Working at Warp Speed

I remembered Barry Flicker’s ‘Working at Warp speed’. Sadly only +after+ the deadline of the last stressful project. I have to stick his four core ideas on the wall again.
- “We’re in this together.” Stress in the team leads to adversarial positions. Before I slip into the uncreative defensive mode, I have to remind myself of this. Some ‘Aikido in everyday life’ can help me with this. It helps me to keep centered and creative even under repetitive verbal attacks from stressed out colleagues.
- “Slow down before you turn.” I have to make sure to be inclusive when taking the project trough a major curb into a different direction. Turning to fast leads to a lot of confusion. Also in review meetings I need to stay better focused, take time to take a step back. Otherwise things get sloppy. Would it help to change the music from hard rock to relaxing, to influence my state of mind? It is what Norman suggests in ‘Emotional Design’…
- “Am -I- the best one to do this?” I got pretty good at delegating the right stuff, but I have to coach the others.
- “Take time to plan.” I really appreciate those short daily kick-off meetings! Much better than diving right in. But again we didn’t plan in user and consumer feedback. This can be so powerful, but always gets crushed in the rush of tight deadlines.

Barry Flicker didn’t give any ideas on how to break away from old solutions and doing something really sexy when working at warp speed. I have to find a way get this in the process…

Large group interventions

Barbara Bunker & Billie Alban propose a method for organizational change involving at least half the organization in the analysis and planning process. The underlying idea is that this kind of change is more sustainable than the traditional vision, cascaded down trough the organization, because the vision will be created and endorsed by the whole. This usually is a 2 to 3 day event where the whole large group gets together and works in subteams on creating a new future. Since today organizations are very dependent on their environment, it is highly recommended to invite also core suppliers and clients to this kind of events. Work is done in small groups with rotating timekeepers, recorders, facilitator and reporters.

Typical parts of such conferences are:
- Scan/analysis of the environment
- Overview of the history. This creates a common basis.
- Analysis of the current process/situation (value stream mapping). A dump of most common tasks then ordered chronologically.
- Discuss prouds&sorries or glads, sads & mads.
- Defining a most desirable system/discovering common futures
- Action planning, where people can choose to work towards the goals/on issues that interest them most.


As formula for effective change Gleicher uses C = D x V x F > R. The will to change (C) is influenced by the dissatisfaction (D), a clear shared vision (V), and clear (F)irst steps to be taken. It should be larger than the (R)esitance to change.

Overall one should consider the fact that in large groups the speaking time per person is the length of the meeting divided by the number of participants. It’s usually not much so you need creative ways to work around this. Also the amount of structure to workshop is a careful balance. Too little structure creates anxiety and unfocused work, and too much structure can be limiting creativity and working on unexpected priorities.

In a way it reminds me a bit of Gladwell’s tipping point: these tools allow you to create a tipping point for organizational change.

Finance on 5 business cards

I got myself a copy of "Beleggen voor dummies" (Investment for Dummies). Good book. But it's main points can also be read on this website. They are not connected - I guess it's general financial wisdom. Why didn't anybody tell us that at school or something?

Nonviolent Communication

I finished this book some time ago, but I never got around to blogging about it. A shame, because it's one of the books that has probably had the biggest positive impact on the way I work and relate with others. It is light and well written, full of anecdotes, yet very hard to put in practice. The book contained some song texts, supposedly to better convey emotions but that doesn't work, so I skipped them mostly. I think I dislike song texts in books in general. The lord of the rings was full of them too. Without the music they miss their point.
Anyway, nonviolent communication is grounded in constructivist psychology as pioneered by Marshall Rosenberg. Constructivism in psychology means that therapeut and patient engage in a conversation on an equal level to discuss mental 'constructs' that are hindering the patients life. Patients are not 'evaluated' or 'diagnosed' or 'personality typed', all categorical thinking is refrained.
In daily life this means that the most enriching conversations are empathic conversations on the same level. Not boss-subordinate, client-consultant,... You try to avoid prejudices or categories about your conversation partner and be genuinly interested in their emotions and needs. You do this without ignoring your own feelings. It is important to remember that you are responsible for your own feelings. You are not responsible for the feelings of others. There is a difference between acknowledging someones feeling (empathy, rapport) and feeling responsible (or guilty)!
It is also important to note that the noun 'feeling' is sometimes misused. True feelings are: happiness, sadness, frustration,... "I feel like you ignore me" is not a feeling but a judgement.
Judgements are in the way of observation and empathy. We are quick to judge, it's automatic. NVC is not judging, but just observing. Obsering needs and feelings, of your own and of others. Judgement leads to anger. Expressing needs leads to harmony.
Hence the four steps of NVC:
1. Observation of concrete actions that are affecting our wellbeing
2. Finding the feeling of yourself and others with regard to these actions
2.b Building empathy
3. Expressing, or finding needs
4. Making a specific action request. No demand, no vague wish.

The difference between a demand and a request is the tone of voice and expressing the need behind the request.

In relation to the general idea the book contains some interesting remarks:
- In a quarelling group, where insults abound, let everyone express their needs, plain and simple. The results will be incredible.
- When helping other people express their feelings, try to be observative, don't take responsibility. Don't try "Are you feeling hurt because I made that remark" but try "Are you feeling hurt because you need more acknowledgement?"
- Don't do anything if it is not play. Make a list of the thing you don't like doing and add your reasons. If they are reasons like 'Money' or 'Peer pressure' stop doing them. Otherwise you just found a good reason that motivates you to do something you don't like! See also my blog about Edward Deci's book, "Why we do what we do".
- Also when giving compliments, watch out for judgements. It is better to concretely say what you like and how you feel than just calling someone a genious. This way of complimentiong is more sustainable. Don't say "Good boy", but say "I'm so happy that you've shown generosity by sharing the sweets with your brother"
- Try to receive other's feelings empathically: connect their feeling to an observation without judging, consoling, advising, etc. Very difficult! But it will make the other feel heard.
- When facing agitated people this is the one pun to remember "Don't put your but in the face of an angry person!"
- Also avoid ' shoulding' and judging yourself. It does as much damage to yourself as to others.

I've been trying this out so enthousiastically that some people told me I was loosing my authenticity. Collegues were asking where the good old me was, who never held back on cynism and sarcasm when heavily criticising... I'm trying to find a good balance. Anyway there's more at the Centre for Nonviolent Communication website if you're interested.

Why We Do What We Do - summary

In a training about situational leadership I had many questions about the difficult art of motivating people. I was recommended to read 'Why we do the things we do' by Edward Deci. I found it an interesting book with a more nuanced picture of human motivation than generally proclaimed by behavioralists. Behavioralism says that if you reward the behavior you want and punish the behavior you don't want (in a ratio of 4 to 1) you will be able to change how people behave. That is including yourself if you believe the books by, for instance, Ben Tiggelaar. The reason for this would be that we are evolutionary programmed thusly that we adapt behaviors which give instant reward (and avoid instant punishing behaviors).

What Edward Deci says is that motivation (and thus behavior) is more complex than that. In an experiment with some enjoyable puzzles that challenge your visual thinking Deci made two groups. He rewarded the first group with money for each solved puzzle, and did not talk about rewards to the other groups. The motivation was measured when the researcher left the lab 'for doing some paperwork' and let the subjects wait for 8 minutes. The people who earned money just stared around or read a book. But the other group just continued puzzeling! For Fun! This led Deci to suspect that there is something like intrinsic motivation (self motivation) and extrinsic motivation (from external, contingent rewards). In the first one the -effort- is appreciated by the self and/or the environment. In the second one, contingent rewards are used as a tool to control the -outcome- of the effort.

More research in his book shows that, as you would think, intrinsic motivation is superior to extrinsinc motivation. The research shows for example that intrinsically motivated people have a better mental health, can better cope with chaos and disappointment, care more for their environment, learn with more understanding, enjoy more what they do and solve problems more creatively. On the contrary extrinsically motivated people are compliant or defiant (not wholeheartedly committed), they are susceptible to direct control and use minute control as a tool in return, can not bring about lasting personal change, and experience failure as a damage of the ego.

After the books takes quite some pages to convince the reader that intrinsic motivation is better - who would have guessed that? - near the end comes the big question: how do you then go about motivating people intrinsically? For this Deci talks about a style he calls 'autonomy support'. It means you support people to become more and more autonomous in their behaviour and decisions. You start from the point of view of the other and nurture autonomy, self confidence and self esteem. The detail about how to exercise 'autonomy support' are pretty vague in the book. I understand it starts from the instrinsic motivation in some area, already present in people, and expanding on that area of motivation to build motivation for other tasks and skills. At all time giving choice and respecting the opinion of the other.

(Sidenote: At the moment I am reading 'Cross cultural competence' by C. Hampden-Turner. It's a great book about solving cultural dilemmas. When Deci says that by making the individual more autonomous the community will be served, C. Hampden-Turner argues that this is only one way to resolution: you can also claim that by being part of a group the individual receives his/her identity.)

Anyway, Deci concludes with an interesting discussion about freedom. He talks about his experience in communist Romania where people were free to leave there jobs in the middle of they to go and do whetever they pleased. They could not get fired anyway. But they had no choice in their job, so they were not intrinsically motivated at all. Is this freedom? This is compared to the usual Capitalist economies where people work overtime 60h per week out of fear for loosing their job. And the money from the job gives you access to this nice car and that beautiful villa. Is that freedom? Deci's conclusion is that in fact both are examples of external control, one trough strict rules, the other trough contingent rewards. True freedom involves a balance between being proactive in dealing with your environment and being respectful of it.

Now that I come to think of it: at the university I never understood extrinsically motivated co-students. I pitied them and I loathed them. They were so focused on their degree, on ticking of another course that they were not learning a thing. It didn't seem to interest them. They were not creative, they had no passion for whatever they were doing. I vowed to go back to the university and become professer in a course named 'Passion for Design'. I would help people find their passion and source of creativity...

Teaching yourself new habits

It seems that willpower only will not be enough to change habits. Ben Tiggelaar refers to psychologist Carl Rogers who claimed that people should learn 2 important things in life. Accepting a certain degree of uncertainty en being able to postpone getting rewards. It seems that it is deeply wired in our system to increase behavior that leads to instant rewards, and to stop behavior that leads to instant punishment. The urge is strong and subconscious. Therefore it is hard to change habits that lead to instant reward, like computer gaming or fast food dining. Ben Tiggelaar advises a way out of this, which he calls dreaming, daring and doing.

"Dreaming" is about setting goals, finding out what is important to you in life. There's an interesting referral to a research done by Martin Seligman from Pennsylvania State University. It seems that some circumstances contribute measurable to happiness. They are:
1. Living in a prosperous democratic country
2. Maintaining a large social network
3. Being married
4. Believing in God
5. Avoid negative emotions
I suspect Seligman interviewed only Americans though. What was interesting is that earning more money, living in a sunny country, staying healthy, having the best possible education are not contributing so much towards happiness. Anyway, everybody has to make his or her own list. This can be a starting point.
Step 2, "Daring", is about predicting barriers to success, and creating plans and behaviours to get around them. Especially the second part is important, since you'll only be scaring yourself otherwise.
The last step, "Doing", is about rewarding the behaviour that you've identified is leading to your goal. Because it is so deeply wired in our system to do more of the behaviour which leads to instant reward, it is of course important to give yourself instant small rewards for the right behaviour.

The book also contains an interesting discussion about negative feedback, "punishment". We are wired react to negative feedback, to avoid behavior which leads to pain, or displeasure much stronger than to positive feedback. This is very logical form an evolutionary point of view. Learning by negative feedback has a few drawbacks, though. It is only about avoiding the bad things, so you can't build positive, creative behaviour with it. The behaviour disappears with the disappearance of the threat. For instance, kids do naughty things, when they think their parents aren't watching.

So if there are some nasty habits, you want to get rid of, or if you are frustrated at failing at your new year's commitments, or if you just want to change yourself for the better, this could be an interesting read.

Coke, Freedom and Enlightment

I saw Noreena Hertz and Johan Norberg in a web cast of the Dutch 'Niew Economisch Peil'. A very interesting emission for anyone speaking dutch. Two things struck me:
- Johan Norberg had stuck three world maps behind his desk on the wall. One showing global Coke consumption, one showing GNP and one showing how far countries had come towards democracy. The maps showed stunning similarities...

- Noreena Hertz said, as an argument for fair trade, "Why should I be lucky to have all these chance, just because I'm born in a rich western country. Why shouldn't people in other
be able to get those chances." Suddenly it dawned on me what Buddhists mean when they say the I is an illusion: the I is a product of it's environment...
I do agree with her though that resources should be shared more equally or some tensions will rise too high.

Managing Transitions

Today I was talking to Bridget Temple of snowball training. The subject was change management and Mrs. Temple made a very interesting remark:

"Every beginning starts with an ending."

This is the central idea in a great book by William Briggs, "Transition management" The idea is that in general people are resisting change: it usually means a certain loss of comfort and control. Even the most flexible and open minded people have some habits they don't want to change. So to make a change happen you should take the time to say goodbye to the old patterns, before you can adapt the new ones.
It's like flying from trapeze to trapeze in the circus. It's so hard to say goodbye to the good solid trapeze you're holding and fly through nothingness to the other trapeze of which you're not sure you'll be able to grab it. Just letting go. It's wat funerals, marriages, baptisms, housewarmings and farewell parties are for. In snowboarding it's like pointing your board down the hill into the depth and letting go of one edge to turn on to the other one. It's so scary the first time.

Emotional Design

Emotional Design: Why we love or hate everyday things by Donald A. Norman.
Here's a book that is a waste of time. While the topic of the topic of including emotions in the design process is currently very interesting, this book is a letdown. I expected interesting tools and thinking frames to incorporate user emotions in the design process. Instead I found an endless raving about the author's private collection of artifacts. It can be interesting and even delightful to hear people tell about the stuff they like, but Mr. Norman makes shallow generalizations of his experiences, unfounded extrapolations and likes to talk in absolutes.
After the rave, the second half of the book goes on about how robots and computers should have emotions, in a discussion that is totally irrelevant for the area of product design. If you want to hear about the future of robots and intelligence go read 'On intelligence' by Jeff Hawkins.

Two notions of the book were interesting - luckily they are on the first few pages so you can put the book aside after page 50.
One is the observation that people are more focused when tense and more creative and open minded when relaxed. Although this fact is mentioned in any book about creativity, it only struck me now that this notion can be used in product design: when good focus is required the designer can try to rise the tension in the interacting user. And vice versa.

Further Mr. Norman breaks the experience of a product down into three levels. This breakdown is really just a simplified version of the abstraction model described by Korzibsky and a similar one described by Hawkins. It consists of a first impression, an unconscious impression after interacting and a conscious reasoning about the product. Don Norman is too vague for my taste about the distinction between the first impression and the interaction. Much more interesting lecture on the subject is Blink. (See one of my previous posts).

Yesterday I was meeting a person who was knowledgeable in the area of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. I learned that the production of books has a carbon dioxide byproduct weighing two times the weight of the book itself. This book is 400g wasted carbon dioxide.

Blink - Thinking without thinking

Last week on the plane I read 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a fun book that reads surprisingly fast. (I had to buy a new book for the return flight)
Basically Gladwell Maintains that the 'hunch' we get in the first split second we see something can be a far better and quicker judgment than if we take more time to observe and reason.
Of course it can go awfully wrong if we only go on first impressions, so the author comes up with three preconditions must be met before you can trust your hunch:
- You should have adequate experience in the situation you are judging. The patterns should be there in your subconscious. Gladwell illustrates this with marital consulting experts and face expression experts.
- You should have the right stress level. Being too relaxed makes you miss things. Being too stressed (illustrated by police officers in a firefight) makes you resort back to your 'reptilian' brain and survival instincts. Not good for judging a situation!
- You should not have too much information coming at you. This makes the rational brain kick to process all that and the wisdom of the blink is lost. Only the essential information should be there.

The point is illustrated painfully by a female trombone player who wins a blind audition with a huge lead. After the judges see that she is a woman, all of a sudden they can not believe anymore that she is a good trombone player since women were thought to be too frail to play the trombone.

Your initial feeling about something can also go wrong by implicit subconscious associations, that may be entirely irrational. Some very interesting tests and background information are at http://implicit.harvard.edu/

I think I'll trust my snap judgements more, and although I think the above mentioned preconditions are very strict, they act as a nice warning sign when you should double check your intuition.

A short history of Nearly Everything

Today I finished "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It is a journey trough the discovery of the world around us. It is the science textbook you've always wanted to have. The book puts all mayor scientific discoveries in their context in history. You meet all of the humanity's greatest thinkers and their strange and sometimes funny habits.

Did you know for instance that a Avogadro's complete name was Lorenzo Romano Amadeo Carlo Avogadro, Count of Quarequa and Ceretto? And that Avogadro's number (about 6.022e23) is equivalent to the number of popcorn kernels needed to cover the USA up to a depth of 9 miles? Hilarious are the quarrels in the scientific world and the extreme bad luck some scientists went trough. Bill Bryson makes the abstract scientific stuff visible and imaginable and puts a face to all the famous scientists.
All the while the book is written in a tone of great respect for the planet and the unique lucky stroke that brought us here.

Plus the book has got a very handy index for fact freaks like myself!

On Intelligence

A few days ago I finished 'On Intelligence'. One of the most inspiring books I ever read. It's a very accessible, yet in depth, explanation of how the brain works. While many statements sound bold and unfounded, there is a scientific base to it, and most importantly a few falsifiable predictions are made so the theory can be scrutinized the way Carl Popper would approve it.

Jeff Hawkins explains how neural networks are no way near the way a real brain works. He also explains why the whole AI movement is on the wrong track and proposes a very interesting algorythm for the brain which integrates a lot of recent work on neurology. If you're interested in the algorythm: go read the book. I won't try to explain it in one post.

What I found stunning is that the algorythm Hawkins proposes explains a lot of patterns in human behaviour that are mentioned in other books I like. (McWhinney, Korzybski, Pirsig, etc.) It's like a giant puzzle coming together.

One of Hawkin's coworkers has modeled the algortyhm in a computer. It seems to work. I want to try that too. It seems the new LEGO NXT has a more powerful chip and programming software by the guys at National Instruments. Maybe I can build intelligent stuff with that...

My favorite quote from the book is "Consciousness is what it feels like to have a neocortex". Meaning that the hierarchical neocortical system that allows for abstraction and pattern recognition makes us experience what we call consciousness.

Zen & the Art of Robert Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig is well known for his book 'Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. He is much less known for his second book: 'Lila'. I think I want to compare them both to better understand the author's intellectual evolution.

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a philosophical novel where the author relates of an intellectual odyssey: the question of the Source of All Things. He comes to a metaphysics, wherein he puts Quality before matter, as the originator of all. Quality, he explains, cannot be defined since there is no higher abstraction that can be used for that. But it exists, he pleads, because you can imagine how our world, when quality is subtracted from it - when nobody would be able de distinguish quality from trash - would be total chaos.
He then speaks of a Romantic Quality, a 'before-thinking' quality and a Classic or 'after-thinking quality'. (It reminds me of Korzybski's structural differential where there is a level of perception before any abstract thoughts are formed.) Classic quality, says Pirsig, then leads to the whole system of Aristotelian dichotomies with which we have been educated: mind and matter, truth and falsehood, etc...
The story is told via a motorcycle road trip of the author, his son and two friends. The friends hate motorcycle maintenance but the author thinks it's very important and nice to do. The difference between the two seems to be that the author practices motorcycle maintenance in a Zen kind of way: with a sensitivity to what is going on that is impossible to put in words. His companions can't seem to get this 'feel'. Either way both he and his companions seem to enjoy the trip and that's what gets the author to think that both ways have Quality, but that it must be a different kind of quality. Classic and Romantic Quality. (I myself can subscribe to the feeling of Romantic Quality. I often repair stuff and afterwards I can't really tell how I did it. I can say what I did, but I can't somehow explain my approach other than 'I felt like trying this'.)

Phaedrus - an important character from the book - is Greek for (lone) wolf. Phaedrus is also a key dialogue by Socrates. Phaedrus is the name given to the other schizophrenic self of the author. The realization that Quality is the source of everything and that everything is not 'matter' or 'mind' drives the author insane and schizophrenic, because everyone around him is acting like mind or matter are the prime essences. He feels like a lone wolf with his ideas.

In the end the author seems to have gotten over it - after a controversial shock therapy - and wrote his book. It became a cult classic.

In his second book, 'Lila", he contemplates on this success and elaborates more on this 'Quality'. He dismisses the idea of classic and romantic quality but rather opts for the division into Static and Dynamic Quality. Static quality is in established value patterns (e.g. constitutional laws, social rules, physical laws...) and dynamic quality is some kind of 'changing force'. When someone is in touch with dynamic quality and discovers an improvement over his current situation, such discovery is subsequently 'latched' into static quality. (I've also written about this in my article Life with Assholes.)

Static quality - or the value patterns - is to be found on four distinct levels: physical/chemical, biological, social and intellectual. Physical value patterns are for example the law of gravity. For two bodies with a certain mass it has more value to move closer to each other. Biological value patterns, is a higher level of value patterns because it is organized to go beyond the patterns of the inferior level. So birds (biological) defy gravity (physical) when flying. With chemical/physical 'patterns', biology would not be possible. But biology is organized in such way that it uses the previous level to break free from it's laws. Biology is based on chemistry much like a word processor needs a CPU and some memory banks. But when you know how a memory chip functions you cannot use that knowledge to account for the existence of a word processor. The word processor is dependent on the previous level but it is separate since it cannot be explained by the previous level.
It's small wonder, Pirsig goes on, that life is carbon based. Carbon is very versatile element in group IV that can bind with many other elements and itself. It is a fragile reactive balance and 'quality' tipped that balance in favor of the development of biological patterns, cells, DNA,...
And so it goes on to social levels (A well organized society of people can achieve more than a club of loners) and intellectual levels of value patterns.

Pirsig shows that these separate levels of value patterns lead to a logic system of ethics and morals. For instance on the biological level the greatest good is the continuation of life, reproduction. But on the social level the greatest good is the continuation of the group coherence. It then follows that on a society level having sexual intercourse without the mate's consent (rape) is immoral. With animals that have not formed any kind of society sexual reproduction is unconstrained.

So anything threatening the cohesion of society is found 'evil' by this society. It is important to note that this works two ways: upwards to the intellectual level and downwards to the biological level. Galileo Galilei could show a zillion observations to anyone proving that earth had to revolve around the sun, but this would threaten the earth-centered society Galileo lived in. So he was at first expunged as a heretic. Although from a 'metaphysics of quality' point of view this was an immoral act: intellectual patterns ought to be better balanced with social patterns, not choked by social patterns.

Robert Pirsig illustrates all this: The 20th and 21st century are marked by the growing strength of the intellectual quality over social quality. Communism, intellectual control of the nation vs. Fascism, dominance of single society. The exploding scientific advancements. The ever increasing pluralism and individualism, people moving away from big social dinosaurs like the catholic church. (Although I've met very progressive Catholics with a very intellectual mindset!) The democrats vs. the conservatives in the US. Like a strong society needs healthy biological bodies to function, a strong intellect needs a stable and enabling society to function, so social patterns and institutions aren't bad or inferior. They're just another level.


Maybe fundamentalism is a social pattern and globalism is an intellectual pattern and they will have to be balanced sometime, somehow...
All in all these are two strange books. Maybe there is a flaw in there somewhere, but I couldn't put my finger on it. If you are intrigued by this, I think you should read them both to fully understand Robert Pirsig's point.

Subject-Predicate

I've read two books recently, explaining how human perception is distorted by the subject-predicate structure of Indo-European languages - like English, German, French, Dutch, Italian,... Now what is subject-predicate and how does it influence our percepetion? And how can you avoid errors induced by the underlying assumptions of that language structure?

If you talk about subjects and objects you tend to talk about actors and the object acted upon. So you assume, often too quickly, a one-way transaction. The actor acts upon the object and voila, that's it. But in many situations, this transaction is two-way! Very often the effects of the object acting on the actor are not negligible. Examples are in quantum physics, where it is impossible to know both the position and the velocity vector of an electron. Examples are in consumer research and questionnaires: often the people filling in a questionnaire think different about their answers after having answered the questions. Your survey is outdated right away!
- For reasons explained above, when thinking in well separated objects and subjects, you get the false impression that objectivity is always achievable. You can be relatively objective when evaluating other people's math problems. But problems arise when for instance you've written a long essay on a scientific problem. Because you've been working on it for so long, you've become attached to your work, you defend it. You're not really objective anymore, your world view is already skewed by the work you've done. Your own personal problem solving toolbox, accumulated trough the years dictates how you perceive puzzling situations. It's like Maslow's hammer: "When you have a hammer, all problems seem like nails." In the same way it is also difficult to tackle problems involving people. How can you be objective about a group of people that you interact with? How can fish in a tank be objective about the tank they're in?
- If you talk in objects and subjects you tend to single out individual cause and effect relations, or maybe you build chains of cause and effect relations. In contrast to this, the most fascinating phenomena are better described as open dynamic systems: systems with a multitude of interdependent variables of which the borders are ill defined. Chaos theory is a way of describing these open dynamic systems. Examples are: atmosphere, the solar system, plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economies, and population growth.

[Side note: I've come to think that the nonexistence of pure subject-object relations is what Buddhists mean with the term 'karma': every action, even just watching, or thinking, has a multitude of effects that rebound sooner or later, much like in a dynamic system. I once read a Buddhist saying: "Karma means: there is no escape."]

Don't think so, maybe, pretty sure

Bruce Kodish and Suzan Presby have an interesting chapter in their book 'Drive yourself sane' with regard to truth and falsehood. They quote a story from the European undergound under Hitler, as written by Korzybski:

In a railroad compartment an American grandmother with her young and attractive granddaughter, a Rumanian officer and a Nazi officer were the only occupants. The train was passing trough a dark tunnel and all that was heard was a loud kiss and Vigorous slap.

Now ask yourself: what happened. On what assumptions are my conclusions based? How sure can I be of these assumptions? Note to yourself what your thoughts are.

After the train emerged from the tunnel, nobody spoke, but the grandmother was saying to herself, "What a fine girl I have raised. She will take care of herself. I am proud of her." The granddaughter was saying to herself, "Well, grandmother is old enough not to mind a little kiss. Besides, the fellows are nice. I'm surprised what a hard wallop grandmother has." The Nazi officer was meditating, "How clever the Rumanians are! They steal a kiss and have the other fellow slapped." The Rumanian officer was chuckling to himself, "How smart I am! I kissed my own hand and slapped the Nazi."

Now think again about your previous conclusions how sure were you and what right did you have to be so sure?

The GS idea here is that there is a complete scale from certainty to wild guess, not just a polar true and false. It is wiser to evaluate in multi-valued way instead of a two-valued way. Closest to certainty come observable facts like 'The tunnel was dark'. Closer to wild guess come statements of inference: 'Two persons kissed each other in the dark,' where you assume that a kiss is always between to persons. Most people would even assume that the kiss was between a male and a female person, which is an even wilder guess.

This insight has been very useful for me in project management. A thorough scrutinizing of my assumptions and inferences has led to many timely discoveries of project risks. So I try to avoid thoughts of absolute certainty in the new product development, since you need to make a lot of assumptions when discussing something that does not yet exist.
But avoiding certainty in project team meetings has caused great nervousness, stress and even hostility in some of my fellow team members! Why? In the team I have the role of an expert. People need to be able to trust me in my field of specialization. What specialist that avoids affirmations in his field of expertise can you really trust? How sure can you be the project will finish successfully without experts you can trust? Some people seem to have a hard time living with uncertainty. So my advice is: Watch out for them and be careful to reassure them without over promising!

Zen and quantum theory, chicken and egg

I came across this article in Wikipedia (link in title) about a book called 'The Tao of Physics'. The author writes that in an interview with Heisenberg, Heisenberg told him about his influences from eastern philosphy.
I had to think of a book I read, by Steve Hagen, "How the world can be the way it is", where the author illustrates Zen/Taoist truths with quantum physical examples. As if to say: "See, if even the latest science arrives at the same conclusions as age-old Zen, there must be truth in there."
I started to wonder: "What if quantum physics is just some clever statistical math, inspired by eastern philosophy? A clever approximation for measured results? What was first? The chicken or the egg? Tao proven by quantum physics or quantum physics inspired by the Tao?"

Apart from the examples in physics that Hagen shows us, his book is not a bad book by the way.

I think I want to read this 'Tao of Physics'. I also want to understand more about quantum mechanics, because I really know nothing about it.

Intension and extension

Nope, that’s no typo in the title. I’ve been reading more about General Semantics. Here’s another part of Korzybski’s theory.

I’ve just read a bit about what Korzybski calls ‘describing by extension vs. describing by intension’. If you look up intension and extension in the Merriam Webster, you find that they are synonym to connotation and denotation. Denotation and connotation are nicely compared in the dictionary:
Connotation means: ‘an essential property or group of properties of a thing named by a term in logic’
Denotation means ‘the totality of things to which a term is applicable especially in logic’.

I think Korzybski’s words are easyer to memorize. For an INtensional definition you look INside the thing you want to define for properties and higher order abstractions. For an EXtensional definition you look EXternally for other EXamples for description. I remember similar definitions from basic mathematics where real numbers are extensionally defined as Z = {0,1,-1,2,-2,3,-3,4,-4,5,-5,…}. Whereas you could define even numbers intensionally as ‘any real number multiplied by two’, referring to a property of even numbers.

Now that we understand extensional and intensional, let’s get to Korzybski’s point: in standard logic, in most situations, we tend to ask for definitions in an intensionial way. We ask for descriptions with higher order abstractions if someone tries to explain a (new) word. ‘Intension’ is not a bad way to think and relate in, but Korzybski points out a few dangers and short comings of intensional definitions.
-As explained in my first GS post, you cannot be sure that other people share the same higher order abstractions. E.g. you can define Polyethylene as ‘a thermoplastic produced by the direct polymerization of ethylene at high temperatures and pressures’ but if you don’t know anything about organic chemistry, you have no clue as to what polymerization or ethylene really are. Is ethylene bigger than a rabbit? What sound does polymerization make?
-You overlook properties of things falling outside the definition. E.g. you can define war as ‘conflict, between relatively large groups of people, which involves physical force inflicted by the use of weapons.’ This allows you talk about war over a nice cup of tea and make many assumptions or reach conclusions without ever knowing the emotion, the smell, the fear and the ugliness of real war.
-You allow for un-sane generalizations. E.g. If you really dislike a guy named Smith, and you define Smith as ‘the only guy I know who likes Jazz music’, you tend to start disliking guys who like Jazz music. And as a result you might even start disliking Jazz music, because you don’t want to be associated with Smith and his hobby’s! But if you realize that Jazz-lover(Smith1) is different from Jazz-lover(Smith2) you would be more open to Jazz music. And if you realize that Smith(today) is a different guy from Smith(yesterday) you have no reason to keep the grudge against him.
So intensional definitions are OK if you know what you are doing, but generally it is 'saner' to refer to an actual and specific experience or set of experiences (extensional).

This is pretty complex theory, but what’s the use of it? What I intend to do with it is this:
-When I want to explain something new I’ll try to let the other people actually experience what I’m trying to explain. If that’s not possible I’ll try to find a metaphor or an example referring to a shared experience.
-I will start to collect a whole set of samples and examples of things I frequently need to show or explain.
-If someone wants to explain something to me, I’ll insist on examples and specific cases. If possible I’ll try to experience these first-hand. I’ll experiment with his reasoning, “to get a better feeling for it.”