Synergistic thinking - VII: Resistance to depth

Synergistic thinking - I
Synergistic thinking - II
Synergistic thinking - III
Synergistic thinking - IV
Synergistic thinking - V
Synergistic thinking - VI

In this post, I'll not repeat myself and define synergistic thinking and contrast it with imperative thinking again.. Please read the earlier posts in this series for my theory of synergistic thinking.

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As a teacher, one of the very common traits I see among students is what I call "resistance to depth." This is the mental reluctance to explore deeper in a given topic and instead, try to want to move sideways and work on several diverse projects -- albeit in a superficial manner.

There is nothing "morally" wrong about resistance to depth and it should not be treated as such, whenever I urge students to dig deeper. It is a very human tendency -- I display the very same resistance myself; and I'm sure most others do as well.

Resistance to depth is a fundamental survival tactic as I will explain below. Except that, the tactic manifests itself for very different reasons for the imperative thinker and the synergistic thinker.

Imperative thinking, as I'd mentioned earlier is "how-to" thinking. The imperative thinker registers to a course or a project with a "how-to" reasoning something like: "How to increase the chances that I will get a well-paying job in a prestigious company?"

(Again, to reiterate, there is nothing morally wrong about wishing good for oneself).

With this as the underlying question, it is clear now why resistance to depth makes sense. Working on a number of disparate projects in different fields "hedges risks" and increase the "catchment area" of companies that are in the fray for employment. This kind of "hedging of risks" is a fundamental survival instinct.

Unfortunately, the above reasoning is a bit incomplete; and it would still make sense for the imperative thinker to obtain depth in at least one field of expertise. The reason is competition.

Consider two contenders in the job market -- let's call them A and B. Suppose that A has superficial knowledge in 10 different fields, while B has in-depth knowledge and expertise in one or two fields. Now whenever a company that is looking for employees in the field of B's expertise comes looking, B would win over A.

And the more competition there is, the more likely it would be that no matter what field A chooses, there will always be someone else who would have more expertise than A in that field, at the cost of the breadth of knowledge that A has.

On the other hand of course, it does not make sense to just focus on one field of expertise only and get into tunnel vision. It amounts to keeping all eggs in the same basket. The answer then for the imperative thinker lies in striking the right balance between depth and breadth.

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Synergistic thinkers on the other hand, are also reluctant towards depth -- but for a very different reason. As I'd defined earlier, synergistic thinking is "model building" or "theory forming" or "what-is" thinking.

Synergistic thinkers typically have problems focusing on one thing -- and especially in execution, or getting things done. They are rarely task masters and resist over-specification of requirements. Instead, they value freedom of thought and expression and favour loosely defined requirements for projects.

But then, the resistance to depth by the synergistic thinker is not because digging deeper somehow is akin to getting focus and practising discipline (as in task mastery).

The main reason for resistance to depth is the possibility of cognitive dissonance. Theories and models, by definition are incomplete descriptions of the world around us. They are typically based on axiomatic assumptions that may have certain simplifications embedded into them. Digging deeper typically requires us to challenge our deeply-held axioms, endangering the very model that we've based our lives on.

Let me give a rather trite, but elucidating example. There is this young relative of mine, (let me call her N) who's all of 4 years old. I think she is one of the best insights I've got into synergistic thinking -- because, as a kid, her thinking is unhindered by other hang-ups and put-ons that adults typically have.

The other day, there was a conversation something like the following, between N and her mom.

N: Mummy, why do I need to go to school?

Mom: Because you can grow up to be smart and intelligent

N: But I thought you said, eating cereals made me strong, smart and intelligent? Why do I need to go to school then?

There you have it -- classic cognitive dissonance :-)

If doing one unpleasant thing (like eating cereals) can achieve a superset of goals than another unpleasant thing (like going to school), why do we need to perform the latter? Occam's razor! :-)

I've seen metaphorically similar behaviour from my students those which are predominantly synergistic thinkers. They are typically not thinking about payoffs for themselves (increasing job prospects, for example) when they resist deeper exploration. They're resisting it because the depth is opening up some can of worms that is causing conflicts with their mental models.

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Digging deeper for the imperative thinker typically means obtaining specialized skills. For the synergistic thinker, digging deeper means going meta.

I encountered this classic divide once when arguing with a colleague of mine who wanted to offer a course on "Advanced DBMS." (DBMS is database management systems). Our ideas of what constitutes "advanced" topics in DBMS basically went off on tangents.

According to my colleague, a course on advanced DBMS should open up the internals of a fairly large DBMS like Oracle or DB2 or MySQL, and look into how it is implemented.

According to me, a course on advanced DBMS should look into the limitations of the relational data model (which is by far the most widely used data model for commercial DBMS) and address the more general challenge of data management itself (as opposed to "database management").

Finally we agreed that using ambiguous terms like "advanced" in the title of a course does not make sense at all. Instead, we should perhaps have courses with more specific titles like "DBMS design" or "Challenges in Data Management" -- to label the above two versions of course contents.

Imperative and synergistic thinking

Note: This post, even though it talks a lot about me, is not an exercise in narcissism. It is just that it is better to talk about what one knows well, rather than speak in abstract inanities. The objective of this post is to perhaps be of some help to others who can associate with what is written here.

After reading this earlier post on fighting inner deamons demons, a friend had suggested to me that I may be suffering from OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) or some form of anxiety disorder. Sure enough, I took some tests and there is a moderate element of OCD.

Interestingly though, after I learnt about some of the symptoms, I have seen these symptoms in many of my colleagues, students and family members. And yes of course, there are well known cases like Howard Hughes and David Beckham.

One of the things I have noticed is a remarkable prevalence of these symptoms among academics, researchers and artists. And I think this is no coincidence. In fact, I believe that this so-called "disorder" is actually an indication of a different kind of thought process – something which I have been observing and trying to understand for almost 15 years now.

This is what I call "synergistic" thinking as opposed to more conventional "imperative" thinking. Before I start explaining both of them, let me once again reiterate that there is absolutely no implication about which kind of thinking is "better" or "superior" or whatever than the other.

Both thinking processes start with a trigger – an event or an idea or sensory inputs which triggers a thought process. Imperative thinking proceeds in a "logical" fashion and deduces one conclusion after another. Highly focused imperative thinkers put enormous energy into this imperative thought process and proceed onto thinking about finest details starting from the initial idea. Imperative thinking is very good at creating "actionables" – specific and clearly defined action points that need to be performed in order to achieve a particular objective.

Synergistic thinking on the other hand starts off differently. Given a trigger (an idea, event or sensory input) synergistic thinkers start off several processes – each addressing a different facet of this trigger. Each process then proceeds autonomously, forking off other processes if required. The synergistic thinking process ends when the thinker sees a larger harmony or synergy emerging from all these different processes. They have a very good idea of the overall topology of the cognitive landscape, while they may not be very good at specifying clearly defined actionables.

In fact, many synergistic thinkers don't see the need for actionables, and are put off by rules and processes that they consider to be too fine-grained. Synergistic thinking has created a map in their minds and they can't understand why someone is specifying a particular path in great detail.

Perhaps one of the extreme examples of synergistic thinkers was the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who could conjure up sophisticated and intricate results in number theory just like that. About whom, the Cambridge mathematician Hardy described as someone “who didn't understand the need for proofs.”

Imperative thinking can be thought of as "how to" (reach a certain destination) thinking, while synergistic thinking can be thought of as "what is" (the nature of the larger system) thinking.

For example, when a new board game like carrom or chess or connect-4 is introduced to an imperative thinker, his/her thought processes would typically focus on how to play the game and how to win. The synergistic thinker on the other hand would be busy placing the game in a category of other similar games, understanding the nature of this game and the rationale behind its rules, etc. The game would also remind them of other real-life situations or systems, which they now seek to explain through this game, and so on.

The intrusive thoughts syndrome that is very characteristic of OCD sufferers can be explained due to synergistic thinking. Intrusive thoughts are involuntary, mostly unwelcome and painful thoughts that flash in one’s mind when they are least expected. It is said that while most people are able to dismiss off these thoughts, sufferers of OCD experience a lot of pain and distress because of intrusive thoughts.

I remember when I was a student in Chennai in the 1990s, several times when I visited the beach and was just looking around, there used to be a sudden intrusive thought of a tsunami sweeping away everything on the beach. It had caused me enormous pain and many times, I could stay on the beach no further, and abruptly got up and came back. You can imagine my horror when a decade later a tsunami actually struck these beaches!

However, intrusive thoughts even though unwelcome, are hardly random thoughts. They are not a result of brain cells firing off at random. On closer examination, it is possible to understand the cogitative chain from the current reality to the intrusive thought. In my case, I now remember how, some years earlier, I had earlier read about the Pacific Ring of Fire and the eruption of Mount Krakatoa in 1883, and had imagined tsunamis in the Indian Ocean several times. And it was this mental map that was causing the intrusive thoughts. This mental map fit in closely with the reality that was in front of me (the Bay of Bengal) and there was the intrusive thought. I had never consciously thought of tsunamis – just the reality in front of me had forked off several processes, one of which was creating a panic by noting that a tsunami is possible here.

For a long time, this kind of thinking was seen as a “weakness” of sorts. (I guess it still is, in some circles). It was as though, synergistic thinkers cannot “control” their thoughts and “focus” on one thing. Besides, concepts like harmony and synergy lacked formal definitions.

Only recently I think we are able to understand (at least I am able to) how to formally define harmony. A synergistic process is a process of optimization. There are several logical processes, each thinking away along its own path and often producing implications that conflict with that of other processes. Then there is an overall global process of selection that seeks to minimize these conflicts. Harmony or synergy is a system state where conflicts among the processes are minimized.

While imperative thinking is about deduction, synergistic thinking is about optimization. There you are, at least now, I hope synergistic thinkers would get some bhav. J

Synergistic thinking theory also explains why OCD suffers are often hypersensitive about certain things – especially issues like morality. When there are several processes going off in their own directions, harmony or synergy is achieved by focusing on the invariants in the system. These are properties of the system that remain unchanged in the larger picture even the system is undergoing several transformations (like laws of physics and Vicco Vajradanti ads ;-). Morality is essentially the invariant set of societal norms across cultures and time. It is these invariants that help us formulate appropriate behavioural strategies when faced with a new culture or when faced with large-scale changes happening in our life or the society. It is no wonder then that the synergistic thinker seeks to understand these invariants very closely.

It is also not that all synergistic thinkers are alike. Firstly, the different facets along which processes are forked may differ from thinker to thinker based on what they have been exposed to. Secondly, optimization processes are prone to this problem called local optima. These are system states which are not optimal, but are the best given a small set of other surrounding alternatives. Synergistic thinkers may end up in different local optima, even though they have the same kind of exposure and are working under the same set of underlying values.

Historically, one of the major impediments to synergistic thinking is the difficulty in communicating the harmony that is seen by one thinker to others. But with high-speed computers and advances in visualization techniques, hopefully synergistic thinking will get its rightful place in the scheme of things.