Looking at nature for solutions and inspiration is a wonderful step towards solving these problems. Nature uses ingenious ways to solve many of the problems that we are facing.
How does Nature Heal itself?
Mercedes Benz, Bionic Car, Boxfish and Thinking
Be careful not to project human explanatory models on nature´s brilliant solutions!
Nature Spotting Inspires Wild Ideas
A walk in nature could inspire so many ideas.
Story Cubes and Stratals
One of our readers challenged us to simplify the process of applying Stratals as a creativity tool. A stratal is putting together a layer of unconnected, random statements or observations and looking at it as a whole. The purpose is to allow new ideas to materialize from evaluating the strata as a whole and not …
Societal Science Fiction – 21st Century Challenges
Throughout history stories have help shaped our minds, our ideas and actions. With the increasing acceleration in information and biotechnology we need better stories about future technological, social and economic developments. In this 21th century, ¨societal¨science fiction might be an important genre, if not the most important, to interprete the consequences of accelarating technological developments.
Social Justice
n on earlier post Sense of Justice we pointed out Harari's approach to comprehend and judge moral dilemmas. Below we show our efforts to think effectively "to get a solution or at least a direction for one of today’s urgent issues": - The underdevelopment of Africa - Working conditions in low-wage countries
Event-ism and other – Future Ideologies
This is a continuation of our post The Meaning of Life – Have You Tried Googling It? “How do you live in an age of bewilderment, when the old stories have collapsed, and no new story has yet emerged to replace them?” What will keep us busy when our jobs become obsolete? A new quest …
Thought Stores – Thinkibility Nibble
Imagine, there would be stores that keep thoughts in stock and sell them. Make a mindmap where the branches reflect the various aspects of running a store. For instance: Explore: Make a connection between aspects of running a store and selling Thoughts to customers as items in a store. What did you learn about Thoughts? …
Thinking in Analogies
Many teachers in analytical/critical thinking and writing clearly forbid students the use of analogies, because, in one sense, all analogies are faulty. However, as George Lakoff, known for his thesis that the lives of individuals are significantly influenced by the central metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena, convincingly argues that all our thinking is metaphorical. …
Design New Concepts – Thinkibility Boost
There are several ways to design a new concept deliberately. But what is a new concept? Not many people have a quick answer to this question, other than "differently than expected", "something else as normal", "not seen before" or just "interesting". One of the easiest ways to design a new concept is to escape from …
Analogies and Banalogies
In "Surfaces and Essences", Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander suggest that "analogy-making defines each instant of thought". We build bridges between objects, actions and situations. Analogies help us to think and act in new situations and analogies help us to build new categories. Yet the term analogy is seldom used in everyday conversations and when …
Ways to Recognize Concepts
How to recognize concepts? A concept can be described as a perceived pattern or regularity in events or objects. We form groups of different events or objects into a single category on the basis of some underlying similarity. We are often not aware of what aspects or characteristcs that are underlying the categorization of events …
Where To Search for New Ideas? – Thinkibility Nibble
A surgical team in a hospital realised that their activities became more and more complex, partly because of the treatments that they were offering but also by an increase of the number of people involved. They looked for better ideas, outside their box of thinking. They visited an aircraft carrier, a pit stop at auto …
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World Thinkers’ Ideas – Look for Similarities
Many of us would be offended if someone calls us an animal. But why does animals have such a bad reputation? Frans de Waal, primatologist and ethologist, says that part of the problem is the direction of thinking that has been used in research. The focus has been on characteristics that are missing rather than …
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