Its all a matter of Perception

“He who find what he wants makes in general a good school exercise; intent on what he wants, he often neglects signs, sometimes minimal, which indicate something else than the object of his attention.  The real researcher must pay attention to signs which reveal the existence of unexpected phenomenon.”

Louis Leprince-Ringuet 1901-2000

I have recently started making inroads in to a De Bono book that I had put off reading.  He uses a good analogy to describe the use of intelligent thinking.  Think of intelligence as the horsepower of a car and the thinking is the operator.  You could have yourself a Ferrari but if the driver was poor then the driving would not utilise the capability of the vehicle and could possibly be a danger to others.  However a profession driver who drives even a under-powered car can get good performance out of it.  If you watch Top Gear think of the Stig driving the reasonably priced car round the track.  It seemed it was a bit like someone who was an excellent artist but who didn’t realise they needed glasses.  How many hues and detail would they miss?

Why is thinking not talked about as freely as popular culture?  Many people start eye-rolling when you discuss how people tick or how they project to the world et it so fundamental to what kind of life experience we have.  In the De Bono book he also mentions GIGO which in computing used to mean garbage in garbage out.  I used to get this concept a lot when working with a particular invoicing system in an office.  If I didn’t have all the detail input in a particular way I wouldn’t get invoices out that made any sense.  You formulate a viewpoint that seems totally valid based on your observations and yet it could only be half the picture.  I remember a lecturer at uni telling me about a study the cigarette company Malboro allegedly did many years ago.  The study showed that people who smoked Marlboro had a prolonged life expectancy.  How can this be the case?  If you take a cross-section of people on a better income/ lifestyle level who smoke against a cross-section of people who are poorer and have an inferior level of lifestyle it who don’t you can make it look like the smokers live longer as you haven’t factored in the environmental effects.  Half information can produce contradictory evidence. 

When perception is limited we can have flawless logic but the end result of thinking will still be inhibited.  This is the basis of many a faux pas!  This drew my mind to something I read a few months ago about the Canadian Prime Minister phoning Gordon Brown to commiserate on the death of previous Prime Minister Thatcher.  Mr Brown didn’t know what Mr Harper was on about.  This was because when one of the delegates at his conference got a text to say Thatcher had died it was referring to a pet rather than the ex-premier! 

We base most of our thinking on the critical or judgement framework.  It’s easy to see why we do it as a society.  Someone has a viewpoint or a way of doing something and we disagree, become critical and destroy their notion with our logic.  In the short term it’s gratifying as we get to be right and exert our superiority.  We also also get to stay within our comfort zone.  The mind naturally seeks out what’s comfortable and safe, which is why it creates patterns, so it can move in a tried and tested manner.  Unfortunately this safety net has also entangled many a person who has to move forward in a new direction.  Many a business has ended when the market changes and it doesn’t.  How often have you met someone with a dogmatic view of how it is who won’t try and accommodate any information that would allow it to expand in to balance?  I often ‘let people get on with it’ if I can see they are particularly spirited about some information they are giving me as I realise that the emotion has overtaken the logic so therefore rationalising is out of the question.  I once remember meeting some ladies from a baby group for a social event and one telling me that the council estate I lived near had had the roughest families in the UK moved there after the war and was one of the worst in the country.  This surprised me as it seemed positively tame compared to many I had seen in other parts of the country where I had experienced conditions similar to shanty towns and seen no go areas.  I explained this and then was promptly shot down as a bigot.  I surmised that this came from never venturing outside the county you live in.

Unfortunately judgement inhibits free-thinking and expansiveness.  Its not easy to deliberately direct attention in one direction after another when prejudices have been decided about what you feel about this.  Is it any wonder that most light-bulb moments/ epiphanies appear outside of focused thought?  Being open minded is less gratifying as it takes longer (if at all) for people to see your point of view & there’s no ego kick of being right or safety of the comfort zone.  Some people think that thinking expansively would make everything too open ended.  However if everything was the same for everyone we would be a collective not a society.  We live in a multi-cultural and multi-faceted society so we are already put in to an opportunity to expand should we wish to.  Most the problems come from a lack of meeting in the middle or being able to perceive shades of grey.  “When those unaccustomed to speaking are heard by those unaccustomed to listening, then real changes can be made.” (Smith, 1998)

Apathy is the death of creativity.  With apathy you can complain about your lot in life but not have to do anything about it.  Putting up with an adequate life or a slightly inadequate one prevents taking action to create a more effective way forward.  Many  are afraid to look for alternatives for fear of the extra hassle that may be caused.  When we won’t even look we remain trapped in a self made jail with no choices.  Alternatives offer us a key to move forward.  Without possibilities we wouldn’t have breakthroughs in technology.  Very often the obvious alternative is elusive until someone else suggests it.  Also many don’t even realise there are alternatives – they don’t see the wood for the trees until they begin their voyage of self discovery.  

Once perception is directed in an area it cannot help but see and once seen something it can’t be unseen.  Illumination can only enhance our journey.

Discussion with others may not always provide the insight we need that is learnt in actually doing.  With our critical thinking some bright spark will have an idea they want to explore and then people line up to take pot shots at it to ‘warn’ them of dangers etc.  Like a parent would tries to keep a child from a nettle patch for their own good are we limiting trying for fear of being stung.  One way of looking at this is how do you know what it is like being stung unless you have received one?  Perhaps getting the odd sting is worth it to reach the meadow?  If it isn’t you will only do it once!  I’m sure some people would jump up and down about this notion – and what about playing next to a road I can hear them say.  People get caught up in the exception that proves the rule as again it’s not hard and fast.  Many want to say your wrong, that’s a given and now I can feel satisfied and go back to the way it was.  There are many good arguments designed to maintain limitations.  If you always do what you’ve always done you will always get what you’ve always got.  The balance is that you need some judgement to discern but you also need the possibilities in the first place to learn.

Some simply can’t conceive without experience and aren’t motivated to look unless they see something better.  To be truly objective about our lives and to admit that yes we may not know it all and could be fallible does take a certain amount of bravery. Many people through the mechanism of arrogance or a need for safety will defend rigorously defend their world-view.   If you know you are right and can out-argue others who disagree then why explore the matter further?  What’s better someone confidently driving down the wrong road or someone who stops to examine the map and plan the route?  Why not get in to fire prevention rather than putting our fires as they arise?  Next time someone is dogmatically telling you how it is rather perhaps you could see that really they are saying I’m scared and I need a crutch.  Even an angry person is basically in fear.  Incidentally I have met many a spiritual person who claims to be non-judgemental but aren’t.  They often say it isn’t spiritual to get angry.  Yet didn’t Jesus get angry when he went in to the temple and made a whip and turned over the tables of the money lenders?

Emotional colouring is often a factor that over-rides perceiving new avenues.  People see the world through their own colouring comprised of how they view their past, present and future and how their health is at the time.  I would say a depressed person would see the world through grey tinted glasses and sees the darkness.  A more optimistic soul sees the light – the fact that every grey cloud has a silver lining.  There is always light and dark in this world.  Our culture is one that sees things in polarities.  This is why people in the public eye are put on a pedestal and later pulled down again.  People initially see the light in this person and then when they see the shadow behind it then they can only perceive the shadow and not the light they saw earlier.  

I tried out some expansive thinking when some Jehovah’s witnesses visited the other day.  I have quite an insight in to their beliefs so I used to enjoy them coming round and being able to unpick their belief structure.  This time round even though I talked through their viewpoints and added in mine I still managed to find common ground rather than feel gratified by the intellectual superiority of proving them wrong. As Rabbie Burns said ‘Persuade a man against his will and of the same opinion he will be still.’  The divine is in everyone – who am I to judge the way they want to learn?  The truth is ethics and modes of thinking do change over time.  Cultures have certain moral codes that are challenged from time to time, defended and then give way to new ways of thinking.  There are infinite ways of living and learning and we are but a drop in life’s ocean.   

De Bono’s 2^nd law – ‘proof may be no more than a lack of imagination’.

Or

My karma ate your dogma.

This entry was posted on 04/05/2010 at 05:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.