2017 Fall December 18 Monday

2017 Fall December 18 Monday

40 degrees this morning, walk 35:19 minutes

Thought it would be nippy this morning since humidity was 100% and it was foggy.  However, it really wasn’t that bad.  Wasn’t quite as foggy as I expected from seeing it was 100 % humidity and foggy.

Pace was 18 seconds slower than my goal.  

Listening to my book this morning, I was struck by the comment that an area Leonardo Da Vinci failed in was an area where he had developed “pre-conceived” ideas about the area from textbooks, whereas the reason he was so creative was he normally didn’t have preconceived notions.

I feel this is a major weakness of our system, that we encourage pre-conceived “correct” thoughts or ideas rather than open thinking about the causes and effects of everything.

I can’t really put my actual thoughts into words, I’ll think about it some more!  

I know one of the ideas that really stuck out for me in the book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” was that most “new” ideas (he called them a new paradigm) come from “new” persons in the field, frequently persons from other fields.  

I remember that from the first time I read this I thought this I realized the limitations imposed by preconceived notions or from “group think” resulting from interaction only from people within the existing group.

I believe another word for it is “assumptions”, or “assuming” something, which can  create major problems or at least major limitations  

i notice it every day in my work where if I “assume” something I am frequently incorrect and I know I have to keep an open mind on a situation.  

I think preconceived ideas or “assumptions” are a shortcut way of thinking, which can be valuable as a means of saving time or negative as a lazy way out to avoid thinking in a creative matter.

That kind of ties into a story I read yesterday written by a person who frequently uses a wheel chair.

Her experience was that people looked at the wheel chair (and possibly some other stereotypes  such as how she looked etc.) and she became “indivisible” as people assumed she was also mentally affected.  

In her case if people took the time to talk with her they realized she was actually very intelligent and entertaining.

Perhaps on the other side, I recently mentioned about a person who had a stroke.  I think (I hate to say “I assume” after what i just wrote!) that the terrifying thing about a stroke is the your mind still works fine, it is your body that fails you.  

I see the problem with pre-conceived ideas or thoughts every day, especially if the person doesn’t question their pre-conceived ideas or thoughts.

Of course, preconceived ideas about a person based on their appearance, or other factors is one of the biggest problems in the world today.  What do we do about it?  I don’t know!

That’s it for now, Monday, December 18, 2017.