Path to human intelligence
Sensation is the origin of thought.
Observation is the origin of knowledge.
Pattern recognition is the origin of intelligence.
- Pattern recognized within subject
- Pattern recognized across subjects
Pattern manipulation is the origin of humanity’s intelligence.
- Pattern applied to different contexts
- Pattern modified
Pattern intentionally challenged by its opposite is the origin of advanced human intelligence and progress.
- generates options as all between becomes possible
- options generated become available for testing
- increases the pace of innovation
This process is more efficient in producing advanced results. But the new set of results should not become fixed or further progress will be lost. When the flexibility remains further progress is more likely. If not, then the new result becomes authoritarian as it blocks progress.
Advanced human intelligence and progress is based on a cycle between concepts. If creativity is the first step in the cycle, productivity is the second and the cycle is repeated continuously. Creativity develops new possibilities (options) and productivity tests the options for the best result. When productivity matures the advancement, more options become available with the effort of creativity.
Options: The Formula For Success
Nothing affects our outcomes more than how we think.
Here are four simple memorable steps for managing our thoughts:
1. Options: Think how many options there might be.
2. Evaluate: Study, test and compare the options.
3. Choose: Select the best outcomes.
4. Habit: Turn your best options into routines.
Options: When your best options are chosen from the widest selection and turned into habits you will find yourself doing what others believe is impossible – without even thinking about it. To get started, take your strong beliefs and challenge them for truth. When “Truths” are challenged with their opposite, everything in between becomes available for examination along with the original and its opposite. This is a powerful tool to overcome the most common limitation of our thoughts – narrow thinking.
Innovation requires options. Successful people are not smarter, they generate more options to try until they find those that succeed. Without options our thinking is one direction with few results. With many options there are many results, choose the best. To be productive take the successful effort of innovation and repeat so it becomes easy. But remember to watch for better options, or you will get stuck right back into narrow thinking. When done well, the recursive cycle of innovation and productivity is progressive because we have the change of progress.
Options: Its natural to get stuck in one direction of thinking. To overcome this common limitation in thoughts, challenge your thoughts for truth. The best way to develop the widest variety and range of thoughts is to take the original thought and turn it into its opposite. Now you have the two opposites and everything in between.
Evaluate: With the option in mind, see if you notice any difference, and test and compare the ideas, from thought experiments to rigorous tests.
Choose: Work with the idea that shows the best outcome.
Habit: Habits are very easy, they work quickly and efficiently. When your investment in rational thinking finds success, turn it into a habit and repeat effortlessly.
It takes serious brain/mind management to choose curiosity over comfort and test different challenging ideas to turn into habits for better outcomes. It takes courage, character and persistence to pursue and develop ideas that challenge established ideas. However the sooner you get started the more successful habits you’ll have to build on and the easier it becomes to manage and grow your options for success.
In bicycling, there are two opposite directions of thought that lead to opposite conclusions and outcomes: Equal rights on shared facilities versus separate facilities with different rules and responsibilities. Bicyclists who choose to ride with traffic and learn to cooperate with driving behavior reach the opposite conclusion of populist bike riders demanding their own space. Bicycle Drivers learn to get along with other drivers for their safety, while separated facilities are seen as unpredictable and hazardous. Those who do not want to learn driving behavior see the opposite. They see cars, roads and drivers as dangerous and separated facilities are wonderful.
I recommend:
1 Change Your Brain Change Your Life by Daniel Amen. See Automatic Negative Thoughts, ANTS, how to identify and replace negative thoughts with positives.
2 Mindset The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Learn the Growth Mindset and how to replace the Fixed Mindset with it.
3 BlindSpot Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji Anthony G. Greenwald
4 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
5 How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough
Why Opportunity of Life?
Ask “What is the purpose, or meaning of life” and then ask “What is the Opportunity of Life”
Notice a difference? Opportunity is forward looking and progressive.
Big Questions of the Cosmos:
Why is there something rather than nothing? Because if there was nothing, there would be nothing to know that. Since it takes something to know, there has to be something if we know. (I think, therefore I am. Descartes.)
How is your mind treating you today?
Thinkers have asked the big questions, some offered brilliant observations even without our knowledge of today’s science. Curiosity about the world and a hunger to improve their minds motivated their efforts and lifted their thoughts beyond those of daily routines for maintaining life. Socrates of ancient Greece began by interrogating words and thoughts with questions. Socrates: The life unexamined is not worth living.
What is the opportunity to solve the Israel Palestine conflict? It’s known as the most difficult with no solution in over 70 years. By taking on the challenge of “the most difficult” more is learned and when understood, everything else becomes much easier. The opportunity is greater when difficult protracted problems are addressed.
What if the problem is just another expression of the narrow direction of thinking of nationalism?
I tell myself:
Take good care of yourself, first,
so you can help others,
so we can have a stronger, progressing society,
so we can develop the technology,
to survive the cosmic decay of our life sustaining environment
and the end-times of life.
Our understanding of our solar system and the broader universe tells us it is in continuous change, and our natural lives will become impossible.
- We have no evidence of the existence, any time or anywhere, of other lifeforms developed to the point of continuous technological progress. For now its us and only us to figure out our environment, its changes and how to survive the cosmic end times. We can become the designers of our future. Otherwise we are here for our own, temporary, entertainment.
My life changed when I interrogated my thoughts and learned to manage them for better outcomes with a positive, future oriented direction. A negative direction should be used to evaluate thoughts for truth. That is important even as we maintain a positive direction.
So, a system of philosophy, psychology, mental health, and science have developed. But I wonder, as I read the subjects of the mind, could their be a simpler system of words and concepts based on the science of today rather than the accumulation of words and concepts over time in the absence of the knowledge of modern science? What would the opportunity be if the slate were wiped clean and started with the benefit of a greater knowledge of the universe and the inner workings of our brains?
That is my project.
Checking Amazon for the book Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the Life Well Lived by Corey Keyes, I found this sentence in a review: Some day somebody’s going to write a “Flourishing For Dummies” version of this book and they’ll sell a zillion of them.”
Here is my formula: first, simplify. Concepts and their descriptions and words have accumulated over the centuries since Socrates, Buddha and Confucius. When I read relevant books, I see a complex system with many options for words. The words, sentences, paragraphs and chapters become as dynamic as gymnasts playing with motion as writers with words. Books both describe the subjects but also bury them in the volume and complexity of the book.
In the spirit of E. O. Wilson in Consilience, the concept of the unity of knowledge, could we begin again, informed by current science and find a simpler path to a similar or greater understanding.
Background
yes
Experience
not yet