Chapter 101
WHAT IS MATRIX THINKING?
If we remain imprisoned in the linear thinking so congenial to bureaucrats, capitalists, commissars, and aspiring gauleiters, the 1980s will be a period of unemployment, alienation, and unprecedented social crises.
-- Barry Jones, 'Sleepers Wake!', 1981
Thinking about Thinking
The history of 'Thinking' is presumably in the realm of
Philosophy, an area in which I am by no means expert. So here I will just make
a generalist overview of some of the more important points.
The earliest thinking, going back to cave-man days, was presumably instinctive
("I hungry, I eat you"). With the development of civilization came
more structured approaches.
The Ancient Greeks are well known for using the powerful tool of logic
("If A, therefore B"). Possibly they did not invent logic, but they
certainly formalized it into a tool for looking at the world. As a corollary of
logic came the paradox, a contradiction in logic, and hence a tool for testing
the validity of logic.
In more modern times came the development of the 'scientific method'. This
method embraced logic, and added to it further techniques such as experiment
and observation, and the requirement for repeatability of results. A very
important new facet was that of prediction ("If A applies, therefore B
should happen -- we'll try it and see").
These methods have served us well. Nevertheless, they can all be classed as
examples of Linear Thinking. With linear thinking, there is a starting point
from which all the rest proceeds -- perhaps an assumption, an observation to be
explained, or even a goal. Even Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking, of which I
am a considerable admirer, is still linear thinking. It is linear thinking
which proceeds from an unexpected viewpoint.
Matrix Thinking is rather different. It tries to look at a situation from
multiple viewpoints, as a complex and not necessarily analyzable Matrix. Often
there will be no starting point, no clearly defined logic path 'through' the
Matrix.
How to Run a Company
Consider an example -- the operation of business companies.
There must be a hundred, a thousand, books written about how to run a company.
Some of these will be very good, very detailed, explaining how best to manage
staff, how to control cash flow and monitor productivity, and perhaps, on a
more philosophical level, how to encourage innovation within the company and
promote a good public image according to the ideals of the times.
And yet -- look again. As far as I know, not one of these books even hints at
the situation which Matrix Thinking would encourage, one which is close to the
real situation. That is, one in which there is a complex mix or
Matrix of companies of every sort.
Not only companies which are entrepreneurial, innovative, and progressive, with
good labour relations, but also ones which are arch-conservative and backward.
Ones which are founded on brilliant ideas but hopelessly managed, ones which
are willing to act as test cases in clarifying legislation (read: 'somewhat
crooked'), ones which are grossly undercapitalized, and so on through every
permutation found in the real world and few not yet tried.
Even, and this strikes right against our instincts, companies which are very
likely to fail, sure to fail, or even designed to fail . We never
want the company we are involved with to fail, even though this may be of great
benefit somewhere else in the Matrix.
The Matrix background to all this will be developed in this book. For the
moment, it is sufficient to repeat that linear thinking implies not only a
starting point but also a goal, a result, an optimum position. In Matrix
Thinking there may be no such defined points.
The Scientific Method
The Scientific Method as
practised in modern society is generally regarded as a supremely logical and
rational approach. Leaving aside all the intrusions of politics and emotions
which actually occur (and which will be considered in more detail later on) as
'distortions' of the True Way, it mostly is fairly logical. Fairly linear. But
in one respect it is not.
That exception lies in the field of scientific 'models'. These are not real
models, made of pieces of plastic or wood, but mind models, attempts to
represent aspects of the physical world as though they acted like things we are
familiar with in everyday life.
Examples are: talking about light as travelling in waves; thinking of a gas as
made up of huge numbers of tiny elastic spheres (atoms or molecules); and
representing atomic structures as consisting of interacting particles --
electrons, protons, neutrons, and so on.
The erection of a model is perhaps the most powerful of all the tools in the
scientific armoury. Once erected, a model may be subjected to continual
refinement, improvement, or replacement. Older readers of this book may be able
to recall when the atom was conventionally represented like planets in orbit
round the sun. They may also have noted the evolution of this model, through
electron shells, and into electron-density patterns (Figure 101.1).
Of course it should always be borne in mind that these models are only models,
they are not the 'real' thing. So it is quite permissible to have two different
models to represent different aspects of a single real entity. The wave model
and the particle model of light are common examples of this, models which are
quite contradictory to each other but which may both still be validly and usefully
applied in different circumstances.
Fig. 101.1 Older and newer representations of
the atom. A: One of John Dalton's original symbols; B: The planetary model; C:
The shell model; D: An electron-density map
The Fount of Creativity
The testing and refinement of
scientific models is subject to the same linear logic as the rest of science.
But the creation of these models is not; in almost every case, the
origin of a startling and powerful new scientific model is the product of an
'inspiration', almost a religious 'vision', which 'pops into someone's mind'.
Hence Archimedes leaping from his bath, shouting 'I have found it' to
passers-by in the street, and Newton being literally struck with the idea of
gravity, in the form of an apple falling on his head.
The creation of such models provides an example of Matrix Thinking in science.
There is nothing logical or linear about it, it is almost as if a mind
subconsciously squeezes and massages a bag of facts, and somehow, out of the
whole bag, an answer pops out.
In fact most of the activities we think of as 'creative' are Matrix-oriented.
This is an area of human thought about which very little is known or discussed.
In this book I hope to gradually bring out the concept that creativity is tied
up in some way with ability to 'tap the Matrix', rather than purely an
individually-owned talent.
The first task in this book will be formulating some structure and developing
some tools for the use of Matrix Thinking. Then we will be applying the
structure and the tools to an examination of human society, with the aim of
deriving new viewpoints. These may possibly lead to 'improvements' in human
society.
Whether a particular change suggested is an 'improvement' or not will be left
for the reader to judge. Throughout this book I have tried hard to avoid
pre-judging the issue, and saying what should be done in a
particular situation. Instead I have limited myself to pointing out what the
Matrix Thinking apparatus suggests will be the outcome of the application of
various conditions. That said, I will not hesitate to put up Propositions which
suggest that a certain course of action is desirable. What I will not say is
that any of these Propositions are unassailable.
From what has been said, it will be apparent that Matrix Thinking is not a
replacement of, or competitor with, the linear thinking which Barry Jones warns
us about. Nor is it a complementary or alternative approach. Instead, it is a generalization
which subsumes and includes the thinking with which we are most familiar.
It has been said that we learn best by doing. And so, without further ado, we
will leap straight into Matrix Thinking by creating a mind model, a model of
human society.
Next chapter: The Substance of Society -- Infocap
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