You’re so subjective
Thinking about thinking, not about polar bears
When I was seven or eight, I had a mind-boggling revelation that I could think about thinking. The moment was brief and infinite like standing between two huge facing mirrors. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was thinking about thinking. It’s a trap, like when I tell you “Don’t think about polar bears” you will visualize a polar bear.
Humans rely on our senses — sight in particular — to understand the world. We equate sight with truth and knowledge.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
I see what’s going on here.
Seeing is believing.
Yet, our culture has experienced enough to know that sight is not always truth.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It’s particularly tricky to not think about polar bears when you are looking at one. That concept — to look objectively at a familiar object — does not come naturally.
I went to art school where one of the first things they teach you is to draw what you see, not what you think you see. Acting on this requires flipping a switch in your brain. You must look at an object as if you’ve never seen it before, as if you have no associations, words or symbols for it. Ridding your mind of your concept of “polar bear” allows you to see the abstract: texture, color, space, motion.
Breaking out of subjective mindset — flipping that switch — takes intention. Art teachers employ techniques like copying an image upside down or divided into a grid. Those sound like gimmicks unless you consider the logic of why they work. They force you to see the details rather than the whole, disassociating the object from what your brain wants to name it.
Your brain is an associative machine
There are no facts, only interpretations. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Categorization is a survival tactic for a complex world. Humans evolved by pattern matching, learning to differentiate between plants we can eat and plants that make us sick, by noticing hidden tigers.
Our language demonstrates our brain’s classifying nature. We name objects and assign them symbols which allows for quick and thorough communication. You wouldn’t waste time describing the danger about to pounce on your (ancestral) neighbor. You’d just scream, “Tiger!”
A baby’s brain knows how to associate. I recall being surprised when my just-learning-to-speak infant daughter pointed to a cartoon cat then to our pet, Egon, and said “cats”. A line drawing is wildly different from an in-real-life cat. Even babies understand symbols.
Toddlers are constantly absorbing and categorizing their worlds. They ask “What’s that called?” a hundred times a day. It’s particularly cute when they form an association on their own, unprompted. Pixar’s Monster’s Inc gets a laugh when Boo, a toddling girl, meets Sulley, a huge furry monster, and calls him “kitty”. My daughter used to refer to our iPad and iPhone as “big phone” and “tiny phone” which are totally reasonable classifications yet completely adorable (to me, anyway).
We show picture books to babies rather than tell lengthy stories. Their brains understand pictures long before they learn the words. Adults are no different—the brain processes visual information faster than words. Language is our own construct and requires an extra step of comprehension.
Good stories paint a picture in the mind. For that to work, the listener/reader needs a frame of reference, a mental cache of images that match the words in the story. To describe a panther to my toddler daughter I might say, “like if Egon was as big as our coffee table”. She would understand, but that sentence means nothing to someone unfamiliar with Egon (our cat) or our coffee table. Incidentally, you now know that my coffee table is about the size of a panther.
People credit children with having unbridled creativity but maybe kids are just desperate to make some sense of their world. Kids acquire new capacity for classification as they learn to communicate — whatever their native language — further shaping their perception of the world. They grow, their brains develop and ultimately they become boring grown-ups. Sadly, “big phone” becomes “iPad”.
Remember Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince? A boy shows his drawing of a boa constrictor eating an elephant (from the outside) to some grown-ups who say it looks like a hat. The boy gets frustrated and draws it again, this time from the inside.
People love this metaphor — children are so free of adult constraints! Really, we’re all just associative thinkers. The boy was thinking about boa constrictors. The adult’s brain saw a familiar shape and interpreted “hat”. Regardless, both child and adult see it as something representative. Neither sees it for what it is — some crayon on paper.
Thinking about thinking
Thinking about thinking — both your own views and those of other people — is beneficial if not absolutely necessary for strategists, designers, researchers, journalists, policy makers, diplomats, and I’m sure countless others.
You may be smart, but you’re still human. There are limitations to what your brain can do. Thinking about your own thinking and judging your own judgements may lead to:
Increased empathy
Empathy is important in matters involving other people. It’s also really hot right now.
Humility
People don’t like to admit that they may be wrong so they cling to bad ideas rather than explore further. Get over it.
New thinking
All manners of opportunities and possibilities present themselves when you approach thinking with intention.
Deeper understanding
Thinking about thinking raises your awareness that biases and patterns exist, even if you don’t know exactly what they are. Sometimes insight comes from the knowledge that we don’t, can’t possibly, understand everything about the world.
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. ~Donald Rumsfeld
Yeah, I just quoted that guy. But it’s relevant.
Some time ago I read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. It was way over my head (that is, beyond my associative capabilities), but one metaphor stuck with me: the surface of the river. As captain of the boat, Marlow surveys the surface of the Congo river for tell-tale ripples, imperceptible to untrained eyes, that mean danger below. Like darkness, the surface of the river obscures. But it also indicates if you know what to look for. To an untrained eye, submerged dangers are an unknown unknown. Even if Marlow doesn’t know what’s down there, he knows there is something because he’s attuned to the ripples. To Marlow, there is a known unknown.
…like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma…
Tricking your brain
Your own subjectivity is not usually on your mind. It’s a paradox—knowing you’re subjective makes you objective.
Be intentional
To change what you see, change what you’re thinking about. This is an old and often repurposed idea (I think deservedly so). We see what we’re looking for, even subconsciously. You can change what you see when you’re intentional with your thought.
Visualize your intention
Vision trumps all other senses. Draw or print that boa constrictor elephant hat drawing and stick it somewhere prominent—your computer monitor, mirror, wherever. Seeing an image that means “remember that you are subjective” is better than reading those words. Redraw or otherwise change the picture every few weeks lest you stop noticing it.
Involve others
Other people are subjective too, but not the same way you are. Different people come to different conclusions.
Finally, embrace your associative nature
This post is a reminder—not a rejection—of your subjectivity. The brain’s ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated concepts is singularly human. It may even be what safeguards your job from being outsourced to a machine.
You see but you do not observe. ~Sherlock to Watson
Please share your stories with me
This is your brain on polar bears
You may notice some polar bears in the next few days just because you read this. If you do, please consider revisiting to click the heart or share this post with others.
Your toddler, the associative machine
Please feel free to share any adorable associations from the tiny humans in your life.
One last thought about intentional seeing…
I can spot a four-leaf clover almost on demand. Most people don’t notice clover. It’s a weed. To me, it’s a fun little game, a matter of looking with intention, scanning the leaves until I see the subtle pattern shift. I collect them in books and forget until months or years later. (The Little Prince is a favorite clover collection spot.)
Thanks to my coach, David Burney, for encouraging me to explore and write these ideas. Thanks to Joe Schram for reminding me that hidden predators are everywhere. Thanks to Evan Lightner for being my objective editor and bull$hit meter.
Hi, I’m Kate Thompson. I help organizations see, show and say the right things.
