<------------------------------------------------------------------------>
•── “false positives.” : The first error is overdiagnosis--when an individual tests positive in the test but does not have cancer. Such individuals are called “false positives.” Men and women who falsely test positive find themselves trapped in the punitive stigma of cancer, the familiar cycle of anxiety and terror (and the desire to “do something”) that precipitates further testing and invasive treatment., pp.291-292, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The emperor of all maladies, 2010.
• false
positive - “Hunting for trouble and making adjustments
when no trouble exists, and ... ”,
what deming told the Japanese in 1950, DeminginJapanin1950.pdf, Peter J. Kolesar, Columbia university, p.16 (QMJ 94 Fall)
- fishing expedition
•── “false negatives” : The mirror image of overdiagnosis is underdiagnosis--an error in which a patient truly has cancer but does not test positive for it. Underdiagnosis falsely reassures patients of their freedom from disease. These men and women (“false negatives” in the jargon of epidemiology) enter a different punitive cycle--of despair, shock, and betrayal--once their disease, undetected by the screening test, is eventually uncovered when it becomes symptomatic., pp.291-292, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The emperor of all maladies, 2010.
• false
negative - “failing to hunt for trouble and not taking action
when trouble does exist.”,
what deming told the Japanese in 1950, DeminginJapanin1950.pdf, Peter J. Kolesar, Columbia university, p.16 (QMJ 94 Fall)
- neglect
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The emperor of all maladies, 2010 [ ]
pp.291-292
Suppose a new test has been invented in the laboratory to detect an early, presympotamic stage of a particular form of cancer, say, the level of a protein secreted by cancer cells into the serum. The first challenge for such a test is technical: its performance in the real world. Epidemiologists think of screening tests as possessing two characteristic performance errors. The first error is overdiagnosis--when an individual tests positive in the test but does not have cancer. Such individuals are called “false positives.” Men and women who falsely test positive find themselves trapped in the punitive stigma of cancer, the familiar cycle of anxiety and terror (and the desire to “do something”) that precipitates further testing and invasive treatment.
([ see pregnancy test ])
The mirror image of overdiagnosis is underdiagnosis--an error in which a patient truly has cancer but does not test positive for it. Underdiagnosis falsely reassures patients of their freedom from disease. These men and women (“false negatives” in the jargon of epidemiology) enter a different punitive cycle--of despair, shock, and betrayal--once their disease, undetected by the screening test, is eventually uncovered when it becomes symptomatic.
The trouble is that overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis are often intrinsically conjoined, locked perpetually on two ends of a seesaw. Screening tests that strive to limit overdiagnosis--by narrowing the criteria by which patients are classified as positive--often pay the price of increasing underdiagnosis because they miss patients that lie in the gray zone between positive and negative. An example helps to illustrate this tradeoff. Suppose--to use Egan's vivid metaphor--a spider is trying to invent a perfect web to capture flies out of the air. Increasing the density of that web, she finds, certainly increases the chances of capturing junk and debris floating through the air (false positives). Making the web less dense, in contrast, decreases the chances of catching real prey, but every time something is captured, chances are higher that it is a fly. In cancer, where both overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis come at high costs, finding that exquisite balance is often impossible. We want every cancer test to operate with perfect specificity and sensitivity. But the technologies for screening are not perfect. Screening tests thus routinely fail because they cannot even cross this preliminary hurdle--the rate of over- or underdiagnosis is unacceptably high.
(The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2010, )
____________________________________
the costs of two kinds of mistakes: “Hunting for trouble and making adjustments when no trouble exists, and ... failing to hunt for trouble and not taking action when trouble does exist.”
“Hunting for trouble and making adjustments when no trouble exists, and ...”
“failing to hunt for trouble and not taking action when trouble does exist.”
false h 4 t a m a wnte
positive - “Hunting for trouble and making adjustments
when no trouble exists, and ... ”
false f 2 h 4 t a n t a wtde
negative - “failing to hunt for trouble and not taking action
when trouble does exist.”
• false
positive - “Hunting for trouble and making adjustments
when no trouble exists, and ... ”,
what deming told the Japanese in 1950, DeminginJapanin1950.pdf, Peter J. Kolesar, Columbia university, p.16 (QMJ 94 Fall)
• false
negative - “failing to hunt for trouble and not taking action
when trouble does exist.”,
what deming told the Japanese in 1950, DeminginJapanin1950.pdf, Peter J. Kolesar, Columbia university, p.16 (QMJ 94 Fall)
p.16 (QMJ 94 Fall)
The technical lectures
In lecture 1, “controlled and uncontrolled variation”, Deming introduced the Shewhart statistical control chart as a tool for bringing a production process into control. He set the tone for this lecture with the opening remark, “Variability is a rule in nature. Repetitions of any procedure will produce variable results.”
Deming followed with definitions of controlled and uncontrolled variation, principally in terms of whether it is (controlled variation) or is not (uncontrolled variation) profitable to try to determine the causes. This economic definition is the same spirit as that offered in the original book of Shewhart (1931). Deming then called uncontrolled
variation a type of “trouble”, and introduced the costs of two kinds of mistakes: “Hunting for trouble and making adjustments when no trouble exists, and ... failing to hunt for trouble and not taking action when trouble does exist.” Deming offered the control chart as the most “economical solution” to this problem.
source:
what deming told the Japanese in 1950
DeminginJapanin1950.pdf
Peter J. Kolesar, Columbia university
QMJ 94 Fall
https://curiouscat.com/management/deming/deming-1950-japan-speech-mt-hakone
____________________________________
p.65
by Anthony Lane
The current cinema, Over the limit
"Ferrari" and "The crime is mine"
To be accused of an offense that you haven't committed is a terrible slur, and it can lead to a galling miscarriage of justice. To be innocent of an offense and yet to confess your guilt ─ not for pathological reasons but purely to get ahead in the world ─ takes a certain panache.
The new yorkers, January 1 & 8, 2024.
‘’•─“”
The new yorkers, January 1 & 8, 2024.
by Anthony Lane
To be accused of an offense that you haven't committed is a terrible slur, and it can lead to a galling miscarriage of justice. To be innocent of an offense and yet to confess your guilt ─ not for pathological reasons but purely to get ahead in the world ─ takes a certain panache.
(The current cinema, Over the limit, "Ferrari" and "The crime is mine", The new yorkers, January 1 & 8, 2024., p.65)
____________________________________
Niel Postman, Amusing ourselves to death : public discourse in the age of show business, new introduction by Andrew Postman [2005], [1985]
p.102
If on television, credibility replaces reality as the decisive test of truth-telling, political leaders need not trouble themselves very much with reality provided their performances consistently generate a sense of verisimilitude.
p.102
For the alternative possibilities are that one may look like a liar but be telling the truth; or even worse, look like a truth-teller but in fact be lying.
(Amusing ourselves to death./ Niel Postman, bibliography: p. 173., includes index., 1. mass media ── influence., P94.P63 1986, 302.2'34, 86-9513, A section of this book was supported by a commission from the Annenberg scholars program, Annenberg school of communications, university of southern california. SPecifically, portions of chapters six and seven formed part of a paper delivered at the scholars conference, “Creating meaning : literacies of our time”, February 1984., [1985] )
____________________________________
Michael Pillsbury, The hundred-year marathon : China's secret strategy to replace America as the global superpower, 2015
p.113
American movie The Usual Suspects,
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”30
the best deception conceals its very existence.
(Michael Pillsbury, The hundred-year marathon, The hundred-year marathon : China's secret strategy to replace America as the global superpower / Michael Pillsbury., 1. strategic planning ── china., 2. china ── history. 3. national security ── china., 4. china ── politics and government., 5. china ── foreign relations., 6. united states ── foreign relations ── china., 7. china ── foreign relations ── united states., JZ134.P55 2014, 327.1'12095──dc23, 2015, )
____________________________________
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/132/pg132.txt
____________________________________
Ashton Carter, Inside the five-sided box : lessons from a lifetime of leadership in the Pentagon, 2019
p.337
I also advocated using deception to undermine the confidence of those who steal information from our less-than-perfectly secured networks. This is easily done by creating some attractively titled files that contain information contaminated in subtle ways ── for example, by changing occasional digits in numbers, moving decimal points, or mixing up miles and kilometers in a list of distances. When our adversaries realize that some of the information has been tampered with, they come to doubt the accuracy of all the information they've stolen.
( Inside the five-sided box: lessons from a lifetime of leadership in the Pentagon / Ash Carter.; Ashton B. Carter, author.; [2019]; subjects: Carter, Ashton B. | united states. department of defense. | united states ──military policy ── decision making. | pentagon (va.) | united stats. department of defense ── history. | united states. department of defense ── procurement. | united states. department of defense ── officials and employees ── biography. | cabinet officers ── united states ── biography.; UA23.C2746 2019; DDC 355.6092 [B]──dc23 )
____________________________________
there are generally two type of errors
error of commision, and
error of omission
commission
commission - the act of committing (to perform certain duties);
commit - to do, to perform
error in commission, means you did some thing and you should not have done it, because for some reasons or another things did not turn out well;
especially for something new, there is no way to see ahead of time if what you do would influence a longer term outcome, and how ... would be influenced, unless you do a system dynamics modeling study;
system dynamics ((stock-level, flow-rate): input-flow-rate ==> stock-level ==> output-flow-rate) perspective;
If you did a thing (commission), and things turn out well, then it would not be called an error, it would be considered a success;
another way to look at "getting into trouble" for doing a thing (commission is to do a thing) is in law, crime, military decision-making, corporate decision-making, governmental decision-making, and others;
for example, because it is difficult to prosecute or get into trouble for not doing, if you ask the lawyer if you should do a thing or not, most lawyer is more likely to err on the side of saying, no; in other words, because it is more difficult to get into trouble for not taking action, it is easier to say, no, than to say, yes;
another example, in crime, if you commit a crime, that mean you did a thing; it would be an unusual crime and situation, indeed, if you committed a crime for not doing a thing or taking action; so to get into trouble, that's an act of commission; to use killing as an example, you get into trouble for killing some one, but you are less likely to get into trouble for not killing that same person, or, for preventing that person from getting killed or dying in the first place; we'll come back to this later;
in law, rules, and regulation, one category of commission can be seen as crafting, making, revising, and updating the rules that enable you to do a thing, comparable to the Bill of Rights; the Bill of Rights is a set of rules that say, this is your rights, and no one, not the state, not the government, not whoever, has the right to take these rights or ... these enumerated rights away from you; as a matter-of-fact, one of the rule in the Bill of Rights, should be the right that the government or the state, can not, are not allowed, are prohibited, from taking away the Bill of Rights; to repeat that again, within the Bill of Rights, is a rule that protect the Bill of Rights themselves from going out existence; the next important Bill of Rights, is the bill of rights that exist in the public consciousness; the public should know in general and in the specifics: the idea, the meaning, the implementation, the practical interactive application of the Bill of Rights in the real world;
in law, rules, and regulation, another category of commission could be seen as crafting, making, revising, and updating the rules that disable you to do a thing; it is important to mention this, because most rules are crafted, designed, and programmed to enable action;
there is a sub category of commission we shall not explore or get into, other than to say, to commit an act of evil to prevent a greater act of evil, which can be very confusing; how can someone be placed in a position and a situation where they are forced to pick between a path of a greater evil or a lessor evil; how can you know that by committing an act of evil, you are preventing a greater act of evil from happenning or preventing a series of evil actions from continuing?; if you wish to avoid these types of less than endearing of two evils, then you are going to have to look into the underlying structure that gave birth to these type of evil like situation (also refer to as evil condition); there is an opposite of the lesser of two evils (or, greater of two evils), that is known as the lesser of two goods (or, greater of two goods);
[remove the 'c' from 'c'ommission, and you get omission with no 'c']
ommission
ommission - omit - 1. to leave out; fail to include - 2. to fail to do or perform; neglect;
ommission - not to do, not to perform (for my definition)
the second type of error is to get into trouble for not doing a thing when you should have done something about it; this can be difficult, because how would you know you should have done a thing; as far as we (the people who have have studies these type of situation (problems)) can tell, you need to have experience the situation before hand in a specific and general way, to know if you should've done a thing; an extensive and critical study of general history, specific history of trade, commerce, finance and business activies, and case law (case law is a form of history) should be helpful here;
in law enforcement, regulation, public disclosure, public shaming, press release and others, if you see a thing, and it is against the rule, or, the social norm, and you did not enforce the rule, then you have reinforce, given a pass, a sort of feedback to that norm; by taking no action, or not saying anything, you have, by default, accept ... that it is okay for things to be this way; because you did not enforced the rule, did not speak up, speak out, make a protest, or an appeal, that's an act of omission (a commission of an omission (to fail to do or perform; neglect)); the purpose of the rules and the law is the health, safety, security, and welfare of the general and specific population;
most of the time, we are passive, and we do not take action on many things; if you did not do a thing (ommission) and things turned out well, then then okay, that's a good thing, and nobody is going to say anything, because how can someone read into the future timeline to say, hey, you did not do this thing; good job for not taking any action;
([ repetition ])
in law, regulation, religion, crime, commerce, education and others, ommission is failing to do or perform an action; we do not call it ommission (to fail to do or perform; neglect); we have some other words, language, label, phrasing for this, like
most children know not to put your hand on a hot stove, or grab hot food from the fire with your bare hand;
an ommission (to fail to do or perform; neglect) could be not teaching someone how to read and write; although probably unimaginable to a person who DOES know how to read and write in their mother tongue or mother language; there are still places where people get along perfectly fine without the knowledge and the skillset for reading and writing; they speak their language, practice their culture, and live a perfectly happy lives without reading and writing;
a dramatic and tragic example of ommission (to fail to do or perform; neglect) is the big tsunami event in Japan; people have been living on the east coast of Japan (chain of islands) for as far back as recorded and unrecorded Japanese (Nihon, Nippon) history; every now and again, there have been big under sea earthquake far from the east coast of this islands chain, causing giant tsunami to hit Japan; these big tsunami rarely happened, like a thousand year to two thousands year event; but when they do happened, they caused get destruction and lost of lives; the story of these great tsunami was passed down to two villages (community), Murohama and Aneyoshi, Japan; the failure in this case, is the in ability, or disability, to transmit the story of the giant tsunami, as a warning, and to have the warning be included as part of the local folklore (lessons learned) to be passed on to all the inhabitants in the area beyond these two sea-side villages; this was not done, an act of ommission; a case of getting into trouble for a thing that we did not do; clearly, it should have been done, but it was not done; how do you pass on story to the next and all the other generation for a thousand years event?;
([ en.wikipedia.org tsunami ])
another ommission would be not to regulate more the air pollution; why was this not done? economics (follow the money)? because of push back from ...;
there is sub category of commission-omission combination. the idea is simple to describe, and can be very difficult and next to impossible to achieve in some and in many situations. this is when you already have found a solution (commission - you found a solution (a process)), but there is actually a more optimized solution over the next hill climbing process (also refer to as the learning curve). here is the difficulties. how can we know if that more optimized solution exist? what if there is no more optimized solution to this problem, at this moment, given the current context and situation. for most of us mortal with average intelligence, we can not and do not know this more optimized solution exist or does not exist, until we go searching for it. If we do not go searching for it, then that is an ommision. If we go searching for it, and did not find anything, then considered the effort and endeavor as part of the learning curve, sunk cost, and opportunity cost (because the human resource and other resources that was used - dedicated - for this research, development and engineering effort could not be deployed to do other things). It is for this reason, I categorize this situation as a commission-omission combination. (process orientation focus should have higher priority than object orientation language usage; verb should have priority over noun (person, places, and things); all there is is rain; [rain or raining] is a process, process orientation; birth, growing, living, learning, development, cooking, maintenance of health, dying, aging, gaming, working, moving, loving, hating, illness, sickness, farming, political selection, social selection, natural selection, biological evolution, cellular mutation, ... most to many things in human and natural activities are processes)
____________________________________
what are you optimizing for?
local optimum, global optimum, "hill-climbing methods"
The program might get stuck at local optimum close to where it started its search. The program thus errs in - declaring victory too early - unaware that an even better global optimum lies just over the hill.
source:
Google's chip designing AI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR9IusOpEzk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR9IusOpEzk
____________________________________
In 15 to 25 years when technology has progress or not, moving forward and backward, developed, as different factors, parameters, parts, components, pieces, aspects of the social-technological-economic-political (step) situation change, these changes present opportunity for renewed iterative search for possible optimized solution.
[ social-technological-economic-political (step)]
[ political-economic-social-technological (pest)]
In many fields and discipline, this renew search for more up to date solution to old problem happen naturally. One thing to keep in mind, always keep the old tried and true, non technological dependent solution going. ... ...
setp
pset
pest [ political-economic-social-technological (pest)]
step [ social-technological-economic-political (step)]
tesp
tsep
Bina Venkataraman., The optimist's telescope : thinking ahead in a reckless age, 2019
p.222
When the Jogan earthquake struck Japan in the year 869, residents of Miyako-jima fled to the top of a hill on their island. They did not flee to safety. A giant tsunami rose over the hill from one direction, while a second massive wave surged from a rice paddy on another side. The two waves collided, crashing on the hilltop, and swept the people seeking refuge at its pinnacle out to sea. The waves destroyed the fishing village of Murohama.
The horrific tragedy was not soon forgotten. Its memory lingered for more than a thousand years. A stone marker on the hill, placed next to a shrine, told the history of that day and warned future generations not to seek shelter in that place. The warning entered local folklore and was studied by children in local schools. When the earth shook in March 2011 in Japan, nearly all of Murohama's inhabitants remembered what had happened 1,142 years before. They heeded the warning and fled farther inland, and watched two giant waves crash over the hilltop again.
In Aneyoshi, Japan, an aging stone tablet stands sentinel, warning future inhabitants, “Do not build your homes below this point!” No homes stood below its elevation in 2011. The waves of the recent tsunami lapped just three hundred feet below the marker.
These two communities are exceptions, not the rule. Hundreds of other stone markers commemorating tsunamis are scattered across Japan, many erected after devastating tsunamis in 1896 and 1933. According to a study by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the international Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, virtually none of the other communities with such markers heeded them as Aneyoshi and Murohama did.
What made these villages, but not the others, heed history?
p.222
What made these villages, but not the others heed history?
Miyako-jima
the fishing village of Murohama
Aneyoshi, Japan
Hundreds of other stone markers
commemorating tsunamis are scattered across Japans, many erected after devastating tsunamis in 1896 and 1933.
pp.222-223
The communities in Japan where the historic markers made for effective warnings were small villages, with cultural continuity across generations. School children learned the history of the past tsunamis and the need for vigilance. And the stone markers in Aneyoshi and Murohama stood out relative to the hundreds of others in Japan for offering specific actions rather than just vague commemorations of history: Do not build homes below this point. Do not flee to this hill.
p.223
When profound past experiences provide precedent for a credible future scenario, history can serve the present.
p.226
What can we do when we need to imagine a future we have never experienced in our own lives or in history?
p.227
Sieber did not predict precisely the future, nor did he see it clairvoyance like the mythical Cassandra, whose curse the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus described as both foreseeing the ruin of Troy and having everyone ignore her prophecy.
p.227
Greek playwright Aeschylus
(The optimist's telescope : thinking ahead in a reckless age / Bina Venkataraman., New York : Riverhead books, 2019., decision making──social aspects. | risk──sociological aspects. | forecasting., ddc 153.8/3──dc23, https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046076, 2019, )
there is ..., and I heard the phrase, counter factual, for the first time from Bill Gate in one of his many interviews; he said something like, he does not answer counter factual questions;
it is difficult to predict and anticipate what did not happened, because it didn't happened;
when a thing did not happen, you can not be sure if it is some thing you did do, or, if it is some thing you did not do;
one source material that can be used for this type of exploration is to look at the Great war (later refer to as the 1st world war, or world war I), World war II (also refer to as 2nd world war), and any other situation that we have lots of documentation; about five years after the end of the 2nd world war (world war II), the u.s. was in Korean war; in this case, N. Korea started the the war; and while the u.s. was in Korea, France was in Vietnam fighting against the Viet Mihn; ...
To summarize:
commission:
commission - the act of committing (to perform certain duties);
commission - to perform, to commit;
commit - to do, to perform
If you (we, they) do a thing, and the outcome did not turn out well, then this is bad;
If you (we, they) to do a thing, and the outcome turned out well, then this is good;
omission:
ommission - omit - 1. to leave out; fail to include - 2. to fail to do or perform; neglect;
ommission - fail to do, fail to perform;
ommission - not to do, not to perform (for my definition)
If you (we, they) not do a thing, and the outcome did not turn out well, then this is bad;
If you (we, they) not do a thing, and the outcome turned out well, then this is good.
Same summary in table format:
positive negative
outcome outcome
(advantage) (disadvantage)
x---------------x-------------x
commission | | |
(to do | good | bad |
a thing) | | |
x---------------x-------------x
omission | | |
(not to do | good | bad |
a thing) | | |
x---------------x-------------x
table format (process orientation):
positive negative
outcome outcome
(advantage) (disadvantage)
x---------------x-------------x
commission | | |
(to do | good | bad |
a process) | | |
x---------------x-------------x
omission | | |
(not to do | good | bad |
a process) | | |
x---------------x-------------x
source:
Russell L. Ackoff's writing
commission and omission
google, bing, dogpile, duckduckgo: Russell Ackoff commission omission
focus on the process
____________________________________
[ social-technological-economic-political (step)]
[ political-economic-social-technological (pest)]
[ social-
eating together
doing activities together
human relationship
community building
organic community cultivation
technological-
a better way of doing things, or, a better way to perform an activity
economic-
the economic level with the organization of wealth.
2. The political-economic——the pursuit of power and plenty
political -
the political level with the organization of power,
2. The political-economic——the pursuit of power and plenty
]
(2.) Carroll Quigley
OoFPW (organization of force, power and wealth)
On page 33,
Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley, 1966::
“The military level is concerned with the organization of force, the political level with the organization of power, and the economic level with the organization of wealth. By the "organization of power" in a society we mean the ways in which obedience and consent (or acquiescence) are obtained.”
(Tragedy and Hope : a history of the world in our time, by Carroll Quigley, copyright © 1966, pdf file (digital copy), the macmillan company, new york, p.33)
Same words, different format,
Organization of Power (TaH)
[the ways obedience and consent (or acquiescence) are obtained]
Level is concerned with Organization of
1. military level “ ” organization of force,
2. political level “ ” organization of power,
3. economic level “ ” organization of wealth.
____________________________________
(1.) Russell L. Ackoff and the ancient Greece philosophers
4POM (four pursuits of man)
ancient Greece
p.139
The philosophers of ancient Greece divided the pursuits of man into four major categories:
1. The scientific——the pursuit of truth
2. The political-economic——the pursuit of power and plenty
3. The ethical-moral——the pursuit of goodness virtue
4. The aesthetic——the pursuit of beauty
(Ackoff's best : his classic writings on management, Russell L. Ackoff., © 1999, hardcover, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., p.139)
____________________________________
technology, techniques, methods - technology is a better of doing things, or, a better way to perform an activity, for example, a better or less effortful way to travel would be to ride a donkey (a mule), instead of using only your own two feet;
Peter Thiel with Blake Masters., Zero to one : notes on startups, or how to build the future, 2014
p.5
Whenever I interview someone for a job, I like to ask this question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
This question sounds easy because it's straightforward. Actually, it's very hard to answer. It's intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by definition agreed upon. And it's psychologically difficult because anyone trying to answer must say something she knows to be unpopular. Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.
p.6
A good answer takes the following form: “Most people believe in x, but the truth is the opposite of x.” I'll give my own answer later in this chapter.
pp.8─9
My own answer to the contrarian question is that most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more.
detailed notes on Peter's class “Computer Science 183: startup”
https://blakemasters.tumblr.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup/
(Zero to one : notes on startups, or how to build the future / Peter Thiel with Blake Masters., 1. new business enterprises., 2. new products., 3. entrepreneurship., 4. diffusion of innovations., HD62.5.T525 2014, 685.1'1──dc23, 2014)
____________________________________
Thomas S. Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolution, 1962, 1970, 1996 [ ]
p.84
... All crises (crisis plural) begin with the blurring of a paradigm and the consequent loosening of the rules for normal research. In this respect research during crisis very much resembles research during the pre-paradigm period, except that the former the locus (a place, local, position) of difference is both smaller and more clearly defined. And all crises close in one of three ways. Sometimes normal science ultimately proves able to handle the crisis provoking problem despite the despair of those who have seen it as the end of an existing paradigm. On other occasions the problem resists even apparently radical new approaches. Then scientists may conclude that no solution will be forthcoming in the present state of their field. The problem is labelled and set aside for a future generation with more developed tools. Or, finally, the case that will most concern us here, a crisis may end with the emergence of a new candidate for paradigm and with the ensuing battle over its acceptance. This last mode of closure will be considered at length in later sections, but we must anticipate a bit of what will be said there in order to complete these remarks about the evolution and anatomy of the crisis state.
(Kuhn, Thomas S., 'The structure of scientific revolution')
(The structure of scientific revolution / Thomas S. Kuhn. --3rd ed., copyright © 1962, 1970, 1996, 1. science--philosophy, 2. science--history, p.84)
pp.84-85
The transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new one from which a new tradition of normal science can emerge is far from a cumulative process, one achieved by an articulation or extension of the old paradigm. Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes some of the field's most elementary theoretical generalizations as well as many of its paradigm methods and applications. During the transition period there will be a large but never complete overlap between the problems that can be solved by the old and by the new paradigm. But there will also be a decisive difference in the modes of solution. When the transition is complete, the profession will have changed its view of the field, its methods, and its goals. One perceptive historian, viewing a classic case of science's reorientation by paradigm change, recently described it as "picking up the other end of the stick," a process that involves "handling the same bundle of data as before, but placing them in a new system of relations with one another by giving them a different framework." 8 Others who have noted this aspect of scientific advance have emphasized its similarity to a change in visual gestalt: the marks on paper that were first seen as a bird are now seen as an antelope, or vice versa. 9 That parallel can be misleading. Scientists do not see something AS something else; instead, they simply see it. We have already examined some of the problems created by saying that Priestley saw oxygen as dephlogisticated air. In addition, the scientist does not preserve the gestalt subject's freedom to switch back and forth between ways of seeing. Never-the-less, the switch of gestalt, particularly because it is today so familiar, is a useful elementary prototype for what occurs in full-scale paradigm shift.
8 Hebert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800 (London, 1949), pp. 1-7.
The preceding anticipation may help us recognize crisis as an appropriate prelude to the emergence of new theories, particularly since we have already examined a small-scale version of the same process in discussing the emergence of discoveries. [...]
(Kuhn, Thomas S., 'The structure of scientific revolution')
(The structure of scientific revolution / Thomas S. Kuhn. --3rd ed., copyright © 1962, 1970, 1996, 1. science--philosophy, 2. science--history, pp.84-85)
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ommission
── There is no point at which one can focus one's efforts to reach the better arrangement because one is not even aware that there is a better arrangement.
Edward de Bono, Lateral Thinking: a textbook of creativity, 1970, 1977, 1990
── the problem of no problem. One is blocked by the adequacy of the present arrangement from moving to a much better one.
── There is no point at which one can focus one's efforts to reach the better arrangement because one is not even aware that there is a better arrangement.
pp.41-42
Problem solving
A problem does not have to be presented in a formal manner nor is it a matter for pencil and paper working out. A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants. It may be a matter of avoiding something, of getting something, of getting rid of something, of getting to know what one wants.
There are three-types of problem:
• The first type of problem requires for its solution more information or better techniques for handling information.
• The second type of problem requires no new information but a rearrangement of information already available: an insight restructuring.
• The third type of problem is the problem of no problem. One is blocked by the adequacy of the present arrangement from moving to a much better one. There is no point at which one can focus one's efforts to reach the better arrangement because one is not even aware that there is a better arrangement. The problem is to realize that ‘there is a problem’ to realize that ‘things can be improved’ and to define ‘this realization as a problem’.
The first type of problem can be solved by vertical thinking. The second and third type of problem require lateral thinking for their solution.
p.30
Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative
One may consider three different attitude to the remark of a student who had come to the conclusion: “Ulysses was a hypocrite.”
1. “You are wrong, Ulysses was not a hypocrite.”
2. “How very interesting, tell me how you reached that conclusion.”
3. “very well. What happens next? How are you going to go forward from that idea?”
In order to be able to use provocative qualities of lateral thinking one must also be able to follow up with the selective qualities of vertical thinking.
p.35
Lateral thinking is a description of a process not of a result.
pp.35-36
It is always possible to describe a logical pathway in hindsight once a solution is spelled out. But being able to reach that solution by means of this hindsight pathway is another matter. One can demonstrate this quite simply by offering certain problems which are difficult to solve and yet when solved, the solution is obvious. In such cases, it is impossible to suppose that what make the problem difficult was lack of the elementary logic required.
It is characteristic of insight solutions and new ideas that they should be obvious after they have been found. In itself, this shows how insufficient logic is in practice, otherwise such simple solutions must have occurred much earlier.
p.36
In practical terms however, it is quite obvious that the hindsight demonstration of a logical pathway does not indicate that the solution would have been reached in this way.
p.37
Lateral thinking is more concerned with concept breaking, with provocation and disruption in order to allow the mind to restructure patterns.
p.37
There is nothing mysterious about lateral thinking. It is a way of handling information.
(Edward de Bono, Lateral Thinking: a textbook of creativity, 1970, 1977, 1990, )
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