On the plane to Malta I started to read a book on 'complexity' and the setting up of the Santa Fe Institute, This was described as a fundamental shift in science from the traditional 'linear' and 'reductionist' model to the 'non-linear' and 'integrative model' Professor Gell Mann who became chairman of the Institute is a friend of mine.
In 1969 I wrote the book 'The Mechanism of the Mind' which described how nerve networks act as self-organising systems which allow information to organise itself into patterns. This was ten years before John Hopkins at Caltech started working on neural networks and eleven years before the development of interest in 'complexity'. Indeed, Professor Gell Mann, himself, told me how I had 'stumbled' on these matters ten years before mathematicians had become interested.
My concern here is with a far more important step in science. The tradition in science is that 'knowledge is all'. This belief is directly derived from Socrates - who actually throught science to be a waste of time. I do not agree with that fundamental principle.
We need to go beyond mere knowledge to practical 'designs' that make a difference: that contribute to the world.
I would claim that the designs that arose from my book in 1969 have had far more impact on millions of people around the world than all the heavy endowment and brilliant brains of the Santa Fe Institute. From my consideration of self-organising information systems came the deliberate and systematic tools of creative thinking (lateral thinking). These include the processes of provocation and random entry. Both of these are mathematically required in any self-organising system. In a recorded lecture at the Santa Fe Institute the lecturer mentioned that as a creative technique I had suggested using a 'random word'. This was greeted with a roar of laughter. This indicates how ignorant the audience, and perhaps the lecturer, are of the behaviour of self-organising patterning systems. It is almost self-evident that in a patterning system a random entry will produce creativity (because the path dominance at the centre is by-passed)
The heavy and cumbersome mathematical approach to complexity does not give an intuitive feel for the universe of self-organising patterns. A 'funtional topology' is far more effective.
From that book of mine in 1969 also came the realisation that perception and attention were most important. It was later that David Perkins at Harvard confirmed this by showing that up to ninety percent of the faults in thinking were not faults of logic at all but faults of perception.
As a practical design came the CoRT programme (CoRT Thinking Lessons) which is now in use with millions of school children around the world. Three days ago I was speaking at the University of Verona, in Italy, where Professor de Bene was publishing the very successful results of his research on the use of CoRT in schools. In South Africa, Susan Mackie, has shown remarkable results teaching CoRT Thinking to totally illiterate miners at the bottom of a platinum mine. These are the things that really matter. Publishing complex papers for other scientists to read has relatively little impact on the world.
It is sad that the really important and fundamental matters attract so little funding. The MacArthur Foundation in the USA were in a position to fund this very basic work but could never get to see the importance of developing better habits for human thinking. Too bad.
Very soon I shall be making an imprtant announcement on this website. It will be within the next month.
Edward de Bono
19th April 1998
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