TSLC March 2010

[marct]

Hi TAB,

Thanks for the update on evolutionary science. I'll peek into your hyperlinks (no inadvertent euphemysm intended) to start the learning.

The Calvin article is probably the best I've ever come across in terms of abstracting crucial structures / ideas for evolutionary theory from biology to a wider application.

One thought kept hitting me at the conference, and that was the collective desire to discover the answer to their stated problem. I will not go into the philosophy of "Have they asked the right question?" Let's assume they have.

Hmmm, I do have problems with that assumption . Even if the have asked "the right question", it is only "right" at a particular point in space and time and, as things move away from that point, the validity of the question gets less and less. Same problem with the assumption that there is an answer (singular). Since we are actually dealing with a changing environment, even when we have a pretty good model of what the change trends are, both the question and answer need to be cast at a structural / processual level which, on the whole, tends to be selected against in the current bureaucratic environment.

I saw the focus of attention being either aimed at academia or aimed inwardly. Stated another way: our problem will be solved by smart, non-military personnel, by ourselves, or both. As a Marine, I vividly remember having to endure training evolutions where my mind and body were exhausted and tested. Physical tests had required goals; mental/leadership tests, on the other hand, had no stated goals. In fact, I'm pretty sure that those tests were designed to be un-winable.

Well, when I teach, I tend to try and teach people how to recast problems away from their assumptions; win/loose being one of those assumptions (zero-sum games rely on specific environmental characteristics which may not be applicable). For the past couple of months, I've been trying to apply that teaching model to look at how red teaming should be operating, and what sort of mental "shifts" would be necessary. It's been (and is) and interesting exercise .

I don't know how the Army's leadership and critical thinking training is any different than the Marine Corps', but it would seem to me that the Army would look at the playbook of the sister services to see if there's anything worth gleaning.

Probably. There's also some excellent work coming out of the Intelligence area as well on critical thinking skills, some of which I use in my courses. The one, truly neglected area I'm seeing is in the performance arts which, IMO, is a big error given our current opponents.

Cheers,

Marc