2001 Conference (May 27-29)

Vancouver, B.C. Canada

  AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CYBERNETICS
 
Larry Richards

The Praxis of Thinking: Deliberate vs. Improvised

 



 


 
ABSTRACT:
 
 

I sometimes describe cybernetics as "a way of thinking about ways of thinking, of which it is one." This paper explores the practical consequences of treating as a choice our ways of thinking. I use the word thinking when I wish to speak of my awareness of an unfolding, in some language, of a set of connected ideas or concepts. That the way of unfolding can be deliberate, selected from a repertoire of ways of thinking, clashes with the notion that thinking just happens naturally, i.e., improvised in the moment and determined only by the social history of the individual. The practical consequences of deliberate thinking include increased facility in conversation and greater opportunities to make a difference when participating in social change, a difference that would not happen without the thinker. When the way of thinking becomes a choice, we can take responsibility not only for our own thinking but also for that of others. What could be any more practical than that? Now, how can I do this, given that I can avoid neither my biology nor my social history?

 



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