MindScribble Blog

  I woke up very early today again. I am developing into a full-blown insomniac, but it does not seem to bother me much, as I get the chance to experience the sun rising every day, along with all the beautiful sounds of the birds as they are welcoming the new day. Some days feel better than others; today somehow I feel more cheerful than usual. It is early morning and I already finished a number of tasks set out to do for my day's worth of work. Last night, I went through a particularly difficult thought process. Again, I found myself still wandering about the reach of our scientific understanding of complex social behaviors in real world systems and experience-rich settings. My concern is not as much as to the individual characteristics of the social system itself, or its various components, as much as its functionality in diverse and heterogeneous social, environmental, cultural, economic and geopolitical conditions and settings. My impression is that we are good on understanding...

I find very interesting how my own personal scientific discovery process plays out. It is an exciting process, but often leads to an overwhelming or overload of thoughts racing through my mind. Often, when faced with a research problem, my main and primary concern is how to understand what my experiences, judgments and data tells me. What is the deeper story and meaning of the things I observe and experience? Is there broader principles and patterns that I can detect? Sometimes it starts simply as an intuition. Reading few interviews, or trying to answer a simple question could trigger this intuition. The feeling that something is there, and somehow I am missing the point, is a powerful motivator. It is not unusual to find myself not been able to sleep or do anything else important without having those taunting questions tantalizing my brain. Some might think this sounds like torture, but for me, this is all about being a scientists. This often "tingling" feeling about such t...