An Interesting Demonstration Of How The Human Brain Works.

An interesting demonstration of how the human brain works.

But also something of a lesson regarding perception, and the unreliability of subjective perspective versus objective reality.

You can be extremely certain about how you perceive the world, your "lived experience," that which you "feel it in my heart." But that doesn't mean it's actually true. And it doesn't mean we have to endorse it, or ignore or outright deny objective reality.

That's a "you" thing, not a "we" thing.

7 Reasons you might be procrastinating and how to solve them:

Okay. It's time for an AI rant.

My nephew is 13 years old. Whenever he writes a paper for school, I check it over and fix all of his mistakes for him. He said to me, "Maybe I'll proofread your paper for you in exchange," meaning one of the scholarly articles I write for work. I said, "Cool," and gave him the file. And he said, "Well, this is full of errors! See, you always say you have a lot to correct on my stuff, and look at all the stuff you got wrong!" And I said, surprised, "What? Where?" Because I'm sure there are typos in the draft I sent him, but not, like, that many.

And then he pointed to the screen and said, "Look at all the blue and red lines you have."

And I said, "Yeah, but those are wrong. Like, those are blue and red lines I'm ignoring because the computer is wrong." And then I paused and added, "You know you can't proofread a paper by just looking at the red and blue lines, right?" And he gave me the blankest look, because that clearly is EXACTLY what he thinks. And it became even clearer suddenly why, whenever I correct something on his paper, his immediate reaction is, "It didn't have a blue or red line."

There's a very good reason for that: THAT'S BECAUSE THE COMPUTER ISN'T SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT IT WAS WRONG.

I am so tired of being sold the idea that computers are better than humans and so we should just outsource everything to them, which is clearly the lesson my nephew is absorbing in U.S. middle school. COMPUTERS ARE NOT BETTER THAN HUMANS. Like, maybe they are better at humans at crawling through rubble to find people trapped inside. They are also better at preserving things in a searchable format. Things like that. Very limited circumstances.

I don't want to sound alarmist but everything I hear about people using generative AI freaks me out. It's not just that I'm freaked out by people being like, "I use it to write novels!" (Although I don't see how they do, I have tried to have it write fiction for me and the output was truly terrible.) But I recognize my bias around creative writing and so no one needs to credit my views on artificial writing. But! Other things are alarming, too! "I use it to brainstorm x, y, or z." But...why? Why not just...use your own brain...to...brain...storm? The computer doesn't even have a brain to brainstorm with! And you might be like, "But it comes up with things that my brain would never think of!" So would other people! You could also brainstorm with other people! Or even through Google to see what other people have thought before you (not AI). Please don't belittle the wonder of thinking.

I just feel like the marketing around generative AI boils down to "Wouldn't it be easier not to use your own brain to think about things?" Everyone. No. It would not be. Please just trust me on this. I'm not just an old person who is out of touch with technology or something. I promise. USE YOUR BRAINS. IT WILL BE OKAY.

Ow.. what happened there?

Sasuke: “So, what is your relationship with Sarada?” Sarada: “P-papa!” Kawaki: “We’re fellow nanadaime fans”

he’s looking more like he did when he was a kid 🩵

The biggest thing I learned when being a critic of other writers, is that pride will lead to your downfall.

Whether you are religious or not, you may have heard the story of Lucifer and how he fell from grace due to pride. That story can be applied to this situation.

Writers proclaiming in their heads that their skills are pure perfection, to the point of doubling down on any criticism they see. This issue is due to these people seeing their writings as an extension of themselves, which then see this as a personal attack.

We all know that criticism, no matter how constructive, hurts. You worked so hard and did your best on a project, only for someone to point out the flaws of it.

You end up feeling broken and sad. Despite your efforts, your project is not perfect.

But here's the thing: You are human. You are bound to make mistakes. No person that lived on this Earth never made a mistake. You need to consider that person's point of view. Sure, you feel hurt hearing their critical words, but that's short term. You need to focus on the long term: the benefits that this critical view will give you.

Constructive criticism is like a medical needle: it will hurt you the first time, but in the long term, it will help you get better.

Listen what others tell you. They want you to reach your full potential. Don't dismiss it, or that will lead to your fall from grace.