Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

General Qs and my replies to them - Part 33

Q: Is it good to think and understand with your mind or heart?

Krishna: These differences you think exist are entirely based on our perception.

A heart doesn't think. Only your brain thinks.

So why do people say think and understand with your heart?

What they really mean is think with emotions like love, empathy , affection, caring and biases too to some extent if they say think with your heart.

But don't emotions arise in your mind too? Isn't a mind involved with emotions too? It is ,undoubtedly.

So I think you can't differentiate between thinking with a heart and thinking with a mind as far as emotions are concerned.

Then why do people say that?

They should tell you why!

But the main difference is mind thinking is rationally and logically thinking and heart thinking is emotionally thinking.

The main difference between heart and mind is that the heart, figuratively, is believed to be related with the emotional sentiments while the mind is believed to be related mostly with rational thinking.

For instance if you see a child beggar, if you are a 'heart thinker' you immediately feel pity and give some money to him. If you are a 'mind thinker', you think he could waste money on drugs, alcohol or other useless things and just buy him some food. Or take him to a government run school or a training centre and join him there to get training that would help him feed himself.

My thinking is different. I won't say think with your heart or think with your mind.

I would rather say think critically , not ordinarily. Critical thinking is the best any day.

Now how do you think critically? Read here how: critical thinking

Q: Is thinking with heart wrong?

Krishna: Not completely wrong. But you can have difficulties with 'heart thinking' people. Let me give you a couple of examples.

One of my friends is very good. She loves everybody, highly religious but very emotional - heart-thinking person.

This type of persons love you very much when you 'keep them in good spirit' but as soon as something happens that they can't bear, you have to see their emotions to believe their vulnerability! Let me give you an example of one situation I had experienced with her.

Some time back she invited me to a function in her house. I couldn't attend it because of a very important work I had. She got very frustrated. When heart thinking people get into these situations, they can't think clearly. They don't try to see things clearly, listen to others and their difficulties, refuse to see things from others' view points and say things that would make you very uncomfortable.

Yes, she literally said such things to me. I had to cajole her and plead with her to understand my situation and tell her I was as disappointed as she was.

In a similar situation, I would have understood the difficult circumstance my friend was in, said 'that's ok, I can understand' and forgotten all about it the same moment.

Heart thinking people sometimes make things difficult for you. They love you too much and they fight with you too much too for simple reasons. It is a bit strenuous and time consuming to deal with them.

Because they take everything to heart.

Another good example : fans of movie and TV actors. They think with their hearts and not brains. The moment you say something about the bad behaviour of their heroes, they start bashing you. They fight among themselves, troll fans of other heroes, and think all that their heroes do - even killing people and abusing old and the young - both in the movies and out side of them - is right!

I have seen it with my own eyes - fans supporting the heroes even when they abuse their mothers, fathers, and wives! And how 'heart-thinking' makes people completely stupid!

I can never imagine myself doing it, no matter how much I love somebody. I can never support anybody so blindly.

That is the difference between heart thinking and brain thinking - I mean thinking with emotions and critical thinking.

Q: Can we correct the elders?

Krishna: :) I do this with regard to science!

Most of my relatives, friends' parents and even some of my professors sometimes think pseudo-science is real science!

Whenever I see /hear/read something stupid with regard to science, I try to correct people who do/say / write such things. Even if they are my uncles, aunties, professors, friends parents' or relatives!

Misinformation should be stopped at any cost. It will harm people.

When we are doing it for the good of the societies we live in, yes, we can correct elders too.

But to do this, you have to be very confident about yourself and your source of knowledge.

Being right and wrong doesn't depend on age. It depends on your knowledge and how you analyse something with it. People believe elders will 'always be right' because they are very experienced and youngsters mostly wrong because they lack as much experience as the older people.

Experience doesn't always teach you the right things if you don't have the right knowledge or the capacity to analyse things critically. You can interpret your experience wrongly too and believe it is true!

If somebody with lots of knowledge and critical thinking abilities corrects me and if I think the correction is right, I feel happy even if the person who corrected me is younger to me. Because that makes me more wiser.

Q: I know you have lots of knowledge. But have you ever encountered a situation where you too felt you were ignorant?

Krishna: I work with the best brains in the world. Scientists, professors, and researchers of all kinds. I will have to keep up with them - otherwise, they don't accept me as their colleague! I won't be able to work with them if I don't have as much knowledge as they have. So I try to be a good learner whenever I am with them.

Even then sometimes I feel inadequate. I feel this mostly when I am with physicists and mathematicians. Because my field is microbiology. As a science communicator I should have knowledge in all the fields of science. I have some knowledge in all the fields of science. But I don't have as much knowledge as these physicists and mathematicians have in their fields. So I try to learn. I ask questions. I literally become a student when I am with them.

You should have tremendous knowledge to even know the depth of your own ignorance. I know the depth of my ignorance.

And I am trying my best to erase the gap between the best minds in these fields and my mind with regard to knowledge.

I literally torture my brain a lot to attain this parity. My mind goes haywire and I make several mistakes too.

But who cares? You have to lose something to gain something.

What consoles me is these best brains say they feel 'very ignorant' when they deal with microbiology!

Hmmm!

A person cannot be an expert in all the fields of science. But we try to learn as much as possible from one another.

So, yes, is the answer to your question.

Q: Ma'am, we are a group of college students. Very interested in scientific research. Can we do research?

Krishna: Why not? If you can follow the scientific method correctly, you too can do research.

But first learn how to do research. Take guidance from your professors. Follow all the rules of scientific method.

If you find something interesting, publish it in a genuine science journal.

Q: Why does science ask us to see things exactly as they are?

Q: What is the difference between the scientific world and artistic world with regard to human behaviour?

Krishna: Because not seeing things as they are is living in a pseudo-world, in an illusionary world.

If you think day and night are caused by Sun God running around in his seven horse driven chariot and not the Earth's rotation on its axis, isn't that a wrong interpretation of things happening around? What is the use of such illusionary beliefs?

See and understand things exactly as they are. This is the only one that benefits you, not an illusion!

The main difference I found between the scientific world and artistic world is that the latter is emotions-driven and the former is rationality driven.

Recently I accidentally watched an interview with an actor on TV when I visited my friend's place. The anchor praised the actor endlessly using all superlatives from beginning to the end. The actor was very pleased. Then I realized the anchor was aiming at some benefit.

Like I guessed, in the end the anchor asked the actor to take a selfie with her and share it with his fans live saying that he loved her shows! And he obliged!

Promoting herself! That is what the art world is!

I can never imagine doing this myself. I cannot praise someone if I don't really feel it! I cannot oblige someone just because he or she praises me. I refused to do favors falling for flattery several times. People who realized this left me too. I can see through these games people play.

No scientist will recommend your paper while peer-reviewing just because you praised him/her.

No genuine scientist will say your work is excellent if it is not!

The work should speak in a scientific world, not emotions!

That is what I like about the scientific world. No artificiality. No fakeness.

Well most of it.

The art world makes me very uncomfortable sometimes.

Q: Have you ever met someone for the first time and got the strongest feeling that the person was bad?

Krishna: Yes, I did get the feeling that some people were not good just by having a few words with them in the past. And my feelings turned out to be true - not because I have some paranormal abilities.

The way people use some words, the way they talk tells a lot about them. By carefully analyzing what they say over and over again you can become an expert in identifying their personalities. Then you can easily identify a 'bad' person just by having a single conversation.

Yes, some people try to ‘fake’ good behaviour. Let me assure you, this faking gives more clues about them and these people reveal more than those who don’t imitate good people.

If you are a keen observer and analyser, you can differentiate good people from the dangerous ones.

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A student sent me this message after reading my articles:

Dear mam, I was in class 12 when I first read about your articles on scientific thinking and the scientific method. In all honesty, I have truly been intellectually watered by you. I always looked forward to reading from men & women of scientific temper, especially those who contribute to societal progress by shaping our thoughts and correcting our mistakes. I have read many articles by you and am looking forward to more.

But what upsets me is that my family is not scientifically inclined and deeply drowned in pseudoscientific thinking. Their friends further add mud to puddle. Trying to discuss with them translates into disrespect. Worse of all, it is completely unacceptable in my Indian family that a junior may try to correct the views of her seniors. Alas, I will never bend to their weaknesses but it is also very unsettling to me that, it seems that they remain blissfully well in their distorted thinking (and thus practices) because even if they are wrong, atleast they have the privilege of being wrong with everyone else.

And this was my reply:

Hello, N, glad to hear from you.

Happy to note that you are benefitting by my articles. Keep reading them by clicking on the below link:

SCI-ART LAB

You told me you ‘re upset by your family which is not scientifically inclined. But we must understand that most people in our societies are culturally, traditionally, religiously and emotionally conditioned.

It is difficult for these types of people to “decondition themselves and relearn things” because they cannot come out of their comfort zones and forego the emotional support they get from their families/groups/friends and relatives. We have to deal with them very carefully and show them an alternate support system -

scientific world - which is the right and realistic one. However, science is not easy to analyse and understand like the grandma stories people are used to listening to.

That is the difficulty. That is why we are working with science communication projects to help these types of people. Don’t worry, we are progressing slowly but steadily.

“The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write. It will be those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”

- Alvin Toffler in Future Shock

Next Q: Can we correct the elders?

Yes, I do this with regard to science!

Most of my relatives, friends' parents and even some of my professors sometimes think pseudo-science is real science!

Misinformation should be stopped at any cost. It will harm people.

When we are doing it for the good of the societies we live in, yes, we can correct elders too.

But to do this, you have to be very confident about yourself and your source of knowledge.

Thanks for your messages. Keep them coming.

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