To refresh the reader, in Part I of The Flow of Thought we discussed ADHD, Education, Drug Use issues on the brain, Fluoride in the water, Future Computer-Brain Interfaces and Frequency Pollution. This is: The Flow of Thought Part II (Memorization, Freedom of Thought, Creative Thinking & Philosophy)
Now I would like to discuss the value in these possible future innovations and how they will affect the changes in education. There are so many theories in schooling on the best way to teach people, but brains and people do not exactly think the same. Connections are made through memorizing by association, alliteration and rote memorization and countless other ways. What we need to be careful of brain washing our brains to think in unnatural ways and to believe that everything we learn is truth. The basic reasoning on this is that truth is relative and a relative story is the one about the elephant where if asked to describe it and you are holding onto a leg, you might say it is like tree trunk the tail a rope and the tusk a solid pointed rock. None are incorrect, but in the same regard none are absolutely correct. It is therefore apparent that blindfolds will keep us from the closest possible relative truth.
Too often we teach in schools as an absolute, the information all of it is relative and the changing truth of political correctness of history every 20 years is also an interesting phenomenon, not to mention a real problem. Why on Earth would you re-write the truth of history? Well perhaps to get closer to the truth since in the period you could not tell the truth. Well then that means that the flow of thought has been stifled and the media has been suppressed. Once the truth is feathered out, and then later it is changed again and again then it is but a mere work of fiction and brain washing. Therefore even those who study the annals of history so that they do not allow that history to repeat itself; are using the information in vain and there is an increasing possibility that they will repeat all that they fear. When we educate we should do so with an extreme conviction to tell the truth to the best of our abilities and without regard to the political correctness.
If you burn all the books of today you will surely repeat those hardships over again in the future. Every time we inhibit or restrict thought we deny the truth, suppress innate characteristics of mankind and then allow these thoughts to appear at inappropriate times and cause serious issues, which are often compounded later. If no child is to be left behind and we are serious about education then perhaps we need to pay attention to what we teach, teach the truth and have that closest representation of relative truth easily available for all. How can this be done to insure the closest possible relative truth is allowed to flow to increase thought and increase thinking without brain washing or simple memorization? We can put the information in archived bite size lessons on the Internet. Here are the reasons for my theory of Internet archived knowledge: http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0803/00000044.htm .
This is already being done at the University of Phoenix http://www.carwashguys.com/0030203_1.shtml alone with a Gen-Ed class which teaches graduating seniors who will be attending classes there to rethink how they learn? Interesting that they need to re-teach young adults who to learn in order to teach them. If this is the case shouldn't the grade, middle and High Schools be catching a clue too? And after such classes and online content, we must realize that which is memorized needs to be memorized correctly and takes into account the way the brain learns?
One way to get the proper information into the schools of this present period so that no child is left behind may be to put the content on the Internet, but of course it is not the only way or be all, end all. With this done and with every individual and school allowed to access it, you will have increased the flow of thought. Creating a seamless information flow for education while still keeping the schooling local, thus without disrupting the system. Then you can add the local mentoring programs and discussion in a classroom setting to make the program full circle; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0703/0000007f.htm
If we fail to mentor our kids there can be some serious consequences, for instance the School Shootings in Columbine or this incident; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0703/00000084.htm . Will this work considering what we think we know about the human brain? After all How does the human mind really work? Some say it is a random organic devise? Each brain is a little different just like no tow people have the same DNA. Here are some thoughts on Random Sequencing and the human brain. http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0703/00000081.htm . Once we have increased thought, educated our populations, taught people to think and exercise their brains then have we accomplished our task of fixing the flow of thought? No, this is simply the beginning, as the thought flow must be open to advance a civilization, culture or country. But in our study of thought and the flow the first item of business is the production of thoughts. Not simply facts or repeating the desired thought on a multiple choice test where teachers study questions and teach the answers to kids so that the kids do well, but teaching kids and adults to think. An original thought is of supreme value.
What do we do with these original thoughts? We use these thoughts to help advance mankind. Unfortunately there are barriers to thought. For instance political correctness restricting thought, rather than hashing out the issues in trade for a reality based answer to a dilemma. Some would say about certain issues that the means do not justify the ends. Well more often the ends do not justify the means. For instance if you are trying to accomplish something and know that if you do use the most approved PC methods then you cannot get to the desired results, but use those methods anyway as to not appear to offend anyone, then in the end you offend everyone by wasting their time and by failure of the project. What we must do is to protect original thoughts and not suppress them and allow them to enter the public domain for the common good without denying the producer of the thought their benefits.
The first problem we encounter in this regard is the PTO Patent and Trademark office. If someone has an idea or many ideas and cannot easily register them without undue hardship and cost, then that individual is likely to never bother to continue to have original thoughts and we all lose as a country because of it. Concept patents are outrageously expensive, take years to get approved and you for the most part need to hire an attorney to do them. All this costs money and causes a lessoning of thinking or flow of thought to the common good of mankind. One discovery in one industry will surely lead to several more in others. We need to allow for the flow of thought and not stifle the speed of that flow through a bureaucratic process. The PTO is expanding in Washington and will move into a new 600 million dollar campus, but really it needs to be a huge computer system.
If you create artificial barriers to thought then thought stops flowing. You see the most progressive Think Tanks, Brain Trusts, research facilities in companies and government, etc. do their best work by allowing free thought to flow. If the United States is to lead the world in innovation and know how, technology and invention, then we will need to repel these barriers of the flow of thought. Now then we should discuss the concept of why thought is necessary and why it is the first in our series of Flows. You see Zig Ziglar, the famous salesmen who became such by writing books and giving seminars. His premise is that nothing happens until someone sells something, which in his realm is true enough, in that no money is exchanged and no products are delivered and no services rendered until the salesman has done his job.
Why was he so adamant about this? Well he was trying to help salesman understand that the profession of sales is not a bad thing, but rather the oldest part of commerce. Even older than the oldest profession, after all, a woman selling her body has to make an offer first and thus, a salesperson in addition to the other profession. A sales man by Zig Ziglar's terms was a problem solver. I use this analogy to show that whereas, Ziggy is correct in his statement, the truth is nothing happens until a thought is produced. You see a thought is triggered in a customer's mind or a member of a species decides it wants something. Due to the fact it is hungry, cold, hot, tired, etc. Then that animal is motivated by that thought.
If it is the hunger of a Bald Eagle it means flying over the river to catch a Salmon. If it is a tourist who is cold it means going in and buying a sweatshirt. This comes first and is the reason we must first discuss the flow of thought before we attempt to fix anything else in the World we live. We must make sure that we allow for the free flow of thought and of course the freedom of thought. Just like Ziggy would defend the freedom of speech in the sales process and the freedom of trade to make that sale. A penny for your thoughts, is a very good price, you should be buying, that is definitely a buyer's market so take all you can get. Yet we do not. Different cultures feel different about the flow of thought. And even we are worried about the past freedoms, which were taken in other civilizations and have pondered what would happen with the thought police.
The movie, "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise discussing such possibilities as the thought police; to this day people are concerned from writings of science fiction writers about the thought police concept. Such possibilities would in fact be the death of freedom, civilization and what we believe to be the proper direction of the human race. In eastern Cultures the passing of thought was considered valuable, so much in fact that even to this day members of those cultures respect their elders and listen to their advice. The passing of such thoughts and concepts and philosophies is of extreme value. The Christianity religion and its followers take those stories in the bible literally, almost to an absolute truth. Much of which is an incredible gift from those who came before us and experienced their lives and had something to say and tales to help the understanding of those who would come later. Jesus in the bible talks about important concepts and thoughts of what should be done and how to live with love towards your fellow man.
The Philosophers of ancient Greece; Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had many interesting and valuable thoughts. Much of which helped the well studied Thomas Jefferson in his ideas as one of our most noted founding fathers. Such enlightenment has been going on for at least as long as we have been able to acquire our written history. 10,000 years of Chinese written history, 6,000 years of middle-eastern history, as the human race branches grew together, it became more apparent that different cultures learn differently and think somewhat differently.
A book called, The Seven Sister's of Eve is worthy of a read and talks about what we have learned about the flow of human beings populations through DNA research. Thus, it is safe to say that certain members of our species have developed differently and in different ways, meaning the brain also learns differently. As Scientists look at different human brains doing various tasks light up with energy as it works through different thoughts and tasks. Why does man need to think. Why does mankind feel the need to share these thoughts and concepts in their writings? It appears that the flow of thought may be the single most important part of life. The process of thought is probably the single most important part of human life. "I think therefore, I am" Are you, is that it?
So what is it with this large complex body? Is it to serve the brain? Or is the brain to serve the body? With these questions and the philosophers of prior periods and the writers and thinkers of today we can all agree that thought is one of the most important parts of self and of human life, if not the only true important part of life. Then why do we allow thought to be controlled by religion, governments, other men? If we study the dialogues of Plato, Galileo, Copernicus, etc. we see that man has often muffled thought and that often fiction is the only way to allow for truth or thought.
So, we therefore live in a world with a history of imprisoning dissenting or disagreeing views. But for mankind to move forward we need to stop this and allow free thought. As we see modern day people of deep thought attempt to bring forth their discoveries and enlightenment, we see them doing so by way of fictional works; because we as a people would shun their thoughts if they were not brought out in any other way. Let's use Ayn Rand, Bertrand Russell, Arthur C Clark, John Gresham, Ben Bova, Isaac Asimov, Tom Clancy as examples for this point. When brought forth as a fictional work it makes you think and brings out a point of contention.
If brought forth as an idea, it would quickly be squashed as not Politically Correct. In the days of Galileo, Copernicus, Plato, you would be imprisoned or killed, therefore they were forced to put them forth in dialogues instead of actual formulated ideas and in the dialogues the strongest point still had to be the prevailing view that matched the politically correct thought. Today the PC police, call them the controllers of thought, would character assassinate you even if your point so contention contained a high degree of relative truth. In Iraq you may have been killed if it went against the former Saddam's views or in contrary to the Qur'an. Cultures which allow for free thought and those individuals in the culture with freedom to the flow of thought will innovate faster.
Thus, here in the United States we have the greatest benefits of the flow of thought, but are we really fully living up to this lofty goal or are we simply the best so far; and if we are able to free the restrictions of the flow of thought and refuse to teach our children barriers to thought, we may just find that the next giant leap of mankind comes from within our countries boundaries. If we allow children to be bombarded with the "That's a dumb idea" syndrome, then they will be taught to not think, instead of to think. This will foster itself as they go through life and it will be passed onto their children and in the work place. "That's a dumb idea" why, because the boss did not think of it. And instead of defending their position, they will simply forget about any new ideas, stop volunteering ideas and the company will go stagnant.
Tom Peters talked about this in his management idea books; stating that the person on the assembly line is full of ideas to speed up the process. And subsequent other business leaders have for ever written books about it. http://www.carwashguys.com/finite.pdf . We have seen the return of the suggestion box in the near prior decades, although with the flow of thought set up correctly they would never be needed. Thus the problem that hurts the most and denies us our future is the unspoken restriction of "Not Invented Here" to the flow of thought. Man is generally a copier, with very few in the populations capable of free flowing original thoughts. Why is this? We mimic, copy, imitate that which we see. This is a common thing that all higher primates do, including us. But if we would stop and think and allow original uninhibited thought to flow without fear of being chastised, cast out, imprisoned, punished, ridiculed or made example of, then we might really come up with some great innovations which would certainly propel mankind to better quality of life and higher standard of living.
We see where Bill Gates in a brain storming exercise allows for the challenging of the flow of new idea, stating "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of in my life!" Challenging, the thinker to defend their idea, challenging them to passionately defend their views, debate, thus this gives them the strength of character to go against the norm and continue to come up with new ideas. If the thinking of the thought can defend their position then they have what it takes. It is not often that you find an original thinker with the strength of character to overrun the critics, politically correct society, the thought police and the "Not invented here" fiefdom-ists; but we need to instill people to think.
We need to develop a culture that is based on the thought that young people should never know or expect limitations in life and never be inhibited in the process of thought. We should encourage thinking and the exchange of ideas. We can do this by making sure that our youth can believe in themselves, have confidence in their own abilities, and think for themselves. By doing this we can insure that they are not afraid to think or to communicate these new thoughts. We can break through the confines of religion, prejudice, economic enslavement, war, education, physical limitations, and government bureaucracy all for the common good and all by simply thinking. All this can be ours if we simply teach people of all ages that it is okay to think, have ideas, "Because one person can change the world." But only if that person believes in himself enough to speak up and share their ideas without fear of being outcast.
Eventually humans will be able to communicate by thought, through computers, which will be available to everyone probably within a couple of decades. The people who can currently communicate by thought with powers of ESP who are limited in their abilities and rare in their numbers are about the only human beings with a chance of thought transfer. Couples who have been married a long time often say they can know what the other is thinking, either because they have become closer on their brain wave frequencies or have adapted to the other persons brain activity, but along with marriages and communication, without thoughts being shared and mutual respect of those thoughts a marriage will drift apart. This should be a warning of what happens in business deals, corporate brainstorming (with regards to hard earned and developed Organizational Capital) and an outcast member of society.
What is the most unfortunate situation in all of these instances is that the whole of the group loses from the possible ideas and innovations of these individuals. As we learn if we imprison, kill, ridicule, out cast, character assassinate or refuse to be open to the flow of thought, we are doomed to repeat the past. If we study people like Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Galileo, Copernicus, Plato who in their days met much resistance from many fronts, we see who easy it is to stifle those with great ideas and we may in fact destroy the next innovation visionary before he or she delivers their greatest contribution to mankind. This is why the flow of thought is so important.
We are witnessing a time when we can actually change these situations in our society and if we do we will be living in the greatest period of discovery ever known in the history of our species. Can we rise to the occasion; will we dump the pettiness in order to reach for the stars? We must first remove all barriers to the flow of thought. This is the very first event in all instances, first a thought occurs before anything else. We must protect this process, otherwise we will never get to the next step. As an observer of culture and society, philosophy and psychology, innovation and invention, science and religion, industry and philanthropy; I can safely say that although we have done better than any other previous civilization or country, we can do better and we must work on the elements which are needed to improve the flow of thought. The best time to start with this thought would be now....I think? Do you? Can you? Will you? Please email me on any thoughts you have on The Flow of Thought.
What will the future of thought and wisdom be?
http://www.worldthinktank.net/pdfs/limitlessthought.pdf
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