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"What's for lunch?" asked Sneg, who was starting to feel hungry.

"Think!" announced Grunt, and pulled out The Deck. He shuffled, then dealt two pink Open cards to herself, Ogon, and Sneg, setting aside green Grow and brown Close cards. Then he glanced at his cards and tossed one onto the table: "Two New Ideas!" it said, with a picture of the sun rising over a meadow of flowers. Grunt nodded to Ogon. "Go!"

"Hmmmmm", said Ogon. "Sneg asked, 'What's for lunch?' How about cookies with milk? Or ham sandwiches?"

Grunt wrinkled his brow, then nodded and handed Ogon a green card. "Sneg?"

Sneg shook her head. "We don't have any bread," she said.

"Bzzzzz!" interrupted Ogon. "That was an objection, not an Idea. Try again. 'Two New Ideas' is still the Card." Grunt inclined his head in agreement.

"Oops!" Sneg blushed. "I forgot. All right. How about chicken soup? Or maybe we could split a pizza?"

Grunt accepted that and dealt Sneg a green card.

"My turn!" Ogon said, and played another pink card: Question the Question! it said, with an image of dark clouds parting and a flock of birds climbing into the blue sky. "The Question was, 'What's for lunch?' Your turn, Grunt."

Grunt pondered for a minute. Sneg fidgeted, held her breath, rearranged her cards, twisted her hair around a finger, sighed, and finally couldn't wait any longer. "Well?" she asked. "What's the problem with my question?"

Grunt thought some more, as Sneg sighed. Finally he said, "Same?" and paused, then added, "One?"

Ogon agreed. "Good point. We don't all need to have the same lunch, limited to just one thing for us all to eat. Agreed. But Sneg, do you want to Question that Question?"

Sneg grinned. "Thought you'd never ask!" she replied, almost before Ogon stopped talking. "What are the costs of us all having different lunches?"

Grunt slowly nodded. Then he began to write, and in a moment had summarized the discussion:

Grunt then pointed to that last question. "Objection!" he said.

Ogon tipped his head left, then right. "Oh!" she said. "You mean that Sneg's so-called question, about the costs of different lunches, is really an objection in disguise? It's actually implying that having different lunches would cost too much. Sneg, is that right?"

Sneg laughed. "OK, you caught me — I really was thinking that. So I'll say "pass" — and now it's finally my turn!" She snatched the pencil from Grunt's fist and drew a line through her last move. "And, I'm starving! But fortunately I've got this card," she smiled, and played Closing Time!, a green-backed card with a picture of a key in a lock and the additional words, "One Final Objection".

Grunt eyed the list of options. "Vegetarian!" he announced. Ogon and Sneg nodded and struck out the ideas "Ham sandwiches" and "Chicken soup". Then it was Ogon's turn.

"We can't afford to buy a pizza, and it would take too long to make one," she said. The others agreed, and struck that choice out.

"Cookies and milk it is — hooray!"

hmmmm - maybe Sneg, Ogon, and Grunt should be the three archetypes of Skepticism, Objectivity, and Rigor? - or Divergent, Convergent, something-or-other? - or Agility, Insight, Creativity? - or ...???

– zimm 2017-04-24 11:51 UTC

think about physical instantiation of The Great Game? - maybe using rocks, or twigs, or coins, or bits of cobweb?

– zimm 2017-04-25 12:14 UTC

Most people make thinking-mistakes most of the time. If you learn to think better, you can help them — gently! — do better. Then the world will be better — yay!

Some kinds of thinking problems are:

• logic errors — reasoning badly, not following implications correctly
• math errors — making mistakes with numbers, with counting and with calculating
• likelihood errors — being too certain (or too uncertain!) about the chance that something is true or will happen
• updating errors — clinging too much to earlier information and ignoring news, or (in the other direction) forgetting older knowledge too quickly and believing too much in the latest data
• imagination errors — not considering all the possibilities, and overlooking something potentially important

... and there lots more!

– z 2017-06-03 00:38 UTC

some candidate dichotomies to work on - dialectics to explore and organize:

• knob, not switch
• refute, don't confirm
• be open, not decisive
• trust doubt, not certainty
• hope, don't despair
• think meta, not single level
• optimize and diversify, don't get locked into a single bet
• empathize, don't blame
• thank, don't apologize
• celebrate the right, don't critique the wrong
• listen, don't lecture
• be elite, not arrogant
• ask, don't assume
• think in webs (networks), not chains (linearly)
• Model, don't Predict
• Factors, not Forecasts
• Creativity, Insight, Agility
• Objectivity, Skepticism, Rigor
• examine mistakes, not just successes
• look for false positives
• "It's More Complicated that it seems!"
• Evidence, not Anecdote
• think specificity & sensitivity
• Diagnosticity

... meaning be self-critical,

– z 2017-06-09 00:01 UTC

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

"When the explorer is ready, the guide will appear."

"When X is ready, Y will appear."

– z 2017-06-09 00:05 UTC

key concepts in David Moore's Sensemaking:

• metacognitive awareness is good
• some phenomena are nonlinear in their relation to a key driver (phase transitions, catastrophes, ...)
• some phenomena depend on multiple drivers in complex ways (not factorable into separate dimensions)

– z 2017-06-13 10:32 UTC</div>