Bias and its Antidote

Once there was a couple who had married a few years ago. They were living in a metropolitan city. The husband was working in one of the top firms and the wife took care of the chores. Both of them were living a happy and contended life. The husband's office was situated a few miles away from his home. He went to his office by public bus. One day the bus was too crowded. While returning back from the office, his wife had found the long thick black hair on his shoulder. His wife started crying very loudly and accused him of having an extramarital affair. She called her relatives and told them about the entire incident. The relatives convinced her that she had gone pessimistic about it. Somehow she calmed herself but the seed of pessimism had taken the root in her mind.

Relations are very soft and delicate like a thread. Once broken it is very difficult to revert them to their original shape. Relatives gave a piece of wise advice to the husband to inspect himself before entering the home. The husband took their advice seriously. The next day before entering the home he inspected everything. After entering the home, his wife checked everything. To her surprise, she hadn't found anything. She started crying more loudly than yesterday. "Honey, What happened", asked the husband in confusion. The wife replied, "Now you have started dating the bald girls."

The gist of the story is how pessimism bias will ruin the relations. Did you notice something? I have mentioned the word bias. What is the meaning of psychological bias? Where does it come from? Why do human beings are biased? How to overcome bias? Let's find it.

A brain is a tool used by human beings to solve worldly problems. Life is full of problems and our job is to solve them in an effective and optimal way. The human brain uses two kinds of sub-brains to solve any problem.

1. Reflexive Brain

2. Reflective Brain

Reflexive Brain: Reflexive brain is very fast, automatic, and solves problems instantly. What is the answer to 2+3? The answer instantly flashes on your thought screen provided you know the counting and algebra. The answer pops into your mind without any effort. Humans are relying upon the reflexive brain to perform day-to-day activities like reading, talking, walking, etc.

Reflective Brain: Reflective brain is very slow, effortful, and takes time to solve any problem. What is the answer to 24 * 67? If you are not a math wizard then you definitely need a pen and paper to solve this problem. The reflexive brain becomes blank to this problem. Therefore, the problem is delegated to the reflective brain. It is mostly used to solve the complex problems of life.

When the complex activity is repeated enough times then the task is delegated to the reflexive brain. For example, when you are learning to drive a car it seems like a very daunting task. With enough practice, you can perform multiple activities like taking over the phone and driving a car simultaneously. When one skill is mastered then the cognitive resources of the reflective brain are utilized to learn other skills. The fundamental reason for the advancement of civilization.

Read out loud the sentences given in the below figure.

The chances are very high that you haven't noticed the appearance of twice the in the first sentence. The same is the case with the third sentence and the appearance of twice a in the second sentence.

Why does this happen?

The reflexive brain takes the command, reads the sentence, and gets the essence of it. It is very fast and jumps to conclusions without giving a second thought. Surprisingly the brain gives an endorsement to the answer produced by the reflexive brain. The reflexive brain is very fast but inaccurate. It serves us well in many tasks. Under specific circumstances, it yields an error that becomes catastrophic to life.

The tasks that will be directed to the reflective brain but instead the reflexive brain takes the command and generates the systematic error known as psychological biases. A downside to the over-dependency on the reflexive brain. It is very tedious to use the reflective brain to perform every task because it takes lots of energy and cognitive bandwidth. Learn to recognize the high stake decisions and consciously engage the reflective brain to do those tasks. It will improve your decision-making capability. A serene life is the outcome of optimal decision-making.

The human brain is evolving for the last two and a half million years. The majority of the time is spent in the savannah(hunting-gathering environment). Let's go back to the hunting-gathering days. Adam and Eve were living in a forest. They were searching for some food in the forest. Suddenly they heard the sound in the bushes. Adam was an optimistic boy and Eve was a pessimistic girl. Eve told Adam that it was a sound of a predator who was trying to find its prey. Let's run away otherwise, we will become dead meat. Adam told her that you are a very pessimistic girl and ignored her advice and continue his search for food.

If Eve was right one out of a thousand times then Adam will become dead meat. The main reason behind reproduction is to pass on our genes to the offspring. Optimistic genes are inhibiting our survival whereas pessimistic genes are supporting our survival. According to Charles Darwin, only those genes will be passed on to the offspring that support our survival. As time went by, the optimistic genes will be lost to oblivion. In the contemporary world, humans are not living in the forests. Our brain is a gift of evolution to us. The environment has changed drastically but the brain remained the same. That is why we are so pessimistic about everything.

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists. Thomas Friedman

From now onwards, don't give an endorsement to the negative thought produced by the reflexive brain. Withhold your judgment and rethink the situation to gain a clear picture and better perspective. Shower yourself daily with good books to disrupt the negative pattern of the mind. It helps in sabotaging ignorance and the removal of ignorance is the path toward wisdom. Enlightenment is the state of mind to find goodness in everything. Beware of the pessimism bias and don't let it affect your relationship with your loved ones.

Happiness is the outcome of having good relations with the people around us. Godliness is feeling the pain of others by looking into their eyes. We want heart-to-heart connections with everybody so that our loving glance will bring a cute smile to their face. Pessimism is an obstacle that comes in between relationships.

How to overcome pessimism bias?

Baye's theorem is an antidote to pessimism bias. It helps in forging happy relations with others. Thomas Bayes was an English minister in the first half of the 18th century whose famous work "An Essay toward solving a problem in the doctrine of chances" was brought to the attention of the Royal Society by his friend Richard Price after his death. The core idea of the Bayes provided the seeds for the great mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace to develop what we now called Baye's Theorem.

The theory of Probability is the only mathematical tool available to help map the unknown and the uncontrollable. It is fortunate that this tool, while tricky, is extraordinarily powerful and convenient. Benoit Mandelbrot

Let's understand the fundamentals of Baye's Theorem.

Steve was in a deep sleep. He woke up in the middle of the night due to a horrifying dream. To calm himself, he went straight to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, picked up the energy drink, took its sip, and then put it again in the refrigerator. After that, he went back to sleep. He started feeling nausea in his stomach after some time. Suddenly a thought pops in his mind that in the refrigerator there are four bottles out of which three contain an energy drink and one contains poison!

The tragedy of the situation was that, like poison, energy drink also causes nausea sometimes. The label on the poison bottle said that seventy-five percent of people who takes poison will show nausea symptoms whereas the sticker on the energy drink reads that only ten percent of people would feel the symptoms after taking energy drink. What are the chances that Steve took the poison instead of an energy drink?

If Steve hadn't felt nausea in his stomach then the probability of taking poison is twenty-five percent because there is only one poison bottle out of four bottles. This is known as the prior probability or the base rate information.

Now new information is added to the repertoire that he is feeling nausea in his stomach.

The probability of feeling nausea when he takes the poison is seventy-five percent. Prob(Nausea/Poison) = 75%

The probability of feeling nausea when he takes the energy drink is ten percent.

Prob(Nausea/Energy drink) = 10%

The fundamental definition of probability is the sum of observations divided by the number of observations.

We are interested in finding the probability of taking poison when he is feeling nausea in his stomach.

Prob(Poison/Nausea) = (Prob(Nausea/Poison) * Prob(Poison)) / Prob(Nausea)

Prob(Nausea) = Prob(Nausea/Posion) * Prob(Poison) + Prob(Nausea/Energy drink) * Prob(Energy drink)

Prob(Nausea) = 0.75 * 0.25 + 0.10 * 0.75

Prob(Nausea) = 0.2625

Prob(Poison/Nausea) = (0.75 * 0.25) / 0.2625

Prob(Poison/Nausea) = 0.7142 that accounts to 71.4%

Did you get the core idea?

The idea is to update the prior beliefs in light of new evidence. In the above case, the prior probability is twenty-five percent. In the light of new evidence, the probability changes to seventy-one percent. There is no need to memorize the mathematical formulae. The underlying idea of the theorem is to keep updating your beliefs in the light of new evidence.

Knowledge is worthless unless it is applied in day-to-day life. Of course, we don't know the exact probabilities in the real world still Baye's theorem can be applied to forge good relations with others. Let's use it in the above story.

We are assuming here that ninety percent of the people are loyal to their spouses. The wife found thick long black hair on the shoulder of his husband. It raises suspicion in her mind. By applying Baye's theorem, the probability of loyalty should be decreased to eighty-five percent. The next day she hadn't found any evidence, so the probability should remain eighty-five percent. The flaw in human thinking is a failure to take into account the base rate information. People are overwhelmed by the new evidence and make errors in their judgment. Sometimes people discard the new information and failed to update their prior beliefs. A good rule of thumb is when the Probability(while interacting with others) decreases to less than thirty percent then stop putting any effort into the relationship.

Baye's theorem is an important mental model that forces us to think in terms of probabilities. It helps us to forge happy relations with others. Developing the habit of Bayesian thinking is an admirable quality. In fact, thinking like a Bayesian is a way of life. If you practice it, it will change you in many ways.

If you have liked this post, please share it with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Please share your feedback in the comment box.

Photo by Milan Popovic on Unsplash

Compassion

Once there was a monk who lived on the top of a beautiful hill. He was practicing meditation for the last twenty years. An old lady took care of all of his needs while he was meditating. Feeding someone for twenty years is a very long duration of time. He was sitting in zazen and doing nothing. One day out of nowhere a thought came to her mind, Is he really transformed? She wanted to take a test on him. She found a very beautiful girl who is full of desire. She was very cute and had attractive eyes.

An old lady sent her to the monk's hut in the middle of the night. She started caressing him after entering the monk's hut. After some time she told him and now what? "An old tree grows on a rock in winter", replied the monk poetically. Nowhere is there any warmth. The young girl told the entire incident to an old lady. The old lady was burning in anger. She told her he needs not have responded to her passion but he must have shown compassion towards her. She realized that she had wasted her precious twenty years on the wrong person. She burnt the monk's hut in anger.

This is a very beautiful story and is full of insights. Before analyzing it, let's understand some fundamentals of life. People mistakenly believe that Pleasure, Happiness, and Bliss are the same thing. Even though all of them point in the same direction but they are quite different.

Pleasure: Pleasure is a psychological phenomenon. Intake of sugar is an example of Pleasure. It gives instant gratification. It is first-order positive but second-order negative. Addiction to instant gratification is very detrimental to long-term growth. Continuous intake of sugar leads to obesity in the future. Some more examples of instant gratification are scrolling on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc. Activities that lead to growth are always first-order negative but second-order positive. Doing regular exercise seems very painful at the moment but you will reap the benefits of a healthy body in the future. Pain is temporary but wisdom attained in the process is perennial.

Happiness: Happiness is a psychological phenomenon. The fulfillment of ego is the reason behind happiness. It is dependent on the fulfillment of a desire. The more the number of desires, the more will be the chances of remaining unhappy. Happiness restricts freedom. It creates bondage. Freedom is our ultimate goal. Unconditional love is an antidote to an Ego. The ego always thinks about oneself and Love always thinks about others. Be more and more loving without asking anything in return.

“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” Naval Ravikant

Bliss: Bliss is the feeling of oneness. It's like merging with the whole. It is like throwing a piece of salt into the sea. As it moves deeper and deeper, it loses its identity and becomes one with the sea. Similarly, when you move within yourself(Sea) then the ego(Salt) keeps on losing its grip over you. The dissolution of ego is the beginning of enlightenment. A man of enlightenment is without any desire. He reaches a point where there is no temptation left. He is simply blissful. Bliss is uncaused. It doesn't depend upon any condition. Meditation is the means and bliss is the end.

There is always a reason behind unhappiness. There won't be any reason for blissfulness because joy is your being. Joy is your innermost core. Look at trees, birds, clouds, and stars. If you have eyes then you will find that the whole of existence is joyful. Everything is simply blissful. They are joyful without any reason. They are not going to become Prime ministers and presidents. They don't have any bank balance. Look at flowers it's unbelievable how blissful they are.

People think that concentration is same as the meditation. They are poles apart from each other. Let's explore Ordinary Thinking, Contemplation, Concentration, and Mediation to understand the above story.

Ordinary Thinking: A mind is an associative machine. It jumps from one thought to another as a monkey jumps from one branch to another. Thoughts originate in the mind with respect to some stimulus. For example, you are walking on the street and saw a cute puppy. Dog acts as a reminder that you were bitten by it when you were a kid. Now you leaped to your childhood. In your childhood, you are very fond of vanilla ice cream. From vanilla ice cream your thoughts move to the marriage party where you last ate it.

Thoughts keep coming like this for on and on. A vast amount of energy is wasted unless you become aware of the entire absurdity of the mind. Don't cooperate with the mind when you are stuck in such patterns of thoughts. There are generally three types of thoughts: Positive thoughts, Negative thoughts, and Neutral thoughts. Depressed people are the victim of negative thoughts. The basic understanding of the workings of the human mind is the first step in moving beyond the mind.

Ordinary Mind

Contemplation: Contemplation is an act of directed thinking. Scientists and logicians are pros in contemplative thinking. While solving a particular problem, Scientists screen out the rest of the thoughts and put a laser-like focus on the problem. The mind is not allowed to move in all directions. In contemplation, it is moving in a particular direction.

Scientist's Mind

Concentration: The mind is focused at a particular point in concentration. It is not even allowed to move in any direction. It is like staring at a dot. The mind becomes tense if concentrated for a long duration of time. Concentration is an act of effort. The mind needs some rest after concentration. Never mistake the concentration as same as meditation.

Concentrated Mind

Meditation: Meditation is the art of doing nothing. It is a state of no thoughts. You simply are to enjoy your existence. It is a sheer delight. It comes from nowhere or everywhere. It is uncaused because existence is made of stuff called joy. Controlling your thoughts is not going to help you in any way. This is not the right way to destroy the tree of desire. The way is to cut its roots and roots can be only cut if you have reached the roots of desire. On the surface, there are only branches - jealousy, anger, envy, hatred, and lust.

“Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divinity within you.” Amit Ray

The deeper you move, the more you will understand that they are coming from one root named unawareness. Meditation means awareness that cuts the root. The whole tree will disperse on its own accord and the passion becomes compassion. In meditation, there is no need to exert any effort. Observe your thoughts in your free time and become aware of the observer who is observing the thoughts. The observer within you is immortal, eternal, and beyond time.

Meditative Mind

The foundation is built and the time has come to analyze the story.

Once there was a monk who lived on the top of a beautiful hill. He was practicing meditation for the last twenty years. An old lady took care of all of his needs while he was meditating. Feeding someone for twenty years is a very long duration of time. He was sitting in zazen and doing nothing.

In the East, people understand the value of an enlightened person. He is overflowing with tremendous energy and his energy will be shared by all. It is more than enough that he is meditating. He is very silent and blissful. All his care will be taken by other people because people know the power of meditation. Buddha moved with the thousands of monks and people were very happy to share food with them. Those values have disappeared with the passage of time. The values have not disappeared in the old lady. That is why she is taking care of the monk while he is in meditation.

One day out of nowhere a thought came to her mind, Is he really transformed? She wanted to take a test on him.

The old lady became very old. She is almost on the verge of death. Twenty years is a very long time. She wanted to test, Is he really transformed. The monk is in meditation and doing nothing. She wants to see the fruits of her actions. Hence, she decided to take a test on him.

She found a very beautiful girl who is full of desire. She was very cute and had attractive eyes. An old lady sent her to the monk's hut in the middle of the night. She started caressing him after entering the monk's hut. After some time she told him and now what?

In Russia, a scientist named Pavlov performed an experiment on a dog that is widely known as the Pavlovian experiment. He wanted to prove that a mind is an associative machine that works on the principle of positive and negative conditioning. In his experiment, he rang a bell before the food was given to a dog. Repeating this behavior for a long period of time creates conditioning in the mind of a dog.

The tongue of the dog starts dripping after hearing the bell. Even though there won't exist any correlation between the bell and the intestine of the dog. This is an example of positive conditioning. Some people start punishing themselves whenever any intimate thought came to their mind. Repeatedly doing this will create a negative association in the mind. The brain starts repressing these thoughts due to the fear of punishment. It is an act of conditioning that has nothing to do with transformation.

An old lady is a woman of great understanding. The old lady knows the tricks of the brain. Therefore, she sent a beautiful girl to a monk's hut in the middle of the night. The monk has renounced society for a very long time. As the girl starts caressing him, one of the three possibilities arises:

First: The monk has renounced society and hadn't seen any beautiful girl for the last twenty years. On seeing such a tremendous beauty, he might be attracted by her and start making love to her.

Second: He has conditioned his mind as Pavlov did with a dog. Twenty years is a very long time. He might have developed negative associations with such thoughts. If that was the case then transformation has not happened yet. He will simply become cold towards others.

Third: He has attained what leads to the dissolution of the ego. All of his energies are transformed into compassion. He becomes a man of warmth that is reflected in his eyes. He becomes very loving and caring towards others.

"An old tree grows on a rock in winter", replied the monk poetically. Nowhere is there any warmth.

The monk has developed a negative association with attraction. He becomes very cold and egoistic. Love always thinks about the other. We are the means and other is the end. The ego always thinks about himself. We are the end and the other becomes the mean. All of his energies become dead. He becomes like a stone. No transformation has happened to him.

The young girl told the entire incident to an old lady. The old lady was burning in anger. She told her he needs not have responded to her passion but he must have shown compassion towards her.

According to the old lady, he needs not have responded to your passion but he must have shown some compassion. Passion is very hot and feverish. It is always in search of happiness. Those who have attained will become very compassionate towards others. Compassion is very warm. You will feel compassion when you go near your mother because her love is unconditional towards you. Compassion is unaddressed and is not in search of any gratification. Compassion is an expression of blissfulness.

If the monk has attained then he must have looked into your eyes with unconditional love. He will say, why do you come here in the middle of the night? What do you want? No one will come here in the middle of the night. Why have you chosen me out of so many? His warmth is enough to turn your passion into compassion.

She realized that she had wasted her precious twenty years on the wrong person. She burnt the monk's hut in anger.

It is just a metaphor to show that the old lady has wasted her precious twenty years.

Compassion and love is the ultimate outcome of meditation. There are two ways to attain them. One is the path of devotion and another is the path of meditation. In devotion, one becomes drunk for God. He becomes so receptive that he allows the divine to enter in you. Surrender is the path of devotion. In meditation, one forgets about the other and becomes crystallized. One takes all his energies within himself. Devotion and Meditation are the two ways to traverse the inner world.

If meditation is making you cold then beware and if it is making you warmer, more loving, and more flowing then you are on the right path. If you are becoming less loving, compassion is disappearing, and apathy is setting inside then change the direction. Otherwise, you will become like a wall.

Whatsoever you are towards yourself, you will be towards others. If you love yourself then you will love others. If you are flowing within your being, you will be flowing in relationships also. If you are frozen inside, you will become frozen outside also. Inner tends to become the outer, the inner goes on manifesting itself in the outer. Sacrifice the outer to preserve the divine inner.

If you have liked this post, please share it with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Please share your feedback in the comment box.

Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash

Neo-Thinking

Wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions. Our actions are influenced by the way we look at the world. Our viewpoint of the world depends upon the quality of our thinking. We are the only creatures on this planet that are blessed by mother nature for their ability to think. Better thinking yields a happy and fulfilled life.

Now you might be wondering how to think in a better way. Let's explore the thought process of human beings.

Thinkers are of two types:

1. Non-Creative

2. Creative

Non-Creative: Non-Creative thinkers divide the events into categories. They think in terms of binary(either 0 or 1). These categories make them very rigid. They can't think beyond their fixed patterns. Their neural pathways become stronger as they repeat those fixed patterns. A human brain is a pattern-seeking machine. Any event that conforms to the pattern of their mind will be accepted by them. They will outrightly reject the anomalous behavior. They are so quick to form a judgment about an event. They never question their beliefs. Reaching any conclusion without challenging the facts yields catastrophic results.

Daniel Kahneman(Noble Prize winner psychologist) popularised the concept of System 1 and System 2. System 1 is a fast thinker, a kind of reflexive brain. System 2 is a slow thinker, a kind of reflective brain. System 1 part of the non-creative thinkers is highly active. They resort to system 1 for making crucial decisions which is a fundamental flaw in their thought process.

Creative: Creative thinkers have inculcated the habit of grey thinking. They never think in terms of binaries. They are very flexible in their thinking. They never form any conclusion based on a single event. A single event is a very small sample size to form any judgment. They are very vigilant about the availability bias. Availability bias is the mental shortcut used by the brain to make decisions based on recent and vivid memories. They have internalized the idea of probabilistic thinking. They are very open-minded and try to look at the problem from as many dimensions as possible. They resort to system 2 for making the crucial decisions of their life.

Creativity is intelligence having fun. Anonymous

The various ways to unleash the creative abilities are:

1. Thinking from First Principles.

2. Second-Order Thinking.

3. Ignoring Exceptions.

4. Paying attention to the absent information.

Thinking from First Principles: Understanding the basics is very important for becoming a pro in a particular domain. A domain is viewed as a system that is composed of various components. The desired result can be achieved by knowing those components and the ways by which they interact with each other. It is a bottom-up approach to solving problems.

I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn in some other way - by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile. Richard Feynman

Suppose your goal is to enhance your productivity. Think about your day as a system and your activities as components. To increase productivity one has to understand the various activities and their interactions between them. The successful execution of one activity will decrease the energy for subsequent activities. Execute the most difficult task when your energy level is at its highest peak(Morning). Stay away from distractions while doing those activities.

Reward yourself when you have completed your task. Successful execution of one task will boost your confidence and give you the momentum for the remaining activities. Repetition of the above behavior for a long period of time will make you an expert in a particular field. Always think from the first principles while solving the problems of your life.

Second-Order Thinking: When India was occupied by the British colonies, Britishers were worried about the population of the growing number of snakes in India. They had implemented one policy to reduce their population. Whosoever would bring the dead cobra will receive the monetary reward. Indians saw an opportunity in this policy so they started breeding cobras in their homes. When the Britishers became aware of this they aborted their policy. Now the breeding cobras would be of no use to Indians, so they released all their cobras. Now the population of cobras will increase even more than it was in the first place. It is also known as the cobra effect.

Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. Margaret Atwood

First-Order thinkers generally think about the immediate consequences of their actions. This is what we have seen in the above example. Second-Order thinkers will think about the effects of the effects. Digging deeper requires effort but it pays in the long run. Knowing the details are as important as knowing the overall picture. Be more and more flexible, zoom in and zoom out to get the overall gist of the situation.

Ignoring Exceptions: Long back, Scientists consider matter as a static object. Madam Curie being a contrarian observed that some matter emits radiations. Her other colleagues overlooked the anomaly but she wanted to find the mystery behind this anomaly. She kept on studying this with her husband for four long years. Her efforts paid off which leads to the discovery of radioactivity.

In the initial years of our life, we form certain ideas about the world. Those ideas served us as a compass to navigate the complex challenges of our life. Any information that confirms our preexisting beliefs will be accepted and the contradictory information will be rejected by us. Contradictory information creates cognitive dissonance. We become the victim of Confirmation bias.

Confirmation Bias is the tendency of the people is to favor information that confirms their beliefs while disregarding the contradictory information. Creative thinkers are aware of this bias. There exists a chance of improvement when expectations don't meet the reality. When Charles Darwin formulated the Theory of Evolution, he spent eight long years to find shreds of evidence that will falsify it. Unable to find the contradictory pieces of evidence will strengthen his Theory of Evolution. Always be on the lookout for exceptions to gain a better understanding of the world.

Paying attention to the absent information: In the beginning, Medical Researchers thought that outside particles like germs, bacteria, etc. will be the cause of human diseases. Biochemist Fredrick Gowland observed that something is missing in the above theory. He found that the presence of germs is not only the cause of diseases but the absence of something can also cause the disease. He was interested in finding the root cause of scurvy. By doing extensive research, he found that the absence of Vitamin C is the root cause of scurvy.

Sherlock Holmes had mastered this skill. While solving one of the cases, he found that the murder happened but the dog hadn't barked. It means the dog knew the murderer otherwise the dog will definitely bark on seeing a stranger. Paying attention to the absent information is the most arduous task. Always pay attention to the social silence. Sometimes we need to reverse our perspective for solving complex challenges.

Master the above tools by practicing them in day-to-day life to become a creative thinker. Creative thinking will help you to improve your decision-making process. Wise decisions will help you to live a happy and content life.

If you have liked this post, please share it with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Please share your feedback in the comment box.