Hello!
Here's the weekly "Amazing Things & Ideas Newsletter" which aims at making the reader a more rational thinker. As always, find one original idea from my side followed by the List.
     And if you like reading this edition, let the world hear it!

Life is a game with infinite levels

In life, you never “make it”. Sure, you can set a goal and achieve it. But then new goals to be reached are craved, new problems shoot up, new places to explore and new ones to reach (places beyond the map, places not yet imagined before) turn up.

Life is a game with infinite levels. There's no end to where one can reach.

This is not a pessimistic thought. It’s an optimistic fact.

How dull would it be to live in a (hypothetical) world where we’ve ultimately found everything out! What would become of our existing purpose as intelligent people?

Knowing there’s always infinite progress that can be made is a beautiful idea when really given thought to and once the original shocker is shrugged off—both in the cosmic intelligent people sense and as everyday human beings.

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

• A philosophical fiction book recommendation:
  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

• A podcast featuring an incredible human being:
  “Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity” | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
  
  This is one of the best podcast interviews I’ve listened to in a while. Grimes thinks and reasons in a very interesting way and I was really fascinated by her take on many topics they touched on during the two hour long podcast. (Not to forget, Lex is a great interviewer too!)
  
  Watch the conversation here.

• A critique to the anti-critical nature of passing exams:

  “We have to separate out the fact that passing exams is not the same as critical and creative thinking. Passing exams is about adhering as closely as possible to someone else’s ideas of what is the correct way to think. It is anti-critical. It is not good objecting to questions in exams, taking issue with the premise of a question. Sure! Take a risk, why not? Most will not. Why would they? Certainly examinations and assessment tasks in education generally are antithetical to anything but adhering to or arising to meet defined outcomes. Things already thought through. It is thus not only anti-critical, it is anti-creativity. It is not about new ideas. It is about showing that you have grasped old ideas. Taught ideas. See the problem?”

  — Brett Hall (@ToKTeacher)

• Sean Carroll on our (at times misleading) tendency to look for causes:

  “Looking for causes and reasons is a deeply ingrained human impulse. We are pattern-recognizing creatures. Quick to see faces in craters on Mars or connections between the location of Venus in the sky and the state of our love life.”

Article posted on my blog this week:

• “The world in 2072”
  
  This is a little different from my regular posts. It’s a fictional piece with important philosophical and societal ideas situated in the year 2072.
  
  Read it here.

If you liked this newsletter, I encourage you to share it for others to see it too.

If you have any questions or suggestions or comments or criticisms, I'd love to hear them from you; please write to me by replying to this email or DM me on Twitter.

Thank you for reading.

Onward, 
Arjun