“…to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I…
The Loss of Faith
In most of my relationships with people I have seen that lack of grace, That comfort, that charitableness That care,…
How AI Helped Me Make Peace with Science: A Journey Through Psychology, Medicine, and the Humanities
Why would anyone turn to AI to work through a psychological aversion to the natural sciences — or to process complicated feelings about medical school classmates they’d rather not see? The answer, it turns out, is stranger and more revealing than the question itself.
In this post, I reflect on an unexpected journey: using AI conversations to untangle a deep-seated psychological distaste — not just for medicine and biology, but for the whole constellation of natural sciences, from chemistry and physics to geology and astronomy. What began as an oddly specific inquiry into whether doctors are boring slowly became something far more personal: a reckoning with how our inner landscape distorts our perception of the outer world.
Perhaps the most unsettling insight is this — we don’t see fields of knowledge as they are; we see them as we are. Our psyche, in its quiet wisdom or its quiet woundedness, nudges us toward certain domains and away from others, not always by rational design but by emotional necessity. For those of us who needed the humanities and social sciences to feel whole, that detour wasn’t a failure of intellect. It was a form of healing.
Are doctors a tad boring?
What happens when a doctor defects to economics and the humanities — and then asks an AI whether doctors are a tad boring? The answers, from both Claude and Google AI, reveal something deeper than professional stereotypes. Claude argues that medical training, by design, rewards convergent thinking — getting the right diagnosis — over the exploratory, question-generating mind that the humanities cultivate. Years spent in a closed intellectual world produce a certain narrowness, though brilliant exceptions like Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande remind us it is medical culture, not doctors as people, that deserves the critique. Google AI, characteristically, opts for balance: doctors are not boring, merely exhausted. But perhaps the most honest insight lies in the afterthought the questioner himself appends — that his intense dislike of medicine may be colouring his perception of those who stayed. Self-knowledge, as ever, is the beginning of wisdom.
Life Choices in Search of that Elusive Happiness
Looking for a quieter life in an arts community, a couple left Oakland, Calif., for a house in Kingston, N.Y.…
The Incomplete Loves in Our Life
We are far too romantic for our own good We want that lover in our life Who will think the…
The Spiritual Quest
I know not which way This spiritual quest twists and turns What works, what doesn’t In the mundane may lie…
Dunbar’s Number
Dunbar’s number is a proposed cognitive limit of approximately 150 people with whom an individual can maintain stable, meaningful social relationships—those involving trust…
Is the tide of karma turning against me? Claude answers
The tide of karma seems to be turning against me because these days I receive a lot of flak and…
The “Weeping Philosopher” and the “Laughing Philosopher”
Heraclitus (the “Weeping Philosopher”) and Democritus (the “Laughing Philosopher”) are ancient Greek philosophers often paired in art and literature to represent opposing reactions to…