Many highly intelligent people are
poor thinkers. Many people of
average intelligence are
skilled thinkers. The power of a
car is separate from the way the car
is driven.
If you never change your mind, why
have one?
Humor is by far the most
significant activity of the human
brain.
>>>
What the joke displays is a switch
in perception. This is important in
changing the way we think.
It has always surprised me how
little attention philosophers have
paid to humor, since it is a more
significant process of mind than
reason. Reason can only sort out
perceptions, but the humor process
is involved in changing them.
A painter may be looking at the
world in a way which is very
different from everyone else. If
he's a craftsman, he can get other
people to see the world through his
eyes, and so he enlarges our vision,
perception, and there's
great value in that.
An expert is someone who has
succeeded in
making decisions and judgements
simpler through knowing what to pay
attention to and what to ignore.
>>>
Most of the mistakes in thinking are
inadequacies of
perception rather than mistakes
of logic.
In a sense, words are encyclopedias
of ignorance because they freeze
perceptions at one moment in history
and then insist we continue to use
these frozen perceptions when we
should be doing better.
Most executives, many scientists,
and almost all business school
graduates believe that if you
analyze data, this will give you new
ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is
totally wrong. The mind can only see
what it is prepared to see.
There's a danger in the
internet and
social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more
information is enough, that you don't have to
think, you just
have to get more information ‒ gets very dangerous.
A
memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely
unhappen.
Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our
expectations.
Teaching
thinking for just five hours to
unemployed youngsters increased
employment 500 percent.
My thinking was taught to tribes in
South Africa like the Zulus and
Xhosas. At the time there were about
210 fights breaking out among them
every month, but after they listened
to my lessons, this fell to just
four.
