Replying to LO28747 --
Dileep suggested that...
> GL seems to [say] that all (or most) of our concepts are made up of metaphors
> based upon some basic experiential concepts such as dark/light, near/far
> etc. which we sense directly through our sensory apparatus. Everything
> else is built on top of this.
Dileep's comments stimulate my memories of working with W.J.J. Gordon and
Tony Poze, the creators of "synectics" and founders of SES Associates in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their work with me gave me unusual, powerful
insights at the time into teaching "creativity" in an explicit manner,
stimulating learning among my students in a way I had never experienced,
teaching "creatively."
Bill Gordon said to me over and over again that all ideas contain a
paradox. That's quite a thought to begin with. Although his work focused
on problem-solving, I experienced considerable success in the high school
classroom 25 years ago. Here's a section of "The Basic Course in
Synectics" Gordon and Poze, 1981, Porpoise Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts
pp. 54-57 [no longer in print--the copy I have was printed for a
creativity course I co-led with Bill and Tony at IBM some twenty years
ago]:
"...The problem-solving process could be diagrammed as an Analogy Equation
with all the steps present for generating a new idea. Throughout the rest
of this course you will be working with Analogy Equations that are part of
the SES Problem-Solving Worksheet.
[I will try to replicate this worksheet/diagram below, but am not sure how
its format will translate to our LO website. Please imagine two sets of two
boxes, where one box sits atop the second, and each of these box pairs is
separated by an equal sign (=); each box is labeled with one of four
steps.-B]
Step 1- Paradox Step 2- Analogue
=
Step 4- Equivalent Step 3- Unique Activity
[The process will take the user around the boxes clockwise, beginning at
the upper left with Step 1.-B]
"Each Box on the Worksheet is for one of the four parts of an Analogue
Equation. The equal sign is to remind you that the sides of the equation
must be balanced. You work through the SES synectics process by filling in
each Box step--starting with the Paradox and ending with the Equivalent.
"The layout of the boxes is exactly the same as the form of the Analogy
Equation; however, the terminology deserves some explanation. Let's
examine each of the Boxes and see how they are refinements of the steps in
the creative problem-solving process that were presented in the narrative
of the early history of SES research.
"At the first meeting on the wound-healing process, the doctors presented
a huge amount of information about the healing process, but they had no
single, central focus for their problem. What was worse, they had no
skills by which to identify the heart of their problem. The skill they
needed and finally used was Paradox identification....Paradox lies at the
core of a problem. In fact, a conflict that requires resolution is the
very thing that makes a problem a problem.
"In the healing example, the single most vexing part was the fact that
bandages that were supposed to aid the healing process were 'wounding' and
slowing it down. In the case of the prehistoric fisherman, the Paradox was
being surrounded by an abundance of fish while his village starved. In the
potato chip problem, when the chips were packaged in the traditional way
and shipped long distance, they became too crushed to be acceptable [Bill
helped invent what became in the U.S. the Pringle potato snack.-B].
"The first step in the SES synectics process is to identify the inherent
paradox within a problem. This step is mostly tough-minded examination of
specifications with only an implied metaphorical component. After that
begins the metaphorical process for developing a new context by which to
view the problem. It is this new context that yields the creative, new
viewpoint and the SES synectics process constitutes the step-by-step
procedure for accomplishing this. The first new-context step is to
generate an Analogue, a thing or situation that parallels the Paradox. In
SES synectics, this is brought about at a purposeful, explicit level.
"Before SES research identified certain explicit skills, Analogues were
uncovered by accident. The fisherman happened to notice the spider's web.
Since the doctors were employing SES synectics, they finally arrived in a
purposeful way at their Analogue of the cut electric cord. The potato chip
Analogue, the leaves [of a tree], also was arrived at explicitly since SES
synectics skills were used.
"If you review each of the historical examples, you will notice that only
a central aspect of the Analogue actually was used. That essential
function of the Analogue is called its Unique Activity. In the doctors'
Analogue of fixing an electric cord, the Unique Activity was to close the
circuit by twisting the wires back together to reestablish the flow of
electricity. In like manner, the unique function of the spider web was its
invisibility to flies which enabled the spider to catch a great number of
flies, all at once. And in the potato chip example, the unique function
was how the wet leaves packed closely together by conforming to each
other's shape.
"In the Equivalent step, the problem is considered in terms of the
Analogue's Unique Activity. The doctors considered healing a wound in
terms of closing an electrical circuit. The result was the idea of getting
the physiological circuit flowing again. The fisherman considered catching
fish the way a spider web works. When flies are caught in a web that they
couldn't see, the fisherman thought of fish being caught in a web they
couldn't see. As was pointed out in the historical section, this parallel
relationship establishes an Analogy Equation which describes the SES
synectics process as a whole. This kind of equation is like an equation in
algebra, because both sides of an Analogy Equation must be equal in the
same way that both sides of an algebraic equation must be equal. If they
are not equal, it isn't an equation. Therefore, in an Analogy Equation the
Paradox must describe the Analogue and the Equivalent must parallel the
Unique Activity of the Analogue. In the potato chip example, potato chips
that would conform and stack so as to take up less space when packaged
(the Equivalent) paralleled the way wet leaves conform to take up less
space (the Unique Activity of the Analogue).
"The four steps of the Analogy Equation--Paradox, Analogue, Unique
Activity, and Equivalent--form the heart of the the SES Problem-Solving
Worksheet....It constitutes the sequence for moving from one step to the
next as you attack a problem."
I hope this description has stimulated your interest while supporting
Dileep's comments about metaphors. My use of Bill's thinking in my
literature classrooms stemmed from part of the equation.
Warm regards,
Barry
-- Barry Mallis The Organizational Trainer 110 Arch St., #27 Keene, NH 03431-2167 USA voice: 603 352-5289 FAX: 603 357-2157 cell: 603 313-3636 email: theorgtrainer@earthlink.netLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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