Thursday 25 July 2013

Having an open mind.



It's easier said than done.  I have opinions on subjects where I have varying degrees of knowledge.  Currently these include, the war in Syria, the UK royal baby, a new kitchen layout in our villa, religion, politics, football, climate change, modern monetary theory, systems thinking........to name but a few!  There are many other subjects where, because of my lack of knowledge, I have very few opinions.  These include, brain surgery, sub atomic physics, psychiatry, my neighbour's hobbies, Ancient Greek history, the UK Prime Minister's choice of holidays........I'll stop there!  The comedian, Frank Skinner, once said: "Since I gave up drinking alcohol, I no longer have the opportunity to talk about subjects where I have little or no knowledge.  So now my conversations are quite limited, frankly."  Frank's right, there's many a true word spoken in jest.  Have you ever listened to a couple of old soaks in a bar, putting the world to rights, and talking (usually rather loudly) a load of old rubbish?!  As the alcohol is consumed, the inhibitions are released and the opinions flow free.  But does it matter?  So long as it's harmless drivel, probably not.  Nobody's going to visit the local pub to get briefed on sub atomic physics.

Returning to the sober world, there must surely be benefits in having an open mind even on issues where we would claim to have plenty of knowledge?  Yes, but is it possible?  We all have opinions, stated and unstated.  Peoples' stated opinions reflect their unstated agendas and biases - in my opinion!  The concept of an open mind implies shelving preconceived ideas to allow an unbiased evaluation of others' opinions.  That's not easy!  Indeed, whilst we might start listening to others' views with openness, gradually data is extracted from our memory banks, which consciously or subconsciously processes and filters the incoming opinions into 'agree', 'no fixed view' or 'crap'.  I don't see how any person with an active mind can prevent this natural cerebral activity. So what's the answer?  How can we detach ourselves from preconception and think objectively?  I stumbled across a discussion thread on LinkedIn's System Thinking World, a short while ago.  One of the participants was proposing Explore, Question, Discover as a learning process.  EQD - I like it!

I think you can apply EQD to all issues, both within ourselves and in society.  Self analysis is a good starting point.  So if we have an opinion on, for example, the layout of a new kitchen, it will almost certainly have a strong foundation of preconceived ideas.  But those foundations can shape the way our ideas develop and very often constrain, or destroy, creativity.  EQD - we can Explore our ideas alone, smashing down any preconceptions by considering all possible options, however wacky.  EQD - we can Question other stakeholders and in the case of the kitchen project there is only one other very important stakeholder - my wife!  EQD - hopefully our creation will be Discovered but probably not without a few iterations of E - Q - D.  At the time of writing, our kitchen plan is still very much work-in-progress!

EQD in society is exactly the same process and for example, although I don't pretend to have thought through the options for resolving the Syrian conflict, I am concerned that the international community is not doing enough E and Q to have a realistic chance of D - Discovering a solution not just for Syria but for an extremely volatile Middle East region.  Do any of the interested and influential parties - Syria, Russia, China, USA, EU - really have an open mind?  I don't think so and there lies the problem.

Having an open mind is not easy.  It's not difficult, therefore, to understand why a highly intelligent species, homo sapiens, has so much conflict at all levels within its societies.  But in the words of Wayne Dyer: "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Sunday 14 July 2013

There's a moose loose aboot this hoose.


There's a moose loose aboot this hoose is a cliché highlighting a Scottish dialect pronunciation, which came to mind around 2am this morning.  About half an hour earlier, my wife and I were disturbed by a tapping sound in the hall.  Noises in the night are not unusual for us because our two dogs and a cat often wander around and, for example, inspect their bowls and maybe chew at a biscuit for nocturnal comfort.  And of course it is Ramadan (known as Ramazan here in Turkey), so after dark is when the human species comes alive (not in our villa!) to break the fast.  So we often hear sounds from activities in the village.  But the tapping in the hall was different and it was coming from behind a large cabinet.  We decided to investigate and moved one corner of the unit away from the wall.  And there it was.  An over-fed mouse surrounded by a few doggie treats, obviously stolen from our canine family!

We had the mouse cornered, but what to do next?  Although it was an unwelcome guest, neither of us wanted to kill it but the same sentiment was probably not shared with our cat, DC.  He was asleep in another room, so we closed the door to prevent him from waking up and wanting to help!  We discussed tactics and decided we would attempt to coax the mouse into a container in order to remove it from our villa.  We positioned a pot where the cabinet had been moved away from the wall then tried to encourage the mouse to enter the 'transit lounge'.  But the plan failed when the mouse decided to squeeze through the gap at the other end of the cabinet.  It then scampered up the hall, through the lounge and into the kitchen, where it sought refuge behind the fridge-freezer.  We were now concerned that it would find its way to nearby fixed kitchen base units, which were not easily detachable from the wall.  So Plan B came into play.  We enlisted the support of a mop and a vacuum cleaner, the latter having a newly-fitted bag, which had, therefore, little pre-hoovered debris and plenty of space for a mouse.  We fitted the pipe attachment to the vacuum cleaner and we were ready for action.  I managed to coax the mouse from under the fridge-freezer and when it raced across the kitchen floor, caught it under the soft mop and then sucked it up with the vacuum cleaner into the bag.

Then what?  Well it seemed likely that a mouse that can gnaw its way through dog biscuits would soon do a Houdini trick and escape from the bag.  Our nearest rubbish bin is about 200 metres from the villa, so that's where I took it and my guess (and indeed hope) is that before sunrise it would have escaped to a nearby field.

My wife and I went to bed and were woken by the call to prayer at a local mosque about one hour later. It was an interesting night!

Saturday 6 July 2013

One plus one doesn't always equal two.

A child being taught arithmetic soon learns 1+1=2 and of course arithmetic skills, particularly without the use of a calculator, are so useful throughout our lives.  Arithmetic relationships are easily explainable.  For example, I have a bag and put into it one orange.  Then I put into the bag another orange.  How many oranges are now in the bag?  The answer is two, because 1+1=2!  You can't argue with that........or can you?

The problem arises when you try to apply simple rules to complex issues.  Yes I know I've beaten that drum before but I'll do it again........and again........and again, as part of my personal crusade to avoid the pitfalls of reductionist thinking, i.e. the whole is not necessarily the sum of the parts.  A problem shared is a problem halved.  Have you heard that one?  Half a problem plus half a problem equals the whole problem, thus obeying the basic arithmetic rule of 1+1=2.  So if my wife loses her wedding ring and knows it is somewhere on the lounge floor, then if we divide the room into two and each search half of it, then the sharing of the problem rule probably applies, i.e. it will take us half the time to find the lost ring compared with the time taken if one of us searched alone.  But if I have a problem with my computer and enlist the support of a 'PC Jockey' to help me fix it, then because of her experience she will probably solve the problem in a fraction of the time than if I go it alone.  The magnitude of the computer problem has been decimated because of the skills and experience of one of the participants.  But suppose I share a problem with a 'dumb partner', for example one made of wood and metal!  If I decide to dig a hole in my garden 1 metre by 1 metre square and 1 metre deep, using my bare hands and no tools, it could take me 10 hours to complete.  If on the other hand I enlist the support of a 'dumb partner' in the form of a spade, it might only take me one hour to dig the hole.  My efficiency has increased ten-fold.  But some would argue that in the one hour required to dig the hole, I have only contributed 10% towards the efficiency because without a spade and in one hour, I could only dig one tenth of a hole.  So the spade has contributed 90% of the efficiency, which again follows the simple addition rules of 10%+90%=100%.  I have seen that argument employed when analysing the benefits of automation but where it falls down, in my opinion, is the fact that I can dig a hole without a spade, but the spade can't dig a hole without me.  So, in a ten hour period, I can dig one hole without any help from the spade, whereas the spade on its own cannot dig a hole.  Put the two of us together and in ten hours we can dig ten holes, i.e. 1+0=10!!

No, the rules of arithmetic haven't broken down.  I have merely demonstrated that a simple additive relationship does not apply to describing the efficiency of a man with a spade.  It follows that if adding things together doesn't always give simple predictive results, then conversely understanding things by pulling them apart is not always possible.  As I write this post for my blog, there are many issues around the world that are, in my opinion, examples of simple solutions being applied to complex problems, often with disastrous results.  The austerity programmes in some European countries as a means of solving their economic problems, do not appear to be working.  The military coup d'état in Egypt and the removal of President Morsi to bring stability, doesn't seem to be working.  In each case taking something 'undesirable' away from 'the whole' has not left 'the whole without the undesirable', which again defies the simple arithmetic logic of 1+1=2.  In the case of the financial austerity programmes, taking away excess spending has not left the countries with healthy income vs expenditure, because unemployment has increased, consumption has reduced and revenues have plummeted.  The removal of President Morsi in Egypt has brought an abrupt end to one year of democracy and left the country deeply divided.

Simple arithmetic works very well when checking the supermarket shopping bill and has a part to play in most problem solving but if life's challenges were always simple and mechanistic, peace and prosperity would just be round the corner.  Unfortunately Utopia remains a dream.