In the 1980s, something mysterious happened across Central Valley, California. Many young people were admitted to the hospital for what looked like Parkinson's Disease, yet wasn't.

Parkinson's is a neurodegenerative disease in which people lose control of their motor movements, speech, and sometimes even cognition. It's a slow and progressive disease that generally affects the elderly, over 60 years of age.

So it intensely puzzled doctors to see young people show these symptoms.

Turns out, it had to do with a mistake that happened in a "street" laboratory that was trying to make a compound called MPPP, which is an opioid drug.

Drug addicts desperate to get their hands on some heroin went out and bought what they thought was MPPP. Sadly, what they consumed was MPTP.

That single letter made all the difference.

While MPPP is an opioid drug, MPTP is a compound that primarily kills dopamine-producing neurons in the brain in a region called the substantia nigra.

So, by consuming MPTP, these poor drug addicts rapidly killed the dopamine-producing neurons in their brain, leading to early onset Parkinson's and even paralysis in some.

The Rise of Dopamine

Photo Courtesy: Elliana Esquivel

Dopamine was first described by George Barger, James Ewens, and Henry Dale in 1910 as an adrenaline-like compound.

But, it was mostly ignored by mainstream science for the next 40 years, until a few researchers demonstrated that dopamine was separate from adrenaline. Specifically, one researcher named Arvid Carlsson conducted a series of landmark experiments in which he paralyzed rabbits by blocking dopamine transmission in their brains, and then fully recovered them back with the injection of a compound called L-DOPA that produces dopamine in brains. Through this, he showed that dopamine was critical for self-initiated movement.

A similar effect was quickly reproduced by Oleg Hornykiewicz and collaborators in human Parkinsonian patients.

Within a few years, dopamine jumped from relative obscurity to being critical for life as we know it.

Today, dopamine is perhaps the most popular of all neurochemicals, with terms like dopamine hit and dopamine detox regularly spotted in headlines.

What Does Dopamine Hit Really Mean?

The term dopamine hit is thrown around for anything and everything involving immediate pleasure. Checking Instagram? Dopamine hit. Eating ice cream? Dopamine hit. Opening an unexpected gift? Dopamine hit.

But, mainstream media ignores something critical while loosely using this term.

The dopamine hit you feel depends on both the baseline level of your dopamine and your previous dopamine "peaks".

When you open Instagram for the first time tomorrow, you will experience a dopamine hit. However, once you experience that hit, something interesting will happen in your brain: your dopamine level will fall below your baseline level. This means, if your baseline level was 40 before you checked Instagram, and went up to 75 while checking it, it will drop down to 30 when you move on to the next activity (Obviously, the numbers don't represent anything scientific). This happens because the readily releasable pool of dopamine in your brain gets depleted when you experience that peak.

When this drop happens, your brain needs some time to bring it back up to the baseline again.

Sadly, the world we live in today forces us to continue seeking dopamine hits without letting us take a break.

So we continue to seek that dopamine peak - by scrolling through social media or binge-watching a series on Netflix - without giving our brains the much-needed hiatus, thus continuing to drop our dopamine levels.

The extreme case of this leads to drug addiction, where the addict is forever in a loop, chasing that first high.

A Healthy Way to Produce Dopamine

Dopamine is the universal currency of seeking.

Seeking what?

Anything.

Food. Water. Sex. Pleasure.

Dopamine is the primary driver for us to seek things. So we just need to find a way to healthily produce dopamine in our brains that doesn't disrupt the baseline-peak balance. Below are some ideas:

• First, create an intermittent release of dopamine, as opposed to achieving a peak every time. Let's say your exercise routine involves first taking a caffeine shot, plugging in your favorite music, slipping into your favorite shirt, and then beginning to exercise. By doing the pre-ritual, you're adding more layers of pleasure to increase your dopamine levels. To make this more intermittent, you could not take the caffeine shot sometime, or not listen to music.

• Second, take a cold water shower in the morning: I know that sounds horrible, but tons of research has shown that exposing your body to cold water increases the dopamine levels in your brain slowly but surely, reaching almost 2.5 times above the baseline and slowly coming back down. Unlike the dopamine hit you feel with social media, this is a slow increase and decrease.

• Finally, engage in intermittent fasting: The longer you restrict yourself from a specific activity, the greater the dopamine experience when it's finally released. This also applies to eating. I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting by skipping dinner or eating just fruits. While I thought it would be hard initially, I realize it's not. And by telling myself that this is helpful, the effects of it go up more.

Hope that gave you some introduction to dopamine and its effects. I recommend watching this 2-hour podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman if you're the curious kind and want to dig in more! :)

The Library of Alexandria is oft quoted as one of the earliest, largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. Although the origins are unclear, the idea of it began when a wise man convinced Ptolemy I, a scholar and companion of Alexander the Great, to build a library that would house a copy of a book on every subject known to humankind. Ptolemy II carried forward this idea more obsessively by housing about a hundred scholars in the museum who spent all their time conducting research, writing, publishing, and making copies from other languages. But the nail on the coffin was hit by Ptolemy III.

One story goes that the hunger of Ptolemy III for knowledge was so great that he decreed that all ships docking at the port should surrender their manuscripts to the authorities. Copies were then made by official scribes and delivered to the original owners, the originals being filed away in the Library. — Ancient

An oft-quoted figure specifies that the library was the home to about 500,000 scrolls at the peak of its glory. This is why its inglorious destruction is still a heated debate among historians. But despite the loss of a voluminous amount of literature, we moved on.

We moved on to writing encyclopedias, building dedicated writing rooms, inventing the printing press, the telegraph, television, and in the most recent decades, building the internet, Wikipedia, and social media.

And now, we live in an age where the collective knowledge around the world doubles every 12 hours — a feat that took 400 years just over a century ago.

 Photo Courtesy: Anne-Laure

While the dissemination of information has gone through intense evolution, our brain has not. Our brain is still playing catch-up as we swim in a sea of irrelevant information.

Enough people have addressed this problem with information overload, including me when I wrote an entire guide on this topic. So now let's turn to a more solution-focused approach: monitoring our information diet.

I sat down to monitor and update my information diet a few weeks ago, and am still in the process. If you're also interested to do this, join me in this endeavor!

Monitoring Your Information Diet: 4 Steps

Photo Courtesy: Olga Hashim

Here are the four steps you can follow to monitor and update your information diet:

• Identify topics you want to learn about for the next 6 months: Since we're in the second half of 2022, think about up to four topics/areas you want to genuinely learn more about for the rest of the year. At first, I recommend simply writing down everything that comes to mind, and then stepping back to ask yourself, Okay, here's all the topics that interest me. But what do I want to learn about this year? Personally, the four areas I've narrowd down to are: (a) philosophy, (b) brain & the body, (c) mental models, and (d) mindfulness.

• Inspect & weed the current sources of information: Take a big ol' hand hoe and visit your current mind garden to inspect all the places from where you consume information. Take a look at your Kindle books, email newsletter subscriptions (including this one!), news websites, magazine subscriptions, and social media channels. Be merciless in weeding out the sources that don't pass the litmus test of Is this really worth my time? You can always bring it back if you start missing a certain newsletter, podcast, or magazine. It's not irreversible. Personally, I unsubscribed from most email newsletters save a few, returned the Kindle books that weren't interesting, and continued blocking my social media feeds.

• Identify & plant new sources of information: This is the fun part of this process! You get to plant new sources. You get to meander through the best parts of the internet and curate subreddits, blogs, websites, and newsletters that have genuinely worthwhile content. Don't rush this process. It's supposed to take time. In fact, it's a perennial one since you're a dynamic creature whose interests change. For now, focus on curating at least 3 sources for each topics that you can always rely on to supply good information. Furthermore, I also recommend creating a bucket called "People & Blogs" to curate the people whose content you'd like to stay updated on.

• Build a system around it: Finally, if you know me, you know I love systems. Systems override friction. They reduce cognitive load. In my case, I built 2 "systems" around my Information Diet: (a) a Notion page where I curated the links to all the topics I wanted to learn about. I set aside the top part of the page to drop links to what I want to read next. (b) I set aside the first 60-120 minutes of the day to sit down and read, think, and take notes. Until you set aside time to wander your mind garden, building it is useless. I'm sure you have your own systems where you like to curate links and set aside time to read. Just ensure you do this before you end this process.

As I mentioned earlier, I am still in the process, especially around curating links of the best sources under these topics. Eventually, I do plan to make my Notion page public so you can take a look at my mind garden.

I hope that gives you enough to start.

And I hope I make the cut when you begin weeding out your sources. ;)

This is a short note from my Roam Research second brain. Here's a free guide where I introduce you to Roam & Building A Second Brain. 

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Metadata of Note

Type: 🌰 Seed [Nomenclature present here.] Source: Credit Suisse Tags: #human intelligence #business #selfhelp Date: June 2nd, 2022

IQ vs RQ

Keith Stanovich, a professor of applied psychology at the University of Toronto, distinguishes between intelligence quotient (IQ) and rationality quotient (RQ).

Intelligence Quotient (IQ): Psychologists measure IQ through specific tests, including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and it correlates highly with standardized tests such as the SAT.

IQ measures something real, and it is associated with certain outcomes. For example, thirteen-year-old children who scored in the top decile of the top percent (99.9th percentile) on the math section of the SAT were eighteen times more likely to earn a doctorate degree in math or science than children who scored in the bottom decile of the top percent (99.1st percentile).

Rational Quotient (RQ): is the ability to think rationally and, as a consequence, to make good decisions. Whereas we generally think of intelligence and rationality as going together, Stanovich’s work shows that the correlation coefficient between IQ and RQ is relatively low at .20 to .35. IQ tests are not designed to capture the thinking that leads to judicious decisions.

Stanovich laments that almost all societies are focused on intelligence when the costs of irrational behavior are so high.

But you can pick out the signatures of rational thinking if you are alert to them. According to Stanovich, they include adaptive behavioral acts, efficient behavioral regulation, sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, and the proper treatment of evidence.

Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Berkshire Hathaway, equates IQ to the horsepower of an engine and RQ to the output. We all know people who are high on IQ but average or low on RQ. Their efficiency is poor. There are others without dazzling IQs but who consistently make sound decisions. They are highly efficient.

How I got here is pretty simple in my case. It's not IQ, I’m sure you'll be glad to hear. The big thing is rationality. I always look at IQ and talent as representing the horsepower of the motor, but that the output—the efficiency with which that motor works—depends on rationality. A lot of people start out with 400-horsepower motors but only get a hundred horsepower of output. It’s way better to have a 200-horsepower motor and get it all into output.

Research Study of Correctness vs Confidence

Here we present the results of a classic calibration test. Subjects who participated went to the website, http://confidence.success-equation.com, and saw 50 true-false questions. Exhibit 3 is a screenshot of the site.

The subjects then answered either true or false and were asked to register a probability of correctness, from 50 to 100 percent, in increments of 10 percentage points. If you have no idea whether the answer is true or false you should select an answer at random and enter “50%” as your probability of correctness. If you are certain of the answer you provide, you click “100%.”

We accessed the results of 1,985 participants, all of whom were anonymous.

Results of Study

Below is a distribution of someone's mean correctness vs their confidence.

Note that proper calibration does not require being right all of the time (the dot in the upper right-hand corner indicates that either someone cheated or a deity took the test) but rather being close to the 45-degree line. It’s knowing what you know and knowing what you don’t know.

The second exhibit shows how many participants were overconfident, underconfident, and well-calibrated. We define well calibrated as a subjective probability within 1 percentage point of the percent correct.

Based on that criterion, 82.7 percent of the participants were overconfident (subjective confidence exceeded actual percent correct), 11.7 percent were underconfident (subjective confidence less than actual percent correct), and only 5.6 percent were well calibrated.

Anosognosia

Dr. Joseph Babinski, a French neurologist, introduced a new term in the medical lexicon in 1914. Anosognosia.

It's derived from Greek and translates to "without disease knowledge."

He noticed something strange about the patients he was seeing. They were hemiplegic, i.e. completely paralyzed on the left side of their body, but were unaware of it or in complete denial.

It was as if the part of their brain that's supposed to talk to the body about illnesses was asleep, or destroyed.

Since Babinski introduced the neologism, it's been the focus of hundreds of scientific papers. Now, anosognosia is closely related to all sorts of degenerative diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Schizophrenia, and Dementia. People who suffer from it don't know that they're suffering from it.

In Babinski's patients with hemiplegia, the patients outright denied their paralysis because the mental representation of their left side of the body was absent. In their mind, they only have (and have always had) one side to their body: the right side.

Our Metaphorical Anosognosia

I was having lunch with someone -- we'll call him K -- one Friday afternoon.

K was introduced to me through a mutual connection.

He was a 25-year-old engineer working at Google. In between bites of roti and daal, he was telling me about his daily routine: Wake up at 7:30 AM, get ready and get to work by 9 AM, code for a few hours, take a break to have lunch at the Google cafeteria, continue working until 5 PM, take a quick caffeine boost, workout at the in-house gym at Google, have dinner again at the Google cafeteria, get home at 8 PM, watch television, and go to sleep. Rise and repeat all over again.

I listened quietly, and asked, "Sounds like a nice routine. Do you plan on working there for a few more years?"

He thought for a moment and responded, "Yeah. I am aiming to get promoted in the next 2 years. After that, I might move to another company." He paused and said, "Mostly a startup."

I prodded, curious, "So, is the eventual goal to build a company?"

"No no. The eventual goal is to make enough money so I never have to work again, and can travel wherever I want to."

"Ah, that's great. When do you think you'll reach that? In another 5 or 10 years?"

He responded, nonchalantly, "No, in 25 years."

What?!

I tried my best to hide my shock. I don't think I did a very good job.

"25 years? But... why though? You could take a sabbatical to travel next year if you wanted to. Is there a specific financial goal you're planning to hit?"

He said, still nonchalantly, "Hmm, I haven't really thought about a financial goal. I just thought it would take me 25 years to accumulate enough to never have to work again."

I couldn't help but ask, "Do you not enjoy your work? I'm curious why you said that again."

"I mean, I like it. But what gives me happiness is lying on a beach without having to worry about anything. I spent a month in Hawaii last year. And I felt the happiest when I was on the beach not having to worry about work."

"Would you not feel bored after a while though?"

"Maybe. But I want to work when I want to work. I want that agency."

The conversation went on for another 15 minutes. Eventually, both of us felt it was time to call it a day. I departed and took a walk to play back the dialogue between us.

25 years? Why does he think he needs to wait 25 years? He can quit or take a sabbatical now if he wanted to. Is fear stopping him? Or losing a sense of comfort? Whatever it is, I hope he does it sooner.

....

While you and I may not have a degenerative disease or lesions in our brain causing us to overlook paralysis, we too are metaphorically anosognosic.

We don't know that we have agency... until we do.

Agency

Its presence is little noted, but its absence causes great distress. -- Sundus

Agency is the sense of having control over one's actions and consequences.

The keywords in the above sentence are "the sense of." Agency does not equate to free will. Regardless of whether you have free will or not (which is a debate best shelved for another book), you can have agency by believing that you have control over your actions (and consequences). You don't wait for conditions to be just perfect to get what you want. And you don't believe that life just happens to you as you sit in the backseat of the car. No. You're the one driving it. I remember a few moments in my life when I felt agency flow through my bloodstream. One such moment happened on my third night in New York as a graduate student at Columbia University, I stayed back late at the university to work on an assignment. As I finished my work and looked up, the clock struck 4 AM. Gosh. I hurried up, stuffed my belongings into a small bag, and began walking home, which was only two blocks away, fortunately. But between those two blocks I realized that, for the first time in my life, I am able to walk home at 4 AM without fear, guilt, or nervous excitement. The university where I pursued my undergrad had a curfew, only for women. We couldn't walk outside the four walls of our hostel after 9 PM on a weekday, or 9:30 PM on a weekend. Things weren't much different when I was home with my parents. I had to give an elaborate reason if I were to stay out anywhere after 9 PM, with my parents checking on me. So my experiences of walking on the streets after 9 PM stemmed out of either a rebellious attitude to resist rules or an adventurous attitude to experience something novel. It never felt like I had agency. I was simply peeking into the window of what it could feel like. So walking home at 4 AM on my third night in a new country where walking that late felt like just another aspect of life (and even a little mundane) was... freeing. It filled me with a sense of agency, which until that moment, was alien to me. It was a feeling I didn't know I could experience, even though I was always capable of it. In a way, like the person K, I was metaphorically anosognosic too. Since then, I've experienced agency many more times: posting my first YouTube video, publishing my first book, launching my course, moving states within the U.S., a spontaneous trip to Hawaii, and quitting my job. In all those instances, I felt like it was me in control of my life. Nobody forced me to do these things. I did it of my own volition. I was driving the car (even if I didn't know how to at times). But even now, I can't say I have complete agency over my life because it's simply impossible. There will always be things that are out of my control. A nuclear war; the pandemic; a loved one passing away. So having agency also means accepting that fact, and knowing the difference between what is and isn't under your control.

And knowing that difference is a lifelong learning process.