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Re: d'Espagnat wins Templeton Award

by Kim Jones-2 :: Rate this Message:

On 21/03/2009, at 11:53 AM, russell standish wrote:

>
> As I understand de Bono (and I acknowledge Kim's superiour knowledge
> of de Bono), he provides tools to increase the importance of number 1
> (variation) with respect to number 2 or 3. These are techniques like
> the "po thought" or the hats. I am reminded very much of some of the
> recent interest in a concept known as "relaxed selection", which stems
> from an observation that biological evolution is at its most creative
> after a mass extinction event. The idea being that the mass extinction
> removes a lot of competition between species, and hence "relaxes"
> selection pressure. I have been trying out some relaxed selection
> processes in my artificial life experiments, although admittedly
> with little
> success so far.
>
> To sum up with the old aphorism "keep an open mind, but not so open
> your brains fall out". But means are needed to "relax the selection"
> from time to time, to get us out of the Kuhnian paradigm shift
> treadmill. There are techniques that can be taught (just like one can
> teach critical thinking tools, such as logic and deduction), and I
> think this is what Kim is saying. But true creativity cannot be
> taught

If you are right then we are doomed because creative thinking is the
only shot left in the locker for humans. More of the same will no
longer get us far. Analysis and judgement are not enough when there is
a need to design a way forward. Let's please not deify creativity. It
can be taught. Where do people get the notion that it cannot? de Bono
and all the spinoffs of his methods have been teaching creativity
since the 70s. These are the people who have a grip on the idea of the
mind as an entity that can be understood as a system with a defined
behaviour. Whether it turns out to be 'true creativity' or just plain
old every day fake creativity, it's a step in the right direction to
teach creativity based on the new understanding of the brain. It puts
the other wheels on the car that Socrates sold with only the front
left passenger wheel (critical thinking)! It is unfortunately a blind-
spot of many people: this "metaphysicalisation" of creativity which
puts it out of the reach of ordinary mortals. Who can touch and/or
teach creativity then? Its nonsense - everyone can access creativity
once they know how the mind works. Does the substitution level fall
above or below the level of creativity?

The thinking system we use was designed on language, not on an
understanding of how the brain works. Thankfully in putting across
your ideas about comp you have your numerical symbology to help you
out, because without it we'd all be stuffed here. Language is a museum
of ignorance, in a sense. Every word and every concept has entered
language at a stage of relative ignorance compared to our present,
greater experience. But the words and concepts are frozen into
permanence by language and we must use these words and concepts to
deal with present-day reality. This means that we may be forced to
look at things in a very inadequate way.

Creativity and humour are phenomena that arise naturally in active
self-organising information systems. They cannot arise in passive
systems, systems that depend on an external agent to organise the
information. That is why traditional philosophers, psychologists and
information scientists have had to ignore humour - humour cannot occur
in passive information systems. Creativity and lateral thinking have
exactly the same basis in the mind as humour. They provide the much-
needed discontinuity that causes the snap of pattern-switching,
absolutely essential for the mind to be released to see things it
previously could not.

It is precisely because the brain is naturally uncreative that the
need for artificial tools for introducing discontinuity arises. "Po"
stands for "provocation follows"

PO: the factory should be downstream of itself

highly illogical thought but leads to the idea that the factory's
input should perhaps be located downstream of its own output. Like
this it would be directly concerned by input quality and purity. Some
countries have legislated for this to be the case.

Our traditional view of the brain has made creativity a mystery and
completely impossible to understand. Every valuable creative idea must
of course be logical in hindsight (otherwise we could not appreciate
the idea) so we have assumed that better logic would have reached the
idea in the first place. That view is now best understood to be
garbage. An understanding of the brain as a patterning, self-
organising active online information system with pattern assymetries
(the path from A to B is very much longer than the path from B to A)
provides the logical basis for provocation, random entry, reversal,
fractionation, concept fanning and other deliberately artificial
Lateral Thinking tools.

These things have succeeded brilliantly in the business world and made
their author a lot of money. The thinking tools of de Bono can be
taught to Nobel Laureates or to 5 year olds in third world villages.
He has spawned an army of imitators. Academics and educators hate de
Bono because he makes no reference whatever to any existing literature
in the field. His pages are completely free of footnotes.

cheers,

K

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