Zero Sum

I've often said as I teach or when I was working with restoration teams that we operate from the reptilian part of our brain well over two thirds of the time. When asked a question we (subconsciously) answer the following question: 'what's in my best interest?" The following essay sums it up.

The Ethical Spectacle September 1995 http://www.spectacle.org

The Scorpion

The story of the frog and the scorpion has been cited everywhere from discussions of mid-east terrorism to the movie The Crying Game. In the story, a scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?" Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."
Please note that the story does not portray a prisoner's dilemma. The frog has absolutely nothing to gain by carrying the scorpion across, and is therefore a foolish altruist, proving the truth of the adage, "No good deed goes unpunished." But it is not hard to turn the story into a prisoner's dilemma, as follows.
The frog desires to cross the stream but is afraid of a stork on the other side. The scorpion has no means to cross the stream but is capable of scaring the stork. If the frog carries the scorpion across, the scorpion will reciprocate by frightening away the stork; the scorpion will have crossed the stream and the frog will be safe. The apparent sucker's payoff for the frog is that the scorpion will slip away without scaring the stork once the frog has gone to all the trouble of carrying him across. There is no apparent sucker's payoff for the scorpion--the frog's major opportunity for defection is not to carry the scorpion, but, since the scorpion will not yet have had the opportunity to extend its cooperation it will not have lost anything (the moves are not simultaneous). Perhaps the frog's defection may consist of eating the scorpion, once it has scared off the stork.
In any event, the scorpion's unexpected and selfdestructive defection raises the issue of how to counter a player who defects first, and defects in a way that prevents you from retaliating on the next move (your life has ended in the meantime.) All assassins and terrorists play the game this way. Because they are willing to die--it is their nature--the future has no shadow for them. This madness is not unique to humans--the bee that stings to defend the hive, then dies, is a suicidal defector in nature.
Gandhi succeeded in his variation on the prisoner's dilemma because the British were not willing to resort to the ultimate defection. A player, like the Nazis, willing to stop at nothing, creates an illogical loop much like the one that results when two players play a series for a known number of moves. Since, on the last move, the future has no shadow, I might as well defect. Since the other player will certainly be smart enough to defect on that move as well, I may as well defect on the move before, when he may still be cooperating. But, since he is smart enough to reason this through the way I did, he will probably defect on that move too. So again I will consider defecting a move earlier. But so will he. The result: we both defect on the first move and each move afterwards.
Because the scorpion will kill you as soon as it is given a chance, you must find a way to defect earlier than the scorpion, and decisively. But the scorpion will study the situation, looking for a way to defect earlier than you can; so you must assume he will do so, and seek to defect earlier still. Like gunfighters in a Western movie who run down the street at each other, howling and shooting as soon as they catch sight of each other, the prisoner's dilemma escalates into an immediate duel to the death. The concept of a pre-emptive strike expresses nothing other than a strategy based on defecting early and decisively. Tarquinian's symbolic cutting of the tops from the tallest flowers, or the massacre of opponents after any coup d'etat in history, are other examples.
It is the scorpion that pulls humanity down. If you are not yourself a scorpion, you still are unable to play every move of every game in the cooperation zone, because sooner or later you will meet a scorpion. Not every scorpion is a suicide bomber; the law partner who made a successful motion to cut my draw, forcing my resignation from a law firm, suffered the symbolic fate of the scorpion when the firm's biggest client (the one I alone knew how to service) left as a result, and the firm folded. Yeats' judgment that "things fall apart, the center cannot hold", because "the worst are full of passionate intensity" is a recognition of the fact that there are scorpions.
Scorpions may know the consequences, and not care, like the suicide bomber, or may, through vanity and denial, refuse to see the consequences, like my ex-partner. In any event, the effect is the same: a player defects when there is no reason to, and something--a life, an enterprise--ends as a result.
Game theory does not really take scorpions into account. It holds that people will defect because that is in their best interest--because the future has no shadow. Game theory fails as a tool when we are dealing with sociopathology or extreme denial. The human dilemma is that all progress ultimately fails or at least slides back, that anything once proven must be proven again a myriad of times, that there is nothing so well established that a fundamentalist (of any religion or stripe) cannot be found to deny it, and suffer the consequences, and then deny that he suffered the consequences.
All rivers begin in the human heart and, as I said recently in my Auschwitz essay, the human heart is infirm. The saddest saying I ever heard, "trees never grow into heaven", will be true for so long as we have scorpions.

Autumn, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur

 In three days September 28 we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. In early October, the 7th and 8th is Yom Kippur. While the New Year is great I like the idea of Yom Kippur better, especially because it is about atonement and forgiveness --both giving and receiving. I struggled with these ideas until I realized that while they are tied to scripture they do not conflict with my own views about religion. Yom Kippur just makes sense socially, emotionally, and intellectually. It feels good to assess one's contradictions, the mean and nasty things we've done throughout the year and those that have been done against us. It feels good to let these go. Hate and avarice are not good family values and eat at one's being if we practice them. Yom Kippur is about asking and giving forgiveness especially to one's self. This should not be confused with the act of confession. Self-forgiveness does not mean that you do an act of contrition and then after absolution go back out and commit the same act. It is about assessing your weaknesses and launching a course of action to avoid repetition.
Next month go inside of your denial and find a way to start the act of self-forgiveness. Only after you are willing to forgive yourself can you forgive others. Give yourself a break!  In Ladino: le hayim and in Yiddish: l'chaim!!

Hunting a mammoth

Today I will be leading a team building session for an NGO client. I have titled it Hunting a Mammoth to fed the Community. It is about creativity and firing off the creative side of your brain. The irony is that the client works with young people to 19 years of age teaching the kids how to creatively turn multi-media on its head.
So what is creativity? Can just anyone be creative?
The answer to the second question is easy: everyone is creative and functioning creatively on a scale of 1-10 at any given moment.
The answer to the first is more complex. It starts with an exploration of the word "thinking."

• Thinking in formal education emphasizes the skills of analysis--teaching students how to understand claims, follow or create a logical argument, figure out the answer, eliminate the incorrect paths and focus on the correct one.
• Another kind of thinking, one that focuses on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, looking for many right answers rather than just one.The beginning of this kind of learning is under debate: pre-natal, infant, precocious two's? But most assuredly creative thinking is subverted by the formality of school.

NOTE: Both of these kinds of thinking are vital to a successful working life or working environment. And it takes both kinds of thinkers to make a successful team.

but

NOTE: If your mantra, your belief system is: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" then please, don’t spend any more time reading today!

Creativity is:

An Ability. A simple definition is that creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas.

An Attitude. Creativity is also an attitude: the ability to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it.

A Process. Creative people work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works. 

     Creative Methods:

Evolution. This is the method of incremental improvement. New ideas stem from other ideas, new solutions from previous ones, the new ones slightly improved over the old ones. Every problem that has been solved can be solved again in a better way.

Synthesis. Two or more existing ideas are combined into a third, new idea. I.E Books on tape

Revolution. Sometimes the best new idea is a completely different one, an marked change from the previous ones.

Reapplication. Look at something old in a new way. Go beyond labels. Unfixate, remove prejudices, expectations and assumptions and discover how something can be reapplied.

Changing Direction. Many creative breakthroughs occur when attention is shifted from one angle of a problem to another. This is sometimes called creative insight. 

Negative Attitudes That Block Creativity

1. Oh no, a problem! The reaction to a problem is often a bigger problem than the problem itself. Many people avoid or deny problems until it's too late, largely because these people have never learned the appropriate emotional, psychological, and practical responses. A problem is an opportunity.

2. It can't be done. This attitude is, in effect, surrendering before the battle. By assuming that something cannot be done or a problem cannot be solved, a person gives the problem a power or strength it didn't have before. And giving up before starting is, of course, a self fulfilling prophesy.

3. I can't do it. Or There's nothing I can do. Some people think, well maybe the problem can be solved by some expert, but not by me because I'm not (a) smart enough, (b) an engineer, or (c) a politician, etc.

4. But I'm not creative. Everyone is creative to some extent. Most people are capable of very high levels of creativity; just look at young children when they play and imagine. The problem is that this creativity has been suppressed by education.

5. What will people think? There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative. Some peoples' herd instinct is so strong that they make sheep look like radical individualists.

Solutions are often new ideas, and new ideas, being strange, are usually greeted with laughter, contempt, or in the case of Galileo the inquisition.

7. I might fail. Failures along the way should be expected and accepted; they are simply learning tools that help focus the way toward success. Not only is there nothing wrong with failing, but failing is a sign of action and struggle and attempt--much better than inaction. Going-with-the- flow has a low failure, low risk outcome (see sheep above!). Salomon don’t get to spawning grounds and successfully spawn simply by swimming. They must get by the bears first. 

 

Myths about Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

1. Every problem has only one solution (or one right answer). The goal of problem solving is to solve the problem, and most problems can be solved in any number of ways. If you discover a solution that works, it is a good solution. There may be other solutions thought of by other people, but that doesn't make your solution wrong. As a group you decide which solution has the greater application and return on human capital and funding investment.

2. The best answer/solution/method has already been found. Look at the history of any solution set and you'll see that improvements, new solutions, new right answers, are always being found. Pythagoras (6^th century bce) said that the world was a sphere, Copernicus (15^th century) said the earth wasn’t the center of the universe, Galileo’s (mid-16^th century) observations, based on scientific observation, supported Copernicus, and . . . . . .Stephen Hawking. . .has found that. . . . .

3. Creative answers are complex technologically. Only a few problems require complex technological solutions. Most problems you'll meet with require only a thoughtful solution requiring personal action and perhaps a few simple tools. Even many problems that seem to require a technological solution can be addressed in other ways.

4. Ideas either come or they don't. Nothing will help. There are many successful techniques for stimulating idea generation.

Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

1. Prejudice/preconcieved ideas. The older we get, the more preconceived ideas we have about things. These preconceptions often prevent us from seeing beyond what we already know or believe to be possible. They inhibit us from accepting change and progress.

2. Functional fixation. Sometimes we begin to see an object only in terms of its name rather in terms of what it can do. And there's a functional fixation of people, too. Stereotyping can even be a form of functional fixation.

3. Learned helplessness. This is the feeling that you don't have the tools, knowledge, materials, ability, to do anything, so you might as well not try. We are trained to rely on other people for almost everything. We think small and limit ourselves.

4. Psychological blocks. Some solutions are not considered or are rejected simply because our reaction to them is "Yuck." But icky solutions themselves may be useful or good if they solve a problem well or save your life. Eating grasshoppers, termites, insects doesn't sound great, but in terms of carbon foot print, caloric intake vs caloric investement these creatures, pound for pound have more energy and use significantly fewer resources than large ungulates. Psychological blocks prevent you from doing something just because it doesn't sound good or right.

Positive Attitudes for Creativity

1. Curiosity. Creative people want to know things--all kinds of things-- just to know them. Why, how, where, who?
2. Challenge. Curious people like to identify and challenge the assumptions behind ideas, proposals, problems, beliefs, and statements. Many assumptions, of course, turn out to be quite necessary and solid, but many others have been assumed unnecessarily, and in breaking out of those assumptions often comes a new idea, a new path, a new solution.
3. Constructive discontent. This is not a whining, griping kind of discontent, but the ability to see a need for improvement and to propose a method of making that improvement. Constructive discontent is a positive, enthusiastic discontent.
4. A belief that most problems are opportunities and can be solved. By faith at first and by experience later on, the creative thinker believes that something can always be done to eliminate or help alleviate almost every problem.
5. The ability to suspend judgment and criticism. Many new ideas, because they are new and unfamiliar, seem strange, odd, bizarre, even repulsive (do I eat beef with its high moral, ethical, and environmental costs or do I start catching and eating grasshoppers?).
The first rule of brainstorming is to suspend judgment so that your idea-generating powers will be free to create without the restraint of fear or criticism. You can always go back later and examine--as critically as you want--what you have thought of.
6. Seeing the good in the bad. Creative thinkers, when faced with poor solutions, don't cast them away. Instead, they ask, "What's good about it?" because there may be something useful even in the worst ideas.
7. Problems lead to improvements. The attitude of constructive discontent searches for problems and possible areas of improvement, but many times problems arrive on their own. But such unexpected and perhaps unwanted problems are not necessarily bad, because they often permit solutions that leave the world better than before the problem arose.
8. A problem can also be a solution. A fact that one person describes as a problem can sometimes be a solution for someone else.
9. Problems are interesting and emotionally acceptable. Many people don't want to admit that a problem exists--with their car, their spouse, their child, their job, their house, whatever. As a result, often the problem persists and drives them crazy or it exacerbates into a crisis and then it hits the fan!

Characteristics of the Creative Person

• curious
• seeks opportunities in problems
• enjoys challenge
• optimistic
• able to suspend judgment
• comfortable with imagination
• sees problems as opportunities
• sees problems as interesting
• problems are emotionally acceptable
• challenges assumptions
• doesn't give up easily: perseveres, works hard