How to get into Second Life without really trying

Selby Evans is Thinkerer Melville in Second Life

We do traditional thinking mostly by talking to ourselves.  Even if we are good at talking, great at reasoning, and masters of formal logic, most of the real world is too complicated to be handled just by talking.  If you doubt that, that maybe you are one of the few people who can actually read an instruction manual.

That’s why we need the rest of our brains whenever we do something.  We can use the rest of our brains for thinking, too.  If we get past the assumption that talking to ourselves is the only way to think.

To live is not enough for them.
They have to talk about it.

We don’t even talk to ourselves efficiently.  We don’t write things down.  We forget what we've already thought of.  Then we find ourselves going over old ground, wondering how we got back there.  Thinking without a compass.  Wandering without a map.

We don’t have effective ways to talk to ourselves about emotions and motivations.  So emotions and motivations sneak in from another part of the brain and get in the way.  We don’t do what we planned to do and wonder why.  Or we explain it as a “lack of will power.” 

Explanations don’t fix things. 
They help you feel better about not fixing things.

We do things that we never intended to do.  Then we say “Something got into me.”  Back in the days when there were demons, that theory probably worked.  In this age, nobody will buy that line.  That something was a module in your brain.  Your language channel wants to disown it.  But if your language channel doesn't know that module, your language channel can’t deal with that part of your brain.

     Speak when you're angry
and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

Brain modules

Be glad you don't think that way.

We accept unspoken assumptions.  When they are unspoken, we can’t talk about them.  So we can’t check to see if they are still right.  Then somebody notices an assumption that doesn't count any more.  And we think the person is creative.

Ignorance ain’t so much not knowing things
as it is knowing so many things that ain’t so.

We choose our words without thinking about the implications of the choice.  Or we let other people choose our words for us.  So we wind up with value terms like failure, lazy, and timid, when we could have had terms like trial, thoughtful, and cautious.

Words are not the same as action.  Imagine that you could throw an instruction manual at a job and get the job done.  It is one thing to talk about what you want done and quite another to produce a workable plan to do it.  

What part of thinking gets the job done?

Thinking strengths
Ambiguity, Can Tolerate
Creative
Imagery, Good
Imaginative
Logical
Mechanical
Organized
Planner, Good
Problem-Solver