The QLog

The Last Lecture

"We can not change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." - Randy Pausch

Former Disney Imagineer and Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch is an inspiring man at age 47. He is also dying from pancreatic cancer but you would not know from his enthusiasm for life. On September 18, 2007 he gave his 'last lecture' to a packed audience at McConomy Auditorium. Also, more recently, his new book The Last Lecture, was published and I do recommend it. However, I suggest that watching the original lecture should be mandetory for just about every adult at any age!

As someone who strives to enable the goals of others, I promise that if you choose to spend the full 76 minutes viewing this very enjoyable lecture, you will be well rewarded. It will help focus your thinking on what should be most important for your life: striving to acheive your dreams!

What Have You Forgotten?

On March 19th, the world lost writer and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke. You can see the farewell video that he recorded for his 90th birthday where he outlines his world-changing "three wishes" for humanity I hope they all are granted in the near future.   

Although Clarke is best well known for his science fiction novels such as Childhood’s End (which has been in print for 50-plus years and has generated over $25 million in revenue) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (plus the 1969 movie of the same name that he co-created with director Stanley Kubrick), he also wrote a technical paper that outlined the feasibility of a true global communication system in 1945 via satellites in geosynchronous orbit, a brilliant insight, some years before Sputnik. Twenty years later, Clarke wrote an interesting essay entitled "How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time" about this idea as he did not patent the the concept (yet, he points out, the patent itself would have expired by the time it would become economically viable anyhow).

I decided to re-read his classic novel Rendezvous with Rama and while I was immersed within his fictional universe, I discovered a great question, a motto of one of the characters, Karl Mercer: What Have You Forgotten?

Consider your current goals, projects, and tasks. What is missing? What is hiding? What have you overlooked? Is there an assumption you need to re-think, a variable you need to re-calculate? In other words, what have you forgotten?

Practice Makes Perfect, Part Two

Practice is Important; however, good feedback is the key!

After more research, Thorndike revised his original model some years later to include feedback as an essential ingredient. Without some metrics, it is virtually impossible to measure progress. Both negative and positive feedback loops are necessary to improve any skill over time. This is why students receive grades and professional athletes review their own performance after the game.

Practice Makes Perfect, Part One

Psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) offered the "Law of Exercise" which stated that "the more times a response is made in a given situation, the stronger it becomes. As a behaviorist, he suggested that stimulus-response associations are strengthened through repetition. This was an early idea about learning, based on animal studies.

In other words, he claimed that Practice Makes Perfect.

Question: is it really that simple?

Behavior as a Mirror of Self

"Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I posted the above quote last week and today I'd like to explore the idea with more depth.

Behaviors, unlike thoughts, are observable to other people. Although a witness will often not understand the reasons why someone acted a certain way, they will know how someone conducted their affairs. Your behavior is measurable and can be compared and contrasted in the following ways:

1. What you said you would do (consider the saying "actions speak louder than words").
2. What your peers or competitors are doing.
3. What others have done in similar situations in the past.

Bottom Line: External acts are the main way others judge our qualities as a human being. The summation of what we do, both small and grand, becomes the public record of our life.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

"Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image" - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Know-What

"There is one quality more important than "know-how" and we cannot accuse the United States of any undue amount of it.  This is "know-what" by which we determine not only how to accomplish our purposes, but what our purposes are to be." - Norbert Wiener (the founder of the interdisciplinary field of Cybernetics), The Human Use of Human Beings, 1954

Avoid the 7 + 1 Blunders of the World

Shortly before Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, have gave his grandson Arun Gandhi a short list of errors to avoid. Below is the wisdom he shared with him on their last afternoon together:

The Seven Blunders of the World 
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

After years of reflecting on his grandfather's life and work, Arun Gandhi added an eighth blunder:

8. Rights without responsibilities.

New Year's Resolutions, Part 2

I advocate Goals, Not Resolutions for the beginning of 2008. However, I do afford exceptions for a few special resolutions.

When a reporter asked Mahatma Gandhi what his message was the world, he simply replied "My life is my message." He also committed himself to the following resolutions:

"I will be truthful.
I will suffer no injustice.
I will be free from fear.
I will not use force.
I will be of good will to all."

These are noble and worthy life principles to re-affirm each new year. I do recommend embracing this set of resolutions.

Necessary and Sufficient Causes

A few more distinctions when considering causation include necessary and sufficient. 

What is a necessary cause?

Basically, this means that w must be present for v to occur. If w is a necessary cause of v, then the presence of w necessarily implies the presence of v; however, the reverse is not true by default. A phenomenon of v, however, does not imply that w occurs.

Example: Oxygen must be present for fire; however, the fact a room contains oxygen does not automatically imply that there is also a fire in the room.

What is a sufficient cause?

If x is a sufficient cause of y, then the presence of x necessarily implies the presence of y. However, another cause z may alternatively cause y. Thus the presence of y does not imply the presence of x.

Example: An election results in someone being elected President of a country; however, the fact a country has a President does not imply elections. In fact, a President might acheive power through a military coup.