You ARE What You DO!

Hi Robby,

I’d like to add one last point to the discussion for the sake of completeness because you said that humans interpreting evolution the wrong way is actually beyond this discussion and you were simply looking at how human brain works and how people make their decisions, and at the idea you borrowed from the book that there are two “layers” of our brain – the ancestral, instinct-based part and the more recent, intellectual part.

Yes, It’s true that the things I told about humans interpreting evolution are beyond this discussion but they are not necessarily so beyond as it may seem! Just for the sake of a repetition I recap all these things we have mentioned: unwillingness and laziness to engage into a lot of spoken English practice without being in a real situation where we’re FORCED to speak, passive listening without paying the sufficient amount of attention unless we’re FORCED to understand what is really being said, eating too much, resting too much, tendency to choose an easier option, Social-Darwinism in countries like Germany during the World War 2, school shooters acquiring fatal thinking patterns from Darwinism and people who are getting a pretty bad treatment in countries such as India if they’re lacking of spoken English skills.

So it may seem that there is nothing in common between all these things but they all can be the consequences of the same phenomenon: Namely, our selfish genes are affecting to our behaviour and to our mind and interpreting evolution the wrong way only reinforce this phenomenon and some humans are using the wrong interpretations of evolution theory to justify their harmful or selfish behaviour. This is possible because there isn’t any kind of moral code in evolution but these humans ignore the fact that you can’t say something is good just because it’s natural or something ought to be this way just because it is this way. These principles are known as “appeal to nature” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature , “naturalistic fallacy” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy or “Hume’s guillotine” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem .

In conclusion, the wrong interpretations of evolution are the consequences of how human brain works and the consequence of the fact that there are two “layers” in our brain – the ancestral, instinct-based part and the more recent, intellectual part. Understanding our selfish genes and our selfish memes we can understand better why these all things had happened and why some of these are happening right now. In other words doing a lot of spoken English practice or being more altruistic would be a way easier if we were genetically “programmed” to do that kind of activities. Luckily our situation isn’t so doom and gloom because there are other factors in the play such as mirror neurons that are helping us to experience other person’s situation as if we were experiencing it ourselves but many evolution biologists such as Richard Dawkins have warned us from expecting help from our biological nature because the genes are “programmed” to be selfish, not altruistic but we have an opportunity to change it. That’s why we have to set up our mind above the evolution and what is the best way to do that is much more than only a million dollar question!

And in a case you don’t remember or know what a meme is: It’s simply some kind of a “cultural gene” if this description makes sense. I’d personally understand that meme is only imaginary conceptual tool that biologists are using when they’re trying to understand human evolution better and trying to popularize evolution to the public audience like for me who aren’t experts in this field. And the term “selfish” gene is also a metaphor: “Selfish” genes aren’t necessarily selfish in a way we normally understand but the genes are behaving for some reason or other as if they were selfish!

We may also ask what does selfish genes have to do with spoken English practice??? Well, my idea is that it’s obvious that selfish genes explain why some of us aren’t altruistic to other people and why they don’t care or love others and why certain people help each other due to the fact that they carry the same genes but selfish genes can also explain why we don’t sometimes care or love even ourselves. It explains why we don’t do things that are good for us such as spoken English practice. In other words, we are not programmed to be selfish but our genes are! Our selfish genes serve only the survival of genes, not survival of individual human being or not even the survival of species as people usually think. In summary, there are at least three stages of survival: the survival of genes, the survival of individual human being, the survival of a larger human group and finally the survival of the entire human race. It may seem that genes would serve the survival of individual human or the entire human race but it’s not necessarily the case: Selfish genes serve only the survival of genes! If selfish genes served individual humans, doing spoken English practice could be an awful lot of easier and effortless! That’s one possible interpretation of evolution to approach the problem of spoken English practice and by understanding this phenomenon better, we can possibly also practice our spoken English better. It may seem a really far-fetched possibility and maybe I’m talking only total nonsense but it can be the explaining factor.

And speaking of the “wisdom” and “intellect”, I understand the problems with these concepts because they are difficult to define precisely in a form that exact sciences require. Especially emotional intelligence or wisdom, for example, are much more difficult to define precisely and to measure than logical intelligence. That’s why scientists have a tendency to forget the whole concept of wisdom altogether and to pretend that it doesn’t even exist. More clearly and even exaggerating a little bit in a some sense: Only things that are measurable exist for science and what is non-measurable doesn’t exist for science. This is the great strength of science but also the great weakness of science. When science is developing, some problems will be solved in the future but maybe some problems won’t! Only time will tell. This is just a common sense but I said it as a side note.

My final conclusion is that all of these things which were mentioned in our discussion are interconnected to each other and consequences of the same phenomenon but, of course, this isn’t the whole truth because there are other factors in the play as well like aforementioned mirror neurons in our brain and many other things such as our emotional intelligence or some religions which all can explain somewhat better why some humans are unbelievably altruistic and not selfish but I stop to this because otherwise this discussion would expand way too much.

And lastly, I promise that I’ll try to stay on a topic much better in the future.

Misunderstandings occur and it’s very natural for us and few of my sentences are ambiguous if they aren’t read very very carefully in the context of my comments.

Hi Robby,

I don’t understand what is the purpose of your last two sentences because it seems to me that you have understood me wrongly.

I don’t know what else is working against us than our instincts and it’s exactly what I said in my previous comment or at least I meant it. So, yes our instincts are working against us and, of course, I don’t deny that just KNOWING what you SHOULD do doesn’t always translate into DOING it and this was exactly what I said in my previous comments. And when it comes to my opinion that I may disagree that it’s all a result of evolution, I really didn’t say anything like that. I specifically assumed in my previous comment that it’s all a result of evolution.

I’m a bit confused because it seems you really got my comment wrongly but why did you believe that I disagree that it’s all a result of evolution? What I really said was quite the opposite!

Thanks, Robby, I have to add the book you mentioned to my reading list although I have a lot of other interesting books in my
list I haven’t read yet. Evolution theory explains surely many things much better than any explanation before it and it can explain the reasons why doing spoken English practice demands sometimes so much effort but it has its own pitfalls and dangers or to be more specific it’s been human beings who have wrongly interpreted the Evolution theory, transferred it to the form of some kind of religion and applied it wrongly somewhere where it doesn’t belong to.

The reasons behind this are quite difficult to explain properly but maybe you have already some kind of idea what I’m talking
about. You can probably guess what I mean without my explanations but I mean that the careless and blind applying of Evolution
theory can cause unbelievably serious harm and damage or so I at least believe although I think it’s not only a belief but it’s
the fact because there are so many examples of this during history and unfortunately also during previous years. Namely, I mean the unsuccessful application of Evolution theory to society: Social-Darwinism in countries like Germany during the World War 2 and before it and there are many examples in our own 21st century where few school shooters have killed many tens of innocent people in school massacres and those school shooters have adopted thinking patterns from Evolution theory and applied them in a
way which is insanely disturbed and sick.

Of course, we can’t really blame Evolution theory for it but those murderers have acquired a part of their fatal thinking patterns from Darwinism. It’s possible to deny the influence of Evolution theory to their decisions to be mass murderers but I
think the influence has been undoubtedly clear when I had read the writings of school shooters from Finnish newspapers. Maybe
there isn’t anything in Darwinism in itself that could advise that the weakest people must die but it’s too easy to interpret it in such a way if an interpreter is a person who has very little or even no empathy at all. It’s the dark interpretation of Evolution theory and that’s why we all have to take this fact into consideration in the learning materials.

We have to set up our mind above the Evolution theory and interpret it rightly and appropriately: We don’t need to be the slaves to our genes or the slaves to the interpretations of evolution theory that are fundamentally only the creatures of our own mind, not much more. It’s absurd if someone is the slave to the creature of their own mind but unfortunately I think those
school shooters were just like that; paradoxically the victims of their own mind. I found also a good quote for this context:
“Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs,
something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” The quote is from The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989) by Richard Dawkins. It’s just like you said that our intellectual mind can’t override the much more prevalent, instinct-based part of the brain – only very intellectual people are capable of that. But I have to add that I’m not sure whether the high intellectuality is
needed because the pure wisdom can be enough. Like the old proverb says that there is a fundamental difference between intelligence and wisdom. But when I think about what is wisdom I can’t really say but perhaps it is only own kind of high intelligence which can’t be measured in IQ tests at all. This explanation makes kind of sense for me because there are many different kinds of intelligences (spatial, visual, kinetic, mathematical-logical, emotional and what more but wisdom is only very hard to measure) or then it’s as possible that wisdom isn’t intelligence at all but it’s something fundamentally different.

My intention wasn’t to ramble around this topic and to paint the devils on the wall but these things appear to my mind when Evolution is mentioned.

Speaking of the inseparability of listening and speaking it’s completely true that they are inseparable but the problem is that it’s a challenging to find good practice methods which include both. Shadowing audios is probably one of the best practices for that purpose if it’s not the best but I find it way too difficult to keep pace with the speed of audio. I tried shadowing with my native language to see whether it’s about the English or about the shadowing but I kept pace well with Finnish audio. Maybe I’m going to improve when I’m becoming better to distinguish English sounds from English speech and my mouth muscles are becoming more comfortable to keep pace with the natural speed of English. Because shadowing has been too difficult for me I have gravitated towards easier methods like mimicking (I simply stop the audio and then I make my best to repeat a phrase without worrying to keep pace with) or listening a whole audio first and then doing spoken English practice. And once a while I
can try shadowing again to see if I can do it any better.

Speaking of options and willpower it makes an awful lot of sense that it’s all about options and people have a tendency to choose easier option but I have an idea that it hasn’t been necessarily a bad tendency because we have only limited amount of energy and resources. I mean that if we choose the easier option, we save our energy which we can use when we really need it but this tendency can be really detrimental in our current lifestyle and it can work badly against us but we can change it by using willpower or then by forming new healthy habits which will become so natural for us that we can do them easily in the future. I’m not sure where this idea came from but it can be even from your blog posts or then the whole idea is from biologists. I can’t really remember but have you written something similar in the past in your blog posts?

But it’s also the major factor that the poorer (or more superficial or more abstract) our knowledge of the consequences of our choices is, the more likely we are to make bad decisions and to choose wrong options. This is a fascinating subject to think about: Why we actually make not-so-good-decisions? But anyway, I think I have to re-evaluate my own routines and my own choices and it’s actually very beneficial for anyone to do that every now and then, for that matter.

And also thanks very much, Robby, for this inspiring discussion!

Thank you Boss! I have been struggling a lot to talk about subjects for a long time. its been quite embarrassing some times. But finally, I got the solution- Repeat and Rephrase !Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart for putting in your valuable time and energy in recording this million dollar video. Have a good day!

Hi Sunny,

Here’s my video response to your question, enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR0LrAGwgP8

Hi Robby,

I haven’t thought before that this phenomenon occurs pretty much only in the language learning although empirical science subjects, like chemistry for example, can be the other one if there aren’t enough laboratory assignments in university courses which are usually packed full of lectures but sometimes only with little or with no laboratory working but anyway there are probably more meaningful activities in language learning which don’t require speaking in any form. And speaking of active and passive language learning it’s a bit semantical whether reading or listening are passive or active learning because they can be as active or even more active learning than speaking in some sense but the main factor is that they don’t require using your mouth muscles at all!

I also noticed that there was one comment about the importance of listening in your youtube channel that those who live outside the English speaking world don’t simply need to speak that much and listening is more important. It’s true because listening, reading and writing are the most important skills for me right now and I really need to improve my listening skills a lot and I don’t actually have any real immediate need to speak any foreign language but thinking like that is at least a bit self-deceptional because I have almost always wanted to speak foreign languages and when I attended to English classes first time in the elementary school I thought that now I am taught to speak but after ten years it never happened and even listening was very badly neglected! So if I don’t focus on speaking, I’ll have still three languages I can read: English, German and Swedish but I couldn’t speak any of them. And having said this I have to add that Finland is becoming more and more like new India in the sense that in my best knowledge you are second class citizen in India if you don’t speak English and the same is happening in Finland. Maybe I exaggerated the situation or maybe I didn’t but the overall trend is clear and I think that the same phenomenon is happening in pretty much every country to greater or to less degree and that’s one real reason to develop speaking skills among many other reasons.

And then going back to the subject of your video I’d like to point out few other things why it is so hard to learn to speak by speaking:

Firstly learning to read by reading is much easier because all you have to do is to keep reading and you’ll become better reader and same applies partly to listening though various accents make listening harder than reading but there is double effort in speaking because firstly we simply have to speak but also secondly we have to make additional effort to adjust our pronunciation according to input by native speakers. In speaking we have to also improve our pronunciation but when we are reading we don’t have to do that additional effort. In other words, just keep speaking doesn’t probably cut it. These two factors are even alone sufficiently difficult but there are also any kind of speech anxiety, embarrassment and over-tenseness factors and wrong but deeply ingrained misbelief that speaking foreign language requires some kind of special talent. After all of this it’s no wonder why speaking foreign languages is so difficult. But calm, relaxed, realistic and positive mindset with sufficient qualitative effort is huge part of the solution!

Secondly I think there are two kind of knowledge: One kind of knowledge which we understand maybe even somehow very deeply but we don’t take the action according to this knowledge because this kind of knowledge is purely intellectual by its nature. It’s too abstract for us that we’d act. Second kind of knowledge is the knowledge which simply forces us to take the action because we have understood it sufficiently deeply in a way which is enough concrete for us that it forces us to act according to the knowledge. And thus whether the knowledge belongs to first or to second category determines whether we take the action or not! This kind of reasoning may sound nonsensical and a bit artificial but it’s not at all artificial or nonsensical and I really believe that this kind of reasoning is one of the most sensical and the most wisest reasonings ever because it explains why many intelligent and clever people have done, do and why they keep doing so stupid things in their lives: many heart surgeons were smoking in the past although it was very likely that smoking is one of the causes behind heart diseases, future doctors are drinking way too much alcohol and thus damaging their brain cells in the Faculty of Medicine although they know the dangers of alcohol better than anyone else and not even to speak about ordinary people who nowadays should know the great dangers of immobility and unhealthy food to their health and well-being but some of them don’t still take the serious action to exercise their body and eat healthier because their knowledge about the health risks are still too abstract for them and this means that they don’t really see themselves in their minds’ eyes dying from diseases if they continue their unhealthy lifestyle. And this same reasoning applies perfectly to speaking and language learning as well.

And finally I’d like to say that I like your blog just pretty much the way it is right now but I think, too, that you could get more subscribers if you paid more attention to listening issues. In fact, I’d like to put it this way imitating the use of mathematical jargon: Listening is a necessary condition for speaking but it’s not sufficient: Without listening it’s probably pretty much impossible to speak because you don’t know how to pronounce speech patterns and without speaking you don’t develop the fine motor skills of mouth muscles and speaking properly is again impossible and thus the insufficiency of mere listening. So I think that it’s a good idea for you to focus also on listening issues in a way that suits to your blog.

Hi Sunny,

It’s a very valid question!

Here’s an article where you’ll find some answers: http://englishharmony.com/planning/ but I just also recorded a video where I’m providing more info on how to produce lengthy answers to questions!

I’ll let you know when the video goes live!

Chat soon,

Robby

”keep it short and to the point” – I grew up living this adage. Now ,the thing is when I have to answer questions related to my college subjects,I apply the above principle and it works well there.But the problem is, this short answers/speech has become my habit ,I use it everywhere even in circumstances which demand an elaborate answer/speech. So I face problems to carry on conversations or give a speech for long time even when the particular topic is my forte . This embarrasses me. It hampers my spoken english.

I see you carry on for a long time discussing about a topic . How do you do this…Do you follow certain method for long time conversations on topic. Please help me .

You’re welcome my friend, and I’m sure you could think of something to say! 😉

For example – has there been a similar moment in your life when you’ve made a very simple life-changing realization?

I’m sure that if you think about it, you will remember something similar happening to you!