Thinking in Different Ways (2)
Another way of thinking that may not be very helpful in a world full of ‘problems’ to solve is “Earth-around-the-Sun” thinking
Earth around the Sun ThinkingThis type of thinking is more ‘logical’ and has wider applicability than ‘Crowing Cockerel Thinking’ or ‘Flat world Thinking’ mentioned in the last blog but can be as dangerous and misleading as these first two ways of thinking. This way of thinking transfixes our assumptions about reality and about how ‘the world works‘ (so an alternative name might be ‘transfixed thinking’). This is also a thinking level that is ‘in the box’.So if you believe that the Earth orbits around the sun (as a complete and perfect manifestation of reality) then there is a danger that you see the sun as the centre of the universe (so you have simply moved from the theory of the earth as the centre, to the sun as the centre). With this way of thinking you may never get to consider how the sun (together with the earth) moves in relation to other systems and how those other systems may affect you.Seeing your model as ‘true’ may mean you ignore subtle effects that come from things outside of your model – like in the solar system analogy – the movement of other solar systems (larger elements but further away) or other elements (smaller but nearer) like our moon. And we know from chaos theory that a collection of subtle effects (a butterfly flapping its wings in Australia) can interact to give big effects.Side-tracking to Global Warming for a moment
The mention of ‘butterflies’ and chaos theory side-tracks me for a moment to Global Warming as an example where scientists are seen to be applying “Earth around the Sun Thinking”.
Despite the fact that both the moon (orbit changes in relationship to Earth) and the Sun (sunspot activity variation) are known to influence weather on planet Earth, I have yet to see a single computer projection that includes all such known relevant data in the calculations. This means that I personally can’t be led to believe any of the data projections on Global Warming. If you are thinking outside of existing accepted models of current reality, then it is logical to make absolutely sure that important weather factors like lunar orbit shifts and sunspot activity have been included in the computer modeling for these are (known) major contributors of both historical and current world temperature changes. Why should we believe any statistics or data that is so reductionist in its approach? (Incidentally I believe we should save our oil, gas and coal reserves for future needs and therefore we must seek alternative sources of energy – this is just plain sensible – and we should have been thinking about this a hundred years ago before Global Warming was a figment of anybody’s imagination.)
It is possible to identify a lot of bad decisions being made by Governments, Business, Economists, Financiers etc. around the world because they believe either in useless models or a flawed understanding of the limitations of the dataBack to the Thinking about Thinking
Earth-around-the-Sun Thinking is the ultimate ‘we know the truth’ thinking.It is the thinking that says ‘we have the complete picture’, ‘we are the experts’ and ‘we don’t need to listen to any new or alternative perspectives’. This stance becomes ‘my theory is true’ and then no counter-evidence can possibly be allowed to invalidate it.
The attitude that emanates from this way of thinking is the “If you try to convince me that there is something incomplete or wrong here, I will ignore all your evidence, and I will strongly defend my current belief”. We all defend our beliefs this is natural. The dangers arise when the beliefs we defend are very limited and very closed and we are simply not open to other possibilites.Earth-around-the-Sun Thinking is accepted and very prevalent in society today. This logical thinking level is a limited thinking level however, for whilst it is useful in the context of a single and important relationship (note: a reductionist relationship), it can be misleading in relation to the whole picture and may be missing many key influencing factors when it comes to applying the thinking for accurate predictions.In an era where our political leaders in particular seek and worship the results of expert assessments or computer predictions, we need to stay alert when the thinking that the ‘experts’ used to construct the formulas has failed to include important potential factors – making each and every prediction seriously flawed (Swine flu comes to mind here, I wonder why?).We have all heard about rubbish-in, rubbish-out, but how often are our most eminent leaders making predictions that will influence our well-being or waste our money from models that are flawed, or data that is of poor quality.Science and maths, and history – the list goes on, these are all littered with examples where important data (evidence) was left out when it did not fit the thinking (model). The reason ‘chaos theory’ was a late development in maths (so I have heard) was that for a long time it was known that certain mathematical data did not fit the existing theories, but this data was continually and deliberately overlooked. You see when people (the explorers) on the flat-plain of current thinking, travel out to its far reaches and say “I have seen beyond and this world isn’t flat”, all the Flat-World Thinkers gang up, or ‘group-think’, together and find arguments to ignore the data as an aberration. In fact they see the explorer as the aberration not the data.So Earth-around-the-Sun Thinking is only a slightly more sophisticated form of Flat World Thinking. For most, the former is the true way to think and the latter way is a false way. It may appear therefore that Earth-around-the-Sun Thinking is far superior to Flat World Thinking. However the Gods looking down on us from on high, see both levels of thinking as identical and flawed, as both models (can) obscure reality and both ways of thinking place restriction on the future potential of human beings and limit the possibility for creative thought and for new solutions.
“All models are wrong, some models are useful” George Box
To be creative is to be able to hold different possible models of reality at any one time and see the usefulness of them all.
‘Creatives’ observe and play with their models, they don’t live in their models nor believe them to be ‘true’.
We are all born creative beings. One of the things that sabotages this birthright is an education system where the focus is on right answers rather than useful answers. The way we currently do education therefore is to condition-out our ability to hold multiple ‘truths’ in our head at any one time. This is something to discuss elsewhere, however our education system is another example of the outcome from Earth-around-the-Sun Thinking applied thoughtlessly transfixing us to believe that education is about ‘dumping information in’ to heads and believing that we measure cleverness by how well students can get that dumped information back out again. (this is recall not learning). If this is cleverness we would never have seen the Fosbury Flop, the Photocopier, Michael Jackson’s Moon Walk, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or indeed this blog.
Learning Point: Very few things are absolute or true, most things are actually only ‘true’ relative to other things. Two plus two does not always equal exactly four, parallel lines can meet, carbon dioxide is not the only thing to influence our weather!
SummaryFrom a Creativity perspective, the three levels of thinking outlined so far are illogical and unhelpful (and yet they arguably represent the way that most of us think). Next we’ll look at three levels of thinking that are absolutely required if we are to create new solutions to existing problems.
Coming Next:Ways of thinking that our human brain was actually wired to do?
