Thinking about Thinking (2007)

http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/

by achompas • 11 years ago

85 7 11 years ago

achompas• 11 years ago

This article made the rounds among co-workers a few months back. Finally took some time to read it and I thought it was excellent.

Briefly: the article suggests the existence of two different thought patterns, mapping and packing. Packing involves cataloging knowledge packets and accessing them in a straightforward way, without considering why things are true or how ideas fit together across disciplines. Mapping involves reflecting on truths to build a map of relationships between them, and updating your representation of that map as you learn new things.

I found mapping to be a super-powerful framework for thinking about things effectively. Some of the article felt reductionist, but it's a fascinating read.

makmanalp2• 11 years ago

I really found the Jungian backlash thing very interesting.

I, for example, like to come into work late. I love being lazy in the mornings, either reading in bed or maybe doing a workout. I do it often. I think it makes me happy, and I come into work feeling /good/. I also leave later than most people, often work overtime, and sometimes I'll work on the weekends, all on my own accord and without getting paid extra.

Now, in many places, I could just /see/ the discomfort this causes in people, especially those who feel like they're obligated to show up at 8, and leave at 5. Lip service is paid to the usual "as long as you get your work done", but more than a few times I've been pulled aside to be asked "could you please come in earlier" - or I can sense tension when I walk in and some coworkers have been in for an hour already.

It's all really frustrating. Doubly so when people can't explain why a novel behavior is bad, but think it's bad anyway. We really are creatures of habit.

mjklin• 11 years ago

Perhaps more than you think! I just read this passage in William James:

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most. repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and nails the countryman to his log-cabln and his lonely farm through all the months of snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert and the frozen zone.

It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again. It keeps different social strata, from mixing. Already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young commercial traveller, on the young doctor, on the young minister, on the young counsellor-at-law. You see the little lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the 'shop,' in a word, from which the man can byandby no more escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds.

fit2rule2• 11 years ago

We really are creatures of habit.

We're also creatures of cooperation. Nothing big happens in the world unless 3 or more people agree to do it - simply, nothing. All groups require a degree of cooperation/coordination, and fundamental agreement in order to function - otherwise you just have a fight on your hands, or a disorganized mess, or some sort of dilettante activity where nothing ever gets done.

So we've evolved, socially, to agree to do things in order to get things done. Sharing the same schedule and having a common basis of work is fundamental to human activities; while you may enjoy the luxury of coming late to the office, others may enjoy the luxury of leaving early from the office to get home when there are still daylight hours.

Alas, being different than the others means you're imposing a difficulty on them that they may not feel they deserve, or in any way think is a viable way of operating. This tension and frustration you're feeling - it goes both ways. Having a shared, agreed-upon schedule, reduces that tension - whether you like it or not.

Not saying that you should change just because others need/want you to, but in fact the disagreement over how best to operate is a cause of unnecessary tension. If you can't get it together, in spite of whether you're getting the work done or not, as your manager I'd be inclined to wonder why you think you have the right to impose such tension on your workplace. Maybe you're worth it because your work is special - maybe not. I guess because you've persisted in the position, you must have value for which the hassle is worth it. Not everyone has that luxury, alas ..

makmanalp2• 11 years ago

I would be inclined to agree with you, but this just isn't true in my case and many other cases - usually the people who care the most are the ones I have to work with the least. When I have a meeting, I suck it up and come in on time. But otherwise, there really is no reason I even have to be physically in the office. There are benefits to it, and I like being in the office because it lets me interact with people in ways that I think makes me better at my job, but really I could be on the other side of the world and it'd be fine.

We still ape the rituals of our industrial revolution predecessors simply because no one tried anything else.

osullivj• 11 years ago

This was on Slashdot back in 99: http://news.slashdot.org/story/99/10/26/137207/beyond-the-pr...

Thinking about Thinking (2007)

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