to the extent of gender reassignment surgery
    • The shadow
      • This deals with man’s most basic animal instincts
      • To be a part of a community, it is necessary for a man to tame his shadow by suppressing its contents. The effect of this is a civilized man with no Nietzschean ‘Will to Power’
      • Even when tamed, the shadow may express itself in the consciousness when a person is faced with the appropriate environmental situation, such as a crisis or difficult life event. When the ego is stunned into inaction, the shadow can step into the situation and deal with it adequately if it has been allowed to be individuated. If not, the shadow has no response and the individual is overwhelmed and helpless in the situation
    • The self
      • The self is the organizing principle of the personality
      • It harmonizes the archetypes, their manifestations in the complexes and the consciousness
      • When the self archetype is developed, the person feels in harmony. If not, the person feels out-of-sorts
      • The self archetype is not evident until self-consciousness and full individuation has occurred
      • Knowledge of the self archetype is possible through dream analyses, as well as ritualistic practices of certain religions
      • By making contents of his unconscious conscious, man is able to live in harmony with his nature
      • A person unaware of his unconscious self projects the repressed elements of his unconscious unto others
      • The self archetype is inward facing in contrast to the ego which is outward facing

Interactions among the structures of the personality

• If extraversion is the dominant attitude of the conscious mind, the unconscious mind compensates by developing the repressed introversion. The unconscious always compensates for weaknesses in the personality
• There is always conflict between the parts of the personality. When conflict leads to shattering of the personality, neuroses develop. If the conflicts are tolerated, they provide the energy, drive and motivation for achievement

Chapter 3 – Dynamics of Personality

The Psyche: A relatively closed system

• What happens with the energy added to the psyche from external sources is determined by the kind of energy already within the psyche
• Energy from external sources is derived from the senses
• The slightest addition of energy to an unstable psyche can lead to large effects on behavior, e.g., an innocent comment leading to a transfer of aggression
• At certain points in time, new experiences may overcrowd the psyche leading to a disruption in balance. At points like this, meditation and withdrawal might be needed to help the individual rebalance. Conversely, a person’s life might be too boring such that novelty and new experiences will reactive the psyche into a state of vigor
• A completely open psyche is chaotic; a completely closed psyche is stagnant; a healthy psyche is somewhere in the middle

Psychic energy

• Psychic energy (also called libido) is the energy by which the work of the personality is done. It is manifested through appetite, striving, desiring and willing.
• Psychic energy expresses itself as either actual or potential drive to perform psychological work
• Experiences are consumed by the psyche and converted into psychic energy
• The psyche is always active – even in sleep
• Psychic energy can be converted to physical energy and vice versa, but they are not the same.

Psychic values

• A value is the psychic energy committed to a psychic element. When high, the psychic element exerts a high force on one’s behavior
• Although the absolute value of an element cannot be determined, its value relative others can be determined by simply observe how much time, energy and choice is devoted to various activities
• A conscious value that disappears without expression in overt behavior is kept in the unconscious
• Power of complexes to attract values discarded from the conscious can be accessed indirectly through the following methods:
  • Direct observation and deduction from circumstantial evidence and dreams
  • Complex indicators such as exaggerated emotional reactions
  • Emotional reactions
  • Intuition whereby people perceive the slightest emotional disturbance in others

The Principle of Equivalence

• Psychodynamics deals with the transfer and distribution of psychic energy throughout the psychic structures
• The principle of equivalence states that energy is never lost in the psyche, but transferred from one position to the other
• When sums of psychic energy seem to have disappeared, it implies that they have been transferred from the conscious to the unconscious
• When a personality system has finite amount of energy at one point in time, there is competition between the psychic structures for this energy
• During the transfer of energy from one structure to the other, some of characteristics of the previous structure are also transferred to the next. For instance, psychic energy drawn from the ego to the persona leaves the individual striving less to be himself and more to meet expectations of others

The Principle of Entropy

• This states that if two values are of unequal strength, psychic energy will pass from the stronger value to the weaker one until balance is reached. This balance, though, is never reached in practice, otherwise, energy flow will stop indefinitely
• Intrapsychic conflict shares a lot in common with interpersonal conflict because, most times, the latter is a projection of the conflicts going on within our personality
• When people close their minds to new experiences, they are able to approach a state of balance
• New experiences are often not as upsetting for older people as they are for younger people. This is because new experiences hold less psychic energy for older people in comparison to younger people
• When  a psychic structure becomes highly developed within the personality, it outcompetes other structures in getting access to psychic energy within and entering the psyche. A strong complex will attract more experiences to it

Progression and regression

• Progression refers to the daily experiences of the individual that advances his psychological adaptation
• For proper psychological development, progression must not be one-sided, but must flow towards a psychic function and its opposite
• Regression refers to the loss of psychic energy on account of collision and interactions between the psychic structures
• Progression adds energy, while regression subtracts energy
• Man can adapt to the world only when he’s in harmony with himself; man can only be in harmony with himself when he’s adapted to the world. In Western civilization, emphasis is placed on adaptation to the world at the expense of inner harmony
• Periods of withdrawal from the world during retreats and sleep are essential for renewing one’s energies from the reservoirs of the unconscious. Modern man does not do enough of this
• Progression shouldn’t be confused with development. The former deals with energy flow into the psyche, while the latter deals with individuation/ self-consciousness

Canalization of Energy

• Psychical energy can be channeled, converted and transformed
• The instincts (shadow? id? reptilian brain? motivating operations? appetites?) is the source of natural energy. It needs to be diverted to other channels for work to be done
• Natural man, unlike civilized man, is guided solely by his instincts. Hence, he has no culture, symbolic forms, social organizations and so on.
• Work, according to Jung, is the conversion of instinctual energy to cultural and symbolic channels. Imitation and analogy-making is the process by which instinctual energy is diverted to cultural and symbolic channels
• Rituals and ceremonies are a means through which a person can be psychologically prepared for a task at hand
• Civilized/Modern man depends more on his will than on ceremonies and rituals. However, these “acts of will” form analogies/conversions of the original instincts
• Libido (instinctual energy) can be converted via an ‘act of will’ only when there is a strong symbol to divert the energy to it
• Excess libidinal energy helped man transform from being solely instinctual to subduing nature through science, technology and art

Chapter 4 – The development of personality

Problems of the first half of life are those of instinctual adaptations (channeling of libido); problems of second half of life are those of adaptation to being

Individuation

• The individual begins life in a state of undifferentiated wholeness. Development goes in the direction of self-consciousness
• Development occurs not only when the person is differentiated from the other, but also when the intrapsychic systems are differentiated from each other. For instance, the underdeveloped ego can only express itself in a limited amount of overt behaviors. The developed ego has more responses in its repertoire
• The better the symbols a man seeks, the closer he is towards attaining individuation
• Although individuation is an autonomous process, the personality needs proper experiences and education for healthy individuation to occur. All aspects of the personality must be given the appropriate experience for a well-rounded development
• Individuation can only occur when the person is conscious. The goal of education is to make the unconscious conscious

Transcendence and Integration

• The transcendence function unites all opposing ends in the personality towards attaining the goal of wholeness. The unity of self occurs during transcendence
• Transcendence is a synthesis of opposing ends in the personality such the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• Factors responsible for hindering personality development include:
  • The role of the parents
    • In the first years of life, the child’s psyche is a reflection of that of the parents. Psychic disturbances in the parents are likely to be reflected in the child
    • At school, the child’s identification with the parents weaken. Some parents respond by being overprotective and preventing the child from experiencing a wide range of experiences. Others also try to overcompensate their weaknesses by encouraging the child to overdevelop areas in his personality that are really the parents’ weakness
    • A boy child’s relationship with the mother determines how the anima is developed; relationship with the father determines how the shadow is developed. The reverse holds true for girls
  • Education
    • Skilled teachers make the unconscious conscious and also provides a wealth of experiences that attracts energy away from the instincts
  • Other influences from the larger society such as culture and religion

Regression

• Progression implies that the conscious ego is harmonizing the environment with the needs of the psyche
• Regression refers to the flow of psychic energy from the environment to the unconscious
• Regression into the unconscious, during retreats, meditations and sleep, can provide information on impediments to development, as well as how to overcome them. People in modern times do not pay attention to these – particularly dreams. Instead, they resort to drinking, sensuality, etc., which is not as informative

Stages of Life

• Childhood
  • Birth to sexual maturity
  • No problems because of the absence of a conscious ego
  • Psychic life is governed by the instincts until the ego starts to form
• Youth and young adulthood
  • Puberty
  • Psyche is burdened by problems and adaptations to social life
  • Problems of youth arise from clinging to a childhood level of consciousness
  • Goal of this stage is external values to make one’s place in the world
• Middle age
  • 35 – 40
  • Person is adapted to external values
  • Goal of this stage is to form a new set of values. These values are spiritual
• Old age
  • Similar to childhood; absence of a conscious ego to an extent. Sinking into the unconscious

Chapter 5 – Psychological Types

The Attitudes

• In extraversion, libido is channeled towards the objective, external world; in introversion, libido flows towards the intrapsychic structures
• The presence of an attitude in the conscious means that the mutually exclusive opposite attitude manifests itself in the unconscious. Although in the unconscious, the opposite attitude can influence behavior indirectly when the individual behaves in an unusual manner

The Functions

• Thinking involves connecting ideas to arrive at a concept or solution; Feeling involves rejecting or accepting an idea based on the pleasant or unpleasant emotions they arouse; Sensation refers to the perception of experiences through the senses; Intuition refers to the perception of experiences through sources exclusive of the senses (extrasensory perception)
• Thinking and Feeling are rational functions; sensation and intuition are irrational functions

Combination of attitudes and functions  + Types of individuals

• Extraverted thinking: Events in the external world activate thinking (inductive thinking)
  • Learns as much as possible about the external world
  • More pragmatic
  • Perceived as impersonal or cold
  • Represses feelings which may leave thoughts sterile
• Introverted thinking: Events in the inner mental world activate thinking (deductive thinking)
  • Loves ideas, especially the ideas of being
  • Ideas might bear little relevance to reality
  • Doesn’t value people
  • May be stubborn and inconsiderate
• Extraverted feeling: Feeling is governed by external/traditional criteria
  • Conservative and conventional
  • Feelings change as situations change
  • Emotional, gushy moody
  • Form attachments with people, but can lose them easily
• Introverted feeling: Feeling is governed by subjective criteria
  • original, creative, unusual, bizarre
  • Keep their feelings to themselves
  • Silent, inaccessible, indifferent
  • Melancholic, depressed
  • Appearance of inner harmony
• Extraverted sensation: Sensation determined by objective reality
  • Sensation governed by facts
  • Realistic, practical, hard-headed
  • Not concerned with the meaning of things
  • Sensual, pleasure-loving
• Introverted sensation: Sensation determined by subjective reality at a particular time
  • Sensation governed by psychic state
  • Considers the world banal and uninteresting compared to the inner world of the mind
  • Expresses self with difficulty – except by the arts
  • May appear calm but in reality is uninteresting because of a lack of thought and feeling
• Extraverted intuition: Intuition governed by possibilities of objective situations
  • Intuition moves from object to object
  • Restless, always looking for new worlds to conquer
  • Deficient in thought and they cannot pursue intuitions for long
  • They can promote new enterprises but cannot sustain interest for long
  • Routine bore them
• Introverted sensation: Intuition governed by possibilities of mental phenomena
  • Intuition moves from image to image
  • Enigma to friends, misunderstood genius by self
  • Cannot communicate effectively with others
  • Isolated from others
  • May have brilliant intuitions which others may help develop

Practical Considerations

• Role of parents is to respect the child’s rights to develop his inner nature and offer the child every opportunity to do so
• Best friendships and marriages are achieved between fully individuated persons

Chapter 6 – Symbols and Dreams

• Symbols are outward manifestations of the archetype
• Archetypes are only expressed via symbols, since they are buried in the collective unconscious. Only by interpreting symbols, dreams, visions, myths and art can one access the contents of the collective unconscious

Amplification

• The goal of amplification is to understand the symbolic significance of a dream, fantasy, painting or any human product

Symbols

• Purposes of a symbol
  • Attempt to satisfy an instinctual impulse that has been frustrated
  • Transformations of libidinal energy into cultural or spiritual values, e.g., sex is transformed to dance; aggression is transformed to competitive games
• Man’s history is a record of his search for better symbols that individuate the archetypes
• Modern symbols (machines, tech, corporations, political systems) are expressions of the shadow and the persona at the expense of other aspects of the psyche
• Knowledge in the symbols must be amplificated before the message is known
• Two aspects of a symbol
  • Retrospective which exposes the instinctual basis of a symbol
    • Causal
  • Prospective which reveals man’s yearnings for harmony
    • Teleological, finalistic
    • This has been neglected

Dreams

• Dreams are the clearest expression of the unconscious mind
• Big dreams, which are remote from the day’s preoccupations, are disturbances in the unconscious due to ego’s failure to deal with the external world. They are messages to be read, and guides to be followed
• Dreams try to compensate for the neglected, undifferentiated parts of the psyche
• Dream series
  • Look within the psyche for answers to your relationships with other people, since we project our psychic states on them
  • Conflicts are also caused by disharmony within the personality

Chapter 7 – Jung’s Place in Psychology

• Jung’s scientific orientation also included teleology/finalism, whereby man’s present behavior is determined by his future goals
• Synchronicity – When events occur together in time but are not the cause of one another

Notes from Introduction

Humans have the ability to perceive a pattern of facts as a single, abstract entity. Self-control, therefore, simply involves allocating a pattern of behavior to the delivery of a later, larger reinforcer, as opposed to a sooner, smaller reinforcer. (p. 3)

The pattern of saving nuts emerges in the behavior of the squirrel from every instinctual instance where it has to hide nuts. In the same vein, the pattern of alcoholism emerges in the choice to drink at every instance the opportunity is presented. Just like the squirrel who doesn’t choose to be a saver; the alcoholic does not choose to be one (p. 4).

Notes from Chapter 1: Habit and Willpower

Teleological behaviorism (Rachlin’s paradigm) does not distinguish inner life from life. Rather, all of life is acted out as overt behavior. (p. 19). That said, I cannot agree that there is no difference between private and public events. The skin does make a difference!

Mental life is simply patterns of behavior extending into the past and the future (p. 19). Mental events are perceptible patterns of overt behavior just like a movement within a symphony or ballet (p. 19). Within some time range, interobserver agreement can be obtained for the history of an observable behavior. Future behavioral patterns may be predicted, but not perceived by external observers until it happens. If mental life comprises of private events extending into the past and the future, then it has a dimension not present in observable behavior – time in mental life is at least bidirectional. This sounds like LaMettrie’s materialist monism. 

Notes from Chapter 2: Simple Ambivalence

None publicly posted.

Notes from Chapter 3: Complex Ambivalence

Simple ambivalence involves a choice between two clearly defined alternatives, while complex ambivalence involves a choice between one clearly defined alternative (usually the temptation, e.g., drinking or using drugs now) and a vaguely defined, abstract state (e.g., the state of wellbeing or sobriety) (p. 58)

In teleological behaviorism, the best predictor of future patterns of behavior is not through introspection, but in the observation of patterns of past behavior. (p. 66). Friends, relatives and other people in one’s social circle are the best mirrors for identifying patterns of past behavior. As a consequence, they are able to understand the behavioral context of an individual engaged in a particular activity. (p. 66). This is similar to my concept of Adullam Ring or cognitive science’s conception of cognition as embodied in the environment, social environment in this case. Outsight is better than Insight because extended patterns of behavior over time are no longer discrete and well-defined for the individual.

People prefer to be rewarded, rather than merely escape punishment. As a result, people are motivated to exchange negative reinforcement (e.g., continual drinking by the alcoholic) for positive reinforcement (e.g., engaged in non-drinking activities). This explains why alcoholics might want to quit after entering the alcoholism stable state. In this state, alcoholism becomes the abstract, temporally extended state, while “not drinking” becomes the discrete, well-defined event where positive reinforcement can occur. However, with time, the individual gets to the sobriety stable state where every instance of “not drinking” becomes negatively reinforcing, i.e., merely avoiding pain. As a result, the individual engages in the well-defined event of “drinking” where positive reinforcement can occur. Then the journey down the primrose path starts again. (p. 78-79)

Notes from Chapter 4: The Lonely Addict

Expected Utility Theory assumes that the consumer’s time horizon is infinite and the consequences of all choices in the present and future are considered before a choice is made. However, based on psychological realism, reinforcers and punishers are both discounted by time/delay (p. 82-83).

Consumption of addictive goods can have harmful effects on future consumption. In addition, consumption of addictive goods reduces the net utility of a fixed amount of that good. This necessitates the consumption of an increased amount of the good to attain the same level of utility (p. 85).

Tolerance is the negative effect of a person’s stock of an addictive substance on utility Stock = body and environment’s memories of consumption. Stock increases with consumption and decreases with time. If addictive and nonaddictive activities are seen as alternatives, increase in one activity will increase its stock and decrease the stock of the other activity (p. 85-87).

Negative effect of present consumption on future local utility is price habituation (p. 87).

Consumption of some activities, e.g., learning skills or social skills, increases future local utility (p. 87).

Positive effect of present consumption on future local utility is price sensitization (p. 88).

It appears that social interaction is price sensitized, i.e., the more it is performed, the cheaper it gets; the less it is performed, the more expensive it gets. (p. 100). Addictive behavior, e.g., smoking or alcohol consumption, is price habituated, i.e., the more it is performed, the more expensive it gets (you need more quantities to attain the same level of utility/satisfaction) (p. 101). Sometimes, an addictive activity becomes instrumental for obtaining social support, i.e., the individual drinks in order to reduce the cost of social support (p. 102).

Notes from Chapter 5: Soft Commitment

The initiation of a gestalt of behavior whose interruption is costly is also a commitment to its completion. This is called soft commitment because there is a way out. (p. 109). Credit card companies understand this with attaching penalties to when payments are defaulted.

Initial components of a gestalt of behavior patterns are not sunk costs, but rather, investment in the individual’s stock (Stock = body and environment’s memories of consumption [p. 85]). In other words, components of a gestalt of behavior are economic complements (p. 116). This is a good conceptualization introduced by Rachlin. Rather than limiting complements to different reinforcers that must be consumed together to obtain utility from them, Rachlin treats each allocation of behavior to the same reinforcers across time as complements.

In teleological behaviorism, there is no delineation between cognition and motivation. True knowledge is more than the repetition/verbalization of rules (as evidenced in the two experiments). To know a rule is to act in a way that is consistent with it (p. 125).

By committing to a behavioral pattern leading to a larger, later reward (LLR), the individual is reducing future options and potential variability of future behavior (p. 125). The pattern of behaviors that constitute self-monitoring introduces a wider temporal context. This overwhelms the discrete, narrow time associated with smaller, sooner reward (SSRs).

Experimental example with smokers asked to limit the variability in the number of cigarettes they smoked. By trying to reduce variability, the smokers reduced the amount of cigarettes they smoked. This is due to restructuring, where attention shifted from the few minutes smoking takes, to the larger behavioral context of self-monitoring for a week (p. 126-127).

Notes from Chapter 6: Rules and Probability

Desires are situational, i.e., cravings are not in the individual, but dependent on where the individual is. Discriminative stimulus is a situation or stimulus that signals the operation of a certain contingency of reinforcement (p. 130).

Just as organisms tend to prefer SSRs to LLRs, they also prefer small certain reinforcers to larger probabilistic ones. (p. 153). This is the essence of Prospect Theory’s subjective evaluation of value depending on their probabilities.

Notes from Chapter 7: Self-control and Social Cooperation

Social cooperation is to social defection what individual self-control is to individual impulsiveness (p. 168).

Cooperation is not dependent on either absolute probability or subjective probability. Rather, it is dependent on relative/conditional probability, i.e., what is the probability of others (or future “me”) cooperating, given that I cooperate. (p. 178 – 179).

For an individual struggling with addictive activities, a lifetime of relapse has reduced the probability of his current self cooperating with his future self. As a result, the future self defects too and will not be able to cooperate with the current self (p. 179).

A single person in successive moments in time, ranging from past to present, is like a person in a group of other people (Fig 7.7). The different persons have the same skin, thus, they have a common interest. Good habits and LLRs benefit the individual over time, even though there might be some sacrifice in the present (t = 0) (p. 187). Rachlin introduces this prisoner dilemma game ongoing between the person in the present time and the future time. Goal of self-control is to encourage cooperation between self in the present and self in the future.

In Richard Price’s novel, Clockers (1992), ghetto environments have short-term social interactions dominating long term ones. SSRs overwhelm LLRs and everyone’s self-concept is narrow in time; controlled by the clock, rather than the calendar.

In his book, “Beyond good and evil”, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “The great epochs of our lives come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us”.

Now, I’ll admit that I’ve never read any of Nietzsche’s work in its entirety (and I’m not even sure I ever will). As a consequence, however, it is difficult for me to know exactly what that quote means outside its context.

On one hand, it could mean that people should be willing to reconstruct their moralities such that the traditional notions of “right” and “wrong” are rendered obsolete. The logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is the rejection of universal truth since, in the course of my reconstruction, what is “good” for me may not necessarily be “good” for you, and vice versa. Isaiah 5: 20 warns us of the dangers of towing this path:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

An alternative interpretation of Nietzsche’s quote which is more agreeable to my system of beliefs is the idea that that we should be open to changing or updating what we accept as “good” or “evil” in a given situation and time.

An example that comes to mind is from the Biblical story of Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers who had sold him into slavery years before. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph’s conclusion from the whole ordeal is simple: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Joseph chose to interpret his terrible experiences as God’s good plan for him, his family and the nation. In other words, he called evil good.

What is a practical way this may work out in contemporary times?

Think about the person who is terrified of public speaking. He will physiologically and psychologically present the flight-or-fight response. This happens because the individual has lumped public speaking and other sources of fear in his life under the category called “Evil”. Real change happens when the person has the courage to label public speaking as “Good”. Done long enough, the person becomes comfortable speaking in public such that it appears to be second-nature.

Disclaimer: The “Notes/Ideas Lab” category on my website will contain ideas and thoughts that I have not fully developed. I may eventually get round to fleshing them out into a full essay. I also reserve the right not to do so…

Behavior-based Artificial Intelligence is a branch of AI which approaches intelligence from the standpoint of multiple, simple decision makers whose combined action leads to the expression of more complicated behavior. This approach to AI is modeled after a paradigm for considering the complexities of the human mind and behavior. At the most basic level of this worldview, the human mind appears to be made up of several intrapsychic subsystems. So, rather than seeing the individual as being moody and gloomy in one moment, impulsive and gluttony the next, calculative and rational the moment after that, the idea of the person is considered to be a bundle of all these different inclinations.

Intrapsychic subsystems are always in conflict because they are competing for the right to be expressed in behavior. This makes sense when one considers the fact that the different inclinations of the individual have goals which do not necessarily overlap. For instance, the goal of the moody and gloomy inclination might be to just lie in bed sulking, while the calculative and rational inclination has the goal of paying the bills – which won’t happen unless one goes to work.

The conflict between the different intrapsychic subsystems is over who will be in control of overt behavior and this conflict is resolved by bringing them under the control of a personality.

There are 4 different ways this may play out.

Winner Takes All: In this approach, the intrapsychic subsystems are simply left to the whims of time and chance. Eventually, one of the intrapsychic subsytems will emerge as the dominant personality that governs all expressed behavior. We all know of spoiled children who grew into lazy, miserable and unmotivated adults. A lifetime of indiscipline led them down the path of least resistance. For obvious reasons, this is the least desirable means of developing a personality.

Cultural Education: The conflict between intrapsychic subsystems is compounded by the potential for interpersonal conflict when people come together to live as a group. To resolve this, the incentives for pursuing group goals have to be stronger than those for pursing individual goals. That is, the goals of the group have to be compelling enough, such that the individuals who make up the group are willing to subject their warring subsystems to the dictates of the group. In other words, a personality is developed through culture norms. In fact, we say an individual is “cultured” to the extent to which he embodies cultural norms and expresses them in action. For the most part, harmony within the group can be maintained when personality is developed in this manner. Problems arise when in-group members come in contact with out-group members.

Mentors and Role Models: The personality that resolves intrapsychic conflict can be resolved by simply imitating one’s role model or mentor. When my baby brother was very little, he watched numerous episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. At the end of each episode, he would tie a blanket round his neck and wear his underwear outside his trousers. He’d walk around the house confidently with his chest puffed out. My little brother had embodied the spirit of Superman and nothing was going to stop him. In those precious moments, his behavior as expressed in overt action was simplified by asking, “What would Superman do?” . The downside to this method is that we do not spend all our waking hours shadowing our models. As a consequence, the part of the mentor which we have access to and are trying model our lives after is only a small subset of what makes them who they are. We’ve all heard stories of people who lost respect for their role models when they got to see them up, close and personal. The mystique around their personality was gone and only the mundane was left.

The Holy Spirit: As a Christian, I’ve come to understand the Holy Spirit also gives believers a personality that resolves the conflict between the different intrapsychic subsystems. Life is complex, and no matter how many times you read through the Bible, you’re not going to get direct answers to personalized questions like whether you should marry Jane or Juliet, or whether you should relocate to a warmer climate or stay put in your current location. In fact, if you merely restrict yourself to the letters of the Bible, it could kill you (2 Corinthians 3:6). A truly rich and abundant life only comes when you partner with the Holy Spirit, develop the personality He endows upon you, and allow Him to unfold for you the unforced, rhythms of grace as you journey through life.

Disclaimer: The “Notes/Ideas Lab” category on my website will contain ideas and thoughts that I have not fully developed. I may eventually get round to fleshing them out into a full essay. I also reserve the right not to do so…

Under normal circumstances, entropy signifies the amount of disorderliness in a system. For instance, a highly disorganized room can be said to be in a state of entropy.

In information theory, however, entropy is given a slightly different treatment. This form of entropy is called Shannon’s entropy and it deals with the amount of surprise that is embedded in a message. The higher the entropy, the more informative the message is.

Think about the last time you heard a baby babble. In this instance, the amount of information you can extract from the baby’s vocalizations is small. There’s really nothing inherently novel or interesting about hearing a baby say “baa-da, baa-da…” over and over again. The Shannon’s entropy of the baby’s message is low.

On the other hand, say, you’re listening to a subject matter expert talking about a topic you’re very interested in. In this case, the Shannon’s entropy of the speaker’s message is high. Why? Because the words encoding his message can open new frontiers in your mind once you are able to decode them!

Generalizing to interpersonal relationships today, many relationships have the Shannon’s entropy of a baby’s babble!

There are at least two heuristics for detecting an interpersonal relationship with a low Shannon’s entropy: (1) Recurring conflicts on the same issues, which could eventually lead to (2) Cold indifference, where one party is simply apathetic to the other.

So, how can you increase Shannon’s entropy in your interpersonal relationships?

First, listen to truly understand what the other person is saying. Merely mouthing ‘I understand you’ does not cut it. To understand the other person means embodying the spirit of empathy. That is, trying as much as possible to enter the same emotional and psychological space as the other party. Doing this will increase the amount of information you can extract from the other person’s message, thus increasing the Shannon’s entropy of the other party’s message to you. This may be crucial in taking your interpersonal relationships to the next level!

Second, understand that winning the person is sometimes more important than winning the argument. In a scientific study investigating the dynamics of social interactions among rats, a typically dominant rat engaging in playful rough and tumble with another rat will usually let the other rat win 30% of the time. That is, even stronger rats instinctively appreciate the idea that winning the individual is sometimes more important than winning the fight. You can imagine how much more the Shannon’s entropy in your interpersonal relationship will be increased if you took a hint from a rat!

Disclaimer: The “Notes/Ideas Lab” category on my website will contain ideas and thoughts that I have not fully developed. I may eventually get round to fleshing them out into a full essay. I also reserve the right not to do so…

Waste is one key to unlocking exponential development in any sector or industry.

Until you can afford to waste a resource, you will not be able to break through the iron ceiling of potential.

I have 4 examples to prove my point:

The first is biological systems.

A tree produces tons of seed-containing fruits in the course of its life, even though, there are probably billions of seeds out there that will never get planted, not to talk of become trees. Yet, trees are in no danger of getting extinct anytime soon. Similarly, you only need one sperm cell and one ovum to make a baby. Millions of sperm cells are “wasted” in the process of conception, yet the world population is currently at 7 billion and counting.

My second example is from the food industry.

The American fast food industry only really took off after the country had figured out how to “afford” wasting farm produce. This happened through the mechanization of farm processes. The result? Increased efficiency in the use of land and exponential production of farm produce. At such levels of production, supply outweighs need, and when people are no longer hungry, innovation is never far away. Of course, one of such innovations turned out to be the fast food industry itself!

The third example is paper, which I won’t describe in detail here because I have written about this before. I’d say this, though: Once people could afford to waste paper, groundbreaking ideas could be disseminated far and wide.

The final example is data.

I remember seeing a picture of early computer innovators using a truck to move a 1 MB hard drive.

Yes, you read that right – one megabyte!

Data was expensive to produce, to store and to move around. Since so much effort went into it, no one was willing to waste it.

Fast forward to the present day where data is so ubiquitous and almost everyone spends their active waking hours literally wasting data without giving so much as a thought to it.

But think about how much the quality of our lives have improved because we can all waste data. Think about the software, web apps, and online marketplaces that were only possible after man could figure out how to afford to waste data.

There is a benefit that comes with being able to waste. It allows more room to experiment with different uses of a resource, and like in the archetypal Darwinian struggle, the fittest use(s) for that resource will thrive, while others go extinct. If you’re unable to waste, how can you even be sure that the current use of the resource is the optimal way to get the best out of it?

Innovation and technological development in any industry is constrained by its willingness and capability to waste.

Disclaimer: The “Notes/Ideas Lab” category on my website will contain ideas and thoughts that I have not fully developed. I may eventually get round to fleshing them out into a full essay. I also reserve the right not to do so…