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Idea Generator for Scientists
Something of the sort may well be true. One of the intellects I most
respect begins her exploration of any new field by first reading the
children's literature on that topic and then going on from there. She finds
that this immediately makes key relationships readily apparent to her which
otherwise would not be.
In any event, the same data portrayed in a medium
unfamiliar to you results in different secondary awarenesses and associations
being evoked for you. I presume that a child-directed exposition of your own
field is a medium somewhat less than familiar to you.
Whether or not Bruner's Dictum is literally true, for the purpose here it
doesn't matter. The purpose here is to find a fresh way to look at your own
field of work and generate fresh insights and new hypotheses for testing.
Think of a reasonably bright but not necessarily precocious
eight-year-old child, real or imaginary. Get that child as real to you as
possible, a specific person rather than an abstraction or a general class.
(You might even, for at least brief intervals, teach directly to an actual
child, give him or her a leg up on future studies, let the feedbacks you
experience enter into your direct and indirect and subtle perceptions of your
own work.)
To that child, real or imaginary, begin teaching the most basic
precepts of your field in ways that make sense for that child. If you are
convinced that key areas of your field are counter-intuitive, fine: make them
make sense anyway for that child to understand. Your reach to do so will
instruct your own understanding and perception. As you go, pick up on as many
as possible of the secondary thoughts and associations, fleeting impressions
and stray notions as this occasions for you some of these contain the keys to
your own breakthroughs!
Helpful hint: Particular objections and explanations and associations related to specific points will usually work better than
blanket rejections, in terms of generating more insights in your professional
field. Treat the author of the letter as a very brash student needing your most patient tutelage, but most important is to be alert to and
pick up on your own momentary associations as they flash by while you do
this. If nothing occurs to you, which is unlikely, you can get yourself
started by Freenoting on all the reasons why you don't want to do this
procedure. Even that will work, so long as you follow the above rules.
I want to enable you, by whatever means feasible, to make further
breakthroughs in your work, in addition to, or in parallel with,
our other procedures such as Image-Streaming, High Thinktank , and the advanced inventing and discovering procedures found in the book Discovering the Obvious.
We present a series of questions from a hypothetical student who is speculating wildly on a wide range of scientific conundrums and earnestly needs your explanations. How would you make these subjects understandable to this student? His letter to you is in a separate exhibit. Click on "letter" to view it now.
Also, at points along the way, you will do well to:
Like the very different procedures in the book Discovering the Obvious, this "Freenoting assault on good sense" is a shortcut way to get to many good new hypotheses to test. If you've followed the rules of
Freenoting with this, you now have some good hypotheses to define and to take
to the next step.
It may be best that you get your breakthroughs safely published before
letting on to too many colleagues, or to the public, what first suggested
them to you. Of the many points you can arrive at via these routes, many or
most can be put to verification through empirical or mathematical grounds
and, as with Kekule, this should be what people first see, at least until our
culture and our subculture of science become more rational.
People learned of Einstein's notions in physics before they learned of his "Deep Thought" discovery experiments through which he learned them and through which he
sought to demonstrate them. In the very long run, I will appreciate some
references, getting more already-powerful minds into use of
resources like these, and of the procedures in Discovering the Obvious.
We know what acts as a limit on the size of stars: the bigger ones become
blue giants and burn up quickly, and probably the biggest ones short-cut the whole process and implode into black holes without much of an
evolution, so there aren't any or many of these around. But....
Question Three: Universe-as-standing-wave quantum context: If stars and
galaxies are in effect "standing waves," or at least harmonics of standing
waves expressed at the frequencies which generate atomic matter and
sub-atomics, what does this characterization bring into awareness for you?
Have fun! |