Life Skills: Your Brain, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Explore how your senses and brain shape your perception of reality. Recognize that you never see reality as it is, and understand sensory limits to live well.

Understand that perception shapes reality, since the world is never exactly as we see it through the lens; explore how senses beyond the five and intuition connect us to reality.

Explore type one and type two ignorance, how perception and the brain influence what we know, and how awareness of our limits fuels personal growth.

Explore how perceptions shape reality by examining the gorilla video and other demonstrations, showing that senses and attention bias what we see and know.

See how outside stimulation from the world is transformed by the cornea and lens, then by retina into signals, and stored in memory so we recall rather than relive stimulus.

Explore how our senses mislead us by interpreting incomplete visuals, as Gestalt psychology shows the brain completes figures. Learn to question how much you trust what you see.

Explore how perception is an approximation shaped by who you are, what you know, and what you want, and learn to test your beliefs.

Coordinate your perceptions with perspective to reduce bias and inaccuracy. Commit to continuously improving how you see the world, accepting incomplete perceptions while living a life of value.

Explore the first level of understanding through perspective, uncertainty, and self-awareness, showing how what you don't know about yourself and the world shapes your ideal life and priorities.

Explore how you connect with the world by watching Doctor Seth’s video on how your brain hallucinates your conscious reality, and learn why sensing the world is inherently imperfect.

Consider placing your perspective into perspective by weighing contradictory information, applying the scientific method to test beliefs, and staying open to evidence.

Ask a simple question to validate information and perspective. Seek data, ask how you know it, and what supports the view using the scientific method without being swayed by authority.

Identify and overcome cognitive biases that shape your thinking, reveal blind spots, and recognize when your brain denies reality.

Explore how confirmation bias shapes our interpretation of reality by favoring information that supports our beliefs, while roots and daily wind push us toward comfort and consistency.

Explore regression to the truth, or regression to the most common, and how confirmation bias skews judgments toward the usual outcome. Learn to seek disconfirming signs before acting.

Learn how the self-fulfilling prophecy shapes outcomes by what you fear or expect, and how to design a future you control instead of letting fear drive actions.

Identify my side bias, the tendency to claim one side is right and dehumanize others, fueling violent opposition; learn to see the other as human and engage honorable competition.

Analyze attributions as a bias that projects beliefs onto others, linking self-fulfilling prophecy, side biases, and confirmation bias. Learn to recognize them to interact clearly and control responses.

Explore how the ego, id, and superego generate unconscious defense mechanisms, including denial, sublimation, and reaction formation, to ease anxiety, and consider awareness and critical thinking.

Explore critical thinking as a practical tool to outsmart brain tricks, observe openly, think clearly and logically, and make better decisions by understanding the results.

Observe openly by seeking a wide range of information and opposing viewpoints to counter confirmation bias, distrust your immediate perceptions, and advance critical thinking.

Practice thinking clearly and logically by defining the issue, agreeing on a common set of facts before acting, avoiding automatic pilot and jumping to conclusions, and outlining next steps.

Learn a structured process to make better decisions: understand the issue, define the desired outcome with all involved, and compare multiple solutions to pick the best.

Apply critical thinking to evaluate results by value and impact on people and the environment, and identify unintended consequences. Assess thoughts and feelings before acting to improve outcomes over time.

Explore how perception and perspective shape thinking by examining ideas from Six Masters, starting with Confucius.

Confucius shows that real knowledge comes from recognizing the extent of one's ignorance and staying open to new perspectives; ask thoughtful questions to spark dialogue and develop mutually beneficial understandings.

Explore Plato's ideas on self conquest and continual learning to overcome pretenses, accept the real self, and pursue lifelong knowledge that sharpens perspective and guides personal growth.

Explore Buddha's guidance on open inquiry, humility, and dialogue. Learn to share perspectives, ask questions, and grow gradually toward a wiser self through lifelong practice.

Explore Montaigne's skepticism and his question what do I know. Examine limits of knowing others and self, and apply wisdom as perspective to live well.

Explore Simone de Beauvoir’s existential feminist ideas, urging you to be somebody, love yourself, take up space, and pursue freedom as becoming more you toward an open future.

Bob Brown encourages open-minded living, embracing surprises to avoid a rut, and views the ideal life as an ongoing, enjoyable process of being and learning.

Explore the mysteries of free will and the two environments—external and internal—and how causality and unconscious brain processes shape our choices.

Explore consciousness, self-awareness, and free will by examining levels and content of consciousness, the observer role of the mind, and how awareness enables choice.

Understand how free will arises from an observing consciousness and a self formed by genes, experiences, beliefs, and thoughts, and how awareness of your stream of consciousness increases your choices.

Explore the extras section for helpful equations and logic, or skip if you prefer; for some, it will be very valuable to live your best life.

Explore Bayes' rule and Bayes theorem, linking prior credence, evidence likelihood, and data commonness to update the probability a hypothesis is true.

Explore data and statistics. See how base rate, true positives, and false positives affect how we interpret a positive breast cancer test.

Explore correlation versus causality, learn to distinguish when one event follows another from when it creates the other, using post hoc ergo propter hoc and real-world examples.

Your first impression is often informative, but perception and perspective can be wrong; gather relevant information, express and hear opposing views, and think critically to pursue independence from your brain.

Acknowledge the limits of certainty in an uncertain world and embrace living as a continuous process, moving toward your ideal life while guiding others along the way.

The instructor closes with gratitude, reflecting on decades of seeking life’s meaning and sharing practical life skills to help you live better every day.