Lamont Radical Thinking

How to see the bigger picture
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80075-135-4
Verlag: Swift Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 272 Seiten

'Will change how you see the world' Derren Brown Radical Thinking is a book about how you view the world. It's about the things that shape your thoughts, from what you notice and how you interpret it, to what you assume, believe and want. It's also about how, if you think in a radical way, you can look beyond your limited view of the world to see the bigger picture.

Peter Lamont is a Professor of History and Theory of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His previous five books, and many articles, have been on a variety of curious topics, such as magic, belief, wonder and critical thinking. He is also a former professional magician and has been a consultant and contributor to many television and radio programmes. His popular books have been highly praised in the popular press, and by individuals such as Derren Brown, Teller (of Penn and Teller), Simon Singh and Hilary Mantel.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lamont, Peter

Leseproben

1

What we notice

Sherlock Holmes: You see but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.

Dr Watson: Frequently.

Holmes: How often?

Watson: Well, some hundreds of times.

Holmes: Then how many are there?

Watson: How many? I don’t know.

Holmes: Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen.1

I’m in my office. It’s in the Department of Psychology, which is on George Square. I’m feeling more like Watson than Holmes. However, as we’ll see, I think that this is a good thing.

There’s a stairway nearby, which leads down to the ground floor. It also leads up from the ground floor to here. This, as the comedian Chic Murray used to say, saves us from needing two stairways. I’ve gone up and down these stairs … well, some hundreds of times. However, I’ve never observed how many steps there are.

The front door of 23 George Square

Like Watson, even the things that we see, we frequently fail to notice. For example, you just read the last sentence, but you didn’t notice how many words were there. Perhaps you just went back to count them. We notice things after they’re brought to our attention. That’s when they become relevant. But we can’t notice everything. So, we filter. We select, out of everything that we can see, what seems relevant and what doesn’t. And, when you’re reading, the number of words in a sentence is irrelevant. That’s why, when you read the last sentence, you didn’t notice how many words were there.

There’s nothing wrong with that but, when we’re told this, it can sound like a criticism. That’s how Sherlock Holmes talks to Watson, who, in the original books, is the reader’s eyes and ears on what the great detective is thinking. Holmes observes all. Watson doesn’t. And we, the reader, feel like Watson, who, compared to Holmes, has inadequate eyes and ears.

We’ve been told a similar story by psychologists. For over a century, they’ve pointed out how little we notice and how inaccurately we see and hear things. Our eyes and ears are prone to deception. We fail to notice what stares us in the face. Our memories are unreliable. Our thoughts are irrational. If we hear this, then it might make us feel inadequate. But compared to what exactly?

It’s easy to point to our imperfections, because we have so many, but we’re not supposed to be perfect. We’re humans, whose eyes are not cameras and whose minds are not computers, though we invented both. After we invented them, they became metaphors for how we see, and how we think.2 However, when we compare ourselves to our inventions, we often suffer by comparison. And, when we compare ourselves to invented characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, who is more observant than us – but who is fictional – we suffer by comparison.

We’ll never notice everything because we need to focus on some things, not others. We can’t see things as they really are, or think in merely rational ways, because we’re neither cameras nor computers. We can’t be truly objective because we see things from our current position. These are our natural limits. When they’re pointed out, of course, we take notice. And then we carry on as normal, not noticing how many steps are there. Or how many words were in the last sentence.

The basic point is this: the problem of thinking in the real world isn’t that we’re inadequate, but that we forget our limits. We notice a limited number of things and interpret these things in a particular way. This is the window through which we look at the world: everything that we think is based on what we notice and on how we interpret it. Beyond this, there are all the things that we miss, and there are alternative interpretations. This is the bigger picture.

In the real world, we have natural limits, and it’s useful to be reminded of them, not because we should have superhuman powers but because, as humans, we don’t.

Holmes, of course, was a fictional character. However, the human who invented him was real. And Arthur Conan Doyle was no Sherlock Holmes.

Indeed, as we’ll see, he’s a useful reminder of our limits.

It took a couple of minutes to walk from my office to 23 George Square. I’ve walked past this doorway hundreds of times but, until now, I’ve never noticed that, in front of the doorway, there are four steps. So, when you glanced at the photograph at the start of this chapter, you probably didn’t notice this either (though, now that I’ve made this relevant, perhaps you just went back to count them). The reason that 23 George Square is relevant is this: it’s where Arthur Conan Doyle lived.

Doyle was here while he was a student. In 1876, he began to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh and then at the Extra-Mural School of Medicine. He took a course on clinical surgery, which was taught by the surgeon Joseph Bell. Bell was famous for his powers of observation in the diagnosis of patients. He became the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle wrote to him later: ‘It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes … I do not think his analytical work is in the least an exaggeration of some of the effects which I have seen you produce in the out-patient ward.’3

Doyle recalled an example of Bell’s powers of deduction, based on close observation:

At an out-patient clinic, a patient is shown in. Before the patient can say a word, Bell says:

‘Well, my man, I see you’ve served in the army.’

‘Aye sir.’

‘Not long discharged?’

‘Aye sir.’

‘A Highland regiment?’

‘Aye sir.’

‘A non-commissioned officer?’

‘Aye sir.’

‘Stationed at Barbados?’

‘Aye sir.’

Bell then explained to Doyle and his fellow students how he’d done it:

‘You see, gentlemen, the patient is a respectful man but he did not remove his hat. They do not do this in the army. He would have learned this civilian habit had he been long discharged. He has an air of authority and he is obviously Scottish. As to Barbados, his complaint is elephantiasis which is West Indian and not British.’4

A few years later, Sherlock Holmes would be demonstrating similar powers of deduction, based on close observation, by noticing relevant facts and then interpreting them in a certain way. However, according to an old friend, Bell described these stories as ‘drivel’.5 He thought that they exaggerated the limits of his powers. ‘From close observation and deduction, gentlemen, it is possible to make a diagnosis that will be correct in any and every case,’ Bell admitted, but he stressed that ‘you must not neglect to ratify your deductions [and] substantiate your diagnosis’.6 He would often tell his students of one occasion when he’d visited a patient.

He’d quickly deduced that the patient was a bandsman. He explained to his students at the time: ‘You see, gentlemen, I am right. It is quite simple. This man has paralysis of the cheek muscles, the result of too much blowing at wind instruments.’ Bell then asked which instrument the patient played, and the man replied: ‘The big drum.’7

Bell told this story to make it clear: he understood the limits of his powers.

Doyle, however, wasn’t so aware. For example, he observed many spiritualist mediums. He observed them closely and took copious notes. He observed fraud in some cases. He didn’t observe it in most. He deduced, therefore, that most mediums were genuine.8 In other words, he assumed that, if he didn’t observe fraud, then it wasn’t there. As he once told the legendary magician (and well-known sceptic) Harry Houdini: ‘I am a cool observer and do not make mistakes.’9

Doyle also observed Houdini and deduced some things about him. He observed Houdini with his own eyes, and he read the accounts of Houdini’s performances. He deduced that Houdini was able to pass through solid obstacles by dematerialising and reassembling his body. He was aware that Houdini was a magician and that it might be a trick. He observed that there were tricks in which magicians escaped from boxes, bags and handcuffs. He read how they were done. But he deduced that Houdini’s performances were different and that his relied on psychic powers. He was perfectly aware that Houdini denied this. Houdini and Doyle were friends for years and Houdini told him directly, more than once, that he had no psychic powers. But Doyle didn’t accept the denials. He deduced that, like others before him, Houdini was reluctant to admit his psychic powers.10

What Doyle thought was based on what he saw and heard (with his own eyes and ears), which he then interpreted in a particular way. That’s what we all do, though what we notice and how we interpret it is often very different. For example, having read what Doyle observed and how he interpreted it, you might think that he was wrong. You might think that the mediums were fake, and that Doyle failed to notice this. You might think that, when Houdini said that he had no psychic powers, he was telling the truth.

That’s what I think, though how we interpret what we see and hear...