Abstract:
In an ever changing world we are asking young people to think out of the box to be able to think about problems from a different perspective. We call this critical thinking - how to disseminate information and re-evaluate it into a new form. However from a psychological point of view people are stuck with what it termed - fixation - that once you have accepted something as the truth, as a fact - it cannot be changed. This article challenges that thinking in a philosophical argument to help people who are fixated - to think outside the box, with the theory of 5!
Introduction:
In history there are many examples of men, scientists that have discovered new truths and challenged conventional thinking about the world often against bitter opposition from insiders and the Church. However over time the new truths become self evident and a change takes place - we call this a paradigm.
In 1500's the Church believed the Earth to be the centre of the Universe and that all the planets known including the Sun circled the Earth as created by God. However in 1543 Copernicus published a book challenging this view and clearly making the Earth rotate around the Sun and so challenging Church and Bible doctrine. (Heliocentric model) Copernicus died before the book was published and so missed the wrath of the Church and its inquisition. However that was left to another great figure, Galileo.
Galileo went on the champion Copernicus and add his own contributions to science and is in fact often referred to as the father of modern astronomy and physics. Unlike Copernicus, Galileo published in his lifetime and suffered heavily at the hands of the Church for his contradictions of Biblical script. The Church and all the followers there-of believed in the idea of the Earth as the centre of a God made universe and that what both Galileo and Copernicus advocated was heresy and therefore against God. Galileo in the end was forced to save his life by recanting his beliefs and science. When the masses believe something as a fact, even when wrong, the masses will win over the voice in the wilderness. Today of course we know of Galileo as responsible for the birth of modern science.
What both if these men did was, think, about the World and its beliefs and through careful observation challenged the fixed thinking of the masses. They thought - outside the box. However as usual the masses were not accepting of this new thinking and persecuted the messenger of new ideas which were a confrontation to the existing status quo.
Later in the 1900's Sigmund Freud saw the human mind as something more than its biology and published the Interpretation of Dreams, in which he challenged the medical model of mental illness with a more humane approach that gave rise to the, "talking cure" in which Freud helped troubled patients with insight therapy. However as Galileo before him the establishment of the medical profession refused to accept his new hypothesis and so condemned him to being outside the profession.
So today in this new era are we any more open to new ideas than our predecessors in order to find this out we would need a new concept - one that challenged our present fixed thinking about the World and its order. Suppose I told you that in fact the centre of the Sun is hollow and cold? Also with especially protected spacecraft we could penetrate the Sun's surface and enter a new world. That we could in fact live in the centre of the Sun where there is ample water and food. Most people's first reaction to this shift in paradigm would be aghast. How could someone believe something so stupid, so improbable, and so bizarre? This is the same reaction Copernicus, Galileo and Freud all must have felt. People with a fixed notion of the way things are - can never accept a change to their fixation of the World.
The Theory of 5
So how can we as modern thinkers show the youth of today how to be critical thinkers, to think outside the box, to be open to new ideas no matter how improbable. Being open is not equivalent to being stupid and accepting every idea as probable. It means being open to the idea that even though at first something may seem to fly in the face of our acquired knowledge it does not mean we should just dismiss it but allow our minds to weigh the information and ideas constructively in the light of our existing knowledge but be prepared to be confounded and changed. That is the essence of a paradigm shift.
In order to challenge your thinking we need to look at something improbable but possible. When asked about colour we can easily talk about the natural colours of our experience, yellow, red, blue, are colours we readily accept as being agreed upon. However shade and hues define different types of colour that from one person to another may not be agreed upon. What one person sees as a shade of blue another person sees as a shade of purple. There are two reasons for this, one the human eye is unique in each person and will perceive colours slightly differently from each other. The other reason is learning, we only know what a colour is because our parents introduced the colour to us in our early childhood. When playing with colour bricks our parents said, this one is blue, this one is red, the one is round, and this one is square. From this early learning our parents pass on to us the idea of colour and shape. However this is very much a cultural passing on of believed learning. In some cultures (New Guinea) they have no name for the colour black - it simply is.
In the Theory of 5 we will see a simple example of challenged thinking. We will see how an accepted concept can be challenged.
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4
1 + 2 +1 = 4
1 + 3 = 4
2 + 2 = 5
When asking University students to look at the above equations at first they sit quite silent wondering about that last answer. Has the lecturer got it wrong or is there some trick here that they cannot see? Finally one will stick their hand up and say, Professor that last one should be 4.
At this point the Professor simply says, actually it is right, 2 + 2 does in fact equal 5. Would anyone like to tell me why this is true and possible?
We have been led to believe though learning that the answer should always be 4 and that it is impossible for the answer to be anything else but 4. In this challenge students are asked to come up with hypothesis that suggest the final answer is in fact the correct one and that the original answer of 4 is in fact a mistake. Most students find this incredibly difficult to answer. Yet the answer is quite simple. If 2 + 2 = 5 then all our mathematical knowledge to date is also incorrect and therefore a new paradigm must exist to explain this anomaly in our thinking. Of course the task of throwing out a lifetime of belief on the word of one man is incredible to imagine. How can this new thinking be accepted, who will figure out that 2 + 2 = 5 and make it a new truth?
Just as Copernicus flew in the face of existing belief it took Galileo's efforts to show the new paradigm to be a fact that today we accept without thinking. This means that if a great enough mind could apply itself to the idea of the theory of 5 and find it a fact this would change the masses to accept the new idea. However the theory of 5 is not for proving - it is for example of just how rigid our thinking can be.
New Challenges
Teachers complain bitterly that students often cannot think critically and in fact follow existing ideas and thought to readily. If it is in a book - it must be so - that once written it becomes sacred and unmovable. When I was a psychology student I read many text books, often covering the same knowledge, yet each author put their own interpretation onto the material - so that in the end you could look at the same knowledge and see many different ways of using and thinking about the content. The lesson I learned from this was - read, understand - and then rethink about it for yourself. Critical thinking is not accepting something at face value but in fact taking it apart then adding to your findings your own perspective - that is no more right or wrong than the text book or the views of the teacher. Just because an authority says something is true and beyond dispute it is the time to relook at the statement and find out where you can pull it apart. By thinking about the theory of 5, you can challenge yourself to not accept that the current paradigm in any scenario is the correct one even though all my learning and instincts tell me to believe.
Conclusion:
Once the masses thought the Earth was flat, that if you sailed too far you would simply fall off the edge into oblivion. Today we know the Earth is round and that gravity holds us to the surface. Yet a flat earth society exists even today challenging that thinking. After all how do you personally know the earth is round? You saw it on TV, in documentaries, you saw pictures in books, and you can see the Moon is round. In fact most people just accept this as a universal truth without any personal evidence at all. We accept what we are told as fact - and as it is the common belief it must be true. Then you have to accept the theory of 5 as possible in order to remind yourself that things change, paradigms shift and that the knowledge we are so certain of today is the not the truth of tomorrow.
Note: The Theory of 5 was developed by Professor Stephen F. Myler to assist students in challenging paradigms and to help in the process of critical thinking. It is copy-write to Dr. Myler as original thinking.
Dr. Stephen Myler is from Leicester in England, an industrial town in the Midlands of the United Kingdom. He holds a B.Sc (Honours) in Psychology from the UK’s Open University the largest in the UK; he also has an M.Sc and Ph.D in Psychology from Knightsbridge University in Denmark. In addition to this Stephen holds many diplomas and awards in a variety of academic areas including journalism, finance, teaching and advanced therapy for mental health. Stephen has as a Professor of Psychology many years teaching experience in colleges and universities in England and China to post 16 young adults, instructing in psychology, sociology, English, marketing and business. He has been fortunate to travel extensively from Australia to Africa to the United Sates, South America, Borneo, most of Europe and Russia. StephenÂ’s favourite hobby is the study of primates and likes to play badminton. He believes that students who enjoy classes with humour and enthusiasm from the teacher always come back eager to learn more.
In an ever changing world we are asking young people to think out of the box to be able to think about problems from a different perspective. We call this critical thinking - how to disseminate information and re-evaluate it into a new form. However from a psychological point of view people are stuck with what it termed - fixation - that once you have accepted something as the truth, as a fact - it cannot be changed. This article challenges that thinking in a philosophical argument to help people who are fixated - to think outside the box, with the theory of 5!
Introduction:
In history there are many examples of men, scientists that have discovered new truths and challenged conventional thinking about the world often against bitter opposition from insiders and the Church. However over time the new truths become self evident and a change takes place - we call this a paradigm.
In 1500's the Church believed the Earth to be the centre of the Universe and that all the planets known including the Sun circled the Earth as created by God. However in 1543 Copernicus published a book challenging this view and clearly making the Earth rotate around the Sun and so challenging Church and Bible doctrine. (Heliocentric model) Copernicus died before the book was published and so missed the wrath of the Church and its inquisition. However that was left to another great figure, Galileo.
Galileo went on the champion Copernicus and add his own contributions to science and is in fact often referred to as the father of modern astronomy and physics. Unlike Copernicus, Galileo published in his lifetime and suffered heavily at the hands of the Church for his contradictions of Biblical script. The Church and all the followers there-of believed in the idea of the Earth as the centre of a God made universe and that what both Galileo and Copernicus advocated was heresy and therefore against God. Galileo in the end was forced to save his life by recanting his beliefs and science. When the masses believe something as a fact, even when wrong, the masses will win over the voice in the wilderness. Today of course we know of Galileo as responsible for the birth of modern science.
What both if these men did was, think, about the World and its beliefs and through careful observation challenged the fixed thinking of the masses. They thought - outside the box. However as usual the masses were not accepting of this new thinking and persecuted the messenger of new ideas which were a confrontation to the existing status quo.
Later in the 1900's Sigmund Freud saw the human mind as something more than its biology and published the Interpretation of Dreams, in which he challenged the medical model of mental illness with a more humane approach that gave rise to the, "talking cure" in which Freud helped troubled patients with insight therapy. However as Galileo before him the establishment of the medical profession refused to accept his new hypothesis and so condemned him to being outside the profession.
So today in this new era are we any more open to new ideas than our predecessors in order to find this out we would need a new concept - one that challenged our present fixed thinking about the World and its order. Suppose I told you that in fact the centre of the Sun is hollow and cold? Also with especially protected spacecraft we could penetrate the Sun's surface and enter a new world. That we could in fact live in the centre of the Sun where there is ample water and food. Most people's first reaction to this shift in paradigm would be aghast. How could someone believe something so stupid, so improbable, and so bizarre? This is the same reaction Copernicus, Galileo and Freud all must have felt. People with a fixed notion of the way things are - can never accept a change to their fixation of the World.
The Theory of 5
So how can we as modern thinkers show the youth of today how to be critical thinkers, to think outside the box, to be open to new ideas no matter how improbable. Being open is not equivalent to being stupid and accepting every idea as probable. It means being open to the idea that even though at first something may seem to fly in the face of our acquired knowledge it does not mean we should just dismiss it but allow our minds to weigh the information and ideas constructively in the light of our existing knowledge but be prepared to be confounded and changed. That is the essence of a paradigm shift.
In order to challenge your thinking we need to look at something improbable but possible. When asked about colour we can easily talk about the natural colours of our experience, yellow, red, blue, are colours we readily accept as being agreed upon. However shade and hues define different types of colour that from one person to another may not be agreed upon. What one person sees as a shade of blue another person sees as a shade of purple. There are two reasons for this, one the human eye is unique in each person and will perceive colours slightly differently from each other. The other reason is learning, we only know what a colour is because our parents introduced the colour to us in our early childhood. When playing with colour bricks our parents said, this one is blue, this one is red, the one is round, and this one is square. From this early learning our parents pass on to us the idea of colour and shape. However this is very much a cultural passing on of believed learning. In some cultures (New Guinea) they have no name for the colour black - it simply is.
In the Theory of 5 we will see a simple example of challenged thinking. We will see how an accepted concept can be challenged.
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4
1 + 2 +1 = 4
1 + 3 = 4
2 + 2 = 5
When asking University students to look at the above equations at first they sit quite silent wondering about that last answer. Has the lecturer got it wrong or is there some trick here that they cannot see? Finally one will stick their hand up and say, Professor that last one should be 4.
At this point the Professor simply says, actually it is right, 2 + 2 does in fact equal 5. Would anyone like to tell me why this is true and possible?
We have been led to believe though learning that the answer should always be 4 and that it is impossible for the answer to be anything else but 4. In this challenge students are asked to come up with hypothesis that suggest the final answer is in fact the correct one and that the original answer of 4 is in fact a mistake. Most students find this incredibly difficult to answer. Yet the answer is quite simple. If 2 + 2 = 5 then all our mathematical knowledge to date is also incorrect and therefore a new paradigm must exist to explain this anomaly in our thinking. Of course the task of throwing out a lifetime of belief on the word of one man is incredible to imagine. How can this new thinking be accepted, who will figure out that 2 + 2 = 5 and make it a new truth?
Just as Copernicus flew in the face of existing belief it took Galileo's efforts to show the new paradigm to be a fact that today we accept without thinking. This means that if a great enough mind could apply itself to the idea of the theory of 5 and find it a fact this would change the masses to accept the new idea. However the theory of 5 is not for proving - it is for example of just how rigid our thinking can be.
New Challenges
Teachers complain bitterly that students often cannot think critically and in fact follow existing ideas and thought to readily. If it is in a book - it must be so - that once written it becomes sacred and unmovable. When I was a psychology student I read many text books, often covering the same knowledge, yet each author put their own interpretation onto the material - so that in the end you could look at the same knowledge and see many different ways of using and thinking about the content. The lesson I learned from this was - read, understand - and then rethink about it for yourself. Critical thinking is not accepting something at face value but in fact taking it apart then adding to your findings your own perspective - that is no more right or wrong than the text book or the views of the teacher. Just because an authority says something is true and beyond dispute it is the time to relook at the statement and find out where you can pull it apart. By thinking about the theory of 5, you can challenge yourself to not accept that the current paradigm in any scenario is the correct one even though all my learning and instincts tell me to believe.
Conclusion:
Once the masses thought the Earth was flat, that if you sailed too far you would simply fall off the edge into oblivion. Today we know the Earth is round and that gravity holds us to the surface. Yet a flat earth society exists even today challenging that thinking. After all how do you personally know the earth is round? You saw it on TV, in documentaries, you saw pictures in books, and you can see the Moon is round. In fact most people just accept this as a universal truth without any personal evidence at all. We accept what we are told as fact - and as it is the common belief it must be true. Then you have to accept the theory of 5 as possible in order to remind yourself that things change, paradigms shift and that the knowledge we are so certain of today is the not the truth of tomorrow.
Note: The Theory of 5 was developed by Professor Stephen F. Myler to assist students in challenging paradigms and to help in the process of critical thinking. It is copy-write to Dr. Myler as original thinking.
Dr. Stephen Myler is from Leicester in England, an industrial town in the Midlands of the United Kingdom. He holds a B.Sc (Honours) in Psychology from the UK’s Open University the largest in the UK; he also has an M.Sc and Ph.D in Psychology from Knightsbridge University in Denmark. In addition to this Stephen holds many diplomas and awards in a variety of academic areas including journalism, finance, teaching and advanced therapy for mental health. Stephen has as a Professor of Psychology many years teaching experience in colleges and universities in England and China to post 16 young adults, instructing in psychology, sociology, English, marketing and business. He has been fortunate to travel extensively from Australia to Africa to the United Sates, South America, Borneo, most of Europe and Russia. StephenÂ’s favourite hobby is the study of primates and likes to play badminton. He believes that students who enjoy classes with humour and enthusiasm from the teacher always come back eager to learn more.
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