There is nothing as remarkable as learning how to think better. – Anonymous
What does that mean?
When one learns how to think better, one begins to see the world in a different light. Solutions become easier, and better. They are more thorough, more robust and more practical. Better thinking leads to a better quality of life for you and for everyone else.
Why is thinking important?
Yesterday, we discussed knowledge as an investment. Now let’s look at how to use that knowledge, how to think better. Let’s not confuse intuition with logic. Both are required to think quickly and clearly, but most people tend to focus on one or the other.
Logic is defined by thefreedictionary.com as “The study of the principles of reasoning…” This is where engineers and computer geeks (and many others) tend to live, going from fact to fact until they reach a conclusion. To some, it can be dry, tedious and boring. To others, it’s as interesting as a car chase in a movie (presuming you find those very interesting). However, by itself, it can be limiting. It is, pretty much by definition, the personification of “inside the box.” If there is a missing fact, you don’t reach the conclusion, or have to go quite a bit out of your way to get there. It’s vital, but not stand alone. It is why computers still loose to Chess Masters.
Intuition is defined by thefreedictionary.com as “The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition” and “A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.” Without use of logic. Intuition is the flip side of the ‘thinking’ coin. Many groups of people fall into this category. They leap from premise to conclusion, guided by experience, instinct, gut feelings or whatever seems to reach out to them. Often this results in “outside the box” conclusions, methods and results. It also will tend to perplex the logic oriented people. The logic types will ask for supporting facts and get a shrug as a response. This can cause quite a bit of tension between people who live almost entirely in one camp or the other.
Where can I apply this in my life?
Improving the logical approach is one I am quite familiar with (being both an engineer and a computer geek, as well as a chess player), so we’ll start there. Most people can do simple “if X then Y otherwise Z” type logical constructs. Most can also do what the computer types often call a case statement, like a location list for a babysitter to contact you should an emergency occur – restaurant from 6-7, movie from 7-9, desert from 9-10. Depending on the time, the sitter knows where to call.
Thinking beyond square one is a more difficult task. Sometimes you see kids do something that seems fairly logical at first, but you realize there are implications to their ‘solution.’ As an example, they use too much toilet paper. Their solution is often to simply close the lid, out of sight, out of mind. Kind of funny when a kid does it, not so much so when an adult does it. Even less so when elected officials from the local school board to the Congress Critters in Washington DC do something as brain dead.
Next time you are confronted with a problem, after you find a candidate solution, take a step back and examine your solution in your mind. How does this change things? What happens next?
As an example, Las Vegas has a water problem, as do many cities in the Desert South West. They drilled for water, over pumped the wells and caused subsidence (where the ground sinks, in some places over 6 feet) when the emptied aquifers collapsed. This wasn’t rocket science, and this wasn’t the first place it ever happened. It’s a known cause and effect problem. So their next solution was to pump water from Lake Mead. Guess what – there’s a problem with that, as well. Some of the 130′ drop in the water level of Lake Mead is due to an ongoing drought, but a good portion is being sucked up by Las Vegas. They should be able to figure out how much water goes into the lake, how much leaves the lake, and what is ‘left over’ for them to use. But they didn’t think that far ahead. Now, just to be able to continue to drain Lake Mead, they need to drill new siphons to be able to provide water. I wonder what they’re going to do when they finally realize that this is not a sustainable strategy?
Another example would be the Gulf Oil Spill. The chain of events leading to the disaster was a boondoggle in itself, but the fact that no one figured out that the dispersing agents were going to make as big a mess (some say even bigger mess) than the oil should have been well known from prior uses at other spill sites. They (apparently) saw a problem, and grabbed the quickest, easiest, cheapest or simplest (not sure what their selection criterion was) and implemented it without (it would appear) thinking past square one.
Next, let’s look at intuitive thinking. Did you ever just ‘know’ the answer? Then had someone ask you how you knew the answer and been unable to say how? Some of you are saying yes, and others are saying no. For those who haven’t, you should probably go out on a limb a bit more often. Brainstorming is a form of free association, sometimes associated with intuitive thinking, so that might be a place to start trying. Practice makes perfect, so you might want to spend ten to fifteen minutes brainstorming about solutions to whatever difficulties you had to deal with today. Even if you have already dealt with them, come up with a couple other ways to deal with the situation.
Another exercise in intuitive thinking is what I call the ‘two cushion shot,’ named after a type of pool shot that involves striking bumpers, instead of pocketing the ball directly. Think of something, then think of something the first thing reminds you of, then think of something the second thing reminds you of. You are now on the third thing you thought of, by logical means. As you practice, you will eventually get to the point where you won’t even consciously think of the intermediate thing and go straight from first to third. As an example, you see a red light, which reminds you of the time you got a traffic ticket, which reminds you of doughnuts. Even there, I skipped a step, jumping completely over the Police Officer, right? Sorry for the stereotype, but it was the first thing that came to mind, and that’s the point of the exercise, isn’t it?
Finally, you might want to pull the two together, and take the possible solutions you brainstormed, and think the best two or three out a couple steps. If I did this solution, how will it change not just the problem, but the system where it operates? Are there secondary effects (unintended consequences), and how significant are they?
As you get used to doing this kind of thinking, your solutions to problems will become better, as you will have used both types of thinking, and discarded the less effective and counterproductive responses before you even opened your mouth. And that is remarkable.
From: Twitter, @AR_Foundation
confirmed at : a bunch of sites attribute it to anonymous, but most are small sites. One attributed it to “Aristole” which I believe to be a typo for Aristotle.
