Who are our thinkers?

As I read yesterday's post I was struck by the word 'thinker'.

Who would deserve the title today? Do we even consider that to call someone a thinker would be a decoration of honour, or would it be a term of criticism.

At times it seems we live our lives in a Nike advertisement to the soundtrack of 'Just Do It!'

Yet our role models are celebrities whose most notable feature is to have lived lives free from achieving anything.

We are left with the hollow sound of a drum that incessantly beats a rhythm to do more of the same, just quicker, more efficiently, and never to allow the time to ask 'why?'

In the Land of the Blind...

Apparently it was Erasmus, a Dutch thinker, who first penned the phrase, 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.

The idea of course is that sight amongst the blind is a precious gift and one which would be lauded.
If only it were so.

In 1904 H.G. Wells wrote a short story called The Country of the Blind.

A lost climber Nunez falls and descends into an isolated and inaccessible valley whose people over many generations have grown to become sightless. With the realisation of his situation, Nunez at first believes that he will be feted as king of his new domain. He comes to learn differently.

The people do not feel deprived awaiting being released from their darkness. Indeed quite the opposite. Their beliefs, religion and rituals have all expunged any reference or recollection of sight to the extent that it has become little more than an echo buried within childish fairy stories.

Nunez's attempts to demonstrate the power of his fifth sense are to no avail. The enhancement of their senses of taste, touch, smell and hearing have replaced the need for sight, and his protestations to the contrary are seen as no more than the rantings of the feeble minded and insane. They no more miss or accept the value of a fifth sense, than do the sighted a sixth sense.

In time he is absorbed into the society, required to renounce his belief in sight. Indeed in order to be assimilated into the community by marriage, the village elders propose to cure his insanity by removal of the facial features he, in his insanity, insists on referring to as 'his eyes'.

As society speeds headlong, head-down and with little thought, it is perhaps more appropriate to say that

In the land of the blind, the world will beat a path to the door of a man who can teach them a few new words of Braille, but will have little time for the man who seeks to open their eyes.

The Most Effective Policeman

If the news is to be believed, it seems the UK government is planning to introduce a ban on drinking games. How they imagine enforcing such a ban leaves me puzzled, but I'm even more puzzled by the way in which increasingly we look to introduce laws to control behaviour.

The MP's expense scandal was a prime example of how increasingly we take the view that laws should regulate our lives and the belief if it's not illegal then its fine. MP's happily appeared in interviews declaring that despite the ridiculous nature of their expense claims, they hadn't broken the letter of the law.

What we seem to have forgotten is that the letter of the law, is not the spirit of the law. Our sense of right and wrong seems to be being eroded and replaced by legislation.

In 9 years of Tony Blair's government 3000 new criminal offences were introduced, almost one for each day his term in office.

We need to remember that the most effective policeman is the one we don't need, the one that lives inside each of us.

The feel of a book?

I've just sent a first full draft of Six Days to the printer to get a proof. The book's not finished, but this marks a milestone, if largely psychological. There's something about holding something that looks like a book and sounds like a book when dropped on a table, that signals progress in a way that no number of computer files can do.

I know that there are increasing numbers of 'electronic book readers' and logic tells me that these will replace glued together thin sheets of paper, but I still don't see it. You can replace every aspect of the book, emulate it with technology, but it's still not a book.

Of course the Electronic Reader claims to go beyond the book with the advantages of being able to carry thousands of books, and the convenience of downloading and not needing a bookshelf for the collection, the ability to connect through hyperlinks and more, but there's still something missing. I even have a tablet PC with stylus pen which I can mark-up an electronic book, but still there's something special about a real paper copy.

Of course we may soon have a generation who make no association between a book and a block of paper, just as listeners to music may soon have no association between the music they listen to and a physical form.

Maybe I'm fearing that they'll soon make no connection to the musician or author who originated the work.

Whilst technology can emulate those elements of a book that we recognise, it's powerless to replicate the elements we don't realise are there, but are important to us. There may be broader lessons for us here.

Anyway, for the moment at least, Six Days will I hope soon become a block of paper.

We are Winners

The following picture was sent to me and seems to cry out to be shared.

It reminds me that whatever else, we are all winners of an incredible race.

11,000 Free eBooks

I've been doing a little research, perhaps more of which another day, and as part of it I found and read Frederick Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management, published in 1911.

You may know Taylor as one of the fathers of Time and Motion study or by other epithets, some of them less than generous. What's interesting is that the perception I had of him and the whole of what became Taylorism was completely overturned by reading his book. I'll write more on this in a later posting.

For the moment I'd encourage anyone who hasn't read it, particularly those who have read other accounts of Taylor's ideas, to read it. Taylor describes how he fears his ideas will be misinterpreted, and it seems to be that commentators on his work have almost universally done so.

Anyway this leads to the point of this post. In searching for his book I was able to find a totally free eBook copy. What is more it is part of a collection of over 11,000 books.

I suspect that these are free as they are out of copyright but in amongst them you may find some real treasures such as The Prince by Machiavelli. Most are English language but I came across several works in French including books by Dumas and Verne.

Follow the link to find out about the collection,

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/free?a_aid=hotukdeals

The link at the foot of the page will then let you search through them.

Shared Thoughts

I've created a short video of thoughts and pictures set to music that reflects my philosophy.

The feedback I've received has been very heartwarming and it seems to touch people's hearts.

If you'd like to take a look please follow the link. http://www.vimeo.com/8475790

If the video is slow or jittery please click on the HD icon and make sure HD is OFF

I hope you enjoy it

The Essence and the Artifact

I'm working on a possible book exploring the idea that Management Science needs to switch from a Newtonian basis (disconnections, certainty, cause and effect) to quantum science (connections, uncertainty, probabilities).

As part of this I tracked down an online copy of Frederick Taylor's book The Principles of Scientific Management.

Written in 1911, it's an interesting book and quite different to what I expected.

Thin though the book is, I suspect that the number of readers is rather small, and dwarfed by those who have formed a view of Taylor without reference to the original source.

What's interesting is that Taylor foresaw how he would be misunderstood, describing his work as two parts. The essence of an idea, and example mechanisms used to illustrate how to implement the idea.

He described the essence as the part of value and cautioned that the mechanisms might just as likely cause damage as benefit in any given situation. However despite his warning the essence of his idea was trampled underfoot whilst the early mechanisms were replicated causing benefit and untold harm in equal measure, just as he had predicted. Consequently he is now hailed as brilliant by some, and seen as an idiot by others, depending on which outcome they experienced most, or have been told about most.

What is it that prevents people from accepting an idea unless it is packaged as an example, and yet once packaged, like a young child at Christmas, they discard the idea and cling tightly to the packaging?

Throughout all areas of human endeavour we see the principle lost in mist and the artifact deified and held in unwarranted esteem.

What is it that is so unappealing in thinking, and so attractive in getting something done?

There's a wonderful quotation from Steve Allen which beautifully captures this problem:-

"Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact, the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking."

Capture Those Thoughts

Some of the best ideas are brilliant through their simplicity.

I’m forever imagining that my most profound thoughts slip from my grasp for want of a piece of paper to capture them on.

(Isn’t it always the case that the ones that got away were so much better than the ones you managed to catch.)

For all the technology we have at our disposal, there’s something special about pencil and paper in the way that it lets you capture a thought before its lost, that firing up a techno-whiz-box can’t replicate.

The thoughts that I do capture are scribbled on leaflets or supermarket receipts where they merge with the original text or jotted on odd scraps of paper I may have to hand. I’ve lost count of the number of these pearls that have been lost by becoming indecipherable or simply mislaid.

Of course I could carry a notepad, but thoughts have a habit of arriving unannounced and even the rummaging for notepad from a bag can be long enough for it to flee.

The answer may be at hand, and it’s free and to top it all it has the magical power of making a single sheet of paper seem to last forever.

At PocketMod.com there’s a beautiful utility for printing a small book with a variety of page styles and guides all from a single sheet of paper.

You can include a host of prepared formats from shopping lists to tables, lined pages to grids. If you wish you can include conversion charts, games, diary pages and contacts or shopping lists. There's a page for your own contact details for return of your insights should they get mislaid. You can even include a page to learn the Morse code.

With a print and a twist the single printed sheet is turned into a booklet.

The book takes no space at all and can be slipped into a pocket on permanent standby for those insights, or to capture the more prosaic data of everyday life.

All I need now is a folding pencil.

Take a look at http://www.pocketmod.com/

Create with Crayons

It might just be me, but there’s something really magical about drawing on a computer screen and seeing your drawing come to life. This is what CrayonPhysics allows you to do. They may only be blocks, ropes, balls and pivoting shapes but particularly if drawn using the tactile touch screen of a tablet PC, the way that they instantly animate draws you into feeling a special connection with the machine.

Crayon Physics is a game in which you draw shapes which obey the laws of physics. They are subject to gravity and deflect when in collision for example. The object of the game is to engineer the movement of a ball to collide with and collect stars. However it’s that interactivity where what you draw immediately becomes, not pixels representing a shape, but the 2D shape itself falling to the bottom of the screen or sliding down a gradient, colliding with other shapes that brings it to life.

The result is an engaging environment for testing your creativity, rapidly prototyping simple physical engineering ideas and trying them out. It’s great fun, creative and engrossing and looks wonderful with lots of lovely touches.

If these words have failed completely to convey the essence of the experience, then I’m sure pictures will paint more than a thousand words. Follow the link to see a video of the game in action. www.crayonphysics.com

The Unknowable

There’s a story today in the Sunday Times that the Met (Meteorological) Office may lose its contract with the BBC following complaints that its weather forecasts are inaccurate.

I can’t help thinking that the BBC bosses would do well to watch their own broadcast ‘The Secret Life of Chaos’. Had they done so they would have seen an excellent explanation of precisely why the Met Office can’t predict the weather.

The modern origins of that part of science we now call Chaos Theory can be traced precisely to Edward Lorenz who whilst working on weather prediction discovered in 1961 that even the smallest changes in input circumstances will lead to dramatically different outcomes.

This concept was beautifully popularised in the phrase 'The Butterfly Effect' which suggests that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world can lead to a hurricane elsewhere.

It seems in our ever growing desire to have answers, there is little room for the unknowable.

The secret life of Chaos is well worth a look and is currently available on the BBC iPlayer.

Here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=secret%20life%20of%20chaos

Neat Feature

Having joined librarything.com I've been exploring some of the features.

One very nice one is the ability to create mosaics using the book covers in your library.

It's really surprising just how satisfying this process can be. 

To the right you can see one of my early efforts. 

Click on the picture to see the book covers.