Neural circuits create our desires, feelings, and behavior—stained with the possibility of self-destruction and deception—and, once sculpted by socio-genetic forces, neural wiring resists reform for good, like a stone.
New minds mimic what is popular, and soon ideological software becomes neural hardware, never to be uninstalled. However, what is popular can be problematic. To prevent the collapse of civilization or its citizens, coddled or confused minds are not the best choice. Instead, curiosity and competence can be instilled before adulthood sets in.
All functional companies and countries eventually face decline or chaos, while individuals grapple with suicide, substance abuse, and other self-destructive behaviors. Not all broken institutions can be repaired, and it is often easier to avoid bad habits than to break them.
When problems cannot be solved, prevention often becomes feasible through strategies adept at navigating the complexities of underlying systems. By addressing the pitfalls of biological computation as life forces interact with the interfaces of reality, Neural Stone aspires to offer innovative ideas to define and defend both individual and institutional well-being.
Several new theories have been proposed, accompanied by fresh definitions for some of the most common and critical concepts such as God, religion, reality, science, facts, purpose, motivation, emotion, happiness, and philosophy, among others.
Numerous books have been authored, with the inaugural title, 'Cognitive Fitness,' achieving bestseller status in both India and the US, and appearing in Amazon India's 'Editor's Picks' and 'New and Notable' lists. A new edition with a chapter on AI is in preparation. The current edition is available in selected markets.
'Cognitive Fitness' delves into enhancing individual cognitive competence and efficiency, enabling one to navigate and perform effectively amidst adversity and complexity. The remaining volumes explore the computational challenges inherent in biological systems as genes interact with other life forms, modern technology, and the enigmatic fabric of existence.
Neural Stone strives to ask and answer some fundamental questions related to individuals and institutions, and a few of these are listed below.
Individuals
- Why do brains prefer to follow what is popular in society, and are there any consequences of such computational ease?
- Why do the initial years of life matter the most, and why is change difficult or just impossible later in life?
- Why can a billion minds believe the ideas of one mind and act on them too, under the delusion of free will?
- How do evil ideas continue to live from one mind to another and create avoidable suffering across generations?
- Why are schools failing our kids and us, and why can even the best minds in the best universities just parrot popular propaganda?
- Why is self-destruction common in humans but not in other animals, and why have science and technology accelerated it?
- Can we protect new minds from the dangers of ideological indoctrination and develop the ability to think independently?
- In the era of artificial general intelligence, how can we cultivate in our children the ability to harness their innate biological intelligence to acquire new knowledge and skills, voluntarily or on demand?
- How do we protect kids from modern meaninglessness, existential confusion, hedonism, addictions, and mediocrity, and instead develop a will to live and contribute to the continuation of life?
Families
- Why are families falling apart across the world, and why is the birth rate plummeting?
- Why do hedonism, climbing the corporate ladder, and other pursuits now seem more popular than having children?
- How are the ambiguities of wanting and liking facilitating familial destruction?
- What should be the goals of families, and how can the work to fulfill the familial good be managed in the modern world?
- Why can't families rely on politicians and elites to do what is best for their children?
- How are mobile phones and other computing devices negatively impacting families, and how can we prevent and manage the damage?
- Why is formal education outdated, often mediocre, and highly susceptible to propaganda, and how is it affecting families?
- How has the popular politics of division infiltrated homes, and how is it now dividing families?
Organizations
- Why don't companies last, and why do they lose their edge over time?
- How does neural computation distort reality and lead to the decline of functional organizations?
- Why is access to resources alone insufficient for the long-term excellence of institutions?
- How can the goals of individuals within a company be aligned, given the uniqueness of each mind?
- How can we address the ambiguities of motivation and the biases and heuristics of nervous systems to ensure that employees feel motivated to come to work?
Civilizations
- Why do we fight?
- Why are biological and ideological conflicts different, and why does the distinction matter?
- Why do social solutions become problems and lead to the self-destruction of highly functional social systems?
- Why are social systems extremely complex to manage, and why do they eventually collapse?
- Why do popular ideas fail to address the underlying socio-genetic complexity?
- How do politicians use the immutable, inherent inequalities of life to gain and hold on to power, and how do we reason through it?
- How can we run new social experiments without breaking what is working?
- When current constitutions are failing to preserve the developed world, what fundamental changes should be introduced in future founding documents?
Artificial Intelligence
- Are we heading for another conflict, this time between carbon and silicon intelligences?
- What are the effects of AI being trained on data created by humans?
- What will be the goal of future superintelligence?
- What if future intelligence treats humans the way humans treat animals?
- How can the biological and ideological goals of neural circuits align with those of neural networks?
- With abundance within reach, will we ever learn to stop fighting?
- Why is an information-processing-first philosophy more critical now than ever?
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