On 12/31/2014 6:52 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
On 1 Jan 2015, at 1:13 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
wrote:
On 12/31/2014 5:52 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
On 1 Jan 2015, at 11:30 am, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 12/31/2014 4:00 PM, Kim Jones wrote:
Thinking, however, is a highly evolved skill of many parts involving values and
beliefs and motivations and agendas and theories and risk-taking. Lifting a cup
to your lips to swallow a liquid requires no thinking. The skill is embedded
since infancy, so it is with savants.
But there's not a sharp distinction.
Does there have to be? Must Nature make sharp distinctions to please Man? Perception
is data-gathering, thinking is data-processing. There. Howzat? Seems pretty
razor-sharp to me....
Seems like identifying black and white and ignoring grey.
The recognition of anything is what I am talking about. Grey needs to be recognised to
exist and is recognised. Unless something about your brain makes you blind to grey - you
will recognise it. There was a first time this happened, in fact. That moment created
the pattern your mind now 'sees' whenever you now confront the appropriate signalling
wavelength
Is riding a bicycle data-gathering/perception or is it data-processing/intelligence?
I'd say it's both.
It is both but at different stages. Once you can ride your bike you do it more or less
with the ease of someone walking. That is surely the goal of bike-riding; to downshift
the mental energy required to do it but that is the goal of all skill learning.
Acquiring the skill is what we are talking about, laying down the tram tracks that we
will use later on when we come back to it. The mind is a memory surface that we sculpt
like a needle scouring out a groove in a vinyl record. Initial experiences determine
subsequent ones. Experience is not thinking. Thinking is the exploration of experience
for a purpose. It involves, but should by no means limited to, or by, perception. Sadly
this is rarely the case as decisions have to be made and the outcome of all decisions is
always determined by what we don't know. A big part of excellent thinking is about
making this distinction sharp between recognition as one thing and thinking as another,
if only to see how far we can go with simple recognition, before we have to join up a
few dots to create (ie design) instructions for action as opposed to merely having our
presets triggered and reacting with standard thinking.
Many skills must be developed thoughtfully and then they can become automatic.
Yes. A skill is learnt consciously over time to create the algorithm which is like
feeling your way into it. But the skill is then increasingly applied automatically,
routinely, instinctively, reflexively - it's downshifted in terms of the neuronal
loading required to activate the pattern. There is - if you prefer 'first stage'
thinking and 'second stage' thinking. The difference between recognising something and
deciding what to do about it if we want to boil it down.
That boils it down too far. What to do about something can be automatic too, and in
many cases it needs to be. Sports are a good example. Most of what you do has to be
automatic.
But you aren't born with this skill, are you? You have to learn it so, as usual, where
you are (sleek and easy) skill-deficient, you employ your (try-hard) intelligence to
'test yourself' and evaluate your performance over time.
Riding a bicycle is the paradigmatic case, but it probably applies to drinking from
cup too.
Absolutely.
No one ever learnt to ride a bike with an instruction manual in one hand.
You get on the bike you fall off the bike. You get on the bike you fall off the
bike. You get on the bike you fall off the bike. You get on the bike you fall off the
bike. You get on the bike you stay on the bike, you etc...
I think we are here right up against (once again, sigh) intelligence and competency.
The better you are at a skill, the more competent you are (at that skill, possibly in
other ways if there is transferability of that skill). You no longer need to think
about it. Intelligence (speed of pattern recognition) not necessary or less necessary.
?? Now you identify intelligence with recognition - while above you seemed to contrast
perception with thinking. What's that last sentence supposed to be?
Intelligence is "speed of pattern recognition" meaning the person is more likely to
arrive at the end of their thinking based only on available information only unless they
use their thinking or willpower (another word to characterise it) to imagine scenarios
and consider a range of choices and outcomes and universes in which they might
subsequently find themselves based on what they do from here.
So intelligence is bad thinking because it recognizes a pattern quickly and doesn't think
about...what? other patterns that might have been?
That's like "recognising the future" if you will, or projecting the mind using the
imagination into possible alternative continuations. The goal of thinking is to uncover
the full range of choices that can be made or to get as close to it as possible.
Is it? While considering the full range of possibilities you may be eaten by a
tiger.
Perception allows us to populate that with the available range of input. So, if you work
on broadening your perception, as Grandma used to say, you may well make better, more
informed decisions.
I used to have a girlfriend who wanted to buy a car. I gave her a lot of information
about cars and we considered things like purpose, fuel economy,
safety features and maintenance costs etc. etc.
In the end I said to her "so which car will you buy"
She said "Oh, I dunno. But it has to be blue."
I would have said, "How much money to you intend to spend on a car? Now think about what
else you might do with that amount of money."
Brent
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