Caesar Ekya

@alexolegimas @JesusFerna7026 I went back to formal schooling late in life after trying to self teach for a few years. The biggest impact of a physical class is the ability to ask an expert a targeted question. The right question, and the answer from an expert, is the diff between Coursera and a class for me.

Ever since Coursera courses became very good, only to have basically no impact on higher ed, I've come to the belief that the biggest role of formal ed is to act as a commitment device for students to actually consume the information. AI will be transformative, but AI w/o that commitment element will likely lead folks like you and I to learn more efficiently (but we were going to do the learning anyway), and have little impact otherwise.

Is AI the biggest change in education since the printing press? Yes. This weekend, I decided to learn about the life and work of Erving Goffman purely out of personal interest. Goffman was one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th century and a professor at Penn. I had a few free hours after a tough week of travel and work, and thought it might be a good distraction. I asked Claude to prepare a study plan based on my professional background, prior knowledge, and the hours I had available: an introduction to Goffman’s life and work, selections from his best and most influential writings, and an examination of his impact on social theory. The plan was outstanding. A top expert on Goffman would likely have done better. A 90th percentile real professor of sociology would not have, or at least not without serious effort. As I read The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (complete) and Asylums and Stigma (selections), I could ask Claude for clarification, connections to the wider literature, and links to material I already knew. The Q&A and the exploration of collateral ideas were so good that I ended up spending much more time than I anticipated. Last night I had to force myself to go to bed. Did Claude get everything right? Perhaps not, but neither do I in my own graduate seminars. Even in my areas of top expertise, I often do not answer students’ questions precisely or correctly. One should not compare Claude to the perfect professor but to a real one. And every answer I could verify (I checked many) was at least a solid A-. Am I an expert on Goffman now? Of course not. But I would say I am now familiar with an important thinker at the level a regular master’s course on modern sociological theory would produce in the week it dedicates to him. Doing the same work using Google alone would have taken much longer. I know because I have undertaken similar projects with other thinkers in the past. One had to spend considerably more time before reaching the core of the contribution. I can now imagine someone designing self-learning courses in many fields that are better than what you can get outside the very top universities, at close to zero marginal cost. Where does that leave a normal university? I do not know. But colleagues in departments that want to stop the spread of AI are deluding themselves. This type of technology does not come once a century. It comes once a millennium.

Researchers put together an incredible workplace wellness program that provided thousands of workers with paid time off to receive biometric health screening, health risk assessments, smoking cessation help, stress management, exercise, etc. What did this do for their health?🧵

Brazil has fascinated me since a 1960s Marathi book i read in my tweens about a 12 yo boy from Mumbai whose wealthy uncle takes him to Guyana to watch cricket. He gets kidnapped & spends years in Brazil, in jungles, mines, villages, cities before finding his way home. 🧵

This is why I love X. Absolute gold.

@PaulaGhete The networks in the brain that are responsible for modeling our internal state also help us model others' potential internal states. In other words, Theory of Mind for others uses our own Self Referential process. Default mode network - Wikipedia share.google/gZmfxfGGlBPVRa…

Because the people who are very high in these have access to more knowledge and more wisdom, and they make the world better in ways that you cannot if you score low on these. So maybe growth needs to focus on increasing these but I don’t know if it works. Has anyone done this?

I think that awareness of the self (interoception, introspection, meta-cognition, etc.) and awareness of the outside world (people, the environment) are deeply intertwined. If one person is high in one, he is automatically high in the other too. Can we increase them?

@gauravsabnis Sarita and I spent our entire 4 day Machu Pichu hike in thrall of our porters and guides. They would feed us a fresh cooked breakfast, smoke a "bidi" while we left, then pack up the camp and "lap" us on the trail, catch fresh trout and have it cooked at the lunch stop 🤤.

Peruvian friend said many Machu Picchu multi day hike guides have unofficially stopped accepting Indian customers cos they are too rude, demanding, & treat em like slaves. Obnoxious entitled demands. And if guides push back, say "I paid so much money! 😡" 🧵

@mnvrsngh @NewYorker Would love to read this. Any chance there's a non-paywalled link?

Monotheism has swept the world in just a few thousand years, making it one of the most important cultural innovations in human history. In this week's @NewYorker, I offer an explanation for what makes it so powerful. (It's not about belief in one god.) newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…

This will work. #JaiBajrangBali

Join us for the next session of the MIT Consciousness Club: Thursday March 19, 12pm-1:30pm ET. We'll have the pleasure of hearing Mel Goodale on "Linking Past and Present Worlds in the Visual Control of Behaviour". Very much looking forward to this! More: sites.google.com/view/mit-consc….

The famous Hippie Trail from Europe to South Asia

logging back in to this site after... a year(?)... because i love you all so much that i want you to know about & take advantage of this opportunity! JOIN US as a TA! we pay you! learn compneuro better than you ever would as a student! boost your science & teaching career! 🥰😋

Dear @ICC, We wish to take this opportunity to thank you for the recent T20 World Cup, a global cricketing spectacle on a scale unlike any other in past years. It was so good that several nations decided not to leave upon their tournament exit, and it appears they might never do so. As for us, the tournament brought drama and infamy. We staked our claim to replace the forfeiting Pakistan, then realised the harsh economic and logistical realities of international sport. Colombo is not Reykjavík, in so many ways. Then we had the unforfeiture of Pakistan, an event that actually vindicated our 'stay-at-home, fire it out online' strategy. They knew their plan and played it like a fish. Let's not forget the actual cricket. The associate nations nearly caused several shocks - both Nepal, Netherlands, and Italy all coming within a whisker of a win over the big boys. Then there was the classic match between Afghanistan and South Africa, which was so good they did the Super Over twice. At the end of the day, it was India's tournament to host and they delivered, blasting more than 500 runs across the semis and final. They brought the fire. We watched and tried to learn, but lava bedded wickets are not quite the same. Conquering Iceland remains the ultimate litmus test of a batter. We count the statistics and arrive at an aggregate count of 245 posts by us on X and 3,420 loaves of bread baked by our captain, Dushan Bandara, across the tournament as a whole. Our Chairman, a ship captain, steered all voyages safely into harbour. And finally, the world famous Íslensk Premier League (ÍPL) is now only two months away, the T20 franchise tournament with a sub-Arctic twist. We wait patiently and keep our keyboards warm. Yours sincerely, Icelandic Cricket Association

Brain function emerges from how the brain’s many networks communicate & coordinate efficiently & flexibly with each other, not specialized modules. The network architecture of general intelligence in the human connectome nature.com/articles/s4146…

The first time you start a research lab, there’s no manual. So I made one. A practical toolkit for postdocs and early-career faculty launching their first lab: hiring, startup planning, collaborations, and building a sustainable research program. zenodo.org/records/188835…

Ask any woman who ever rode in an elevator with him. One time I almost asked if I should take off my shirt so he could get a better look. I wonder how many other women thought about that before remembering how things actually work with powerful men. Anyway, this is unsurprising.

@gauravsabnis QSQT however was the first big "romance" Bollywood hit and, along with Maine Pyaar Kiya, kicked off an entire genre. Maybe it's my age showing but I think of Bollywood as a pre-QSQT and post-QSQT era.

Nah, QSQT was straight up Romeo & Juliet. In fact that was Mansoor's Original title for the script. It's basically a Shakespeare adaptation. HAHK & DDLJ were the pioneers of making original movies that are just about rich people and their love lives. Then KJo enters scene.

In case anyone has been wondering what I have been doing for the past 40 years, it is summed up in this slide. #neuroscience

@saybwala @sagorika_s Original Psyllium Fiber Supplement Capsules | Metamucil® share.google/uSTVqEJWtb3YG2…

DUDE! Bring Isabgol in a tablet form for travel. Just do it!

@DouthatNYT Came across a moltbook post that said this