What to do with meaningless but well intended moral calls for action?
Global Warming – More Effective Calls for Action?
Mitigating Global Warming
If you think about mitigating Global Warming, and you are looking for creative solutions to, it may make sense to map out existing approaches.
Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (6) – The Expected “Black Swan”
For Black Swan-like events, it seems more sensible to design robust measures than to rely on scientific models that are inherently based on previous events and therefore do not apply. And even worse, they give a misplaced feeling of being in control.
Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (3) – Information (not) Considered
How was situation awareness built up in the Coronacrisis and how have(not) considered information multiplied the blundering into disaster?
Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (2) – Concepts
In the crucial month of February, in those weeks before the major outbreak in Europe, there was still room to stock up on protective equipment, to scale up the laboratories, to expand the purchase and production of test materials, to prepare for the removal of serum with antibodies in healed patients. Only, it didn't happen. …
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Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (1)
Our hypothesis is that a lack of thinking skills among governments, health institutions and the population has seriously contributed to the spread of the Corona virus
The Dominant Designing Idea in Organisations and Public Administrations
Managing organizations are in essence establishing coordinating mechanisms. Below we argue that most organizations use Control, that is setting up formal processes of assigning, evaluating, and regulating resources in order to accomplish an organization's goals. This is the generally accepted standard approach to organizing. But can we escape from that? Standard Thinking: Control Most organisations and governments …
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Growing Up with Connected Private Watson Machines – Meaning of Life
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. In our post The 4th Industrial Revolution and the Meaning of Life we suggested some thinking steps …
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How to Make the Possible, Impossible
This blog post is about how to obstruct problem solving by ineffective thinking. In these times of positive thinking, readers are attracted by slogans as How to Make the Impossible Possible. In spite of that, we see many times teams that struggle with attaining their goals. But they do work hard! Lots of energy is …
Engineering vs Design Thinking
There is a huge difference between "engineering" and "design thinking". It comes down to that engineers are problem-oriented, a design thinker is need oriented. That's a fundamental another approach. For an engineer the problem is obvious, As you can see in the image below, it is even not mentioned at all! Design thinking does not …
A Totally Misused Concept: the Average
In our Thinkibility nibble What Is An Interesting Book? we suggested that books with intellectual value should be categorized by the publisher into categories: Mainstream Improvement Criticism Provocation and Alternatives We propose a strong candidate for category 4: Provocation and Alternatives: The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness Subversive Dispels a …
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. …
Focus and Group Dynamics Define the Thinking
Focus defines the input of information that defines the thinking, and by that, the conclusions, solutions or opinions derived from it. In a schedule: information (A) is semi-processed in a funnel (A,B,C) of biases, assumptions and conditions to a logical solution, opinion or conclusion (C). Area A is the focus area, the area where the …
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The Brilliant Failure Award – Thinkibility Nibble
Earlier in the post The Charm of Imperfection we wrote about figure-ground reversal or negative space: in art it is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally …
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Patterns in Medicine
We came across a booklet that could be a good example for the kind of studies by the envisioned Thinkibility University. At its West Wing, scientists dissect the basic thinking patterns in a scientific discipline. Siddhartha Mukherjee was asking himself: If there is a science of medicine, then science has laws. Physics has laws. Chemistry …
Poor Social Design – Thinkibility Nibble
According to a Dutch report, the number of people with intellectual disabilities getting paid care,  increased between 1998 and 2011 fivefold (the figures for other Western countries will not be much different) The large increase is not because more people have a disability, but because the diagnosis is now  made more often by changing demands in …
I Am a Depressive Character – You’re Absolutely Right
This post is about patterns or logical bubbles in psycho therapy. As we will see there are some parallels with lateral thinking. There are several reasons why a person attends psychotherapy. Someone may attend psychotherapy because she is suffering because she thinks herself into a situation she doesn't want to be in. She visits a psychotherapist to …
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Thinking Patterns in Science
Some time ago Robert Sheldrake suggested ten dogmas of modern science. In a TEDx presentation he argued that science,  by using a rigorous method, has become a belief system that has become the default in the scientific community and this system is based on reductionism and mechanical philosophy. This idea caused an uproar in the scientific …
Contradictions and Agression – Thinkibility Boost
Ever had an undefined feeling that something is wrong? That there is something  that does not make sense but "you can't put the finger on it"? You have this tingling feeling but you can't point to exactly what it is. . . yet you know that there is "something". It's intangible knowledge or understanding, and you …
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World’s Most Interesting Reversals (1) – Thinkibility Boost
In a Reversal, the usual supposed cause-effect relation between objects or subjects are turned upside down. For example, it is supposed that the establishment of a permanent observation post increases the safety of recreational sailing. A Reversal could set up that the establishment of a permanent observational post rightly effective decreases the safety of sailors. The …
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