- I have forgotten exactly what I meant by this.
- certainly we said this about teaching English : the student doesn't really get better every day, but keeps going throug a series of leaps where they suddenly understand stuff they didn't before.
- Maybe I meant that you can apply this to thinking in general.
- or maybe what I was saying is that we get to thinking about everything being linearly proportional when that's not true as for many things it doesn't matter much numbers increase, like say a bridge is the same whether it carries 0,1 or 299 cars, but as soon as 300 , plumph the whole thing falls down.
- yes that was it ..the human brain copes very well with linear very well and wants to consider most systems in this way when most are not.

.. The more money I have the more beer I can buy etc. But in reality if I am drunk at thhe 10th beer then the 11th, 12th etc have no value.

- moved to pc454

- In a podcast they gave an example of sudden irrational behaviour e.g. An airlines chief safety officer took off without clearance.

- What happened was something like he had a plane full of passengers and a take off window upto 2pm after that they'd all have to wait until tomorrow, but it was a foggy day and air traffic control kept denying him permission to take off.
- When that deadline approached he ignored air traffic control and tried to take off and there was a near miss.
- What it was was he had 2 priorities to take off and to keep the passengers safe, but in a tense situation his brain made him focus on the wrong thing .. time against safety

- Their conclusion was Irrational Behavior happens when we focus on the wrong data

- I have always been a supporter of negative thinking - reality thinking as opposed to positive thinking.
- a positive thinker will always think.. "The bridge will not collapse, I'll get across", whereas the negative thinker will say "stop, what could go wrong with this bridge, lets weigh up the arguments, what would happen if it collapsed, how far is the other way around"

- Positive thinking is not thinking at all it's often just a cop out .."nothing will go wrong so I don't need to think about it" ... You end up thinking about the most optimistic outcome instead of the more realistic outcome.

- I need to get this argument back in focus

- The fact is we are over positive about outcomes, when in fact outcomes in life are more like a bellcurve
- eg I'll go to university come top in the class and get a Nobel prize
e.g. - I'll go to the disco meet the most beautiful woman

- Odds are you will go to university come in the middle of your class and get a regular job .

- odds are at the disco you'll meet no women at all. And overall in life Miss supermodel isn't going to come anywhere near you, if you are Mr Average prepare yourself for Miss Average.

- I actually hate travel : sitting on a bus for 3 hours, trying to find the right bus .. What do I like about travel ? How do I get to that more easily ?

- Take the travel out of travel how to take out the boring bits ? - get to those events when something is new and you interact with people.

- Memory Theory - Your brain records every microsecond of your life. See 442 March 2009 update

- This would help match people up with their business and position in society.
e.g. How to divide the labour up in a village
- John is good at looking after kids
- John doesn't like to get his hands dirty

- John needs food

For Me

- 10 things I'm better than you at
- coping on my own, not minding getting my hands dirty, very reliable, very honest

- 10 things I need and I am crap at at
- I get irritated by everything

- 'The hyper intelligent fool - why am I very smart and very stupid ?

- In both cases there is the Confirmation Bias factor whereby you only remember the times the effect is confirmed, but not the other times.