The Splash of Wisdom

Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.) For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this and analyzing our answers. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents—reason was our Promethean gift—Kahneman and his scientific partner, the late Amos Tversky, demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe. When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the informati...

The law of Karma is a fundamental spiritual law in eastern spiritual teachings.  Most people would have heard of the term Karma. Karma basically stands for action, and also the fruits of action. In other words, it stands for both cause and effect. The basic idea of karma is that of personal responsibility for one’s actions - that we are creators of our life. Whatever is currently manifesting in our life has been created by us, with or without awareness, by our past actions. Thus the law of karma basically says that man is the product of his past. Righteous actions bring  favorable results, and unrighteous actions bring unfavorable results. Karma can be done with our mind - manifesting as emotions, with our intellect manifesting as thoughts and through our body manifesting as actions/words.             Karma is often misunderstood to only mean the  law of destiny. When something unfavorable happens, people say with “It’s only karma”, meaning w...

One day, the old wise Socrates walks down the streets, when all of the sudden a man runs up to him "Socrates I have to tell you something about your friend who..."  "Hold up" Socrates interrupts him "About the story you're about to tell me, did you put it trough the three sieves?" "Three sieves?" The man asks "What three sieves?" "Let's try it" Socrates says.  "The first sieve is the one of truth, did you examine what you were about to tell me if it is true?" Socrates asks. "Well no, I just overheard it" The man says.  "Ah, well then you have used the second sieve, the sieve of good?" Socrates asks "Is it something good what you're about to tell me?"  "Ehm no, on the contrary" the man answers.  "Hmmm" The wise man says "Let's use the third sieve then, is it necessary to tell me what you're so exited about?"  "No not necessary" t...

Ashok, a fresh computer graduate from a world-class University, goes for an interview in a software company. The interviewer is Sunder, a grubby old man. And the first question he asks Ashok is, `Are you good at logic?'  `Of course,' replies Ashok.  `Let me test you,' replies Sunder. `Two men come down a chimney. One comes with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one would wash his face?' Ashok stares at Sunder. `Is that a test in Logic?' Sunder nods  `The one with the dirty face washes his face', Ashok answers wearily. `Wrong. The one with the clean face washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So, the one with the clean face washes his face.' `Hmm. I never thought of that," says Ashok. `Give me another test.'  Sunder holds up two fin...