Peter Singer's child-in-the-pond argument goes like this: Imagine you are walking past a shallow pond and you notice a small child drowning in it. Would you ruin your favorite, quite expensive, pair of shoes in order to rush into the pond and save the child, or would you rather save your shoes and let the child drown? It is pretty obvious that only a sociopath would prioritize his shoes over a child's life. So far so good. But then comes the analogy: There are so many children all over the … [Read more...]
Is the Ego Useful?
To find out whether the ego is useful or not, we must first ask: useful for what? So let's see... Is the ego useful if you want to prevent others from walking all over you? No, the ego is not your spine, which would draw prudent boundaries. Rather, the ego is what overreacts when you are afraid that you might be perceived as weak. Maybe the ego is useful when you want to become successful? Well, for becoming successful the ego is not just useful, but necessary, because having … [Read more...]
Who Are You?
Who are you? If you have a ready answer, you are not in a state of mindcoolness. Because what could your answer be? Are you perhaps your status in society, your family role, your gender, your ethnicity, or your affiliation with some other group? Are you your skills, your hobbies, your occupation, your professional calling, your purpose in life? Maybe you are your values, your religion, your philosophy, your moral convictions, your political opinions? Or do you identify with your … [Read more...]
Egoism vs. Altruism: A Game-Theoretic Perspective
We can clearly define concepts like egoism, selfishness, and selfless altruism when we look at our everyday decisions from a game-theoretic perspective. Think of every possible interaction between people as a game where each party can either win or lose. This gives us the following grid with four possible outcomes: 1. Win-Win (Effectiveness) In a win-win situation, both you and the other group or person benefit from the interaction, and with your plus added to the other's plus, you get a … [Read more...]
A Psychological Motivation for Mindcoolness
Not matter how intelligent you are, you will still say and do stupid things to the extent that your mind is not cool. Only in a state of mindcoolness, unperturbed by distracting thoughts and emotions, can you access the full capacity of your intelligence. One prominent emotion that diminishes intelligence is anxiety, and it does so by restricting working memory capacity, which we need for processing information using complex cognitive operations, that is, for all tasks we typically associate … [Read more...]
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