Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). Last week, I shared an excerpt titled – ‘Creatures of Habit Resistant to Change’ from the book titled ‘Think Again – The Power of Knowing What you don’t know’ by Adam Grant. In this episode we drew the attention to the fact that we are afflicted with cognitive laziness, preferring the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones and in this age of social media, what fuels so much contention and discord between people.  Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.



Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.



This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Intelligence and Rethinking’ from a book titled ‘Think Again – The Power of Knowing What you don’t know’ by Adam Grant, author and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.



This book looks at the areas in our lives where we routinely fail to reassess in light of changing conditions and feedback: from our beliefs, to our undertakings and pursuits, to our standard operating procedures, interpersonal relationships, and to the counsel we receive.



Intelligence and Rethinking



When people reflect on what it takes to be mentally fit, the first idea that comes to mind is usually intelligence. The smarter you are, the more complex the problems you can solve-and the faster you can solve them.



Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.



Some psychologists point out that we’re mental misers: we often prefer the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones. Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable. It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, that what was once right may now be wrong.



Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel as if we’re losing a part of ourselves.



Rethinking isn’t a struggle in every part of our lives. When it comes to our possessions, we update with fervor. We refresh our wardrobes when they go out of style and renovate our kitchens when they’re no longer in vogue. When it comes to our knowledge and opinions, though, we tend to stick to our guns. Psychologists call this seizing and freezing.



We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.



Excerpt from ‘Think Again – The Power of Knowing What you don’t know’ by Adam Grant.



I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book, to read book report you can click on the following link and subsequently buy your copy too:



https://humanjourney.us/mind/think-again-adam-grant-review

Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). Last week, I shared an excerpt titled – ‘Focus on the useful, the true and Connections’ from the book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas. In this episode we drew the attention to the fact that as modern humans though we have mastered a tiny slice of the world but by coordinating our efforts and putting those slices together, we’ve unlocked potential that was previously unimaginable. It has helped us forge breathtaking scientific progress. But we’ve focused so much on what is useful that we’ve forgotten what is true. Connections matter as much as, if not more than, components. The more modern science puts individualism under the microscope, the less it stands up to scrutiny.  Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.



Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.



This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Creatures of Habit Resistant to Change’ from a book titled ‘Think Again – The Power of Knowing What you don’t know’ by Adam Grant, author and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.



This book looks at the areas in our lives where we routinely fail to reassess in light of changing conditions and feedback: from our beliefs, to our undertakings and pursuits, to our standard operating procedures, interpersonal relationships, and to the counsel we receive.



Creatures of Habit Resistant to Change



In this book the author reveals the many ways in which we all buck the necessity of changing our minds or otherwise unlearning what is no longer helpful.



He points out that we are afflicted with cognitive laziness, preferring the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones. Doubting ourselves can have the effect of making the world feel less predictable, thus undermining the brain’s schema of personal stability in which commitment and consistency of thought are cornerstone strategies.



All of us at one time or another have suffered from a cognitive bias (known as the so-called Dunning-Kruger Effect) in which some knowledge and experience in a specific area causes one to overestimate their competence in that area. In the age of social media, it’s what fuels so much contention and discord between people: because we all read about world events and take in certain points of view on our feeds, we become so certain in our knowledge that we stubbornly champion them, free of any doubt.



Excerpt from ‘Think Again – The Power of Knowing What you don’t know’ by Adam Grant.



I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book, to read book report you can click on the following link and subsequently buy your copy too:



https://humanjourney.us/mind/think-again-adam-grant-review

Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). Last week, I shared an excerpt titled – ‘Intertwined World’ from a book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas. In this episode we highlighted that reality, for better and for worse, isn’t terrifying, but wondrous, giving every moment of life potentially hidden meaning. It flips the individualist worldview on its head.  Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.



Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.



This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Focus on the useful, the true and Connections’ from the same book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas.



In his book Brian points that Contrary to our instinctive beliefs, cause and effect are never simple and easy to understand: any specific outcome is dependent not only on what appear to be the major events leading up to it, but also on an array of seemingly insignificant, arbitrary, easily overlooked factors, “flukes”—some under our control, but countless others not.



Focus on the useful, the true and Connections



Modern humans master a tiny slice of the world. But by coordinating our efforts and putting those slices together, we’ve unlocked potential that was previously unimaginable. That was the great triumph of reductionism, in which it’s assumed that complex phenomena can be best understood by breaking them down into their individual parts. Understand the parts, understand the system. But the more you focus on systems as separable parts, the easier it is to ignore intertwined connections. Reductionism has proven astonishingly useful. It has helped us forge breathtaking scientific progress. But we’ve focused so much on what is useful that we’ve forgotten what is true. Connections matter as much as, if not more than, components. The more modern science puts individualism under the microscope, the less it stands up to scrutiny.



Even the scientific concept of what it means to speak of “an individual” is being revised. Some systems biologists, recognizing the interconnected, interdependent nature of our existence, have stopped referring to humans as individuals and have started referring to each person as a holobiont, which includes a core host (in our case, a human) as well as the zoo of organisms living in or around us. It may sound strange, but we are not just ourselves, but are rather a collection of human cells combined with our associated microorganisms, including fungi, bacteria, archaea, and viruses. The best estimates suggest we have roughly 1.3 bacterial cells inside us for every human cell. As the biologist Merlin Sheldrake put it, “There are more bacteria in your gut than stars in our galaxy.” Fresh evidence is emerging that viruses affect our biological clocks, parasites alter our thoughts, and our microbiome can cause mood disorders. Scientifically, we have never been singular, though that has been impossible to know until quite recently.



The individualist mindset, of independent, authoritative control over a tamable world, makes less sense if we know that our thoughts are partly influenced by the tiny,

Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). A month ago, I shared an excerpt titled – ‘Why Everything We Do Matters’ from a book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas. In this episode we shared a real tale that was reported in news in Greece in the summer of 2022, where a tourist named Ivan who was declared lost at sea, presumed dead got saved by a ball that was accidentally kicked into the sea by two boys playing with it some eighty miles away.  Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.



Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.



This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Intertwined World’ from a book titled ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas.



In his book Brian points that Contrary to our instinctive beliefs, cause and effect are never simple and easy to understand: any specific outcome is dependent not only on what appear to be the major events leading up to it, but also on an array of seemingly insignificant, arbitrary, easily overlooked factors, “flukes”—some under our control, but countless others not.



Intertwined World



Ours is an intertwined world. Once you accept that entangled existence, it becomes clear that chance, chaos, and arbitrary accidents play an outsize role in why things happen. In an intertwined world, flukes matter. There can be no true split between “the signal” and “the noise.” There is no noise. The noise of one person’s life is the signal for another, even when we can’t detect it.



Nobody wants to be told they’re not in control, or that a stranger’s decision half a world away, or a long-forgotten decision decades in the past, could kill us or cause our economy to collapse into a crippling recession. Like it or not, that’s how the world works. Even decisions by those who are long dead continue to matter.



That reality, for better and for worse, isn’t terrifying, but wondrous, giving every moment of life potentially hidden meaning. It flips the individualist worldview on its head. Rather than being in control of our individual destinies when we make big decisions, even our smallest decisions matter, forever altering the world.



Excerpt from ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas.



I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book, to read book report you can click on the following link and subsequently buy your copy too:



https://humanjourney.us/mind/fluke-brian-klaas-summary



Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.



Namaste!




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