The problem and the paradox of “becoming”

In a few months, our son Kabir will be appearing for one of the most fiercely competed exams in his life – the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) that will decide his fate to enter IITs, India’s premier engineering institutes. Approximately 1.2 million students took it last year and less than 0.1% got an opportunity to choose a discipline of their choice. For many, it may be the turning point in their life, landing lucrative jobs after their graduation, some of them overseas. I have been through this myself close to thirty years ago though the fierceness of the competition was somewhat milder then. Hence, I can understand the anxiety the students go through along with their parents.

After I entered IIT, new goals appeared on the horizon – the most prominent being getting admission in a US graduate school along with a scholarship. Then it was getting a PhD and then getting a job. Somewhere in between was the marriage and that created more goals – things that will help our son become somebody etc. The goals kept shifting and they kept the process of becoming alive. Or perhaps it was the other way round. The process of becoming, like a computer program, kept generating the next goal. And then achieving that goal becomes the next problem to be solved. Sometime along the way, I began to wonder if there is a trap here. That started a different type of investigation journey. Did I ever find out if becoming is a trap? That is what I want to discuss in this article. It was inspired by an essay by David Bohm titled “The problem and the paradox”.

To understand the nature of the problem of becoming, we need to understand the difference between a problem and a paradox. A problem is called a paradox when it contains contradictory assumptions. In school, I remember reading about the perpetual motion machines - a machine that can go on forever without ever stopping and without needing any external source of energy. The picture above is that of one of the earliest documented illustration of a proposed perpetual motion machine known as Bhaskara wheel. In 19^th century, scientists discovered the laws of thermodynamics which showed that it is impossible to build a perpetual machine because it assumes zero transfer of energy to the environment which violates the second law of thermodynamics. Thus the problem of building a perpetual machine is a paradox.

Note that a paradox can’t be solved the way we solve other problems such as fixing a car or treating a disease. The only way to resolve a paradox is to recognize it as a paradox. Until one sees the contradictory assumptions embedded in the problem statement, one can go on solving the problem without getting anywhere. That is exactly what many people have done spending years in building perpetual machines. You can see a brief history of perpetual machines here.

Now, let’s turn to the problem of “becoming”. Could the problem of becoming be a paradox? For example, I may define my problem as – “I want to become a leaner person” or “I want to become a wealthier person”. What is paradoxical about it? In fact, all of us would have experienced setting goals of these kinds and achieving at least some of them. In fact, one could question the reverse. How could I achieve anything meaningful unless I set out goals like these?

Let’s take the example of “becoming leaner” which is a difficult problem for many. People try new diets, new fitness programs year after year and yet they fail to sustain them. What’s happening here? To appreciate what’s happening, it helps to imagine thought as a network of reflexes which fire automatically when another related reflex is activated. Knee jerks when the bone gets tapped or foot presses the brake automatically when the car in front slows down. These are reflexes. Similarly, the impulse to overeat may come as a result of a set of reflexes getting fired perhaps when we are under stress (like the Panda in the movie Kung Fu Panda). Now, to reduce the intensity of this impulse or to eliminate this impulse would require a neuro-physiological change perhaps a neuro-surgery that would alter these reflexes. Unfortunately, nobody has figured out how to isolate such reflexes because the information about what belief a reflex stands for (e.g. if under stress, eat more) is embedded deeply in the neural network.

Now, you might say, “Well, we have friends who have become leaner, wealthier and so on. What about them?” The question is, “Has their becoming stopped after they became leaner?” Perhaps they have a new goal now – to run a marathon or to run a marathon within 4 hours. What if there is a program (or a set of reflexes) deeply embedded in the brain whose only job is to say, “You are still incomplete. Look at this guy, he is leaner. Look at her, she is more beautiful. Look at him, he is wealthier”? Then no matter what you become, this program is making sure that you feel a sense of incompleteness and a new goal is created in order to become more complete. So when you set out to solve the problem of becoming leaner, you still don’t address the core set of reflexes (the program) that is generating “you are incomplete” sense.  Thus there are two contradictory assumptions in action here: One, eat less to become leaner and the other one, perhaps a subconscious reflex, “eat more when you feel incomplete”. Thus the problem of “becoming” is a paradox. If “becoming” is really a paradox, what can be done?

Here is the bad news. The knowledge that “becoming” is a paradox does nothing to you. Unless you see it as a paradox in action yourself in your day-to-day living i.e. to see it contains contradictory assumptions as you try to become, you will be on a path similar to the perpetual machine builders. You need to see how as soon as the urge to become one thing subsides, something else pops up automatically. As Bohm says, it needs sustained attention on this process of becoming while it is in action.

The process of becoming is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is difficult to sustain the attention in the investigation. However, in case you are interested in investigating this further, the first step is skepticism. You need to ask the question, “Could this ‘becoming’ be a paradox?” You need to allow this question to take root in the mind like a virus.

What happens if you see the process of becoming as a paradox? Does it mean you stop taking exams like the JEE or stop enrolling in a new fitness program or stop making money? Not really. What changes is the “in order to” attitude. You stop doing things such as writing JEE exam “in order to” become somebody. You write an exam because that makes sense at that moment. Activity ceases to be a means to an end.

Sources:

Image of Bhaskara wheel is from www.lhup.edu.

If you are interested reading more about this topic, I would recommend David Bohm’s article – The problem and the paradox.

My first recollection of reading about the process of becoming is from the book “The ending of time” which is a dialog between Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm.

Knowing about the existence of the cognitive illusions does nothing to you is articulated by Daniel Kahneman in his lecture titled “The science of decision” delivered at Pentagon (quote at 25:56)

“Thought as a reflex” is articulated in the book “Thought as a system” by David Bohm.

Baseline test: in music and in life

“Baba, can you hear the baseline?” I remember Kabir, our son, asking me this question for the first time 4-5 years ago. There was a rock song being played in our living room. I was able to recognize the vocals, a guitar and the drums. Apparently none of these was the baseline. And I couldn’t hear one even after Kabir tried his best to point to it. Over the past few years not only did I begin to appreciate the baseline in music but also in life. What is this baseline? And, could this baseline-test be useful to you? Let’s explore in this article.

When Kabir was in 7^th or 8^th grade (now he is in 12^th) he got interested in base guitar. Until then I didn’t know what it meant (I knew acoustic guitar). So we got him one and I slowly came to know what a baseline sounds like. I learnt that it is an important link between the melody and the rhythm. And sometimes composers start by laying out the baseline as a foundation track. Over the years, he got an opportunity to play as a bassist in an amateur band and we would try to recognize the baseline in the show – sometimes with success and sometimes without. When Kabir practiced some solo pieces, we recognized it sounded similar to the interludes in the TV show “Seinfeld”.

Then I looked at the music I am more familiar with – Indian classical music. And I realized that the drone (Tanpura) which mostly plays two notes (base note and the fifth note) acts as a baseline or a reference line for the music. Looks like baseline is there in most music forms whether it is Jazz, Western classical or even Bollywood numbers. Then why do I find it hard to hear it? Because my ears are trained to follow the melody, drums etc. – essentially things which are in the foreground. Baseline is mostly in the background. And so much of our attention is grabbed by the foreground that very little is left for the background. However, once we start paying attention to the background, we begin to hear it.

Now, let’s extend this baseline test to life in general. As I type this article on my laptop, I can hear a few kids playing outside, birds chirping, honking of cars and our apartment’s Genset making a Grrrrrr sound (Power outage is a routine stuff in Bangalore). Most of these sounds are part of the background and I am not aware of them when the attention is completely hijacked by the thought process.

When I sit in the dining area, there are two sounds which I can hear only when things are quiet – both in the room and inside my head. One is the humming of the refrigerator. And two, the ticking of a small clock. What is the ultimate baseline test? To check whether you can hear your own breathing. It is very soft. But sometimes, perhaps at night when I am lying down in the bed, I can hear it.

Why is the baseline test useful? Because it indicates whether the attention is completely taken up by thought process or not. And that leftover attention holds the key to bringing sanity in life. It has the potential to see the irrationality or wastefulness of the thought process.

When do you apply the baseline test? Well, whenever you can steal a moment. For example, when you are about to start your meal, you can take a moment to see what you can hear. When you are about to start a meeting in the office or about start your car or scooty or when you are taking a walk etc.  Perhaps you will figure out your own moments of taking baseline-test.

From time to time, ask yourself, “Can I hear the baseline?”

Catch yourself getting LOST in wasteful thinking

Typical human condition is described as being “lost in thought”. Majority of these thoughts are wasteful. i.e. they don’t serve any useful purpose. Is there a way to know if your current thought is wasteful? Perhaps there is no exact formula. However, I found the checklist characterized by L-O-S-T (L – Label, O – Ownership, S – Story, T – Time) useful. It doesn’t mean that every thought involving a label or a story is wasteful. However, it is a good candidate for a quick check - “Is this thought serving a useful purpose?” This article presents this checklist using illustrations from famous movies.

L (Label): Be it a movie or our life, we are in the habit of labelling people and situations. “Good-bad” and “Right-wrong” are the two most commonly used labels. When we label someone or a situation as bad, perhaps we are pointing to some characteristics or behaviour which may be inappropriate. For example, Nobel Laureate John Nash discovered that calling names to Government serves no useful purpose. And he stopped feeding those thoughts.

Social psychology tells us that most of our behaviour is influenced by the context and the culture. “Context is king” as they say. The responses to a contextual situation, such as “someone shouting at us” is almost always automatic and reflexive – deeply embedded in the neural synapses. When labelling becomes an obsession – i.e. you derive your sense of self-worth by labelling someone repetitively, say “wrong” – it serves no useful purpose. Check it out for yourself.

O (Ownership): In this famous dialogue in the Bollywood film Deewar, Shashi Kapoor is telling Amitabh Bachchan “Mere paas Maa hai” meaning – “I have mother”. “You may have a big house and a car but I am richer than you”. The popularity of this dialogue points to a deeply held belief in the culture that relationships are more precious that material stuff. Perhaps it is true, but the habit of doing account balance of what I own and comparing it with what you own doesn’t serve any useful purpose whether it is a relationship or a car. Test it. (image: ndtv.com)

S (Story):  We all love stories. When it is a rags-to-riches story like “Slumdog millionaire”, nothing like it. In fact, we are all spinning stories in our head all the time. Many times the story has a general theme of “complaining” – and it also has a victim that is – yourself. The story is telling how the world or a specific person is unfair to you and you are asking, “How can he say or do something like that to me?” etc. Sometimes the story is about “justification”. It is telling how I did the right thing in that situation even though some people may feel otherwise. Sometimes the story has a general theme of “worrying”. The mind is spinning out several future scenarios where something is going wrong. If used judiciously, it points to useful actions. But then the spinning wheel takes over and action is left far behind. It is good to check if the current thought pattern is spinning a story without any action. (image: slumdogmillionairemovie.co.uk)

T (Time): How we wish we could go back in time Like Marty McFly in “Back to the future” and change something we did in the past. Unfortunately, we haven’t figured out a way to do it so far. That doesn’t mean we live mostly in the present. In fact, we end up time traveling all the time. When we are worrying, we travel to a future moment. When we are in the guilt mode, we go back in time.  Sometimes we are leaning-forward, i.e. we are only a few seconds ahead, for example, when we are opening a door, we are already in the next room. Opening the door is just a means to an end. Sometimes, we are years ahead, visualizing the good times after graduation, or after retirement etc.  Whenever the current thought is about past or future, it is a good candidate to test for usefulness. (image: Cineplex.com)

In short, L-O-S-T (Label, Ownership, Story, Time) provide a quick checklist to test whether your current thought is useful or wasteful. Hope you find checklist useful.

Source:

The checklist is derived from Eckhart Tolle’s “9 ways of losing oneself in egoic thought patterns”, Nov 8, 2014

Rewarding innovation: process vs outcome

Tata Nano is one of the several stories that figure in our book “8 steps to innovation”. Nano received various innovation awards including the prestigious Edison award in 2010. Unfortunately, it hasn’t seen the market success yet. Does it mean that the decision to give innovation awards to Nano was poor or incorrect? Let’s explore this question in this article using Daniel Kahneman's lecture titled "The science of decision" delivered to the Pentagon (see the video above). 

Let’s begin with what Kahneman calls the key feature of decision making under uncertainty. “The key feature”, Kahneman says, “is that there is no perfect correlation between the quality of decisions and quality of outcomes. You could make a good decision and fail and you could make a bad decision and succeed.” (12:18) But then why are we so outcome obsessed?

Well, because we can’t help seeing it that way (15:15). We intuitively feel that if something ended well, it was done well. And if something ended badly, somebody must have goofed. The fundamental bias in operation here is called “hindsight bias”. Once the outcome appears e.g. that Tata Nano hasn’t had a success in the market, our model of the world changes. It starts looking obvious that the “cheap car” publicity was doomed to fail. We tend to evaluate the decision such as the Tata Motors’ decision to invest in Nano based on our current model of the world. And we find it extremely hard to evaluate the decision with the model of the world that existed before the decision.

Hindsight bias leads to another bias called “outcome bias” (19:30). This means we judge a decision on whether the outcome was a success or failure. This has significant implications. When we give innovation awards, we may be promoting daredevil gamblers rather than smart decision makers. More importantly, we may be losing good people because we may be punishing them for the failed outcomes in spite of their good decisions. So what should we do?

Kahneman suggests that we should focus on the process and not on the outcome when we judge a decision (13:28). Was the right process followed at the time of the decision? For example, was the investment decision based on a robust set of questions like Real-Win-Worth-it. An idea which comes out as the most promising idea through the scrutiny of such a process may eventually fail for factors not known at the time of the decision. That shouldn’t change the quality of the decision.

Kahneman also suggests that a good process of making decisions should ideally involve de-biasing steps, sort of corrective steps. For example, we can look at cost or time overruns for a similar project in estimating cost or duration (30:20). Or we could perform a project pre-mortem and bring out various reasons why this idea may not work etc (31:45).

Some companies recognize this and give rewards for smart failures. For example, P&G has in the past given “President’s fail-forward award” and Tata Group gives “Dare to try” award for smart failures from which significant learning has come out.

So, was the decision to award Tata Nano poor? Not necessarily. It depends whether the award was given after evaluating the process of making key decisions in developing Tata Nano. Not on whether Tata Nano succeeds in the market or not.

An idea presentation template based on a 2 minute pitch by The Wand Company founders

A lot of people talk about “Elevator pitch”. But can I really present my idea in 2 minutes? If so, how? Is there a template we can use for such a pitch? In this article I would like to present a template with the help of a 2 minute pitch given by Richard and Chris, The Wand Company founders to investors in the TV show Dragons Den. This template is an extension of an earlier template based on Steve Jobs’ iPod launch speech in 2001.

The pitch by Richard and Chris has all the three elements from the iPod-speech-template - viz. Why-What-How - Why magic market? What is real magic wand? How does it work? However, the pitch has two unique characteristics. One, it gets over in less than 2 minutes (1 minute and 40 seconds). And two, the presentation includes a fourth element – the Ask viz. How much investment do we need from you? Both, the timing and the ask, I feel, are very important aspects of an idea pitch. Here is how it looks.

Let’s briefly look at the four elements:

1.      Why magical products? This has two parts – First, why magic market? How big is it? Etc. They say, “Magic market, fantasy market is huge - Hundreds of millions of people spending billions of pounds each year.” The second part is: Why should we play in this market? They say, “We thought with our combined experience of over forty years of design, development, electronics development we will make some really magical products.” This part took 35 seconds.

2.      What is the product? This is the shortest of the four elements and takes only 15 seconds. They say, “Our first product is a real magic wand. And this is it (shows the wand). It looks pretty much as you expect for a wizard’s wand. And the real magic wand should actually do something. And so with this wand, I can…” And the demo starts.

3.      How does it work? (demo) This part is the longest – 35 seconds – where they demo the product. How it works on a music player, a TV and on a light.

4.      How much investment do we need? In this part they mention when they started the company, how many units have been sold and with the help of the investors how much revenue they can achieve in three years. The exact amount of investment they are looking for is something they mention upfront at the beginning of the presentation itself. Together this part might be around 20 seconds.

Which parts are tricky in this?  First, I think idea presenters need to watch out for the balance between “What” and “How”. They tend to spend more time explaining what the product is about instead of product doing the talking through a demo. Second, idea presenters don’t come prepared with “the Ask” – an important aspect of the last element “How much”.

If you plan a longer presentation, you can include your answer to the first question – What technology does it use? in the “What” part (part-2). This is what Steve Jobs does in the iPod launch speech.

Hope you find it useful.

Metaphors from "Thought as a system"

Metaphors from thought as a system from vpdabholkar

I am a fan of David Bohm’s book “Thought as a system” and I am also convinced of the power of metaphors in communicating abstract ideas. In this presentation I have tried to bring the metaphors from the book “Thought as a system” to the foreground in explaining the key concepts.

Concepts like consciousness, God, incoherence are highly abstract. Could metaphors help in understanding them? Personally, I have found them useful. Perhaps you may find them useful too. Happy to hear from you.

If you find this presentation useful, you may also like a related presentation: “The Matrix as a system vs Thought as a system” which compares “Thought as a system” to the sci-fi movie “The Matrix”

Learning mindfulness through “Penn and Teller: Fool us” magic show

I was introduced to the popular magic show “Penn and Teller: Fool us” by our son Kabir. In this TV show, the young and the old magicians perform their best tricks in Las Vegas and try to fool the mighty magic duo Penn and Teller. In case you have not seen already, I urge you to check out the video clip above in which Shawn Farquhar, a world champion in card magic, fools Penn and Teller. In this article, I would like to explore how this magic show can help us understand a seemingly unrelated area – mindfulness.

Let’s bucket the audience of this show (including those watching it on TV) into three categories. First, “This-is-real” category: These guys – perhaps mostly kids – might confuse the magic act as if it were happening for real. If a man gets cut into two, they might get frightened. My wife remembers carrying Kabir out of the theatre while watching Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone because he started crying. My parents tell similar stories about me. That’s This-is-real category.

Second, “Fooled-but-aware” category: These guys are enjoying the show and they have no clue how they are getting fooled. However, they carry awareness that they are getting fooled while the drama is unfolding. For example, they don’t cry when Penn acts as though a knife has entered his chest.

Third, “Not-fooled” category: Penn and Teller and many other magicians around the world also enjoy the drama but most of the time they know exactly when the sleight of hand is doing the trick. If they get fooled, as in this case of Shawn Farquhar, they are more aware what they don’t know. Just to summarize, the three categories are: This-is-real, Fooled-but-aware and Not-fooled.

Now let’s imagine another magic show called “Perception and Thought: Fool us” which is run by two fictional characters called Perception and Thought (P&T). Between the two Thought is the real magician. Perception is more of an orator and showman. Thought is working mostly behind the scene. Sometimes he turns a rope into a snake and adds a scary music in the background. Sometimes he turns a person from another religious community into an enemy and plays villain-is-coming type jingle. While working backstage Thought has access to a vast amount of memory most of which nobody else can see. There are times when Thought is not doing much though and Perception is just showing things as they are – the table, the chair, the mountain, the trees etc. I guess you get the idea.

Now most of us when we are not mindful we belong to the first category - This-is-real. We treat the drama put up by the duo Perception and Thought (P&T) as real. For example, when the boss shouts, we get upset, when kids throw tantrums we get irritated, when we read about war, corruption and rape we get angry-sad etc. We follow what Daniel Kahneman calls WYSIATI rule – What You See Is All There Is.

When we are mindful, we are more like the Fooled-but-aware category. When boss looks angry or upset, we consider the possibility that it could be just our imagination – as Thought might have fooled us. Or when boss shouts at us, we consider the possibility that he might have had a bad day and not because he is a bad person or because I am incompetent. Since a mindful person carries awareness that Thought may be fooling him, he doesn’t hold onto an opinion too strongly. He carries an openness to change the opinion if such evidence shows up.

A mindfulness Master is more like Penn and Teller. He is also entertained by the show like others but differs from the first two categories in following ways. First, he is extremely alert while watching the show. Second, he knows exactly when Thought is playing the tricks most of the time. Third, he carries deep appreciation and marvel at what is possible in the drama of life. And fourth, he is willing to share his knowledge of the Thought-tricks with those interested.

Now, how can we use this metaphor for learning mindfulness? First, we can learn from Fooled-but-aware category of audience. As most of our attention is consumed by the drama, perhaps we can keep some attention for the awareness that  Thought may be fooling us. When it comes to defending a belief, perhaps we can consider the fact that part of the belief may be Thought created. That may help us keep the door a little open while listening to others.

Second, like how magicians are learning from Penn and Teller, we can learn from spiritual masters as they explain the places where Thought plays the tricks. For example, in this skype call, when Nick asks Eckhart Tolle, “If I don’t worry about things, how will I pay my bills?” Eckhart suggests him that the question itself might contain an error. That means Thought has played some trick even before you create the question, perhaps introduced an incorrect assumption of necessity i.e. worry is absolutely necessary. The challenge here is to figure out who is an authentic spiritual master and who is not. And wisdom of crowd is not always trustworthy.

Third, you can use the technique that magicians are using in today’s YouTube-world to learn. In the video clip above, Penn points out that it wasn’t difficult for them to spot the deck-switch. Well, we can do the same by running the video in slow motion and see when the card deck gets switched. For example, replay the video between 2:35 and 2:40 and see how Shawn might have brought out a brand new deck from the pocket. Of course, Penn admits they have no clue how Shawn got Penn’s card in the new deck.

Similarly, as David Bohm points out in “Thought as a system”, we can do the same by pressing the button when we are relatively undisturbed i.e. bringing out the thought ourselves that creates negative emotions in us. For example, we can think about boss while he is not in front of us and watch the chain reaction in our body-mind. Watching the Perception & Thought show while a negative emotion is arising is like watching Shawn between 2:35 and 2:40. We can press the button again and again and see how the whole process functions especially in slow motion.

In short, we can use “Penn and Teller: Fool us” metaphor to learn mindfulness by being Fooled-but-aware, by learning thought-tricks from spiritual masters and by pressing the button that springs negative emotions and watching the show in slow motion.

Related articles:

“3 powerful illusions created by thought” June 18, 2015

“Mindfulness on the go: A short intro to a 2-day workshop” A YouTube video