Our Complacency
Perhaps our real problem is not so much our deficient thinking, but our complacency. We do believe that our thinking is wonderful. Our existing thinking has indeed been wonderful in science and technology - and getting to the moon and beyond. Yet our poor thinking has been responsible for most of the human disasters such as wars conflicts, persecutions etc. The reason is obvious. We rush to use judgement rather than to design the way forward.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Franis on -
Of course, your suggestion is really the one I want to hear. (But I don't want to make you feel obligated to make it.) I know there are other trainers on this site who are hanging back and not making any comments for whatever reasons.
Den, you're obviously the most daring and stellar of them all. Well, except for Mr. Cockroach - (don't want to leave him out either.)
Would not mentioning any notable trainers specifically here be leaving them out of proper and deserving adulation? Feel like I'm sort of dancing, dodging bullets now that I've opened my mouth.
;)
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Permalink Reply by Franis on
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I can not only teach you to dance, but to dance while juggling three items! I've taught over 3000 people, so you'd be in good hands...
http://franis.org/Alexander/Applied_principles_juggling.html
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on -
I havent read 'Think before its too late' and hadn't heard of a septine until I read this thread.
Ok a septine on "our complacency"
1.Passivity
2.Routine
3.Comfortable
4.Conservatism
5.Cowardness
6.Arrogance
7.Conformity (our)
OT, but the word complacency is a bit like the word placenta. Perhaps the word is
related to some kind of subsonscious reference to womb regression
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Permalink Reply by Anita on -
Here is my first go at a septine - avoiding complacency.
1.Comfort
2. Inspiration
3. Energy
4. Other people
5. Interest
6. Time
7. Chunk down
One needs to be at a certain level of comfort in your life to tackle complacency - in a place of contentment and ease without pressing issues. Choose an area of interest or an area that someone has inspired you to become passionate about (note to self - not to end sentences with a preposition). Then you will have energy and time to solve your complacency. Get others to help inspire you to greater goals on this issue, to gain momentum and to create synergy - use Facebook or other networking sites to help. Choose an area or a part of the whole subject that you are going to NOT BE complacent about (there I go again!) so that it is manageable and you can define concrete, measurable goals on your progress.
Eg detention of asylum seekers and offshore processing of their claims.
I tried to do this in three minutes but it took me 6 minutes (not counting the typing time).
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Permalink Reply by Avril Keyes on -
Anita
An excellent first go at a Septine!
The summary part attempts to create a solution which naturally comes to mind based on the seven points. Not all the 7 points need to be included, but can be. Having done your Septine in 6 minutes is very good. How did you find using the structure of the Septine compared with normal thinking?
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Permalink Reply by Bhuvaneshwar Joshi on -
IT is not just complacency but belief that Critical Thinking is trustworthy and enough for our purpose.And we know how difficult it is to change perceptions.
I have recently come accross a google vedio on Out of Box Thinking -a publc lecture by a learned Satguru( please listen to him) who like many other present day Gurus not only depend upon logical reasoning but in 'persuasive Thinking'.One keeps giving a lot of non-controvercial facts to win audiances trust about your scientific thinking and and knowledge then when you do place your own thoughts in between, people in the audience also accept them as correct .Satguru did 'Out of Box' Thinking no doubt but all in the critical mode there was nouse of Lateral or Creative thinking.
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Permalink Reply by Steven Wu on -
Decades ago, expert systems (ES) were invented to codify the knowledge of experts. These systems were sophisticated programs that encoded many rules of logical deduction and reasoning. Nonetheless, it was admitted that the real power of ES really depended on the knowledge base, i.e, the outcome of any problems posed to the ES could only be as good as the quality of knowledge that was captured and retrieved. Rules of logical deduction have been formulated and worked on by generations of mathematicians and philosophers. However, knowledge is ever expanding and rapidly obsolesced. An ES' knowledgebase that is not updated soon becomes useless however elegant the reasoning mechanism. By the same token, we could be applying first rate thinking/reasoning to our own past experience/knowledge that is no longer in step with current reality. We are complacent about our reasoning skills and hardearned experience but are nonetheless let down by the outdated or incomplete knowledge. Obsolete knowledge can be dangerous yet it often stands in the way of progress. Like Arthur Clarke (?) said, if an elderly scientist who has done great work in his prime tells you something is impossible, you can be pretty sure he is wrong.
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Permalink Reply by Bhuvaneshwar Joshi on
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Excellant observation by Wu. Knowledge systems keep changing with ups and downs like seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in time series and cannot be forecasted based upon simple linear trend but require Moving Averages method. Trends in knowlege systems/sub systems should act as a reminder to the present day scientists(whose reasoning is based upon current or past facts or knowledge base that they may be a victim of compecency in their thinking very soon !Put in terms of Special Theory of Relativity,what may appear as truth with respect to one knowledge base in one particular time, may turn out to false with respect to another Knowledge base at another point of time. Therefore there is no room for complecency where knowlege is concern. The goal of learning is to keep learning. Creative /Lateral Thinking is one effective way to bring about step change in knowledge base.
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on
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Somewhat on a different track, another cause of complacency is being highly paid. If you are being highly paid to do things in a certain way, wheres the incentive to change.
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Permalink Reply by Desmond Sherlock on -
I agree Edward we are all complacient. You, me & the rest of man and woman kind.
Then again I can't speak for the rest of the human race as I would "rush to use judgement" as you say. But I can agree that like you, I am complacient too.
So what are you and I going to do about it Edward?
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Permalink Reply by William Jack Jordan on
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I was just looking at the word complacency and it spunds like placenta.
Perhaps complacency is a form of womb regression.
When you are comfortable in the womb, why come out into the cold cruel world?
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Permalink Reply by Danny Stevens on -
There is complacency in competence. A critical thinker may have become competent in the skill to the degree that every act of deliberation goes through the normal steps; define the problem, look for errors, build logically on each step, avoid mistakes, arrive at a supportable solution.
A competent critical thinker would have a hard time choosing to use tools that appear to produce illogical results. Critical Thinkers are not trained in the idea of movement, which uses provocation to propel thinking to new territory that only later may arrive at a logical destination.
The complacency is that critical thinking works at least as far as knocking back the errors. It is difficult and disturbing to stop applying critical thinking for a while if you are a competent critical thinker.
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