David Brooks: Social Animal

Three insights:
1. While the conscious mind writes the autobiography of our species, the unconscious mind does most of the  work.

2. Emotions are at the center of our thinking. Emotions are not separate from reason, but they are the foundation of reason because they tell us what to value. Learning and educating your emotions is one of the central activities of wisdom. It is the central organizing process of the way we think. It tells us what to imprint. The brain is the record of the feelings of a life.

情感与理智并不是相悖的。情感是理智的基础，因为情感让我们知道什么值得我们去珍视。

3. We're not primarily self-contained individuals. We're social animals, not rational animals. We emerge out of relationships, and we are deeply interpenetrated, one with another. And so when we see another person, we reenact in our own minds what we see in their minds.


We are now children of the French Enlightenment. We believe that reason is the highest of the faculties. But I think this research shows that the British Enlightenment, or the Scottish Enlightenment, with David Hume, Adam Smith, actually had a better handle on who we are -- that reason is often weak, our sentiments are strong, and our sentiments are often trustworthy. And this work corrects that bias in our culture, that dehumanizing bias. It gives us a deeper sense of what it actually takes for us to thrive in this life. When we think about human capital we think about the things we can measure easily. What it really takes to do well, to lead a meaningful life, are things that are deeper, things we don't really even have words for.


The first gift, or talent, is mind-sight -- the ability to enter into other people's minds and learn what they have to offer. This is one skill of how to hoover up knowledge, one from another.

A second skill is equal poise, the ability to have the serenity to read the biases and failures in your own mind. Some people have the ability and awareness of their own biases, their own overconfidence. They have epistemological modesty. They are open-minded in the face of ambiguity. They are able to adjust strength of the conclusions to the strength of their evidence. They are curious. And these traits are often unrelated and uncorrelated with IQ.

The third trait is metis, what we might call street smarts -- it's a Greek word. It's a sensitivity to the physical environment, the ability to pick out patterns in an environment -- derive a gist. The third is what you might call sympathy, the ability to work within groups. And that comes in tremendously handy, because groups are smarter than individuals. And face-to-face groups are much smarter than groups that communicate electronically, because 90 percent of our communication is non-verbal. And the effectiveness of a group is not determined by the IQ of the group; it's determined by how well they communicate, how often they take turns in conversation. Then you could talk about a trait like blending.

And then the final thing I'll mention is something you might call limerence. And this is not an ability; it's a drive and a motivation. The conscious mind hungers for success and prestige.The unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence, when the skull line disappears and we are lost in a challenge or a task -- when a craftsman feels lost in his craft, when a naturalist feels at one with nature, when a believer feels at one with God's love.That is what the unconscious mind hungers for. And many of us feel it in love when lovers feel fused.

The Grammar of Society (Bicchieri 2006): Norms Matter p113

To infer another person's intention or motive, we consider not only the action chosen, but also the actions that were not chosen but, as far as we know,could have been chosen.

A deviation from equal sharing will be mainly due to:
(a) the presence of appropriate and acceptable justifications for taking more than an equal share
(b) the shift to a very different script that involves different roles and expectations.

Moral Wiggle Room (Dana, Weber and Kuang 2007)

Binary dictator game: transparent vs. non-transparent treatments

Baseline: X: dictator Y: receiver

Hidden Information:
X can choose to reveal or not the payoff of Y


Multiple Dictator:
X,Y: dictators
Z: receiver
Only both X and Y choose fair outcome, fair outcome appears


Plausible deniability
X can choose not to make a decision by being cut-off. Y doesn't know whether the action is chosen by X or randomly chosen.

Deliberational Route vs. Heuristic Route

Bicchieri (2006, p4) proposed that human beings have two decision routes: deliberational route and heuristic route. We make most of our decisions by the heuristic route, without spending too much time and mental effort. We know how tiring it is to monitoring one’s thoughts, and it must be suffocating to deliberate before each action. The existence of the heuristic route is an evolutionary advantage, because attention is a scarce resource for us, and we’d better use it where it is needed most. Hence, we do not gauge the costs and benefits of each available action under the constraints before reaching a decision. We use simple and useful heuristics, we follow social norms and conventions, and we conform to moral standards. These norms and standards and rules are so inherent in our life that under most circumstances we make decisions without too much thinking.

We don’t make decisions the way neoclassical economists assume. We seldom, if not never, look forward and check the possibility of each outcome of each action, then calculate costs and benefits using backward induction before taking an action.

Deliberational routes when we encounter new situations in which we don’t have previous experience or the behavior of other people to depend on. Instead of looking forward and calculate potential losses and gains to decide which action to take, individuals look back (learn) and look around (imitate) to form expectations and make decisions.

Intergenerational Cooperation

The accumulation and transmission of knowledge is a type of inter-generational cooperation. For the benefit of the next generation, each generation spends time and effort to pass down its knowledge to the next generation, and the whole society better off.

Taking care the old is another type of inter-generational cooperation.  For the benefit of the next generation, each generation spends time and effort to takes care of the old, and the whole society better off.

Specialization

Specialization greatly promotes economic growth. This is such a widely accepted truth for economists that they tend to take it for granted without thinking too much of it. But if we stop and think for a while, specialization is definitely not a natural phenomenon. In order for specialization to happen, the economic system needs to come up with an ingenious way to coordinate the behavior of all the economic agents. In essence, specialization is an all-encompassing coordination and cooperation among all the economic agents in the economic system. It starts to appear really puzzling when we notice that there is no central planner giving commands to people instructing them what to do. The market system just works like an invisible hand, putting people to where they should be and generate an efficient outcome for the society. 

outreg2

Read the help pages for -findit- and -ssc- to do this type...

 man findit

or

 man ssc

You can the install -outreg2- as per the instructions for -ssc- with...

 ssc install outreg2

You can then read the help-page for -outreg2- with...

 man outreg2

Freedom and Economic Development

“The correlation between economic freedom and economic development is surely not a mere statistical association. There is a systematic causal force, identified by Adam Smith back in 1776, in The Wealth of Nations. People grow wealthier when they have the freedom to participate in the market process.”

Tackle the outliers

When we have a small data set, our estimation may be sensitive to the inclusion of one or several observations. An observation is an influential observation if dropping it from the analysis changes the key estimates by a practically "large" amount.

Solutions？
Trimmed mean:
 In the diving game evaluation, the highest and the lowest scores are eliminated. The five remaining scores are then added up and the total score is then multiplied by the difficulty factor for each dive and then by 0.6, which gives the final result. A tie is declared when two divers get the same total score. 

Median:
 another way to deal with outliers.

Spell Check: vim tips and tricks

http://www.cs.oberlin.edu/~kuperman/help/vim/home.html

add this to your .vimrc:
if has("spell")
  " turn spelling on by default
  set spell

  " toggle spelling with F4 key
  map <F4> :set spell!<CR><Bar>:echo "Spell Check: " . strpart("OffOn", 3 * &spell, 3)<CR>

  " they were using white on white
  highlight PmenuSel ctermfg=black ctermbg=lightgray

  " limit it to just the top 10 items
  set sps=best,10                  
endif


to have a personal wordlist, make a directory called ~/.vim/spell
you can manually add things your personal wordlist (~/.vim/spell/en.latin1.add):
    printf(              (so printf is invalid, but printf( is ok)
    nextLine()
    ArrayList/=          (the /= means always match case)
    focussed/!           (the /! says treat this as a misspelling)
if you manually add to your wordlist, you need to regenerate it:
    :mkspell! ~/.vim/spell/en.latin1.add


some useful keys for spellchecking:
  ]s       - forward to misspelled/rare/wrong cap word
  [s       - backwards

  ]S       - only stop at misspellings
  [S       - in other direction

  zG       - accept spelling for this session
  zg       - accept spelling and add to personal dictionary

  zW       - treat as misspelling for this session
  zw       - treat as misspelling and add to personal dictionary

  z=       - show spelling suggestions

  :spellr  - repeat last spell replacement for all words in window

If you're so smart

The sciences, such as economics, require supposedly humanistic methods, right in the middle of their sciences; and likewise the arts and humanities require fact and logic, right in the middle of their own sciences. Newton used logic and metaphors; Darwin used facts and stories. Science is literary, requiring metaphors and stories in its daily work, and literature is scientific.

Agent-Based Computational Economics: Growing Economics from the bottom up by Leigh Tesfatsion (Artificial Life 2002)

This survey paper outlines the objectives and characteristics of the agent-based computational economics (ABE) from eight different research areas:

1. Learning and the embodies mind
2. Evolution of behavioral norms
3. Bottom-up modeling of market processes
4. Formation of economics networks
5. Modeling of organizations
6. Design of computational agents for automated markets
7. Parallel experiments with real and computational agents
8. Building ACE computational laboratories

Statistical fallacies by C. CALLOSUM

http://callosum.blogspot.com/2005/03/statistical-fallacies.html

I've just finished reading How to Think Straight about Psychology by Keith Stanovich. It's a wonderful book, and, to be honest, really about critical, scientific thinking and not so much about psychology. Most of its examples are from the field of medicine, in fact.

The best parts of the book, to my mind, are the ones that discuss how humans deal with probability and statistics. Everyone knows that statistics are dangerous, but the danger doesn't wholly come from deliberate misuse. Some of the danger comes from the way people intuitively interpret statistics - or, rather, misinterpret them. Not to mention the way people dismiss statistics when they should be taking them seriously.

To summarise the relevant chapters, as much for my sake as anything else, the ways people mistreat and misuse statistics are:

(1) "person-who" arguments (Stanovich's terminology)

People treat a statistical finding or law as invalid because they know of an exception to the law, despite "knowing" that the law was probabilistic in the first place and that there would be exceptions. A lot of this is due to "vividness" effects: probabilistic law is not concrete to most people, but a living, breathing counter-example is. What has a greater effect on their thinking? The counter-example, of course, leading them to believe the law inaccurate.

(2) discounting base rates

This topic is treated in many statistics classes (at least the ones I've been in), but people often seem to forget about it. So the classic example goes, supposing that there's a rare disease that occurs in 1 out of 1000 people (ok, so that's not so rare). Further suppose there's a test that diagnoses the disease that has a zero false-negative rate (if someone has the disease, the test always gets it right) BUT has a 5% false-positive rate (if a person doesn't have the disease, there's a 5% chance it'll say that they do).

So you pluck a random person off the street and administer the test on them, and it says yes, they have the disease. What's the chance that they do have the disease?

Well, even physicians get this wrong and say 95%. The true answer, if you do the math, is about 2%. Why is the intuitive answer so off-base? Because they forgot about the huge effect of the low base rate - the unlikelihood that that random person would have had the disease in the first place. This is also why implementing security systems that are "99% accurate" gives you absolutely no boost in security: the extremely low probability that a random person you choose will be a terrorist [I'm pretty sure Bruce Schneier discussed this at least once on his blog, but am unable to find the exact URL].

(3) failure to use sample size information

To put it simply, people forget (or don't realise) the effect of thelaw of large numbers - that "a larger sample size always more accurately estimates a population value".

(4) the gambler's fallacy

Say you're flipping a coin, and you've had 5 heads come up. Ask someone whether they think the sixth will come up heads, and they will say it's unlikely, despite the fact that the coin flips are independent. They operate on the basis of a "law of averages" - but in reality, there's no such thing as a law of averages!

(5) thinking coincidences are more "miraculous" than they are

Skeptics often point out that if something is a "one-in-a-million" occurrence then, depending on how you count a single event, at least 300 should happen a day in the U.S. (population approx. 300M). Another classic example is asking people in a class of 30 their birthdays and seeing if any coincide. Students often think the probability of two people in a class having a birthday as a low-probability occurrence, but it's really more probable than none of the students at all sharing a birthday!

(6) discounting incidences and only seeing coincidences

This is common to all of us. Coincidences are vivid - you think of old Uncle Al and suddenly he rings up on the phone. Hey, ESP! But what about all the times you thought of him and he didn't ring up? Oh, you forgot about those, did you?

(7) trying to get it right every time - even when it's better to be wrong sometimes

Stanovich describes an interesting experiment here (Fantino & Esfandiari, 2002 [Pubmed abstract]; Gal & Baron, 1996 [abstract]). Subjects are sat down and told to predict which of two lights, red and blue, will blink. Often, there'll be some money paid for correct predictions. The sequence of red and blue lights is random, except that red flashes 70% of the time and blue 30%. Analysis of the predictions make afterwards show that subjects pick up on the 70-30 spread pretty well, and guess red 70% of the time and blue 30% of the time. But, if they'd just guessed red 100% of the time, they'd have done better! Alternating red and blue with the 70-30 spread gives them, on average, only about 58% accuracy.

The thing is, guessing red all the time guarantees you'll be wrong 30% of the time - while alternating still opens up the possibility that you'll be right all the time, by some miracle. Hope springs eternal in the human heart.

Stanovich further explains how this carries over to clinical vs actuarial prediction. Actuarial prediction is based on historical statistical data. Clinical prediction is based on familiarity with individual circumstances. It seems to people that clinical prediction should be better - (1) you have more information to go on (actuarial + individual), and (2) doesn't actually knowing a person and his circumstances tell you more than a bunch of numbers?

Well, it doesn't: in many, many replicated studies, it's been shown that adding clinical prediction to actuarial always *decreases* the accuracy of the prediction. As unlikely as it seems, restricting yourself to judging based on past statistical trends is always better in the long run. You have to accept the error inherent in relying only on general, statistical, historical data in order to decrease error overall.

(8) trying to see patterns where there are none - or the "conspiracy theory" effect

Stanovich uses the stock market as an example. Much of the variability in stock market prices is due simply to random fluctuations. But people try to read patterns and explain every single fluctuation. What about those people who are always correct? Well, take 100 monkeys and ask them to throw darts at a board. Use the positions of the darts to determine how to place bets. Do this for a year, and 50% will have beat the Standard and Poor's 500 Index. Want to hire?

This is made even worse when people think they should be seeing a pattern, seeing structure. Take the Rorschach test, for example: clinicians using it see relationships in how people respond because they believe they are there. If they believe the theory behind the test, they think there'll be a relationship between what people see in the random inkblots and the makeup of their psychology. But there is no evidence for this whatsoever.

(9) the illusion of control

When people think they have control over a situation, they believe personal skill and actions can affect situations which are actually way beyond their control. I believe the classic example here (not cited in Stanovich's book, he has more interesting ones, actually) is the sports fan who believes that by performing certain actions, he can affect the outcome of a match.

All that's from this book, and I hope I haven't misreported or misrepresented anything. It's [the book's] very pithy, straight to the point, and is a joy to read. The explanations he gives are a good deal better than the ones I've given above, so go check it out from the library or buy it - whatever you do, I encourage you to read it. Stanovich also has a bunch of papers online that look interesting.

In my next post, I'll discuss some of my thoughts on people's statistical abilities and their relation to learning, especially learning language.

General Admission Information: Department of Economics at Purdue

Each year the department of economics enrolls about 10 students, among whom about 8 are funded. At Purdue, your tuition fee is waived if and only if you receive assistantship. The assistantship should be enough supporting you.

If you are an international student, one caveat for you: although not stated officially, the economics department at Purdue has not enrolled international students who are not currently studying in the United States, and it’s unlikely that this will change soon. Under rare circumstances some international students got admitted to the PhD program in Economics directly after they receives a bachelor or master degree in their own country, but none of them got funding.

I knew this after I came to this program. This tells you it is a good idea to contact current students at the programs you want to apply for checking their admission policies that are not stated officially.

The Admission Process

The admission decision is made based on overall evaluation of the applicants, and it is hard to say which component is more important than others. I know recommendations are quite important, but all the faculty members are well aware that students from China and India write their own recommendations, rendering the recommendations useless for them. For other application materials, it varies among universities and even varies among different departments in the same university as to which one is valued most. But I know that for most graduate schools, PS is of less importance. A bad PS might nevertheless have a detrimental impact on your application. Since math is pretty important for economists, it’s good if you have strong math skills and background.

A professor once told me that the ideal recommendations are written by economists who are active in research. Economists who are known by the admission committee are perfect. I've heard one previous econ PhD student at Purdue transferred to Northwestern mainly due to a good recommendation letter: her former advisor graduated from Northwestern and wrote her a good recommendation.

Do I need to contact the professors while applying for the program?

I have studied engineering before, so I know there is a big difference between economics program and other programs including engineering, math and the natural sciences. During the admission in engineering, if a faculty member would like to admit you as his student and work with him, you are almost guaranteed to get admitted. This is because most areas in engineering are project-oriented. The professors have funding for some projects, and they can support you financially using the funding so that you can help them with the projects.  Because this close working relationship between you and your advisor, your research area and “interest” is more or less determined since the first day you come, that is the research area and research interest of your advisor. Another consequence of this project-oriented nature of engineering is that it is comparatively easy to publish a paper compared with economics. After you get data or results from the project, you can publish them as an article paper. Most of the papers you publish, if not all, will be coauthored with your advisor, again due to the close working relationship.

It is another story in the departments of economics in the Unites States. The PhD students studying economics typically spend the first one or two years studying theory. After the courses of theory, they will try to pass the qualifying (preliminary) exam. It is after this exam that the students really start to do research. You will also notice that only a small portion of the papers published by economics professors are coauthored with their students because the seldom need any concrete help from their students: most of the papers are written by themselves or coauthored with other professors from similar fields.

Due to this, the students are not paid by the professors, but by the department. Also due to this, in contrast to engineering program, one professor alone cannot decide whether to admit you. It is the group decision of the committee. Hence it is less important to contact any professors during the admission process, and it is useless claim the advisor that you want to work with before you come. The professors are pretty aware that it’s too early for you to claim your field before you come to the program. Hence it’s not necessary to decide which area you want to work in, but it might help if you mention your interests in your personal statement to show that you are self-motivated.

Mean-independence implies zero covariance

Intuitively: a (population) regression of u on x is the linear approximation to E (u|x). The regression would yield a slope coefficient of Cov (u, x) /V (x). If E (u|x) = E (u), the conditional expectation function is a constant. Therefore, a linear approximation to it would yield a slope of zero, which implies that Cov(u, x) =0.

Formally,
E (u|x) = E(ux|x)/x and therefore E (ux|x) = xE (u|x).

But the law of iterated expectations implies that E (ux) =E [E (ux|x)] . Therefore,
E (ux) = E [E (ux|x)] = E [xE (u|x)]

If E (u|x) = E (u), we have that E (ux) = E [xE (u|x)] = E [xE (u)] = E (x)E (u)

Because Cov (u, x) = E (ux) − E (x)E (u), we have shown that E (u|x) = E (u) implies that
Cov (u, x) = 0.

Vim Directories

The present working directory can be displayed in Vim with:

:pwd

To change to the directory of the currently open file (this sets the current directory for all windows in Vim):

:cd %:p:h

You can also change the directory only for the current window (each window has a local current directory that can be different from Vim's global current directory):

:lcd %:p:h

In these commands, % gives the name of the current file, %:p gives its full path, and %:p:h gives its directory (the "head" of the full path).

Automatically change the current directory

Sometimes it is helpful if your working directory is always the same as the file you are editing. To achieve this, put the following in your vimrc:

set autochdir

That's it! Unfortunately, when this option is set some plugins may not work correctly if they make assumptions about the current directory. Sometimes, as an alternative to setting autochdir, the following command gives better results:

autocmd BufEnter * silent! lcd %:p:h

This autocmd changes the window-local current directory to be the same as the directory of the current file. It fails silently to prevent error messages when you edit files via ftp or new files. It works better in some cases because the autocmd is not nested, and will therefore not fire when switching buffers via another autocmd. It will also work in older versions of Vim or versions compiled without the 'autochdir' option. Note, however, that there is no easy way to test for this autocmd in a script like there is for the 'autochdir' option.

Either of these methods will "cd" to the directory of the file in the current window, each time you switch to that window.

vim auto correction

You can just type :source /path/to/the/autocorrect.vim to load up the corrections. 

Folding of Vim for Beamer

http://sourceforge.net/projects/latex-beamer/forums/forum/319189/topic/1163579
- Create a file ~/.vim/after/syntax/tex.vim with the following content:
-----------------------------
syn region Frame start="\\begin{frame}" end="\\end{frame}" keepend transparent fold
function FoldText()
let line = getline(v:foldstart+1)
let sub = substitute(line, '\\frametitle', '', 'g')
let num = v:foldend - v:foldstart + 1
return " - [" . num . "]" . sub
endfunction
set foldtext=FoldText()
-----------------------------
- Then add to ~/.vimrc :
-----------------------------
set foldmethod=syntax
-----------------------------

The importance of stupidity in scientific research bt Martin A. Schwartz

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way. Let me explain.

For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked science in high school and college is that we were good at it. That can't be the only reason – fascination with understanding the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter into it too. But high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those answers, you do well and get to feel smart.

A Ph.D., in which you have to do a research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant discoveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later) told me he didn't know how to solve the problem I was having in his area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about 1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn't have the answer, nobody did.

That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn't really very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.

I'd like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don't think students are made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is to do important research. It's a lot harder than taking even very demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.

Second, we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don't feel stupid it means we're not really trying. I'm not talking about `relative stupidity', in which the other students in the class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you don't. I'm also not talking about bright people who might be working in areas that don't match their talents. Science involves confronting our `absolute stupidity'. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams have the right idea when the faculty committee pushes until the student starts getting the answers wrong or gives up and says, `I don't know'. The point of the exam isn't to see if the student gets all the answers right. If they do, it's the faculty who failed the exam. The point is to identify the student's weaknesses, partly to see where they need to invest some effort and partly to see whether the student's knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level that they are ready to take on a research project.

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.

Writing Research Paper

http://anthropology.ua.edu/bindon/ant570/pap_rule.htm

In a research report (dissertation/thesis/article) when you are talking about what you did you use the past tense. In fact, most of the paper should be in the past tense.  “In this study, Thai people’s eating habits were (or “have been”) investigated.  It was found that Thai people like to eat.”  Notice “investigation” is in the past since it is over at the point where you are writing the dissertation, but “like to eat” is kept in the present because it expresses a reality that is still true in your opinion.  Here it would sound strange to me to say, “It was found that Thai people liked to eat,” even though some authors would insist in both verbs being in the past in order to retain order through parallelism.

As a writer, you have to decide what you want to communicate, and then choose the verb/tense form that makes the most sense in the context.  It is a good idea to use language that is as standard as possible so you do not draw the reader’s attention away from the ideas you are trying to communicate and toward the language itself. However, if you try to follow the “rules” of form too strictly, that too can create situations where you find yourself saying things that border on the absurd, like “Thai people liked to eat.”
The main point is choose the tense, and other matters, according to how you want the reader to perceive the “event.”

http://eflwriting4life.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/tense-use-for-research-papers/

Present tense is used for relating what other authors say and for discussing the literature, theoretical concepts, methods, etc. In addition, use the present tense when you present your observations on the literature.

Past tense is used for recounting events, results found, etc.

Verb tense consistency

1.  Use present tense when writing essays about

• your own ideas 
• factual topics
• the action in a specific movie, play, or book

2. Use past tense when writing about

• past events
• completed studies or findings,  arguments presented in scientific literature

3. Use future tense when writing about

• an event that will occur in the future.

Social Rationality vs. Individual Rationality

Irrational behaviors for individuals may be rational for the society as a whole.

Social Interactions vs. Economic Interactions

Can we make an analogy between market prices and social norms? Both of them are coordinating mechanism for economic or social interactions. Prices signal relative scarcity of corresponding resources. Norms signals relative popularity of corresponding actions. 

Ostrom 2000 Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms

Results from experimental evidence and from the field has shown that there are multiple types of individuals with different attitude towards reciprocity and cooperation. Besides rational egoist, which are the type that economist usually assume, two type of norm-using players -- conditional cooperators and willing punishers --  play an important role in the formation and maintenance of social norms.

Evolutionary theories can help explain the emergence and survival of multiple types of players, i.e. how different types of preferences evolve or adapt. Indirect evolutionary model assumes that players receive objective payoffs, but make decisions based on the transformation of these material rewards into intrinsic preferences. In this model, individuals have different predispositions and act accordingly. Those preferences can also adapt given the objective payoffs received and their intrinsic preferences.

The assumption of multiple types is vital in explaining social norms, In particular, when a player's type is common knowledge, rational egoists would not survive. In situations where a noisy signal about a player's type is available that is at least more informative than random, trustworthy types will survive as a substantial proportion of the population.

Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources

Do not think of synthesis as separate parts lined up next to one another. Think of synthesis as “smoothed” integration of the parts. It is integration of support from more than one source for one idea/argument and identification of how sources are related. Just as fruit is blended together to make a smoothie so should you blend your sources together.

People synthesize information naturally to help other see the connections between things they learn. Synthesis is related to but not the same as classification, division, or comparison and contrast.  Instead of attending to categories or finding similarities and differences, synthesizing sources is a matter of pulling them together into some kind of harmony.  Synthesis searches for links between materials for the purpose of constructing a thesis or theory. It requires that you bring  together background information on a topic and organize it by topic rather than by source, to present the information that is out there in a helpful and logical way.

Key Features of a Synthesis
(1)  It accurately reports information from the sources using different phrases and sentences;
(2)  It is organized in such a way that readers can immediately see where the information from the sources overlap;.
(3)  It makes sense of the sources and helps the reader understand them in greater depth

 In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries

Besides enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two areas

1. information seeking: the ability to scan the literature efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to identify a set of useful articles and books
2. critical appraisal: the ability to apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.

A literature review must do these things

1. be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
2. synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
3. identify areas of controversy in the literature
4. formulate questions that need further research

Ask yourself questions like these:

1. What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define?
2. What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies )?
3. What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
4. How good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I've found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?
5. Have I critically analysed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
6. Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
7. Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?

Ask yourself questions like these about each book or article you include:

1. Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
2. Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
3. Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
4. What is the author's research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination)?
5. What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?
6. What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
7. Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions she or he does not agree with?
8. In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
9. In material written for a popular readership, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely "proving" what he or she already believes?
10. How does the author structure the argument? Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?
11. In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
12. How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am developing?

Final Notes:

A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It's usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question

If you are writing an annotated bibliography, you may need to summarize each item briefly, but should still follow through themes and concepts and do some critical assessment of material. Use an overall introduction and conclusion to state the scope of your coverage and to formulate the question, problem, or concept your chosen material illuminates. Usually you will have the option of grouping items into sections—this helps you indicate comparisons and relationships. You may be able to write a paragraph or so to introduce the focus of each section

Manski JEP 2000 Economic Analysis of Social Interactions

Charles F. Manski Journal of Economic Perspectives 2000

Empirical research on social interactions is in a weak state.

Nonmarket interactions

General competitive equilibrium-- economic agents interact only through market prices. nonmarket interactions are not phenomena of intrinsic interest. They are problems of incomplete markets that may prevent the economy from achieving a social optimum. Welfare economics prescribed that the externalities created by nonmarket interactions should, if possible, be eliminated by setting property rights that would permit trade to take place.

non-cooperative game theory: encourages economists to see all interactions as games, with markets as special cases. è phenomena as far from traditional economic concerns as social norms

Labor economics has developed from a field that studies wages of workers to the decision of families and households. Much of the research has considered family or household as one utility-maximizing entity and thus abstract from the interactions among the members of the entity.  It is useful to consider members have different objectives.

The action of an agent can affect the actions of other agents through three channels: constraints, expectations and preferences.

Constraints: congestion analysis. The decisions of agents to engage in some activities collectively determine their costs, which in turn determine the activity bundles that are feasible for agents to choose.

Expectations: An agent can acquire information from the actions of other people and sometimes with information on corresponding outcomes as well.  The information help the agent form expectations and hence make decisions. What are the outcomes of certain actions. Information cascade serves as an example of interaction through expectations.

Observational learning generates expectations interactions.

Preference: conformity.

(Becker 2000) use the average of a decision variable in a society as a proxy for social norms which deviation causes a decrease in utility.

In noncooperative game theory , agents interact through preferences, because the utility that each agent receives depends on the actions chosen by other agents.

On which side to drive… is an example

Conventions

Conventions can be considered as information of previous actions taken by forerunners.

Because the behavioral model is incomplete, actions need to be modeled as random variables.

No one intended the outcome; it arises because people optimize locally and do not worry about the effect of their actions on the long-run properties of the system.

Young 1998 Individual Strategy and Social Structure

social institutions are shaped by the cumulative impact of many individuals interacting with one another over long periods of time.

the features are determined to a considerable degree byt the accumulation of historical precedents, that is, by the decisions of many individuls who were concerned only with making the best trade at the moment, not with the impact of their decisions on the long-run development of that market.

Eventually one form becomes standard and customary for a given type of transaction, not necessarily because it is optimal, abut because it serves the purpose reasonably well and it is what everyone has come to expect. It is now an institution that coordinates behaviors, and to deviate from it would be costly.


No one willed them into being. They are what they are due to the accumulation of precedent; they emerged from experimentation and historical accident.

Equilibrium can be understood only within a dynamic framework that explains how it comes about.

"Neoclassical economics describes they way the world looks once the dust has settled; we are interested in how the dust goes about settling. The business of settling may have considerable bearing on how things look afterwards.

Epstein (CE 2001) Learning to be thoughtless: social norms and individual computation

Individual thought (computing) is often inversely related to the strength of a social norm.

Two features of social conventions

1. self-enforcing

2. once entrenched, we conform without thinking about it

The author mistakenly attribute the features of individual habits to social conventions. We do something without thinking about it because we've already formed a habit of taking the action, be it a social convention or not.

The strength of a norm is represented by the variance of the actions taken by individuals. The disutility of deviating from a social norm is related to the strength of that norm.  

when there is no time to think or not enough information based on which we can draw conclusion, we usually do what most others will do

do whatever everyone else is doing

1. some one may have relevant information that you don't know

(2. comparative performance is determinant in evolution)


we can use a sampling size less than n...

agent-based model is a generative model

This is a world of tradeoffs, not solutions. And whatever trade-off is decided upon will still leave unmet needs.

Nothing is a "need" categorically, regardless of how urgent it may be to have at particular times and places and in particular amounts.

By its very nature as a study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses, economics is about incremental trade-offs--not about "needs" or "solutions."

Evolutionary process can be considered as a rationing process. The scarce resources to be rationed are opportunities to survive. The criterion for discriminating among genes to determine which will get the chance to survive.

Competition is actually between genes.Animals are just tools genes use to compete with each other.

This statement ma make use feel desperate. As humans, we always want to be in control. It is hard for us to accept the fact that we are just tools.

Co-evolution of different genes.

The truth lies within you.

Be the miracle for which you pray, be the strength for which you call out, be the love for which you yearn, and be the change you which to see. Be it!

Be all that you seek for this world and end your search at last, knowing that everything for which you looked, you always possessed, but simply could not experience until you gave it away.

Truth is truth. It can neither be proven nor disproven. It simply is.

So long as you are still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you won yourself.

It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You teach what you have to learn.

Seek only to be genuine. Strive to be sincere. Do what you can do. Then let it rest.

Guilt is the feeling that keeps you stuck in who you are not. Guilt is a blight upon the land--the poison that kills the plant.

Love and awareness are your true friends.

Fear only paralyzes, while consciousness mobilizes.

Blessed are the fearless, for they shall know God.

When I want for you what you want for you, then I truly love you. When I want for you what I want for you, then I am loving Me, through you. For love chooses naught for itself, but only seeks to make possible the choices of the beloved other.

All good things come to those who wait.

Deciding ahead of time what you choose to be produces that in your experience.

What you act as if you are, you become.

Everything you do, do out of sincerity. Natural Law requires the body, mind and spirit to be united n thought, word and action for the process of creation to work.

Whatever you choose for yourself, give to another.

When you give something to another with purity of heart--because you see that they want it, need it, and should have it--then you will discover that you have it to give. And this is a grand discovery.

When you want something, give it away.

Be wisdom, and you will have it. What is the fastest way to "be" wisdom? Cause another to be wise.

Nothing can happen in your life which in not a precisely perfect opportunity for you to heal something, create something, or experience something that you wish to heal, create or experience in order to be Who You Really Are.

If you want your life to settle down, to stop bringing you such a wide variety of experiences, there's a way to do that. Simply stop changing your mind so often about Who You Are, and Who You Choose to Be.

Nothing escapes perfection in God's world.

The design of your life--the people, places and events in it--have all been perfectly created by the perfect creator of perfection itself: you. And Me...in, as, and through you.

If all you desired is what your soul desired, everything would be every simple.

Mark Twain ""When I was 19, my father knew nothing. But when I was 35, I was amazed at how much the Old Man had learned."

Truth is often uncomfortable. It is only comforting to those who do not wish to ignore it. Then, truth becomes not only comforting, but inspiring.

Act as if you were separate from nothing, and no one, and you will heal your world tomorrow.

I am in every flower, every rainbow, every star in the heavens, and everything in and on every planet rotating around every star.

I am the whisper of the wind, the warmth of your sun, the incredible individuality and the extraordinary perfection of every snowflake.

I am the majesty in the soaring flight of eagles, and the innocence of the doe in the field; the courage of lions, the wisdom of the ancient ones.

lighthearted.

Thought control is the highest form of prayer. Therefore, think only on good things, and righteous. Dwell not in negativity and darkness. And even in moments when things look bleak--especially in those moments--see only perfection, express only gratefulness, and then imagine only what manifestation of perfection you choose next.

In this formula is found tranquility. In this process is found peace. In this awareness is found joy.

Your perspective creates your thoughts, and your thoughts create everything. Assume a different perspective and you will have a different thought about everything. In this way you will have learned to control your thought, and, in the creation of your experience, controlled thought is everything. Some people call this constant prayer.

If you imagined that the controlling and directing of your thoughts is the highest form of prayer, you would think only on good things, and righteous.

Move to a state of total awareness. Then belief will no longer be necessary. Complete knowing will work its wonders.

God seeks to prove Itself to no one, for God has no need to do that.

All of this, all of this, has been made possible because of their faith. Because of their knowing. Because of their immutable clarity about how things are, and how they are meant to be.

Honoring your guru is not giving your power away. It is getting your power. For when you honor the guru, when you praise your master teacher, what you say is, "I see you." And what you see in another, you can begin to see in yourself.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

As soon as you imagine that you know the answer, you do. In those moments during which you experience yourself being "revealed" to yourself--whether these are what you call out-of-body experiences, or dreams or magic moments of wakefulness when you are greeted by crystal clarity--what has happened is that you have simply slipped into "remembering." You are remembering what you have already created. And there rememberings can be very powerful. They can produce a personal epiphany.

Act out your knowingness in every moment. Keep acting on what you know, rather than what the world of illusion is showing you.

Cause another to remember. That which you wish for yourself, give it to another. The longer you keep on doing it, the less you will have to do it. The more you send this message to another, the less you will have to send it to your Self.

Go inside. Search your place of inner wisdom. See what this calls on you to do. Then do it.

Most important of all, do not be afraid. In all things, see the perfection.

Celebrate! Celebrate life! Celebrate Self! Celebrate the predictions! Celebrate God! Celebrate! Play the game. Celebrate the perfection! Smile and celebrate and see only the perfection, and that which others call the imperfection will not touch you in any way which is imperfect for you.

Face the future fearlessly, understanding The Process and seeing the perfection of all of it.

The first step in developing psychic "power" is to know you have it, and to use it. Pay attention to every hunch you have, every feeling you feel, every intuitive "hit" you experience, Pay attention. Then, act on what you "know." Don't let you mind talk you out of it. Don't let your fear pull you away from it.

The more that you act on your intuition fearlessly, the more your intuition will serve you. It was always there, only now you're paying attention to it.

Three rules of psychic phenomena: 1. All thought is energy. 2. All things are in motion. 3. All time is now.

Intuition is the ear of the soul. The soul is the only instrument sensitive enough to "puck up" life's faintest vibrations, to “feel” these energies, to sense these waves in the field, and to interpret them.

The psychic has learned not to question what he's "thinking" or suddenly "seeing" or "feeling" but merely to allow it to "come through" as untouched as possible.

It is all a question of a perception. When you change your perception, you change your thought, and your thought creates your reality.

Even before you ask, I will have answered.

You don't always get what you ask, but you always get what you create. Creation follows thought, which follows perception.

All caused effect is ultimately experienced by the Self. Whatever you cause another to experience, you will one day experience. What goes around, comes around. Do unto others as you would have it done unto you,

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Love is the best "medium" of communication.

Life cannot give itself to you if you do not understand death. You must do more than understand it. You must love it, even as you love life.

Your time with each person would be glorified if you thought it was your last time with that person. Your experience of each moment would be enhanced beyond measure if you thought it was the last such moment. Your refusal to contemplate your own death leads to your refusal to contemplate your own life.

Nothing is painful which you understand is not real

Nothing is painful the moment you understand that nothing is real.

Death is never an end, but always a beginning. 

As you watch your own life roll out before you, do not yourself become unraveled. Keep your Self together! See the illusion! Enjoy it! But do not become it!

You are not the illusion, but the creator of it.

You are in this world, but not of it.

So use your illusion of death. Use it! Allow it to be the key that opens you to more of life.

Always remember, you are not the flower, nor are you even the fruit. You are the tree.

Glorify what you are today, yet do not condemn what you were yesterday, nor preclude what you could become tomorrow.

Enlightenment begins with acceptance, without judgment of “what is”.

Remember, you are a three-part being, with seven chakra centers. When you respond to one another from all three parts, and all seven centers, at the same time, then you have the peak experience you are looking for—that you have been created for!

When you are not being whole, you are being less than yourself.

Whatever you are doing, do it as a whole being; as the whole being you are.

Raise your energy, your life force, to the highest level possible in every moment, and you will be elevated.

When you are in readiness, you are in wakefulness. A smile can take you there. A simple smile. Just stop everything for one moment, and smile. At nothing. Just because it feels good. Just because your heart knows a secret. And because your soul knows what the secret is. Smile at that. Smile a lot. It will cure whatever ails you.

Breathe. Breathe long and deep. Breathe slowly and gently. Breathe in the soft , sweet nothingness of life, so full of energy, so full of love. It is God’s love you are breathing. Breathe deeply, and you can feel it. Breathe very, very deeply, and the love will make you cry. For joy.

Words are the least reliable form of communication.

Silences hold the secrets. So the sweetest sound is the sound of silence. This is the song of the soul.

If you believe the noises of the world rather than the silences of our soul, you will be lost.

Use your life as a meditation, and all the events in it. Walk in wakefulness, not as one asleep. Move with mindfulness, not mindlessly, and do not tarry in doubt and fear, neither in guilt nor self-recrimination, yet reside in permanent splendor in the assurance that you are grandly loved.

For your home is in My heart, and Mine in yours.

Do not try to solve all the mysteries. Not at one time, anyway. Give the universe a chance. It will unfold itself in due course. Enjoy the experience of becoming.

What you call the mind is real an energy.

Divine Dichotomy holds that it is possible for two apparently contradictory truths to exist simultaneously in the same space.

All life is a vibration.

The Father of all is pure thought.

Be the source of love which I Am in the lives of all others. Do unto others as you would have it done unto you.

You cannot “lose” that which you give away.

You were born with the creative power of the universe at the tip of your tongue.

As thou has believed, so be it done unto you.

You teach what you have to learn.

Public declaration is the highest form of visioning. Live the grandest version of the greatest vision you ever had about Who You Are. Begin the living of it by declaring it. Publicly.

I am the life and the way.

All these things come to Me from the Father. Without the Father, I am nothing.

I and the Father are One.

There is only one moment, and that is the eternal moment of Now

You’re returning now to “living lightly.” You’re lightening up. This is what is meant by enlightenment.

Loving everyone full out is the most joyful thing you can do.

Any attempt to restrict the natural expressions of love is a denial of the experience of freedom—and thus a denial of the soul itself. For the soul is freedom personifies.

When making any decision, it is important to make sure the right question is being answered.

You will seek freedom, unlimitedness, and eternality in every experience of love You are life expressing life, love expressing love, God expressing God.

God Life Love Unlimited Eternal Free

Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. It is that which you are not.

Not that one person is more special to you than another, but that the way you choose to demonstrate with one person the depth of love you have for all people—and for life itself—is unique to that person alone.

Do you know why no two snowflakes are alike? Because it is impossible for them to be. “Creation” is not “duplication,” and the Creator can only create.

All people are One, yet no two people are alike. You could not, therefore, love two people in the same way if you tried—and you would never want to, because love is a unique response to that which is unique.

True love is always free, and obligation cannot exist in the space of love.

Tell and live your truth.

Creative beings create their feelings, rather than experiencing them.

Until you can create your future, you cannot predict your future. Until you can predict your future, you cannot promise anything truthfully about it.

A master is a person who—quite literally—knows what he is doing. She also knows why.

Betrayal of yourself in order not to betray another is betrayal nonetheless. It I the highest betrayal.

More damage has been done to others by persons leading lives of quiet desperation than ever was done by persons freely doing what they wanted to do.

When you give the other person their freedom, you give yourself freedom as well.

What you give to another, you give to your Self. What goes around, comes around

There is no need to worry about what you are going to “get back.” There is only a need to worry about what you are going to
give out.” Life is about creating the highest quality giving, not the highest quality getting.

In the New Culture “success” will be measured by how much you cause others to amass.

The basic instinct of all living things is to express uniqueness, not sameness. Equality of opportunity is what is required for this, not equality in fact. This is called fairness.

Love has no requirements. That’s what makes it love.

When you are in a relationship with another, that relationship has only one purpose. It exists as a vehicle for you to decide and to declare, to create and to express, to experience and to fulfill your highest notion of Who You Really Are.

Start with yourself. You will put yourself first in these matters. If you are seeking to be love, you will be doing loving things with others, for you Self—so that you can actualize and experience your grandest idea about your Self and Who You Really Are

All the world’s a stage, and the people, the places.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

To thine own Self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

It is much more difficult to free someone than to control them. When you control someone, you get what you want. When you free someone, they get what they want.

Nothing happens against the will of God.

You are in this world, but not of it.

You can tell how highly a person or society has evolved by what that being or society calls “pleasure. And by what it declares to serve it.

You are in the act of defining your Self right now.

You are the life and the way. The world will follow you. It is simply The Way It Is. Your world will follow your idea about yourself. Ever it has been, ever it will be. First comes your thought about yourself, then follows the outer world of physical manifestation.

What you think, you create. What you create, you become. What you become, you express. What you express, you experience. What you experience, you are. What you are you think. The circle is complete.

Unity is the truth. Separatism is the illusion.

The master knows that denial is for those who are choosing to have the illusion continue. Acceptance is for those who choose now for the illusion to end. Acceptance, proclamation, demonstration. Those are the three steps to God.

The master’s role is to lead others to mastery. Seeing the illusion allows the master to step outside of it.

Advanced technology without advanced thought creates not advancement, but demise.

Justice is an act, not punishment for an act. Justice is an action, not a reaction.

You have to raise consciousness before you can change consciousness.

Think outside the box.

Achieving should be defined as “doing what brings value” not “ doing what brings ‘fame’ and ‘fortune,’ whether it is of value or not.”

See everyone as you.

It is the mark of a primitive culture to imagine that simplicity is barbarian, and complexity is highly advanced.

The greatest complexity is the greatest simplicity. A complex system is utterly elegant in its Simplicity.

Highly evolved beings: 1. Observe fully 2. Communicate truthfully.

The degree to which a species—or a relationship between members of the same species—has evolved is demonstrated by the degree to which beings require the use of “words” to convey feelings, desires or information.

Caring creates communication.

Where there is deep love, words are virtually unnecessary. The more words you have to use with each other, the less time you must be taking to care for each other, because caring creates communication.

Ultimately, all real communication is about truth. And ultimately, the only real truth is love. That is why, when love is present, so is communication. And when communication is difficult, it is a sign that love is not fully present.

The light of truth will forever show the way.

What you resist, persists. Only what you hold can disappear.

True clarity can come only when someone is willing to notice: There is something I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything. Werner Erhard

If you saw you as God sees you, you would smile a lot.

Observe. Observe. OBSERVE. See to observe more.

Life resolves itself in the process of life itself. Werner Erhard

Nothing matters means that nothing turns into matter except as we choose for it to.

In everything, be cause. Just because. That is the only reason to do anything.

There’s nothing I have to have, there’s nothing I have to do, and there’s nothing I have to be, except exactly what I’m being right now. What you experience yourself having or doing will spring from your being—not lead you to it.

The way to “get there” is to “be there.” Just be where you choose to get! It’s that simple. There’s nothing you have to do.

Truth is the body, and joy is the blood, of God, who is love. Truth. Joy. Love. There three are interchangeable.