On Simulated Thinking
Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” made a deep impression on me when I read it ten years ago. The book explored the reasons why societies fail.
I thought of Collapse when I read Jordan Greenhall’s article. He talks about the concepts of “habit”, “exploratory thinking” and “simulated thinking”.
He says:
“Simulated thinking shows up as thinking, takes itself as thinking and, armed with a vast and often nuanced script of pre-defined signals and ‘appropriate’ responses, even resembles thinking. But it is not. It is habit, not learning. And, as a consequence, it is completely incapable of creatively responding to (changes in) actual reality.”
Jared Diamond wondered what the inhabitants of Easter Island were thinking when they chopped down the last tree to build another giant head to appease their Gods. The ecological disaster that followed was a direct result of simulated thinking.
We call it many things — group think, mob mentality, conformist thinking, cargo cults etc. But as we move towards a global, homogenised culture, the dangers of simulated thinking are manifest. I wonder if we are doomed to repeat Easter Island, but on a giant, global scale?
This article is worth a read, and a ponder.
