90% of mistakes in thinking are mistakes of perception
de Bono mentions that professor David Perkins has shown that 90% of the mistakes in thinking - outside technical matters - are mistakes of perception. The rest are mistakes of logic.
1. What types of technical matters are there?
2. What are some examples of technical matters?
1. What types of technical matters are there?
2. What are some examples of technical matters?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Andy on -
Thanks for your answer Kim. de Bono says that sometimes we have to design solutions to problems instead of looking for the cause. But sometimes if we find the cause we can remove it, so maybe that's what people are trying to do regarding the climate problem.
I just realised that what Perkins says doesn't mean that there aren't any mistakes of perception in technical matters.
What other mistakes of thinking are there besides mistakes of perception? There are mistakes of knowledge: not having the knowledge, believing something is true when it's not. What else?
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Permalink Reply by Tony Alexander on -
There is some vagueness to this statement, but Dr. Perkins has done a truckload of cool research and it would be worthwhile to look up random stuff that he's written/done.
I don't take this statement literally, but more like a condensed summary/adage for the general audience.
P.S. Thank you for drawing my attention to this quote, because I wouldn't have learned of the man otherwise!!
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on -
In this context I interpret "technical matters" to mean "measurable matters."
If Toyota builds a faster car than Ford and sells it at the same price, then Ford will need to strive to improve their game or lose business.
In technical matters, things tend to be measurable. A toy is cheaper to make, a medical procedure saves more lives, a mobile telephone is more reliable.
By contrast, if your brother is a better husband than you are well that can't be objectively measured so there won't be any clear signal that you need to improve.
The measurability of technical matters serves as a safety net. My guess (I have no inside information) is that David Perkins found that when thinking about technical matters, people would make mistakes but then quickly change their mind when it was realised that their proposition was measurably worse.
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Permalink Reply by dileepa lawrence hewa on -
This is mail I sent to dear friend who is a retired Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 Instructor Pilot:
She (his daughter) was growing up.
I always remember this question she had asked you:
Open is always towards you.
But when you "open-up" in the aeroplane - the throttle is pushed away.
I have on many a occasion narrated this phenomenon on:
usage of words & the perception involved.
======================================================================
My friends's reply:
----- Original Message -----
From: Elmo Jayawardena
To: Dileepa Lawrence Hewa
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: Dr Edward De Bono
You are so right
I used that example for many years when teaching instructors
blue skies
Elmo
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on -
It would be interesting and fun to see the data which Prof Perkins used.
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on
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Ive had trouble finding more on this with Google.
Anyone know any websites it is on?
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on
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I would like to add that while all perceptions are real (or more correctly unreal) they do have different effects, consequences and usefulness. If we apply different values to these outcomes then while there might be no right or wrong some perceptions (the way we look at things) are more useful than others.
I'm still not clear what errors in perception are.
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Permalink Reply by Franis on -
Adapting to learn a habit (involving a habit or routine of motion, especially,) will make the sensation of doing the routine disappear. You can fire off the trigger that the routine should go into action and it will play out, in total.
These habits are designed to fade into the background, to disappear and run as "installed" routines. These routines are designed to trigger on an "if...then" recognition of a stimulus. The reason habits bury themselves into the construction of a routine is so other habits, (in the form of gradually acquired skills,) can be chained onto previously learned habits.
Learn to do something unnecessary by accident, and it will become chained into the sequence of having learned the skill. Tricky to undo those problems - which are problems that you cannot tell are happening from the inside. You're just doing the thing you learned to do the way you learned to do it.
A basic error of perception is that people assume they know where they are in space and how much effort is required to get them or their extremities from location to location. People often forget that they trained themselves to adapt to some extraordinary circumstance previously - and so may be starting from a different location than they would assume.
What most people do not know is the sense of judgment about location, effort and weight is a relative sense - not an "absolutely true" one. In fact, humans merely are able to register only relative differences in our kinesthetic sense. Most people do not know this fact...
Because of the nature of adapting that humans are so talented at doing, this example is true for how people learn skills and perceive the world to make sense of "how things are," not just the kinesthetic sense.
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on
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Once upon a time in WW2 there was a young woman, an old woman, a German officer and a French resistance fighter in a train compartment.
The train passes through a tunnel. There is the sound of a kiss, a blow and a cry.
The old woman thinks "That was a brave young woman to sock the German officer."
The young woman thinks "I wonder why the German kissed the old woman instead of me".
The German thinks "The Frenchman kisses the young woman and she gives me a black eye."
The Frenchman thinks 'I kissed myself on the hand, gave the German a black eye and got away with it."
They all have different perceptions.
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