Category: "Worldview"
It's Not Just Me
This blog is predicated on the fact that there is a huge amount of 'stuff' that I don''t know - the quotation from Einstein sort of sums it up and I find it proven almost daily. Even so it is always comforting when there is some sort of independent corroboration in the form of someone else saying similar things - even if that does rather smack of confirmation bias.
Categories: Philosophical, Learning, Worldview, ----------
A Matter of Perspective
I was watching TV the other evening and switching between a few channels to see what was on and came across something on BBC4 which was described as "A spectacular aerial journey following the world’s longest monument ... in slow-TV style". I have watched bits of other programmes which were "in slow-TV style" and generally they are, actually, rather attractive - in that they draw you in to watch what is, often, not very much!! This one was the same - although actually compared to the journey along a canal this was not quite so slow as it was more like 'highlights' than true "slow-TV". Doing the maths they were in effect travelling at over 1500km/hr - hardly slow.
To Forget
There have been plenty of posts in this blog about our selective memory - the way we remember some things but not others - the way we find it difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction when looking back at past events - the way we tend to exaggerate, one way or another, those memories that we retain - the way that something someone else says or does will trigger a memory, sometimes even triggering a memory that is fictitious.
Categories: Philosophical, Worldview, ----------
To Forgive
This post is the result of my thinking being triggered by a very specific piece of "news" (its not really news since the actual event happened many years ago - but has only recently become public knowledge). I was very unsure of how to react to this particular story - so this blog is me thinking it through.
Categories: Philosophical, Worldview, ----------
Everyone Knows
I've said it before - and I will probably say it again - it is really good when you get unexpected confirmation of things that you have written. In my recent post Tell Me About It I tackled the ever more prevalent problem of what is known as the "illusion of explanatory depth" with regard to our knowledge.
Categories: Philosophical, Systems Thinking, Complexity, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
All In The Presentation
"Its all just ones and zeroes" - not sure whether that quote comes from a single identifiable source, but it is often used as a way of breaking down the complexities of most computer systems to something "understandable". The problem is that although we understand "ones and zeroes" in their own right it requires rather more to interpret the meaning of all those "ones and zeroes".
Categories: Complexity, Decision Making, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Tell Me About It
One thing that has informed my worldview over recent years was the discovery that there exist a whole host of cognitive biases that cause us to mis-perceive everything we see, hear and think. In a previous post I linked to an article that listed no less than 58 of these - and I have a poster on my desk which lists 20. (note that these both originate from the same website)
Categories: Philosophical, Systems Thinking, Complexity, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Jumping To Conclusions
In the last few days I have seen two really good examples in social media of people bringing their own biases to discussions and replying to what they thought was written rather than what was actually written. In both cases it made them look just a bit foolish.
Categories: Philosophical, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Does Reality Matter?
One recurrent theme of my blog entries is the difficulty we each experience separating reality from fiction. I don't mean that we are consciously deluding ourselves - although I expect that we all do that from time to time - rather that we simply lose track of what is real as against what is "made up".
Categories: Philosophical, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Faking It
There is a bit of a furore about the perceived influence of so called fake news on the result of the US election. On the one hand this strikes me as extremely funny - on the other it is rather worrying (on a number of levels).
Categories: News, Philosophical, Systems Thinking, Knowledge Management, Complexity, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
