Dear reader,
Tuesday, a couple of weeks ago. I'm visiting a friend of mine at work. As I make my way up from the underground, I step on the first step of the escalator. It's broken. I have to walk up. Darn.
Wednesday that same week. I'm again visiting that friend of mine at work. As I make my way up from the underground, I step on the first step of the escalator. It's still broken. I have to walk up again. Stupid!
Thursday that same week. I'm again visiting that friend of mine at work. I am finally remembering that maybe the escalator is still broken. I peek around the corner to check if the lights are green. They're red. I walk on it to take the stairs. I finally learned.
Months ago I spend many days watching both the series "Sherlock" and "Elementary". As Sherlock likes to say, "You see, but you don't observe." The first step to see and observe and deduce the way Sherlock Holmes does is to actively engage in seeing things.
Last week on Thursday. I'm visiting that friend of mine at work. I peek around the corner to check the lights of the escalators. They're red. It's broken again. I wonder what all the old people at my friend's work are doing. The escalators are broken a lot of times at that underground station. As I walk alone to the stairs, I'm thinking about Sherlock Holmes, too. Thank you, Sherlock.
Until next blog,
sarah
Showing posts with label cognition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cognition. Show all posts
Thursday, 29 August 2013
Friday, 26 July 2013
Thinner - the easy part: the body
Dear reader,
so now the post some have been waiting for for a long time and for which the last posts have been sort of to prepare for. Some thoughts on how I lost weight a couple of years ago.
Some time around 2002 I wanted to lose weight. At first I thought of going to the fitness center. But then I saw the well well-conditioned men in front of my minds eye and me, the short, untrained girl among all of them? Hardly. But I wasn't happy with my belly. I wanted definitely to have a thinner belly and that was the beginning of all.
1. The absolute and definite thought of change.
Some dream of changing "the world". This big planet as a whole. It's too big a project, I'm telling you. Just as bad as a blank "I want to be thin." So something else is important, too
2. The thought of only changing one definied part.
But more on thoughts and the mind in my next post. The way I see it, that's in fact the even more important and more powerful part of the whole thing.
So I wanted to lose weight without going to the fitness center. I decided on push-ups and something that seems generally to be called crunches. I started with 10 push-ups as you know them. Then do the crunches to relax the arms. That's lying on your back, legs bent, feet on the ground. Now for example lift the left leg a bit so that the left knee and the right ellbow can touch and vice versa. So it's touching crossed knees and ellbows. Just as a variation to the "normal" lifting your head. Do 10 of those each side. (I always did left ellbow right knee, then right ellbow left knee and again left ellbow right knee.) Then to relax the belly I did so called "woman push-ups". That means you're on your knees, feet bent in the air (and crossed at the ankles is the most comfortable, I think). These are easier and even untrained I can do at least 15 of them easily. Then again go on your back and do the "normal" crunches": legs bent, feet on the ground and lift your head and shoulders just up.
For the arms what I did "back then" when we still had birds and bird grit, I once filled up two small plastic bottles with the grit and used them as dumbbells. I don't do that anymore these days. It's easy to do exercises with that when you're just sitting in front of the tv. Apropos of nothing.
About the legs: a really easy exercise can be done sitting, too. Put both feet on the ground. Then lift one. Just a tiny bit and tense up the leg. Imagine you have weights on your ankle, which pull down the leg. Do 10 to 15 of those, just as you please and then switch to the other leg. That's something that can be done again apropos of nothing, like at work or when you're having a coffee with a friend or when you're at the bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive. But it's important to do all the exercises I mentioned here on a regular basis! Going through them once takes no time at all. So doing them once a day or at least every second day should be really easy.
There's always a lot of talk about doing lots of sports and being active. You don't necessarily have to do that as such. I didn't do that, apart from the exercises I mentioned here, which I don't do on a regular basis anymore these days. It starts with little things such as going the stairs instead of taking the escalator or elevator. With that alone you're already more active. Or just stand up and walk around while on the phone. Especially these days where practically all phones (mobile phones anyway) are wireless, that's no problem anymore.
Recently I found juggling for myself again, after I started it for a bit in 2011 and taught myself quite fast to juggle with 2 balls and then stopped doing it until a couple of months ago. My next long term goal would be to juggle 4 balls. Also I found so called contact juggling to do. That's juggling, but not throwing the ball, instead it's always in contact (hence the name) with the body. There are all sorts of quite impressive contact juggling videos on youtube both tutorials and simply to watch and enjoy. Some of them are very meditating and relaxing to watch. As is doing it. ;-)
A lot of people often suggest to go jogging. Jogging isn't my thing. Never interested me really. Althought there's this thing of combining jogging and juggling, which is called "joggling". There's even sort of marathons where you are allowed to drop a ball only so many times and you're running and juggling with others. Find your own sports to do. I am fascinated with juggling. Sitting on the bed or on the sofa it's easy to do apropos of nothing. It's good for coordination, a nice arm exercise and it's proved that activities that involve using both hands also help to (re)connect both of the brain hemispheres better (again). Which is also, by the way, why it helps with depression and increases the creativity! Which is not to say that I want you all to start learning to juggle now. Everybody should find their own activity they enjoy to be active. I for one like juggling at this moment with great fun and it's easy to carry 2 balls in your bag. That's my thing at the moment.
That's it for now. Being thinner the first, the easy part: the body. Next time will be the harder part: the brain and the mind!
Until next blog,
sarah
so now the post some have been waiting for for a long time and for which the last posts have been sort of to prepare for. Some thoughts on how I lost weight a couple of years ago.
Some time around 2002 I wanted to lose weight. At first I thought of going to the fitness center. But then I saw the well well-conditioned men in front of my minds eye and me, the short, untrained girl among all of them? Hardly. But I wasn't happy with my belly. I wanted definitely to have a thinner belly and that was the beginning of all.
1. The absolute and definite thought of change.
Some dream of changing "the world". This big planet as a whole. It's too big a project, I'm telling you. Just as bad as a blank "I want to be thin." So something else is important, too
2. The thought of only changing one definied part.
But more on thoughts and the mind in my next post. The way I see it, that's in fact the even more important and more powerful part of the whole thing.
So I wanted to lose weight without going to the fitness center. I decided on push-ups and something that seems generally to be called crunches. I started with 10 push-ups as you know them. Then do the crunches to relax the arms. That's lying on your back, legs bent, feet on the ground. Now for example lift the left leg a bit so that the left knee and the right ellbow can touch and vice versa. So it's touching crossed knees and ellbows. Just as a variation to the "normal" lifting your head. Do 10 of those each side. (I always did left ellbow right knee, then right ellbow left knee and again left ellbow right knee.) Then to relax the belly I did so called "woman push-ups". That means you're on your knees, feet bent in the air (and crossed at the ankles is the most comfortable, I think). These are easier and even untrained I can do at least 15 of them easily. Then again go on your back and do the "normal" crunches": legs bent, feet on the ground and lift your head and shoulders just up.
For the arms what I did "back then" when we still had birds and bird grit, I once filled up two small plastic bottles with the grit and used them as dumbbells. I don't do that anymore these days. It's easy to do exercises with that when you're just sitting in front of the tv. Apropos of nothing.
About the legs: a really easy exercise can be done sitting, too. Put both feet on the ground. Then lift one. Just a tiny bit and tense up the leg. Imagine you have weights on your ankle, which pull down the leg. Do 10 to 15 of those, just as you please and then switch to the other leg. That's something that can be done again apropos of nothing, like at work or when you're having a coffee with a friend or when you're at the bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive. But it's important to do all the exercises I mentioned here on a regular basis! Going through them once takes no time at all. So doing them once a day or at least every second day should be really easy.
There's always a lot of talk about doing lots of sports and being active. You don't necessarily have to do that as such. I didn't do that, apart from the exercises I mentioned here, which I don't do on a regular basis anymore these days. It starts with little things such as going the stairs instead of taking the escalator or elevator. With that alone you're already more active. Or just stand up and walk around while on the phone. Especially these days where practically all phones (mobile phones anyway) are wireless, that's no problem anymore.
Recently I found juggling for myself again, after I started it for a bit in 2011 and taught myself quite fast to juggle with 2 balls and then stopped doing it until a couple of months ago. My next long term goal would be to juggle 4 balls. Also I found so called contact juggling to do. That's juggling, but not throwing the ball, instead it's always in contact (hence the name) with the body. There are all sorts of quite impressive contact juggling videos on youtube both tutorials and simply to watch and enjoy. Some of them are very meditating and relaxing to watch. As is doing it. ;-)
A lot of people often suggest to go jogging. Jogging isn't my thing. Never interested me really. Althought there's this thing of combining jogging and juggling, which is called "joggling". There's even sort of marathons where you are allowed to drop a ball only so many times and you're running and juggling with others. Find your own sports to do. I am fascinated with juggling. Sitting on the bed or on the sofa it's easy to do apropos of nothing. It's good for coordination, a nice arm exercise and it's proved that activities that involve using both hands also help to (re)connect both of the brain hemispheres better (again). Which is also, by the way, why it helps with depression and increases the creativity! Which is not to say that I want you all to start learning to juggle now. Everybody should find their own activity they enjoy to be active. I for one like juggling at this moment with great fun and it's easy to carry 2 balls in your bag. That's my thing at the moment.
That's it for now. Being thinner the first, the easy part: the body. Next time will be the harder part: the brain and the mind!
Until next blog,
sarah
Monday, 1 April 2013
Abductive, Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
Dear reader,
I can't help myself but making this blog entry today a scientific one.
Before I start I want you to know three things
1) I wasn't very scientific in my last post. I forgot to mention the names of the series I mentioned. The BBC production is called "Sherlock". The american series goes under the title of "Elementary".
2) It may surprise some of you that although Holmes was so analytical and scientific, his creator was quite unscientific and gullible. Doyle believed very much in the existence of fairies. It's also difficult to believe that Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle have been friends for a while. Because their point of view on spiritism was so contrary however, that friendship didn't last long.
3) The producers of "Sherlock" really took great care in creating that show. Sherlock has his own homepage The Science of Deduction. You can also read Dr. John Watson's Blog, which includes comments by Holmes and others!!! Other characters of the series also have their websites: Molly Hooper's blog and the forum of Connie Prince. The last two however may only be of interest to people, who know the series and the persons.
In a way even Sherlock Holmes' homepage is only for people who know the series or fans. Also the title of the page is sort of wrong. Sherlock Holmes is not using deduction in his investigations. This is a mistake not only from the series, but also wrong in Doyle's books. On imdb.com you can find a note on that mistake.
To be honest, each reasoning: abductive, deductive and inductive - are tricky and separating each of them from the others is not quite easy. The differences are very small.
The differences between inductive and deductive reasoning are relatively simple to explain.
In deductive reasoning you set up a general rule. From that rule you set up another rule, of which you can be certain, too. If or rather because both are true, the conclusion will be certain at the end. This kind of reasoning can be found in mathematics, for example in equations with variables:
if x = 2
and if y = 3,
then 2 x + y = 7
Maths is often very much just theory. So let's put it another way:
If chaos is increased in a system, unless you feed it with energy,
and if my flat is a system,
then I should feed my flat with energy and keep it tidy and clean, unless I want to drown in a chaotic mess.
With inductive reasoning you take one single thing and take it to be true. From that you make a general rule that applies to other similar things. A conclusion is likely, but not certain. There is this thought experiment about a white swan. If we see many white swans, we can conclude that there exist white swans. It would be wrong however to conclude that all swans are white, or that there only exist white swans. In science, which is about gathering information, you can find this way of thinking.
Abductive reasoning is about observing something and looking for a possible explanation that would make the observed probable as an outcome. The theorist Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of abductive reasoning, explained it this way:
"The surprising fact, C, is observed. But if A were true, C would be a matter of course. Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true."
Finding a conclusion is taking your best shot and not very satisfying. The conclusion you come up with may or may not be true. In medicine you find this way of thinking. The patient tells about his symptoms and the doctor has to think of an illness that would lead to those symptoms, to treat the patient accordingly. Also in court you'll find abductive reasoning: does the prosecution or the defense the better arguments that fit and explain the given situation?
So indeed Holmes doesn't use deduction, but abduction. He cannot be certain to see all the facts of a crime scene that lead to the crime. So Holmes' conclusion are likely to be incomplete and with that nothing more than taking your best shot.
Arthur Conan Doyle used Dr. Joseph Bell as a model for Holmes, as I mentioned already in my last post. Another doctor was very good in observing and making conclusions: Dr. Milton Erickson. Sidney Rosen describes a story in his book "My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson", which is a good example to show how good Erickson was in observing and making conclusions. The story is called "The Right Psychiatrist":
A young, beautiful woman came to Erickson. She was very desperate. She wasn't pleased with either of the psychiatrist she had seen so far. So she was uncertain about Erickson and whether he was able to help her. He wrote down some things about the young woman and then said to her that he was the right psychiatrist. He could prove it by asking a question. But the woman won't like that question. The woman wanted to hear the question anyway. So Erickson asked her, "How long have you been wearing women's cloths?" Erickson had seen the woman pick a lint off her sleeve in a straight, direct move, without a "detour" around the breasts, like a woman would.
There's also a video with Tim Minchin, where he talks about the human logic, which addresses another aspect of logic.
Until next blog,
sarah
I can't help myself but making this blog entry today a scientific one.
Before I start I want you to know three things
1) I wasn't very scientific in my last post. I forgot to mention the names of the series I mentioned. The BBC production is called "Sherlock". The american series goes under the title of "Elementary".
2) It may surprise some of you that although Holmes was so analytical and scientific, his creator was quite unscientific and gullible. Doyle believed very much in the existence of fairies. It's also difficult to believe that Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle have been friends for a while. Because their point of view on spiritism was so contrary however, that friendship didn't last long.
3) The producers of "Sherlock" really took great care in creating that show. Sherlock has his own homepage The Science of Deduction. You can also read Dr. John Watson's Blog, which includes comments by Holmes and others!!! Other characters of the series also have their websites: Molly Hooper's blog and the forum of Connie Prince. The last two however may only be of interest to people, who know the series and the persons.
In a way even Sherlock Holmes' homepage is only for people who know the series or fans. Also the title of the page is sort of wrong. Sherlock Holmes is not using deduction in his investigations. This is a mistake not only from the series, but also wrong in Doyle's books. On imdb.com you can find a note on that mistake.
To be honest, each reasoning: abductive, deductive and inductive - are tricky and separating each of them from the others is not quite easy. The differences are very small.
The differences between inductive and deductive reasoning are relatively simple to explain.
In deductive reasoning you set up a general rule. From that rule you set up another rule, of which you can be certain, too. If or rather because both are true, the conclusion will be certain at the end. This kind of reasoning can be found in mathematics, for example in equations with variables:
if x = 2
and if y = 3,
then 2 x + y = 7
Maths is often very much just theory. So let's put it another way:
If chaos is increased in a system, unless you feed it with energy,
and if my flat is a system,
then I should feed my flat with energy and keep it tidy and clean, unless I want to drown in a chaotic mess.
With inductive reasoning you take one single thing and take it to be true. From that you make a general rule that applies to other similar things. A conclusion is likely, but not certain. There is this thought experiment about a white swan. If we see many white swans, we can conclude that there exist white swans. It would be wrong however to conclude that all swans are white, or that there only exist white swans. In science, which is about gathering information, you can find this way of thinking.
Abductive reasoning is about observing something and looking for a possible explanation that would make the observed probable as an outcome. The theorist Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of abductive reasoning, explained it this way:
"The surprising fact, C, is observed. But if A were true, C would be a matter of course. Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true."
Finding a conclusion is taking your best shot and not very satisfying. The conclusion you come up with may or may not be true. In medicine you find this way of thinking. The patient tells about his symptoms and the doctor has to think of an illness that would lead to those symptoms, to treat the patient accordingly. Also in court you'll find abductive reasoning: does the prosecution or the defense the better arguments that fit and explain the given situation?
So indeed Holmes doesn't use deduction, but abduction. He cannot be certain to see all the facts of a crime scene that lead to the crime. So Holmes' conclusion are likely to be incomplete and with that nothing more than taking your best shot.
Arthur Conan Doyle used Dr. Joseph Bell as a model for Holmes, as I mentioned already in my last post. Another doctor was very good in observing and making conclusions: Dr. Milton Erickson. Sidney Rosen describes a story in his book "My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson", which is a good example to show how good Erickson was in observing and making conclusions. The story is called "The Right Psychiatrist":
A young, beautiful woman came to Erickson. She was very desperate. She wasn't pleased with either of the psychiatrist she had seen so far. So she was uncertain about Erickson and whether he was able to help her. He wrote down some things about the young woman and then said to her that he was the right psychiatrist. He could prove it by asking a question. But the woman won't like that question. The woman wanted to hear the question anyway. So Erickson asked her, "How long have you been wearing women's cloths?" Erickson had seen the woman pick a lint off her sleeve in a straight, direct move, without a "detour" around the breasts, like a woman would.
There's also a video with Tim Minchin, where he talks about the human logic, which addresses another aspect of logic.
Until next blog,
sarah
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