Imagine 10,000 years in the future. Two archaeologists are digging a site, and they find the remains of human bones. They take those remains to the lab, perform tests on them, and try to reconstruct the habits and lifestyle of that human. Say those bones belong to me. They are trying to find out my story, how I lived, what I ate, where I traveled, etc. Once they find all the info they need, they toss it into a museum where they store all other such ancient human remains they find. I was essentially one data point to them in trying to understand how humanity evolved over time. Or I can also call myself a “datum”, the singular form of data, literally one piece of information to solve a bigger puzzle. Honestly, I don’t need 10,000 years to become a datum. I am already a part of several datasets people use these days to study many things. So for that objective learner, I am already a datum. Now let me get to how I got the dumb part of it. I have had an interesting and eventful life so far...
I sometimes hear people declare with absolute certainty that so and so is their favorite food, favorite actress, favorite soccer player, favorite 2-legged Pokémon etc. I failed to develop such strong preferences so far in my life, and it makes me think I may be a fraud. If that’s the case, then at least I am a fraud with a good music taste. I may not have an absolute favorite song, but I know for certainty that ‘yellow’ by Coldplay is the song I have played the most in my adult life. I used to think yellow suits my core personality – a consistently funky guitar riff followed by the lyrics that represent pure, unadulterated, and selfless love. I also used to think that I had a soulmate somewhere out there in the world, who would eventually become my favorite person, and that I would sing yellow to her. But again, can I ever know anything with absolute certainty? I am a fraud after all. As a thought experiment, let me assume that there’s indeed one such soulmate. Maybe the role of be...