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Understanding Thinking: Maps, Models, Meanings, Goals, Motivation, And Neural Networks
This book explains how we learn, how our pre-conscious experience-trapping neural networks generalise and abstract from a stream of personal and cultural experiences, to construct our causal maps and models of reality, our value systems and our emotional associations. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of human thinking and shows how we can take conscious control of our personal development, updating old and dysfunctional models of reality to take account of new experiences and changed circumstances. It opens up the possibility of rewriting the HOWs and WHYs that drive our behaviour and motivation, and presents a powerful new Graphical Thinking Tool that everyone can use, individually or in groups, to explore and understand the deep structure of any problem, any system, and any body of knowledge. Understanding may be unfashionable, but it is still 'the ultimate study skill', and the key to success in any field of endeavour.
- GenresPsychology
246 pages, Paperback
First published December 28, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 25, 2019
An excellent “fluffbuster” take on how we perceive the world and ourselves
Evans begins with a “brief history of thought” which allows him to recall the Greeks with an assessment of the differing approaches to truth and thought from Plato and Aristotle (and to rail agreeably against postmodernism!). He follows this with a lengthy comparison of the general purpose computer and the human mind. His main point is that our minds are not so much like computers, but are more like neural networks. General purpose computers are linear and do everything the same way every time (as programmed), while human minds and neural networks learn as they go along and can change their responses based on what they’ve learned. It is interesting that “Most biological networks rewrite or adjust memories every time they are accessed, allowing old memories to adapt in order to reflect new contexts and experiences.” Evans adds, “This can lead to distortions, and inaccuracies. Our memories can be adjusted and reinterpreted to fit in with our current beliefs, or with expectations of our current social group.” (p. 76) Or, I might add, to fit in with a prosecuting attorney’s view of the facts of a case!
In chapter three Evans presents an elaborate construct of characters in answer to the question “Who is in Control of Your Brain?” He uses icons to represent these characters, “Threats and Emotions,” who might be called the emergency guy; “The Autopilot,” who regulates things like “thirst…heart rate, breathing, blood pressure…etc.”; “The Multi-Headed Egos,” a sort of Medusa-headed Freudian monster of “brain management rulers” with “sub-personalities”; “The Conscious Thinker,” who might be the competent nerd within; and finally “The Conscious Conscience,” who stands somewhat aloof from the games people play and just observes and sometimes judges.
Chapter Four features Evans’s “Graphical Thinking System.” He argues that words and writing are often inferior to schematic model making in leading us to an understanding of complex ideas and relationships. In the fifth and final chapter, Evans attempts to guide us beyond the “pre-conscious mind” toward positive, self-managed personal change.
Evans makes a nice distinction between our pre-conscious selves and our conscious selves with the clear understanding that the former is aware of so much more than the latter, and that one of the reasons is that we have an “autopilot” that works just fine without conscious help. Indeed in many areas our conscious minds would just confuse the issues and, in an evolutionary sense, be maladaptive. Throughout Evans demonstrates an admirable knowledge of neurology, religion, psychology and history. I particularly liked his observation that religious rituals as well as ordinary laughing, singing, grooming, etc., can bring euphoria to the brain. (p. 40) Also good is his observation that the Bible is a “classical documentary on human psychology.” (p. 78) One of the points about religion that is often overlooked even by experts is the fact that religions, in addition to whatever else they might be, are psychologies.
Another interesting observation made by “Fluffbuster” Evans is this from page 64: “Some linguists have suggested that our enormous spatial mapping ability may have provided the foundation for the evolution of human language and culture. It is certainly the case that many of the structures found in human language, and human society, have a spatial flavor: inclusion, exclusion, bounded by, intersections with, connections, paths, centre versus periphery, orientation, direction, hierarchy, up, down, on, in, under, over, before, behind, size, length, types of terrain, types of surface, and so on.”
There is no index, no bibliography or foot notes. There is a “Word List” defining some of the terms Evans uses, such as concept, context, critical thinking, induction, inference, intuition, paradigm, space and time, etc. About the latter he notes, “our impression of space and time is created by our neural networks and seems completely believable and reliable. Ancient mystics and modern science tell us that our pre-conscious perception of space and time may be rather inaccurate.”
One of the entries in the list is special. That’s “Graphical Thinking,” about which Evans writes, “It focuses our attention in a way that helps to bring all our valuable pre-conscious knowledge about the world up into conscious awareness…” As an unintimidated dyslexic, Evans champions the use of graphs and diagrams to aid learning. He asks rhetorically a question put to him by a “university academic advisor”: “Why do the dyslexic students always want to understand things, why can’t they just remember stuff like the rest of us?”
I’m glad that Evans wants to understand. I believe that our drive to understand ourselves and the world we live in, is one of the really positive things about being human.
It might have been better had John Evans titled this book “Thinking about Thinking” or perhaps “Toward an Understanding of Thinking” since it is a bit presumptuous to imagine that he or anyone else has come to an “understanding” of thinking. Nonetheless this is an excellent work on many aspects of not only human thought but also our culture, language and psychology.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
Evans begins with a “brief history of thought” which allows him to recall the Greeks with an assessment of the differing approaches to truth and thought from Plato and Aristotle (and to rail agreeably against postmodernism!). He follows this with a lengthy comparison of the general purpose computer and the human mind. His main point is that our minds are not so much like computers, but are more like neural networks. General purpose computers are linear and do everything the same way every time (as programmed), while human minds and neural networks learn as they go along and can change their responses based on what they’ve learned. It is interesting that “Most biological networks rewrite or adjust memories every time they are accessed, allowing old memories to adapt in order to reflect new contexts and experiences.” Evans adds, “This can lead to distortions, and inaccuracies. Our memories can be adjusted and reinterpreted to fit in with our current beliefs, or with expectations of our current social group.” (p. 76) Or, I might add, to fit in with a prosecuting attorney’s view of the facts of a case!
In chapter three Evans presents an elaborate construct of characters in answer to the question “Who is in Control of Your Brain?” He uses icons to represent these characters, “Threats and Emotions,” who might be called the emergency guy; “The Autopilot,” who regulates things like “thirst…heart rate, breathing, blood pressure…etc.”; “The Multi-Headed Egos,” a sort of Medusa-headed Freudian monster of “brain management rulers” with “sub-personalities”; “The Conscious Thinker,” who might be the competent nerd within; and finally “The Conscious Conscience,” who stands somewhat aloof from the games people play and just observes and sometimes judges.
Chapter Four features Evans’s “Graphical Thinking System.” He argues that words and writing are often inferior to schematic model making in leading us to an understanding of complex ideas and relationships. In the fifth and final chapter, Evans attempts to guide us beyond the “pre-conscious mind” toward positive, self-managed personal change.
Evans makes a nice distinction between our pre-conscious selves and our conscious selves with the clear understanding that the former is aware of so much more than the latter, and that one of the reasons is that we have an “autopilot” that works just fine without conscious help. Indeed in many areas our conscious minds would just confuse the issues and, in an evolutionary sense, be maladaptive. Throughout Evans demonstrates an admirable knowledge of neurology, religion, psychology and history. I particularly liked his observation that religious rituals as well as ordinary laughing, singing, grooming, etc., can bring euphoria to the brain. (p. 40) Also good is his observation that the Bible is a “classical documentary on human psychology.” (p. 78) One of the points about religion that is often overlooked even by experts is the fact that religions, in addition to whatever else they might be, are psychologies.
Another interesting observation made by “Fluffbuster” Evans is this from page 64: “Some linguists have suggested that our enormous spatial mapping ability may have provided the foundation for the evolution of human language and culture. It is certainly the case that many of the structures found in human language, and human society, have a spatial flavor: inclusion, exclusion, bounded by, intersections with, connections, paths, centre versus periphery, orientation, direction, hierarchy, up, down, on, in, under, over, before, behind, size, length, types of terrain, types of surface, and so on.”
There is no index, no bibliography or foot notes. There is a “Word List” defining some of the terms Evans uses, such as concept, context, critical thinking, induction, inference, intuition, paradigm, space and time, etc. About the latter he notes, “our impression of space and time is created by our neural networks and seems completely believable and reliable. Ancient mystics and modern science tell us that our pre-conscious perception of space and time may be rather inaccurate.”
One of the entries in the list is special. That’s “Graphical Thinking,” about which Evans writes, “It focuses our attention in a way that helps to bring all our valuable pre-conscious knowledge about the world up into conscious awareness…” As an unintimidated dyslexic, Evans champions the use of graphs and diagrams to aid learning. He asks rhetorically a question put to him by a “university academic advisor”: “Why do the dyslexic students always want to understand things, why can’t they just remember stuff like the rest of us?”
I’m glad that Evans wants to understand. I believe that our drive to understand ourselves and the world we live in, is one of the really positive things about being human.
It might have been better had John Evans titled this book “Thinking about Thinking” or perhaps “Toward an Understanding of Thinking” since it is a bit presumptuous to imagine that he or anyone else has come to an “understanding” of thinking. Nonetheless this is an excellent work on many aspects of not only human thought but also our culture, language and psychology.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
March 10, 2019
Augments ongoing Knowledge Management Organizational Learning & Fail-Faster Social Engineering experiments during past six decades (1959-2019).
Effectively shares pragmatic multi-generational “lessons learned” about coping with sub-conscious cognitive bias that influences our collective intelligence.
Helps integrate value-added utility of blended visual learning protocols ... http://minnesotafuturists.pbworks.com...
Where CIAP-Submit guides the FutureThought Leadership Learning ColLABoratory (LLCrew) “CommUNITY Impact Assessment Protocol”
Effectively shares pragmatic multi-generational “lessons learned” about coping with sub-conscious cognitive bias that influences our collective intelligence.
Helps integrate value-added utility of blended visual learning protocols ... http://minnesotafuturists.pbworks.com...
Where CIAP-Submit guides the FutureThought Leadership Learning ColLABoratory (LLCrew) “CommUNITY Impact Assessment Protocol”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews