an interesting discussion on thinking...
How Did We Think in the Last Millennium?
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WHAT will the new millennium bring? To forecast the future, we should process the past. The last thousand years have been astonishing in their extremes. Humanity was wondrously transformed--from knights on horseback to kids on computers--but the price paid was very high. So much collective suffering; so much individual agony. If how we think helps to define how we live, then it should be useful to look at the thought processes that led to the triumphs, as well as the ravages, of civilization. Our future may depend on our ability to think, and perhaps think differently than we have in the past. So let's attempt to understand the nature of thinking itself--rational versus creative thinking; deductive versus inductive thinking; logic versus perception; analysis versus synthesis; game theory, heuristics, algorithms, the "expert systems" of artificial intelligence. What does each contribute to our intellectual and material advancement, and how do they further (or inhibit) our personal, social and political relations? If we can think more clearly, shouldn't we be able to live more happily? Understanding thinking--its categories and applications--is the specialty of our panel. What's particularly interesting is how the diversity of their fields affects the direction of their thinking
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PARTICIPANTS
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator and host of the Closer To Truth television series and author of the Closer To Truth book. Trained in brain research (
Ph.D. UCLA), he has published more than twenty books, including the Handbook for Creative and Innovative Managers and the seven-volume Library of Investment Banking. He is the president of The Geneva Companies, a leading merger and acquisition firm for private, middle market businesses.
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Edward de Bono, author of over fifty books, including Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step and De Bono's Thinking Course, is an international authority in both creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking. Edward calls for design, synthesis, and creativity in human thinking.
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Dr. Edward Feigenbaum, a professor of computer science at Stanford, is often called the father of expert systems, which are software programs that incorporate the best human thinking. Ed explains how artificial intelligence can assist our thinking.
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Graham T.T. Molitor, a prolific author about the future, is vice president and legal counsel of the World Future Society. Graham believes that our brains will ultimately be enhanced through advances in genetics and neuroscience.
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Dr. Sherwin (Shep) Nuland, a surgeon and medical ethicist at Yale University School of Medicine, is the author of How We Die, a poetic book describing the end of the human lifecycle. Shep sees human beings as mostly irrational by nature.
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Dr. Brian Skyrms, a professor of philosophy and social science at the University of California at Irvine, is the author of Evolution of the Social Contract. Brian examines the nature and tools of thinking
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ROBERT: Edward, you've taught creativity and thinking to schools and corporations throughout the world. What are your notions about how we handled these matters over the last millennium? Why such extremes?
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EDWARD DE BONO: On the whole, our thinking has been rather disastrous. The three Greeks--Plato, Aristotle, Socrates--really wrecked Western thinking, which has been concerned only with truth, analysis, judgment, argument. This type of thinking has led to persecutions, wars, discrimination, pogroms. What we've left out is "What can be?" thinking. "What can be?" thinking is design, creativity, synthesis--putting things together to achieve something new. We've had a very limited thinking system--a system excellent in itself, but only as the front left wheel of a motor car is excellent. By itself, it's inadequate.
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ROBERT: Ed, how can so-called expert systems help us understand human thinking?
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ED FEIGENBAUM: Expert systems are part of a field in computer science called artificial intelligence, wherein scientists and engineers are attempting to create models of human thinking, primarily the models of thinking that Edward [De Bono] was just calling "the front left wheel" of the automobile--namely, logical thinking. Expert systems are attempts to model the knowledge and the expertise of first-class human professionals [for example, physicians], who are practicing their professions at very high levels of performance. This relates to the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence: to generate programs that are extremely intelligent--that is, beyond human capability.
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ROBERT: Brian, as a philosopher you've explored the concepts of decision making and rational choice. What is a "social contract" and how can it help us understand the collective thinking of the last millennium?
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BRIAN: The social contract is a metaphor for a kind of tacit agreement, or deal, that people make in order to form a society and live together in it. A lot of philosophers try to justify ethical rules by saying that they would be part of an ideal social contract. But we can also think about how the actual social contract of real institutions arises from evolutionary and learning processes. That's the sort of thing I'm interested in.
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ROBERT: Shep, you're a surgeon who has written two extraordinary sensitive books, How We Die and How We Live. Do you see a shift in human thinking as we enter a new millennium?
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SHEP: Not essentially. To me, human thinking is unfortunately irrational. We retreat to magical thinking at every opportunity. As much as I applaud attempts to make thought processes coherent and complete--to put four wheels on that automobile--I think ultimately we're dealing with a flawed creature and a flawed way of putting information and memories together.
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ROBERT: Can't we improve our thinking?
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SHEP: We certainly can improve it. That's what this is all about.
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ROBERT: CONCLUDING COMMENT
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SO how do we assess the last millennium? Often the smarter we got, it seems, the stupider we acted. Rational, linear thought produced the most efficient social advancement, but also the most destructive human debasement. This is what happens when value-free analysis serves the capricious whims of conventional human nature. You get amplification: good gets better but bad gets worse. Genocide has frequently occurred alongside the most advanced science, several of the worst examples in our own twentieth century. So if we continue to be arrogant, bigoted, greedy and jingoistic, then rational thinking will continue to generate maximal trauma. Rational thinking makes good technology, but our cognitive processes must grow in order for humanity to prosper. Human thinking must change. We need novel, original ideas that can enable us to leap beyond the traditional boundaries of inquiry and establish new standards of value creation. We need synergy and harmony between rational and postrational thinking, the left and right wheels of our mental motor car working together. Our thinking must become creative and holistic as well as analytic and diagnostic. Try this combination of both kinds of thinking in your personal life, and your decision making will undoubtedly improve. It is the best thinking that brings us closer to truth.
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