Becoming A Neuroscientist - An Experiment With Life

[Pramit]

Day 81: 

Oh god, 16 days have passed since i last posted in this journal. My deepest apologies to the part of this self that wanted to keep this journal. I came back from the interview, i was slightly depressed by the fact that i didn't make it. If it was a simple issue of not performing well enough, i would have accepted it and used the experience for later. But the fact is that there is literally nothing i could have done to improve my "performance", i did everything right, and i still failed, for reasons beyond me. So while i usually hold no expectations for these things, because really most factors are(statistically) beyond my control, i was a bit sad about having to travel a thousand kilometers and spend all that resource only to gain nothing. 

Anyway, after coming back, well, i spent 1 or 2 days trying to do my utmost in studies. Then i got distracted, AGAIN, with fallout 4. I had fallout 4 on my desktop for literally 1 year, and i never found the interest to play it. But this time i got hooked to it. The timing was perfect, the game is amazingly addictive as rpg's go, and i of course have a susceptibility to forming compulsive behaviors. Sigh..i just wish i knew how to get "addicted" to studies.

Also, an interesting point to note is that i wrote today's post after a streak of inspiration late at night. It is important to observe the cues. I view the world as a system, just at different levels, Emergence, associations, the path of least resistance, these are the ways of the human mind, and they reflect in the way i see the world too. They are of course entirely theoretical concepts supported by evidence, another hypothesis. This is enough rambling i suppose. If you are a human who is reading this, you are interpreting it based on your associations, whatever it may be. 

I had two questions(that i don't want to pursue) : 

Social ridicule in the sciences - the fear of asking the inappropriate question to a audience that may not appreciate it or understand it, and being ridiculed by the community. How can it be excised at the level of a community? How can other people help develop the feeling of trust so that you can ask or pursue whatever you like? 

Complexity - can information truly be dense or complex? What is the difference between small arrangement of things, and a big arrangement of things? Is the word "complexity" unique to information processing organisms like us, or is it a feature of the world? 

[Pramit]

Day 88 :

Sometimes i forget the purpose of this journal : to make long term observations.

There is some good news, i got accepted as an intern. The job is unpaid, but the professor is decent enough and i have no other options, so i am going to take this. The only problem is that i have upcoming entrance exams and interviews, and i cannot do both. Not unless the project lasts less than a month. The ideal solution would be to postpone the internship, only accepting the offer when i have made a decision for what i am going to do this year. But of course i don't have enough information in my hands to know if the professor will accept such a proposal. I could just ask but i feel that there are some risks in asking.  (Edit : Another reason i forgot to mention, a possible motivation to taking the internship, is the change of environment that I so desperately want, and a source of motivation that can induce me to self study further) 

 

I am still doing the course "music as biology" - i should have this course completed by the end of day 95. 

I intend to review molecular biology, statistics, and computational biology. I need to study the core concepts in physics,chemistry and maths in order to prepare for those pesky entrance exams. 

Have been slacking off on meditation. I did around 10 minutes of meditation yesterday, which was also on the roof in a really windy situation (i made love to the wind). Yeah..i need to pick up pace again.

Most interesting trivia this week : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19575566  (predatory bacteria, the mechanism by which it finds bacteria to eat is most interesting) 

Edited April 2, 2017 by Pramit

[Pramit]

Day 91 : 

Almost done with week 4 of "Music as biology". Applied to a maximum number of post graduate programs. 

For some time now i have been fascinated with the idea of trying to lead a "slow life" , a life of contemplation. In this age of information, we are bombarded with distractions and compulsions. Everything from music, art, even education, is made in some degree to entertain. Our brains adapt to this, and expect to be entertained every now and then. To rid myself of this, i have tried some projects - all of which have failed. Still, the data gathered with respect to my habits, is very useful. This journal, and my meditation habit, have been somewhat stable(comparatively). So i have to decided to put down some rules and guidelines with how i use my time, and how i approach technology. My goal is to make sure that i read and understand these rules, and partially implement them (i do not expect to succeed if i want to do it completely).

The previous failure were due to a lack of accessibility. By this, i mean the feelings and motivations were inaccessible when i needed them, and i had no incentive at that time to access them myself. This journal on the other hand, is always there when i need it. 

 

Rules (for now) : 1) When changing tabs, or clicking to a new place - close your eyes.

2) Write slower

3) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

4) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

5) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

 

[Pramit]

Day 95: 

Completed "Music as biology". 

Start of intense preparation for the entrance exams. Can deal with all conceptual topics now. Have plenty of time still.

Project is a half hearted success, and not a complete failure as i predicted(then again, its only been 4 days so i can't really say anything definitively). Some rules followed all of the time, all rules followed some of the time. I also got some good sleep in the last 2 days. An interesting observation is that once i start studying seriously, while the mental strain might make me want to distract myself every now and then, its never as bad as when i am fully committed to getting distracted. So self stimulation(no, not masturbation) is like a feedback loop, it wants more and more. However, intense mental strain from studying can involuntarily cause me to lose focus and get distracted. In such situations it would be helpful to remind myself that neither my emotions nor my perspective is reflective of objective reality(to get out of my head as they say). 

The field of psychology is struggling to find the answers that i seek. My own experiments with myself remind me of the studies that were done on mental and cognitive strain. In one study you see glucose increasing the time you spend on a puzzle, in another study you show the effects of environmental priming increasing that instead. It's complicated, and its near impossible to establish control element. The hypothesis that willpower is like a muscle which can get sore when overused, does not fit in with certain studies that were done where it was shown that environmental priming bypassed and increased will power arbitrarily. We don't know the physiological/cellular components of will power, all we know is the brain region for self discipline. 

My hypothesis is that will power developed as a part of the subjective reality we experience, as a selectivity filter so that we only take up certain tasks. Since our bodies can only put limited resources, and making new synapses and myelin costs energy, the will power phenomenon puts us at an advantage and an ability to specialize in performing certain tasks. This would make it a relict from the past, since we are now able to produce excess resources. 

Then there is the elusive "flow" state where we abandon the concept of will power entirely, and the brain can focus with reckless abandon. Funny that this intense ability to focus is a symptom of ADHD. 

Perhaps i am misunderstanding this entirely and nothing called will power exists in reality, it is all fabricated by culture. And perhaps this misunderstanding is preventing me from understanding the real mechanism behind what i perceive as mental strain and difficulty in doing mental tasks. 

I like playing these games with myself. 

I still want a more convenient place to put up my rule lists. The most convenient place would be the back of my head, but my head cannot be trusted in the medium and long term. The second most convenient place is this laptop, Maybe i'll start my own blog when i learn how to successfully manipulate myself. 

No changes to the rule list 

Rules (for now) : 1) When changing tabs, or clicking to a new place - close your eyes.

2) Write slower

3) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

4) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

5) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

Edited April 7, 2017 by Pramit

[Pramit]

Day 102:

Progress : Currently in medical neuroscience week 2, mindshift week 2, practicing violin semi regularly, practicing meditation semi regular (from regular), slept properly 6/7 days(Feel drowsy during afternoon regardless). Got lots more done in very early morning , if i manage to wake up.

Important advice : How to overcome sleep induced paralysis and the panic - Sometimes it feels like if i sleep, i will never wake up. I often have difficulty waking up and confuse sleep like dreaming with waking up. A simple solution is to fix an alarm. Getting up to set the alarm in the middle of sleep cycle(if i just woke up) can make it difficult to fall asleep again. 

Project is a failure, according to internal observation. Not only have i failed to keep myself in check using the rule list, i have lost my meditation routine which i developed for at least 2 months. Rule 3 is easiest to maintain, but doing so doesn't really help much. 

Pro tip: Don't underestimate the effect of music on cognition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVejU0aTQCs

Should i keep the current rules? Or should i discard some of them? Let's observe for one more week. 

Rules (for now) : 1) When changing tabs, or clicking to a new place - close your eyes.

2) Write slower

3) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

4) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

5) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

 

Every day seems to have a new motivation for me. It is impossible to internalize something as abstract as an objective or a goal and keep the same emotions day in day out. This is known (see previous frustrations from journals). 

[Pramit]

Day 112:

Progress : I have a much steadier sleep cycle now. Except on 2-3 days in this 10 day period, i had a constant sleep cycle of sleeping before 1AM and waking up before 8 AM. It has been a challenge however to follow the rules that i have laid down. Nearly all of them have failed except 3(which is the easiest to follow). The afternoon is the most difficult time for me to work, i feel sleepy and i don't much feel like doing anything. May be i should give myself a rest day each day, see how that works out. 

Studies are progressing steadily. Currently studying calculus, and still continuing with week 2 of medical neuroscience. I'll finish week 3 of mindshift by tomorrow. I find neuroanatomy rather tedious, but if i study a bit each day i should be able to cope with it and memorize it.

I don't know what else to write here that will change the information i have when i am unable to keep myself in check(self regulate myself). I have a daily list of tasks that i am keeping track of, i intend to make a database out of it soon. The most helpful way to see changes in behaviour is to see if i can complete certain tasks each day. So far i haven't managed once to complete all of the tasks in my list, but i came close one day. 

Rules : 

1) Write slower

2) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

3) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

4) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

 

[Pramit]

Day 122:

Progress : I am stuck in medical neuroscience week 2, it will not be easy to finish the first quiz of the week. I hope i can progress in time, at this rate i will never be able to catch up to my friend who is also taking the course. I wish i didn't have an exam to deal with. 

I want to make a checklist from alan watt's video(i downloaded that video)..it will be useful. I keep finding new thoughts from alan watts videos, well, may not entirely new for me. Does this mean i am not reading my own journal, and i am forgetting stuff that i previously thought of?

Mathematics is going splendidly. I like this pace. 

I finished Mindshift. It taught me valuable ideas about how to live and learn. I hope i can put them into practice. They are recorded in my journal. Read my journal pramit!

Looking at my journal, the three activities i do the least are : Reviewing my studies, reading my journal, and studying japanese.

I have come to an intuitive understanding of different emotional states producing different behavioral patterns. It is a simple thing, just conceptualizing two contrasting behaviors of mine and the state of mind that was present at that time. What factors are they based on? Are they based on time, lack of sleep, etc? Does self-care (a recent video from howtoadult was on this topic) reduce this in any way (my thought is that my addiction is a little more difficult to resolve)?

Reading some old journal entries, i find it difficult to understand the point of view at that time and why it was significant(i only record when i feel my thoughts are significant). Have i grown older and more mature, or is my inability to understand my journal's point of a view due to a different mental state and nothing to do with experience (i.e i can understand my journal if i can get to the mental and emotional state in which i wrote it in)?

Rules are not being followed at all. So much for this. I need to write down the rules in my notebook. 

I like changing some of the ways i distract myself. Instead of browsing reddit, i browse my journal. The two activities must not share much in common. For example, if i spend time reading, i must do an activity that involves something other than reading (may be watching a video - but that involves processing speech..hmm..).  

I got some really good advice from a friend. He linked visceral experience (feeling stuff) to intellectual understanding, and said that both are important for self development. Which is true. But he showed me a way to do this that i haven't thought of before, through "inter personal relationship". I have the book he read, so i will read it myself and find out what this is all about. 

It's really hot and my body feels sticky and sweaty. 

Rules : 

1) Write slower

2) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

3) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

4) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Pramit

[Pramit]

Day 140:

There has not been much progress since my last journal entry(18 days ago). I am still stuck in week 2 of medical neuroscience. I stopped maths for a while. I studied a bit of biophysics for my exam(there were around 3-4 exams during this period - quite stressful). I..stopped meditating for a week..which i have now resumed. I had to go out of state for one of the exams, and that was 2 days lost. 

The big thing that happened was, i installed skyrim(and 200 mods)..and i got hooked to it. I thought i could control myself, but i couldn't. So after 3-4 days, i deleted it. There is still a lingering desire..deep at times..to play skyrim. It is desire to explore the world of skyrim, see its beauty of it, and just interact with that world freely without (perceived) boundaries. This has also inadvertently led me to take a greater appreciation of the complexity and intricacy of some of the patterns in wood, stone, leaves, etc. Of course i am aware of how many times such events(me losing days due to a single video game) have happened, and i know i am addicted to many things(can you blame me?). I have always considered self-development or whatever this exercise is, to be a circular path, with its highs and lows (like life itself eh). Even if i fall to the lows, i know that i will eventually recover and go back to the state of mind that i have when i usually write these journals. There is no need for me to hold to the idea of psychic continuity, so i often make up a different personality during those times of mishap, perhaps to avoid conflict with my self identity.  

Exercise : try to understand different state of minds from a emotional or visceral perspective, using connections that you have formed to identify behavior. For example, what is the difference between Hank Green and a handicapped beggar on the railway tracks? Try to visualize it without intellectualizing it. 

Temperature is at an all time high, and a humidity of 66% doesn't help. 

Rules : 

1) Write slower

2) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

3) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

4) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

 

[Pramit]

Day 161:

It has been 21 days or 3 weeks since my last post. My sincere apologies! Missing out on journal posts makes me miss out on documenting my behaviour, and eventually i forget how i changed or what i did, which is kind of detrimental to the process of self development. Even more detrimental is not reading the journal(this or the other) enough. 

The most significant change(from the last 2-3 days) is the fact that i got accepted into a bioinformatics program. I am excited, but also a bit worried about my future (computer science is not exactly my bread and butter). I hope Pramit can take up this challenge.

Current plan is to limit internet use to 2 hours a day. I know that i feel withdrawal tendencies whenever the internet goes out, which probably means i suffer from internet addiction(not new information). Will i succeed? Unlikely.

Data collection of my success rate in achieving my goal goals is proceeding fine. I have missed a few days, but that is okay. I now know what activities i don't like to, and what activities are the easiest for me to do. Will this change anything? Time will tell. 

Now i know that a part of me wants to hear "progress" in this journal, and a part of me does not care for it. Of course the me right now is not seeking a progress report either. During the time between the last post and this one, i lost my way, found it, analyzed my way, lost my way again, picked up, discovered new insights(or at least i think they are new), discovered old insights, made up my determination once again, lost my determination, fell into depression, fell into ecstasy, and at some point along the way i decided it was finally time to write into this journal. There is no "priority" other than what i am prioritizing right now, which is self analysis. If that is the case, then i did have an episode or two of self analysis where i used my previous experience of my own behaviour to make up my future expectations for behaviour (i concluded that i shouldn't expect anything from myself with regards to the future given the failure in the past). I devised countermeasures (internet use reduction), but i also realize that this insufficient and too little too late. I also realize that "too late" is irrelevant in any scenario for a part of me. 

Lately, i realize the importance of sadness and despair in my life. This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMOM34XEi2k&t=0s) spoke to me. 

Sleep is extremely important! 

Things i did: 1) Completed Week 2 of neuroscience 

2) Started a course on negotiation

3) Applications to programs, exams given, looked at results and talked with students in those programs. 

Interesting fact : Ever wonder what happens to your neurons if they lose blood supply? No? Its very interesting to know.  You don't really care? You want to ask how this is interesting ? Well, i am sorry but this is my journal so my interests are given a preference! It is called Paresthesia. Here is a great answer that explains it : https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-underlying-mechanism-that-causes-paresthesia-aka-the-pins-and-needles-sensation

 

Rules : This is the last time i will post this rules section, unless i successfully implement it by the next time i post. I added another point - put chrome to full screen. This helps me avoid my impulse to jump tabs and check taskbar. 

1) Write slower

2) Put every distraction in a new desktop (using windows 10), or at least make it difficult to access, so as to give yourself time to think, to prevent automatically doing that thing. After doing this, you can set timers or certain rules to govern how often you access the distractive elements.

3) Spend at least 3.5 minutes on each tab, do not switch between multiple tabs so easily. You are allowed to close the tab and read a book or walk around the house. After you are done, select a new activity and open its tab. If you are doing research on a subject using google or google scholar, write down what you want to search for in a piece of paper, and after 3.5 minutes you can search for it. Write down what you understood about that term after searching for it. If searching for an academic paper on a subject, spend 5 minutes reading that paper before moving on with something else. If you can't understand that paper, then write down what you do not understand, and search for it in the method i described. 

Rationale behind this : It is necessary to write it down, otherwise you will forget what you needed to search for after 3.5/5 minutes. Switching too quickly or searching too much will distract you and decrease comprehension of the main subject by overloading working memory(then you will lose interest and become even more distracted or frustrated). Even the most difficult subjects can be understood if you keep a calm mind, modulate your emotional state, and let go of expectations.  

4) Every morning, when you have had enough sleep and you feel awake enough, spend some time(10-20 minutes at least) to read the things i have written in this journal and in many other journals that i have composed over the ages. 

5) Make chrome full screen(F11) when browsing, reading, or learning.

 

Edited June 11, 2017 by Pramit

[Pramit]

Day 211: 

I got accepted into a masters program for cognitive science and neuroscience. The two disciplines (cognitive science and neuroscience) are related, they both try to answer the same questions, but in different ways. So this program is supposed to cover both aspects, and is the first course in india to do that. Of course if i go on a interview committee , they would look at the research i did and determine my specialization from that (or i would just tell them), but the amount of exposure to both fields is nice. 

Looking back, this is really a lucky break for me.

For the first week i spent here, i was really able to focus myself. But as time passed on, i became a bit more comfortable, and now i have to resolve to fix the deficiencies in self discipline that i came with. While the change in environment and a structured learning environment certainly help, i cannot resolve my difficulties so easily. Thus, this journal..and many other ventures. 

An interesting perspective i have come across during my first few days is the way one of the professors look at scientific literature here. On my own, i look for factual information and not care about the scientists or what their personal intention was when they wrote something. But this guy, he's always looking for "hidden motives" behind everything the scientist says, and he is very good at giving critiques(or what sound like critiques). His perspective will rub off on me , and i am curious to see how these 2 years change me.

I am making new records, new plans on how to live here, in a comfortable but not too comfortable state of existence, the best to keep me awake for the difficulties and sorrows to come. Emil Cioran is someone who i can follow for these times.

[Pramit]

Day 231:

Ok, a few things i have realized:

1) I cannot record changes so easily.

2) I have regressed to the mean. 

Basically what this means is that the environment is too conductive for my lazy side to capitulate on. Anyway, I am gonna work on that..as i have done in the past..100% failure rate. I have come to accept my failure especially in keeping records, as i am certainly not going to be able to accurately record the really important things that happen to me daily. Things happen to me daily, and there is no way to successfully categorize them because we create those categories, and when you have a certain amount of knowledge you cannot make yourself create those insufficient categories. You may not be able to access this knowledge, you may find yourself at a loss, doing things you aren't comfortable doing, but that is okay. Because it doesn't matter. 

There are no answers in this journal. There are no answers. There are no questions. Do you understand? Language creates perception, perception creates reality, reality creates language. It comes full circle, its a closed system simply because there are limits to input and output.

Pramit, you choose a path..but now you are disappointed that you may not like what lies at the end, you are disappointed because you are not who you expected yourself to be.  Then who are you? find out. again.

The voice in your head is problematic, but who is he? find that out too. 

[Pramit]

Day 259:

A few things i had mistakenly realized back then:

1) The mean had moved. 

2) Some changes are easier to record.

Yes the environment is conducive to my lazy side, but at the same time it isn't exactly like home either. So i am changing, slowly, and i must keep faith in that change. 

People i had previously had good relations with seems to have deteriorated. The variable that people represent me with is dynamic and does change, even if its slower than how i change (and it may change even without any input from me). Either way, it is interesting to see how people's opinion of me changes as i change my patterns, and what circular reasoning they attribute to it. 

Regarding the mind-body problem ("Does the mind reside in the body?"), i think the question itself is illogical. The mind does not 'reside' anywhere. The mind is an abstract concept, it is not a physical object. It is even more tricky than this because the mind is basically everything we see, hear, think. The mind is all encompassing. So where does that reside? Certainly, changes in the body affect the mind. And so does changes in the environment(see embodied cognition). I don't think is the right question to ask. Rather, we should first try to find out how science can be used in the study of mind. Currently cognitive science as a field uses brain imaging data along with theories and models. This is not going to work. I have to think more deeply on this subject. 

Also, emotion influences rationality. And my own emotional state, as they change from day to day is observable but not easy to categorize. Since the observer itself is changing from hour to hour, the only means i have no means of recording such information accurately (here accurately means both encoding and decoding the information). It is like drinking alcohol. You will change as you drink, but it is near impossible to observe that change except as an external agent (Which does not exist - there is nothing external).  

[Pramit]

Day 265:

Categories, categories, categories. So troublesome! We are always dividing the acorn and the oak, and then giving it a value based on some arbitrary feature. Yes i have been listening to sapolsky. Yes, there might be a progression, a sequence of causal events that we identify as "growth", but that is the name of an arbitrary process and continuity of information is always constructed and not a feature of the environment. 

Distractions in learning environment really do hamper me from getting a flow(periods of intense concentration). Since coming here, i have enjoyed quite a bit of good flow states. I think i have a good recipe for achieving flow states. But pertaining to my mind, it is absolutely important that i construct a good environment, whether consciously or not. The worst point is often preceded by a good feeling, and i hope future pramit keeps these things in mind as he tries to actively construct a routine or at least design some environmental variables in such a way to better aid my learning and bring my mental states(emotions) to particular types. Emotions are linked with thinking, and i think differently under different emotional state. 

 

 

[Pramit]

Day 317:

It's almost a full year since i have started this journal. I am currently in the process of giving end of semester exams. I am definitely on-track to becoming a neuroscientist. Although my degree will have the attached 'cognitive science' to it as well. 

I recently posted this : 

The idea is still fresh in my mind. Let's see where it takes me. 

I have applied to one summer research program. But there are many more. I need to decide if i want to spend the summer at our lab, or go to some other university. There is one professor in our university that i am interested in working with. And i really don't want to deal with getting letters of recommendation again.

I feel like the self and non-self coexist as theories inside me. I can find myself spacing out and believing in the idea of nonexistence of a self, but at the same time i can easily imagine a self. The ultimate question is whether this reality has any semblance of underlying truth or not. Even if perception is construction, is there really something it is constructing from? 

One idea i really liked this week is from Noam Chomsky - the idea that certain questions just cannot be scientifically understood by human beings. In physics, we make amazing progress, but in centuries old questions science on the nature of reality there is absolutely no progress. It is just that the question itself is impossible to comprehend with our natural language. 

The entire semester has been a seesaw  - there were good parts, and there were bad. I learned new things. After the exam ends, i will go back to my usual routine of meditating, reading, etc. Maybe i'll visit a lab i am interested in. Maybe i'll actually be regular with this journal.

Today i went to a human library event, where someone spoke about depression. Listening to her, i wonder if i too have clinical depression. It is difficult to know what is 'normal' when it comes to these things. I am aware of some of the problems i have in my mind, some of them are periodic and are guaranteed to happen. But its not a regular periodicity, or at least i have not measured it to that extent. The diagnosis wouldn't affect me much, because if i am really depressed, i wouldn't really want it to go away. I think there is great value in sadness and despair. They show you a side of life you often forget when you are having cheerful conversations on meaningless topics. The despair especially can be a source of motivation, and i am able to utilize it to an extent. 

This is all i want to say for now. Because i must sleep and its midnight. 

[Pramit]

On 11/25/2017 at 3:28 AM, Pramit said:

After the exam ends, i will go back to my usual routine of meditating, reading, etc. Maybe i'll visit a lab i am interested in. Maybe i'll actually be regular with this journal.

ha ha ha. Oh you silly pramit. How very little you understand your own mind. 

 

Semester is going great. I am enjoying the learning a lot, especially computational neuroscience which is a entirely new subject for me! I love philosophy of mind, especially the arguments which blow my mind sometimes (i glue it back with some myelin). 

Richard Fyneman said - 'Reality must take precedence over public relations.'. I completely agree, although I think the wording should be changed to 'pursuit of reality', which more accurately describes the human condition. My own advice is this - "To learn anything honestly, one must be willing to risk public relations". Too often I find myself in conflict with my sense of shame, especially when it comes to asking questions. The issue of course isn't always so simply resolved by repeating a quote. For example, many questions are resolved if I give it some thought. So questions take time to resolve, but the appropriate time to ask questions during the lecture always ends. And thus you end up with a half baked question, that one cannot give thought to during the lecture because one must focus on the lecture itself and not on one's thoughts. To ask or not to ask? Honest work is also necessary. One must be willing to spend a lot of time, alone, in trying to understand the material. Although transfer of knowledge between humans is very convenient indeed, to truly understand and grasp the depth of a subject one must take the journey alone. And once honest work is done, one will gain more confidence to ask those questions and in approaching the instructor. When these factors are taken into account, asking questions becomes easier with time and experience on what is a good or bad question. 

Sometimes I fear taking the initiative of long lasting change, because of my long string of failures in the past. But then I remember that life itself is built on failure. Trillions of dead animals, on the wrong side of evolution, are necessary for the rise of homo sapiens. We too will die, because it is necessary. Thus even if we can give up in the mental sphere, our body will always push us to the extreme. Because that is what life is all about, surviving, then changing the environment to make survival even more favorable, resulting a cascade of events that give us homo sapiens and a partially terraformed earth. 

 

Until next time,

Pramit

[Pramit]

Day 369: 

Reading my previous dilemma on when to ask question, i must admit that all of it is based on some risk calculation. And risk calculations, taken from a certain perspective of alan watts, are pointless. What is the risk really? death? you know you can't die. To directly quote Alan Watts - 'You can't make a mistake. The acorn is not better than the oak.' But if both asking and not asking are equivalent, then the issue does not have a resolution. In which case, I will go with asking. And maybe I'll continue with that path based on societal reinforcement (i.e. not getting scolded by the teacher for asking, and as long as the teacher isn't stupid. Asking the question must have a certain value for me, a value which is only partly intrinsic).

 

What is understanding? Understanding is a description of the patterns we find in our environment. The description is encoded into neural connections which are also patterns. This is the classical case of patterns learning patterns. For example, an organism needs to distinguish between water and land to survive. So it gives water the color red and land the color orange. Red is encoded by one neural configuration, orange is encoded by another. When water is observed, because of some physical environmental property, the red neural configuration is activated, and the organism advances(it likes water). But does it really have something like red? what is red? Notice that even with the physical description, the mental property is still a mystery. So may be I have not taken into account the actual complexity. May be this basic perception discrimination is not really understanding. But I do strongly believe that in the end they are encoded by neural configurations. So physical patterns are just correlating with other physical patterns to produce physical behavior which allows an organism to survive (predictive mind hypothesis). Now if there was something other than physical property, that something cannot be understood (because physical systems can only understand other physical systems). But what if that something affected some physical property of some physical system? Then by sheer correlation, we might be able to make it a 'factor' (like dark energy - we don't know what it is, but we can give it a name). 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Pramit

[Pramit]

Made myself a psuedo bookshelf(feel like I finally have space to study things). Also fixed violin, so I have started practicing again. 

Two weeks ago, I started 'Project Boredom'. The objection was to ween myself of social media and other distractions. Now, I typically don't spend much(if any) time on social media, so for me 'social media' usually means youtube where I tend to binge watch funny videos (or videos that make me feel good). I find that the more time I am lazy, the harder it is to start working. Many days were lost to these things. Another aspect is porn. Although I don't get a lot of chances to masturbate in my room (since I share it with other people), I was at one point addicted to it. And it can happen again. Because there is a lot of academic pressure sometimes, I might give myself the excuse to do it. I am not stopping masturbation, only porn. I think masturbation is fine..as long as its not porn induced. 

My strategy is to use artificial currency. Every day I get a set amount of money (4 coins, each coin representing a value of real world money- I call this Becoin for behavioral coins). I can either spend it on stuff, or I can spend it on distractions (food from my mess, which is usually crappy, is excluded). I can also get more Becoin for doing things like meditating, or keeping good habits, or studying (these are only for consecutive days, and the reward increases as the streak increases). So far, these are the results : 

1) I have cheated a few times, making what seemed at that time 'rational argument'. It is really easy to deceive yourself. When under stress, my emotional brain(or addicted brain) can easily recruit all my logical faculties and put them to work on convincing me to break the system.

2) I have made a decision to add a little bit of flexibility. One day of the week, I can buckle under the pressure. This won't come without consequences, as I will not be able to buy myself anything on that day. 

3) Results have been mixed. Some days were great, other days I lost Becoins due to distractions. 

4) I have been able to work at least for some time every day. 

Advice : 1) I need to get myself hooked on using the coins, and not hoarding them. It seems I must fight one addiction with another..

2) I am still trying to figure out the right balance of reward and punishment. Currently I am losing 2 Becoins for extended distractions(more than 10 minutes), and 3 Becoins for bigger distractions(like a movie of 2 hours). Yes, perhaps I should keep the scale a little more even, but I am scared..scared of losing everything I have accumulated just for that one day where I can't keep myself under control. 

 

[Pramit]

Suffering from a fever. Will hopefully recover in 2-3 days time (it has already been 1 day). Two observations i made during fever : 1) My ball sacks hang out when the body temperature is higher than usual. Which means that sleeping with a blanket during fever will most definitely kill some sperms.

2) Constipation during fever - possible sign of bacterial infection of gut? or perhaps the fever negatively affects the enteric nervous system? 

I bought a lot of grapes and apples to help me recover quickly. 

[Pramit]

Summer is approaching. It is already hot.

How much does the noise inside my brain play a role in my behavior? I am not executing things like a robot, my thoughts are all over the places, my motor actions, however finely tuned to the situation, are always in a constant flux. There are some fundamental things that are constant, for example, my pooping behavior, my writing behavior, my behavior in class. But inside there are minor fluctuations, reflecting the chaos in my brain. Fluctuations play a very important role in evolution, and enzymology. If the gene was impervious to mutation, life may not have evolved past single cells. And if enzymes were too rigid, they wouldn't have the energy to change conformation and do biochemistry. Too much chaos however, and we are unable to do anything at all. We are at the border of order and chaos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos

Something serious happened this week. A professor got ousted from a course he taught. The reason(for me) : poor quality of teaching. I had a good rapport with the guy, so I feel moderately bad for him. I honestly don't know how he is reacting to this. But what I am most worried about, regrettably, is the potential loss of my good relation with that man. As bad a teacher he might be, he is still a professor. Which means he is a source of knowledge. And a source of recommendation letters for a potential pHD. I don't regret my decision. I did the right thing, the honest thing, and that is what matters. What I regret is not doing it sooner, and not saying these issues directly to him. Life is chaotic, sometimes things happen that you don't expect from unexpected sources. Sometimes a decision you are unable to take, resolves itself. Life is a fluctuation. It is the edge of chaos. 

The decision that hangs over my head is who do I work with? The best action as of right now is to gather more information by talking to more professors. So I am going to do just that. To the best of my ability. 

[Pramit]

To observe is to create out of nothing. Rather than saying, 'I am observing this chair', we can say, 'I am creating this chair'. But this leads to problems because there are two meanings of 'I' - the 'I' in the sense that you are god, and the 'I' of social identity. If its the former, then the statement is correct, otherwise its not. You cannot create the chair because you yourself must be created first. On a similar argument, there doesn't need to be a brain either, because the brain is also created by the reality that god imposes. Think of a computer that creates the software first, and then the software simulates a fake hardware. And then everything that happens in the hardware is correlated with things that happen in the software. But what is the sense of correlation? 

(Above post on ways to answer some of the meaningful questions)

One issue with the realization of the utter meaninglessness of the universe is that you feel ecstatic. If nothing matters, then surely I have every right to not take this game seriously and just enjoy the show. 

The problem of this kind of realization is that its beyond human intuition. If you come to this point, and even attempt to understand it, you will come up with many questions. And those questions do not have answers because of certain constraints. But are there really constraints? What is a constraint and how do you identify one? Can you imagine a limitless system? I bet that you can't simply because no matter how you realize the world it will always have 'constraint'. Since a no-constraint world is not possible, a world with constraint is a pointless concept. This the question becomes invalid. And I can go back and forth on these kinds of arguments. Perhaps the biggest question is - 'What exactly is the concept of control, and is it necessarily to understand reality?'  because I think that's where most people (here most people is used in the sense that I might keep thinking of this) get stuck. If I am god, then who is creating me? Who is controlling me? If you go by the fact that a constrained world is a pointless concept, then clearly there is no need for a controller. Because living things impose control/order by creating constraints. I believe that such questions are not necessary, because to impose a question is to imply that there are constraints. A limitless world is a absurd world where questions are meaningless because anything is possible. But why do humans exist in such a world, if we are really in a limitless world? To that, we must go back to the beginning and ask - what is this 'we' you are talking about? I think that the main issue is that you are using your ego to formulate the questions. I am reluctant to use such words as 'ego' but in this case its the best way to understand it (And these explanations are not meant for anyone other than Pramit anyway).  I think I might think of the questions and emotional after-affects as a symptom of some medicinal treatment(in this case, meditation).

Edited March 20, 2018 by Pramit