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I agree with you. Don’t know which article you refer to but assume it’s the ‘is light a wave or a particle?’ debate. For me the focus of such questions makes the same mistake I argued against in the paper about ideas in our heads. Physics is an example of making our thinking explicit; it’s about a body of theories not necessarily knowledge. If light appears to be both a wave and a particle our assumption is ‘Light is very complex and that’s why it fits two contradictory theories’ when I argue it’s the way we look at light that contains the flaw. Our theories don’t fit the evidence but instead of questioning our theories we rework our descriptions of the evidence. This continues until someone develops a better theory and we enter a Khunian revolution.

Great debate!

Best wishes

Roy

The second thought was in response (you think, therefore I am too) to your line “It is an illusion though because driving to work does add to pollution even if our heads treat the two as separate issues.” This fundamentally sums up quantum physics, as encapsulated in the double slit experiment I wrote about recently.

I find many books on innovation lack credibility; I seem to read a lot of opinionated theories that are not the product of deeper thinking. What you guys seem to be doing here is delving in to such deeper thinking; it’s great!

An influential read for me as I questioned the relationship between things in the world, systems, ideas and innovation was Aristotle’s “Book of Metaphysics”. In here he discusses numerous things such as design theory and five ways of grasping the truth:
*Techne: craft knowledge
*Phronesis: practical wisdom
*Episteme: theoretical knowledge
*Nous; understanding
*Sophia: wisdom

What I found even more interesting is that Aristotle argues for a synthetic theory of the world. That means everything is connected and causal effects ripple out to everything (all 5 ways of grasping the truth operate in different degrees simultaneously).

This is in contrast to modern influences such as Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” which starts to fragment our view of reality and disconnects things (e.g. the need to travel to work & the pollution we cause doing so are treated as two separate issues). It is from such an illusion ‘ideas starting in our head’ takes its credibility; as if my consciousness (I think) takes priority over the external world (therefore I am). It is an illusion though because driving to work does add to pollution even if our heads treat the two as separate issues. Therefore the way we think today is flawed because we treat ‘things’ as if they exist in a disconnected isolation.

The challenge is to think systemically; a causally joined up theory of interactions. But what does ‘thinking systemically’ mean? For me it means accepting systems exist outside my awareness and my thoughts of them (e.g. Heidegger’s I am, therefore I think). That requires me to enquire into such systems, to discover them and how they function (episteme). From such enquiry comes understanding (nous). If I want to produce an effect, such as creating beer that will make me drunk (Techne), then I look at how things work and adapt them to produce my desired effect. Sadly, the production of my desired effect also has effects (e.g. production of CO2 somewhere along the line—phronesis). I can choose to ignore such side effects until they become such a problem I must do something about them. Or I can understand the oneness of reality and think about my desires and the effects such cause in a responsible way (sophia)

Poor old Aristotle. He wrote a book of physics with primitive technology, not even a telescope, and got much of it wrong; for example, the sun and stars do not circumvent the earth as he stated. However, for me, Galileo, Bruno and Descartes undermined him in total when only part of his philosophy was wrong. As a consequence we threw away a lot of his wisdom and now spend lots of time blaming individuals for getting things wrong when really it’s the systems driving choices which trips individuals up.

In closing, not only do I believe ideas are but one element of external recognition and internal understanding, but our ‘fragmenting’ way of thinking means we will always find ideas and innovation a mystery because we look at such incorrectly.

Hope this stimulates more discussion (;-)

very best wishes

Roy

Julian