The core of critical thinking is your ability to correct and improve your own reasoning.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
- Aristotle
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
- Aristotle
The Reflect! platform - "Designed to organize reflective consensus building on wicked problems in small teams" - by Dr. Michael Hoffmann and the "Reflect! Lab" at Georgia Tech
AGORA-Net - a Computer-Supported Collaborative Argument Visualization (CSCAV) tool. An argument is defined here as a set of statements—a claim and one or more reasons—where the reasons jointly provide support for the claim, or are at least meant to support the claim.
#Comment: If you have advanced "sensemaking" infrastructure, but in praxis predominately use it to advance the narrow interests of the military industrial complex ("kill, surveil, control"), shouldn't it be called "nonsensemaking" instead?
#KM #HCI #Complexity #Science #Philosophy #Design #Military #Business
Abductive reasoning is a form of logical inference which starts with an observation or set of observations then seeks to find the simplest and most likely explanation for the observations. This process, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not positively verify it. Abductive conclusions are thus qualified as having a remnant of uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms such as "best available" or 'most likely.
Put differently, Abduction is drawing a conclusion using a heuristic that is likely, but not inevitable given some foreknowledge.e.g., I observe sheep in a field, and they appear white from my viewing angle, so sheep are white. Contrast with the deductive statement: "Some sheep are white on at least one side". To simplify and summaries: Deductive = Top down logic - Inductive = Bottom up logic - Abductive = What seems most probably?
The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) introduced abduction into modern logic. Over the years he called such inference hypothesis, abduction, presumption, and retroduction. He considered it a topic in logic as a normative field in philosophy, not in purely formal or mathematical logic, and eventually as a topic also in economics of research. (wikipedia)
In later years his view came to be:
Abductive Reasoning Links:
Related Approaches:
The following text from Noah Raford's "On design and the use of abductive reasoning" post, provides a good overview of recent history of Abductive methods in Design:
"The interest in the use of abductive, analogic and intuitive problem-solving has major roots in the “design studies” movement of the late 1960’s & 1970’s.
This movement started in the UK, primarily thanks to the work of Leslie Martin and Lionel March at the Cambridge Centre at the Cambridge School of Architecture. March and Martin were at the head of a generation of scholars seeking to systematise and understand how architects and designers thought about the world. This paralleled research into cybernetics & AI in the states by Herbert Simon, but for some reason it seems that there was a critical confluence of design thinkers in the UK at that time, and most of the literature around induction, abduction, etc. seems to come from this period.
The key ideas: The original intention of this group was to understand and document the design process. The hope was that if you understood how architects and designers perceived the world, you could replicate this in computer or expert-systems (and then do away with or “improve” the designer). Because replicability was one of the key goals, a natural sciences approach was taken to observing designers. A lot of controlled experiments were set up in laboratories to test “design problem solving”, most of which failed miserably. This led to a more ethnographic approach, including some of the first anthropological approaches to knowledge elicitation that I’ve ever seen.
What they found was that:
“Scientists adopt a problem-focused strategy and architects a solution-focused strategy.” (Lawson, 1979)
“The scientific method is a pattern of problem-solving behaviour employed in finding out the nature of what existis, whereas the design method is a pattern of behaviour employed in inventing things of value which do not yet exists. Science is analytic, design is constructive.” (Gregory, 1966)
This places a heavy emphasis on action, testing, and observation, in that order, and highlights the essentially creative nature of design. Nigel Cross, who is still teaching at the Open University, suggests that design is “a process of pattern-synthesis, when the solution is not simply ‘lying there in the data’ but has to be actively constructed by the designer’s own efforts.”. You can see how this relates to the notion of abduction. Peirce suggests that, “the whole fabric of our knowledge is one matted felt of pure hypothesis confirmed and refined by induction.” This is very similar to design. In other words,
“[Architects] learn about the nature of the problem largely as a result of trying out solutions, whereas the scientists set out specifically to study the problem.” (Lawson, 1980)
Schum notes that if Peirce is correct, “new ideas emerge as we combine, marshal or organize thoughts and evidence in different ways.” Because the design method is fundamentally exploratory, it is about hypothesis generation based on the most uncertain and sketchy forms of data. It uses both abductive and constructive reasoning to show “what might be”, instead of deductive reasoning to show “what is”." Read more..
In recent decades, Abductive Logic and Reasoning has been extensively studied in the context of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research. A few links, old & new:
Related Ideas by Abductive Logic pioneer Charles Sanders Peirce, on Semiotics:
"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise."
- Charles Sanders Peirce
Not a Poem: Not Logic, Not Prose and Not Really Poetry - by Rolf (2013)
BASED ON TRUE EVENTS: "I have been teaching Geometry this year,and trying my best to explain logic,deduction vs induction, and the ever present, always faulty, always useful, abductive “reasoning.”Without abductive reasoning, life itself would not be possible for humans. Induction and deduction? Entirely optional. Our car, (which only had 3 out 4 cyliders working) started to turn itself off, at apparently random intervals. There you’d be, changing lanes, in what you thought was a car,and poof no car, just a large metal box that looked like a car,with a seat belt, a driver’s seat, and a silent engine,rolling to a final velocity of zero. I drove the box / car to five dealerships in town,while searching for the best replacement for the box.I can now say, what others have noted before;
“Pure logic, when considering a car, (or any thing else other than numbers) does not exist.”
#KM #Philosophy #Science #ML #Creativity #Design #Complexity #Evolution #Magic
altered_statuses - "The internet's largest archive of the visual culture of global New Ages, esotericism and fringe religions." #Art #Magic #Culture
Taoist Magick - Walking Through Walls - by Lord Josh Allen
#Comment: Relaxation is essential for health. But further, it is the true foundation of effective communication, collaboration, creativity and productivity. Yet, in today's western world it is hardly studied and taught systematically. Relaxation is an art and science: The more you practice the more proficient you become. When you are relaxed and in harmony with yourself the whole world begins to orchestrate with you and everything begins to change. Relax!
Progressive Muscle Relaxation & Square Breathing
Qigong (illustrations by Irene Nemeth)
Japanese Shiatsu Self-Massage Techniques
Medical Research: Mindful movement and skilled attention
Related From earlier on this blog: Lazy Mans Guide to Relaxation.
The Copenhagen Tramways (1863-1972) already knew it:
“One bus can relieve the street for 40 cars with 1.7 passengers in each” (via)
Robotic Self-Replication - by Matthew S. Moses & Gregory S. Chirikjian (unpaywalled)
Abstract: The concept of an artificial corporeal machine that can reproduce has attracted the attention of researchers from various fields over the past century.Some have approached the topic with a desire to understand biological life and develop artificial versions; others have examined it as a potentially practical way to use material resources from the moon and Mars to bootstrap the exploration and colonization of the solar system. This review considers both bodies of literature, with an emphasis on the underlying principles required to make self-replicating robotic systems from raw materials a reality.We then illustrate these principles with machines from our laboratory and others and discuss how advances in new manufacturing processes such as3-D printing can have a synergistic effect in advancing the development of such systems.
From "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology" - by Neil Postman (1992)
Illuminating another side of the Information Dynamics, which H.Simon pointed to:
"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it." ―Herbert Simon (Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World, 1969)
See as well this video interview with Neil Postman about Technopoly (C-Span, 1992)
"Strategic Inflection Points" as defined by Andrew Grove (Intel co-founder) (talk)
What would happen, if global leaders would start focusing on DAO instead of the DOW?
#Comment: Contemporary capitalist "businesses" are directly modeled after military armies (Chief Executive OFFICER" etc.). Instead of focusing on the mind/body health and development of employees, customers and partners ("win/win/win") - it's a permanent war "game" against imaginary "external" enemies - a race to exploit and pollute everything as radical and fast as possible ("zero-sum"). Unsubstantial behavior on all levels.
Notes on the Historical Division between "Logical thinking" and "Visuals"
Rudolf Arnheim suggested a historical division between "Logical thinking" and "Visuals" in his ground-breaking book, Visual Thinking (1969).
He pointed out that philosophers in ancient Greek credited the direct vision as the start and end source of wisdom although they also learned possible distortion in human’s visual perception (Arnheim, 1969. pp. 12). However, hundreds of years later, the potential of using sketching in creative problem solving are still paid less attention. Sketching is often not considered as a form of thinking. (found via viz-up-the-world)
In his book, Arnheim (1969. pp. 2-3) reflected on the issue as the followed:
“Today, the prejudicial discrimination between perception and thinking is still with us. We shall find it in examples from philosophy and psychology. Our entire educational system continues to be based on the study of words and numbers … More and more the arts are considered as a training in agreeable skills, as entertainment and mental release."
"As the ruling disciplines stress more rigorously the study of words and numbers, their kinship with the arts is increasingly obscured, and the arts are reduced to a desirable supplement…. The arts are neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought. In fact, educators and administrators cannot justify giving the arts an important position in the curriculum unless they understand that the arts are the most powerful means of strengthening the perceptual component without which productive thinking is impossible in any field of endeavor. The neglect of the arts is only the most tangible symptom of the widespread unemployment of the senses….”
"All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention." - Rudolf Arnheim
Mind map: Rudolf Arnheim - Visual Thinking & The Intelligence of Visual Perception.
Simplicity, clarity, balance: A tribute to Rudolf Arnheim - by David Bordwell (2007):
"My teachers Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler were laying the theoretical and practical foundations of gestalt theory at the Psychological Institute of the Uni of Berlin, and I found myself fastening on to what may be called a Kantian turn of the new doctrine, according to which even the most elementary processes of vision do not produce mechanical recordings of the outer world but organize the sensory raw material according to principles of simplicity, regularity, and balance, which govern the receptor mechanism. This discovery of the gestalt school fitted the notion that the work of art, too, is not simply an imitation or selective duplication of reality but a translation of observed characteristics into the forms of a given medium" (from Film as Art)
"We have been trained to think of perception as the recording of shapes, distances, hues, motions. The awareness of these measurable characteristics is really a fairly late accomplishment of the human mind. Even in the Western man of the twentieth century it presupposes special conditions. It is the attitude of the scientist and the engineer or of the salesman who estimates the size of a customer’s waist, the shade of a lipstick, the weight of a suitcase. But if I sit in front of a fireplace and watch the flames, I do not normally register certain shades of red, various degrees of brightness, geometrically defined shapes moving at such and such a speed. I see the graceful play of aggressive tongues, flexible striving, lively color. The face of a person is more readily perceived and remembered as being alert, tense, concentrated rather than being triangularly shaped, having slanted eyebrows, straight lips, and so on" (from Art and Visual Perception, first ed., 430).
"Without the flourishing of visual expression no culture can function productively" - Rudolf Arnheim
Related: What Is Visual Thinking? - by xplane (2019)
Related: Perceptual Psychology (wikipedia)
#KM #Design #Media #Book #Creativity #Education #HCI #Philosophy
Brian Taylor to Adapt Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! as TV Show
The classic, genius, post-modern sci-fi satire, the Illuminatus! trilogy is slated to become a TV series. Given Hivemind's association with Amazon Prime & Netflix, one of these outlets is a likely bet. I have very mixed feelings about this, wait and see. In the meantime: Hail Eris! and..
Wonderfully comedic illustrations from the book "A Manual of Bioenergetic Exercises" (1977)
Thortspace collaborative thinking app demo, exploring the Heidegger idea space in 3D.
All it takes to fool facial recognition at airports & banks is a printed mask
#Comment: I closely predicted this outcome in my experiment "Adversarial Machines - Fooling A.Is" back in 2015. Current #ML is still very brittle indeed. There is a fortune waiting to be made on the adversarial computation markets (fool face-recognition etc.)