How to think

We humans all think, and mostly use our intelligence we got from our mothers and fathers, our educations, our experiences, and our assumptions we seem to have gotten from some combination of all preceding.

Periodically, the preverbal light bulb goes on for one reason or another. For me, it was my time at GaTech when I learned Newton’s equations were just Einstein’s equations at a slower speed. And things like E=MC squared was really simple calculus. And even quantum mechanics was a way to satisfactorily build things, but it was not necessarily a way to explain what was happening.

One other profound thing happened to me. I used to think I was really smart, especially when I was invited into advanced mathematics courses at GaTech. There I met some really smart people, and I realized I was more normal, albeit a hard worker. I bailed out after two academic quarters.

It was during that time that I made my peace. I agreed with the Einstein quote about God does not roll dice. I also rejected the idea that quantum mechanics explained why things worked. Even my fraternity experience had a religious element, and I actually took the time to study all the major human religions in the world. It always bothered me that sons and daughters of Christians were Christians, Moslems made Moslems, etc. I also read recalcitrant works like Worlds in Collision by Emmanuel Velikovsky. I guess you could say I could think out of the box. Later I even took an engineering course that promoted this idea, said another way. It suggested any engineering study consider three solutions, two obvious alternatives, and a third crazy option to think about.

I even made my peace with God. I decided to think that there was an order in the universe that was still unexplained. I decided religions were a good way to express this for most humans, but it was still not good enough for me. Later when my brother, 18 months younger than me, died, I did this process again and ended up the same way.

I also thought about all this when deciding which way to go in life. I’m kinda a natural geek at heart. But also being an engineer at heart, one has to be practical. It always bothered me that even smart guys like Leonardo Da Vinci had to spend a lot of time seeking funding for his lifestyle and work. I think about this a lot when I review the global warming stuff, a subject I have been studying since the 1960’s.

I thought to go the practical route, and joined the Marines, which also appealed to me. Back then I was also draft motivated. And I later learned there is a lot in common there to the uninitiated. Even the USMC led me to reading a lot of old National Geographic magazines about human explorations in the third world, and even then there was a second world, too. Also reading H.G. Wells Outline of History first published in 1928 was an eye opener. His premise was that there is more human history than just what is published in the West, and mostly about the West's histories.

So how do we think, today? Thinking out of the box, or not following conventional wisdom, is a hard row to hoe. After all, messing with anyone’s rice bowl is serious business to them.

On the geek side, I still wonder about the red shift idea which reports the universe is expanding. I still wonder if our observation ideas are skewed by our human experience and methods. The Heisenberg Principle comes to mind. Basically, if the red shift idea is flawed by our human observations and logic, then what we are seeing is something else. For example, could it be some kind of differential process going on vice some cosmic Doppler effect?

On the political human side, I still wonder how to explain what might be going on in 2010. Maybe it is just easier to think about what to do, though my engineering education suggests knowing what is going on is the first step to solving any problems. Of course knowing what is going on is just a guess. But that is why we think.