The basic software of human thinking is backward looking. We analyse the situation and seek to identify standard elements. Such elements arise from our previous experience. Then we provide the standard answer to the standard element.
A child with a rash is brought into the surgery. The doctor has to make a diagnosis. From the signs, symptoms, history and tests, the doctor judges the condition to be measles. Once this standard illness is diagnosed then the probable cause of the illness is known, the possible complications are known and the standard treatment can be given. That is the basis for one hundred per cent of our education and ninety per cent of our thinking behaviour.
The software of human thinking is based on information, analysis and judgement. This is excellent just as the front left wheel of a motorcar is excellent – but it is not enough.
“New Thinking” includes the thinking that concerns the future.
New thinking includes:
You can seek the truth about the past but you cannot have truth about the future. At best you can have “possible value”. For the future, analysis is not enough – there is a need for design.
Yet our whole culture of thinking is about analysis, truth, logic and argument. These are all about the past. New thinking is about the future.
The quality of our future will depend directly on the quality of our thinking.
In conflicts we seek to judge the way forward: the good guys and the bad guys; injustices; fairness; breaching principles etc. There is a need to design the way forward taking into account the fears and needs of all parties.
Information comes in over time. Yet we have to make the best use of the information that we have. In such a system there is a mathematical need for creativity. There is a need to go back and put things together differently. This is not a matter of choice. Otherwise we get trapped in concepts and perceptions that are inadequate.
Research at Harvard shows that something like ninety per cent of the errors of thinking are errors of perception. Errors of logic are rare. If perception is limited or inadequate the outcome will be rubbish no matter how excellent the logic.
Goedel’s theorem points out that from within a system it is impossible to logically justify the starting points. Such starting points are arbitrary perceptions and assumed values. There is a need to be able to change perceptions.
The behaviour of self-organising information systems like the human brain demands new ideas and new possibilities. Otherwise we are locked into old patterns. We are also locked into selective perception which forces us to see things only through the old patterns.
Two thousand years ago China was far ahead of the rest of the world in science and technology. This rapid progress came to an end when scholars started to believe that you could move from “certainty” to “certainty”. As a result they never understood the importance of “possibility” and “hypothesis”. Progress came to a dead end. Today we are in a similar situation with the belief that analysis of information is enough.
Representative bodies like democracies and the United Nations cannot put forward new ideas. By definition “new ideas” are not representative of existing thinking. They are therefore high risk. Such organizations may be perfectly capable of having new ideas but cannot risk putting them forward.
There is therefore no existing body on the international level with the specific function of putting forward the new ideas that are so badly needed.
The specific function of the new World Centre is to focus directly on new ideas and new possibilities.
Once an idea is thought it cannot be unthought. The idea may be rejected or ignored. The idea may be adopted or modified. The idea may lead to other different areas. The idea may influence current thinking.
New thinking is an essential ingredient of “designing the way forward”. The World Centre provides the new thinking that is not available from other sources which provide analysis, judgement and argument.
The Centre was set up in the small and neutral island of Malta in the Mediterranean. The oldest man made structure in the world is a prehistoric Stone Age temple in Malta. So from the island with, possibly, the oldest complex civilization in the world comes the newest contribution to civilization.
There is place for not more than fifty founding members. These members may be governments, corporations, NGOs, other organizations or even individuals.
Applications for membership must demonstrate a serious commitment to the importance of new thinking and new ideas. To be admitted members are expected to make a contribution or endowment of one million dollars to the fund of the World Centre for New Thinking Foundation, the philanthropic driving force of the Centre. This is only a small fraction of the cost of a single fighter plane. Such sums are to be applied towards the objectives, needs and growth orientation of the Centre. More details are available for bona fide enquirers, who should contact the World Centre for New Thinking Foundation by letter, fax or email.
Individuals may become Associate Founder Members if an individual introduces an organization that does become a Founder Member.
Founder Members will have the following privileges:
1. The right to indicate their membership in all communications and advertising as they wish.
2. Attendance at all meetings unless participants have expressly requested a private meeting.
3. A reduction of fifty per cent in the cost of all creative training for a period of five years.
4. The right to request “New Thinking” on any issue on a cost only basis.
5. Automatic right to have their ideas published by the Centre.
Foundation Members should appoint a liaison officer who will communicate directly with the Centre.
The World Centre for New Thinking is the initiative of
Edward de Bono.He is regarded as the World Leader in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking in schools. His work is in use with thousands of schools and hundreds of businesses worldwide. From an understanding of the nature of the brain as a self-organising neural network (see his book ‘The Mechanism of Mind’, Jonathan Cape, 1969) he designed the formal creative tools of lateral thinking.
Recently, Edward de Bono was chosen by a leading business journal as one of the twenty visionaries alive today. He is also on the Accenture list of the fifty most influential thinkers. A group of academics in South Africa included him in a list of the two hundred and fifty people who had made the most difference in the whole history of humanity.
His methods include the very powerful ‘parallel thinking’ (Six Hats) which can reduce meeting times to one quarter and replaces the inefficient and crude method of argument.
Edward de Bono has had appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard. He has written sixty-eight books with translations into thirty-seven languages.
His latest book is "WHY SO STUPID? How the human race has never really learned to think." (Obtainable only direct from the publisher at www.whysostupid.com or e-mail: blackhall@eircom.net)
The Centre has been set up with the close co-operation of the government of Malta which sees the Centre as Malta’s contribution to the European Union and to the world.
"The purpose of the World Centre is to provide new thinking that is additional to the thinking that is already taking place on issues and conflicts. Those who understand the need for new thinking will support the work of the Centre."