THINKER'S ALMANAC - February 28

What powerful new form of writing did a man invent on his birthday in 1571?

Subject: Thinking and Writing - Montaigne’s Essays

Event:  Montaigne begins writing essays, 1571

The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.  –William H. Gass

On this day in 1571 in Bordeaux, France, a nobleman named Michel de Montaigne sat down to write.  It was his 38th birthday, and he had just retired from public life, where he held a seat in the Bordeaux parliament.  What Montaigne wrote that day and what he would write for the next twenty years influenced countless future thinkers and writers.

Montaigne wrote essays, but he wasn’t just writing essays, he was inventing the genre.  He called his compositions “essais” from the French verb “essayer” meaning “to try.”  An essay, therefore, is an “attempt” or a “trial” where the writer attempts to address a question and figure it out (1).  Unlike the concept we have today of beginning an essay with a thesis – a claim or statement of belief – the original idea of the essay was instead to begin with a question.  The attempt to answer this question in writing then becomes the process by which a writer explores his or her thinking, getting ideas down on paper so that they can be examined.  The act of writing, then, becomes the act of forming ideas and exploring those ideas so that the writer knows what he or she really thinks.  In this sense, the essay becomes a form of metacognition -- thinking about your own thinking.  The abstract thoughts of a writer are transformed into visible words on paper.  This allows writers to see what they know and what they don’t know.  By further rumination, examination, and revision of those thoughts, they can crystallize their thoughts, making them more clear to themselves and to an audience.

Montaigne’s essays were intensely personal.  He wrote about sleep, smells, idleness, anger, repentance, and thumbs, but his main subject was always himself.  By expressing and exploring ideas about himself in writing, he 

discovered that he not only understood himself better, but also understood his own thoughts and his own thoughts about the world.

For example, in the following excerpt from his essay entitled “On the Inconstancy of Our Actions,” notice how Montaigne explores the idea of inconsistent human behavior by honestly confronting his own character and actions:

For my part, the puff of every accident not only carries me along with it according to its own proclivity, but moreover I discompose and trouble myself by the instability of my own posture; and whoever will look narrowly into his own bosom, will hardly find himself twice in the same condition. I give to my soul sometimes one face and sometimes another, according to the side I turn her to. If I speak variously of myself, it is because I consider myself variously; all the contrarieties are there to be found in one corner or another; after one fashion or another: bashful, insolent; chaste, lustful; prating, silent; laborious, delicate; ingenious, heavy; melancholic, pleasant; lying, true; knowing, ignorant; liberal, covetous, and prodigal: I find all this in myself, more or less, according as I turn myself about; and whoever will sift himself to the bottom, will find in himself, and even in his own judgment, this volubility and discordance. I have nothing to say of myself entirely, simply, and solidly without mixture and confusion. (2)

Montaigne reminds us of the power of writing not just as a way of expressing what we know, but also of discovering what we know by getting our thinking down on paper.  When we write, therefore, we aren’t just learning how to write, we are writing to learn.

Read the four quotations below, noting how each of the writers vividly illustrates the connection between thinking and writing:

Writers take thoughts from the invisible mind and make them visible on paper.  They can then contemplate this objectified thought and revise it until it becomes the best thinking of which they are capable.  -R.D. Walshe

Writing is a way of freezing our thinking, of slowing down the thoughts that pass through our consciousness at lightning speed, so that we can examine our views and alter them if appropriate.  Writing enables us to note inconsistencies, logical flaws, and areas that would benefit from additional clarity. -Dennis Sparks

Writing enables us to find out what we know — and what we don’t know — about whatever we’re trying to learn.  Putting an idea into written words is like defrosting the windshield:  the idea, so vague out there in the murk, slowly begins to gather itself into shape. -William Zinsser

Just as inviting people over forces you to clean up your apartment, writing something that other people will read forces you to think well. So it does matter to have an audience. The things I’ve written just for myself are no good. They tend to peter out. When I run into difficulties, I find I conclude with a few vague questions and then drift off to get a cup of tea.  -Paul Graham

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What kind of essays did Montaigne write, and what can we learn from him about the power of writing?

Challenge - Thinking in Ink:  What is a question that you have about some aspect of universal human experience, such as anger, happiness, love, lying, or marriage?  Select a universal human theme and form a question about that theme that you do not have a definitive answer to.  Explore that question in a personal essay by writing about different ways the question might be answered and by answering it based on your own memory, observations, and experiences. Don’t commit yourself to supporting a single thesis; instead, try to truly explore your own ideas in writing to see what new thinking emerges.

 

Sources:

1-”Michel de Montaigne.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

2-Montaigne, Michel de. “On the Inconstancy of Our Actions.” Quotidiana.org

THINKER'S ALMANAC - February 25

What two words related to truth get their names from a county in North Carolina?

Subject:  Epistemology - Bunk vs. Debunk

Event:  Felix Walker from Buncombe County, North Carolina gives a speech, 1820

On this day in 1820, Felix Walker, a congressman representing Buncombe County, North Carolina, delivered a speech that eventually led to the creation of a new word.

The 16th Congress was debating the issue of statehood for the territory of Missouri.  The key conflict in the debate was the issue of slavery and whether or not Missouri should be admitted as a free state or a slave state.  In the midst of the debate, Congressman Walker rose to speak.  However, instead of presenting remarks that were germane to the issue of slavery, Walker instead began to ramble about topics totally unrelated to the issue at hand.  As he continued to drone on with his irrelevant speech, his colleagues attempted to stifle him.  Walker resisted, saying that he had been sent to Washington to deliver a speech, and he would, therefore, continue to address the constituents who elected him in North Carolina.  Walker’s specific words were:  “I shall not be speaking to the House but to Buncombe.”

Walker’s speech was not forgotten — not because of its great content, but because it became synonymous with the type of insincere, bombastic nonsense that some politicians are known for.  The Americanism that emerged from the Walker incident took that name of the Congressman’s county Buncombe, spelling it as bunkum.  Today we recognize the clipped form bunk, meaning “empty, pretentious nonsense” (1).

Later in 1923, novelist and biographer William E. Woodward wrote a novel called Bunk.  In the novel, Woodward introduced the verb debunk, meaning “the act of exposing false claims” (2).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What are the origins of the noun “bunk” and the verb “debunk”?

Challenge - Debunk A Myth:  Since 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson have been a presence on the internet, debunking false information.  At first, their work revolved mainly around debunking urban legends, but today Snopes.com fact-checks a wide range of subjects.  Visit Snopes and explore some of the topics.  What is one specific subject that Snopes has determined is bunk, and how specifically does Snopes debunk it?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

February 25, 1524:   On this day Johannes Stoffler, a German mathematician and astrologer, predicted a great flood.  He claimed that the planets would align under Pisces, a water sign, and that on that day torrential rain would begin to fall.  Many took Stoffler’s prediction seriously; in fact, a German nobleman named Count von Iggleheim constructed a three-story ark.  When February 25 arrived, there was light rain but no flood (3).

 

Sources:

1-Chrysti the Wordsmith.  Verbivore’s Feast Second Course.  Helena, Montana, Farcountry Press, 2006: 43.

2- Dickson, Paul.  Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers.  New York:  Bloomsbury, 2014:  53.

3-Cole, Rachel. “10 Failed Doomsday Predictions.” Britannica.com.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - February 20

How can a disheveled, 1970s-era TV detective help us to understand the power of strategic questions? 

Subject:  Epistemology - The Columbo Method

Event:  Premiere of the television detective drama Columbo, 1968.

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge. -Thomas Berger

Imagine if the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates became the lead in a new detective television series.  It’s not that far of a stretch when you consider that Socrates was consumed by the same thing that all television detectives are.  Like Socrates, they are on an epistemological quest for knowledge, more specifically, knowledge that will lead them to the truth.  

Socrates used an analogy to describe the difference between unsound truth and sound truth.  He imagined two beautiful statues by the sculptor Daedalus.  The unsound truth, which came about via intuition, is like a statue placed precariously atop a pillar.  The first strong wind that comes along will knock it over.  The sound truth, however, is anchored to the ground by tethering cables, making it impervious to even gale-force winds.  For Socrates, the test of differentiating the unsound truth from the sound truth was to determine which one stood up under the scrutiny of questioning (1).

When we think of Socrates today, we probably think of his characteristic toga, and we probably also think about his characteristic Socratic method of questioning.

Another character known for his characteristic dress and method is the television detective Columbo.  Instead of a toga, he wore a raincoat.  Like Socrates, he valued questioning, but he added a wrinkle that made his method memorable and particularly effective for fighting crime.

The television show Columbo -- which premiered on this day in 1968 -- had a 

unique template.  Instead of following the typical “whodunnit” structure of traditional detective dramas, the Columbo writers inverted the template, beginning each episode by making the audience eye-witnesses to the crime being committed, which included knowing the identity of the perpetrator.  Instead of being a “whodunit,” Columbo followed the “howcatchem” format.  After seeing the crime committed before their eyes, the audience then got to see the cigar-smoking, raincoat-clad detective Columbo sniff out the trail of clues until he found the guilty party.

Like Socrates, an essential element of Colombo’s method was questions; however, his approach was a bit more indirect. It begins with an understanding of the importance of first and last impressions. Psychologists who study memory highlight the serial position effect and our tendency to recall best what is presented first (primacy effect) and what is presented last (recency effect). 

Columbo’s method began with a first impression that was deliberately crafted to disarm a suspect.  His disheveled appearance and his seemingly absent-minded manner put the suspect at ease, and his opening questions were always casual, respectful, and non-threatening, designed to get the suspect talking about things other than homicide.   

Columbo’s final interactions with a suspect were also deliberately designed to leave an impression.  Just as he appeared to be finishing his meeting and turning to leave, he would turn back around and say, “There’s just one more thing.”  Having thought that the interaction with the detective had concluded, the suspect would be caught off guard   At this point Columbo would point out facts from the case that appeared to be in conflict.  Instead of presenting this conflict in an accusatory manner, he would state it in a way that was self-deprecating, rubbing his head and expressing his own confusion, appearing to give the suspect the benefit of the doubt. He would then deliver the final probing question which the suspect -- being disarmed by Columbo’s odd manner -- would answer in a careless, less than thoughtful way, often revealing something important (2).

In an episode called “How to Dial a Murder,” one suspect, who happened to be a psychologist, saw through Columbo’s method, saying, “You’re a fascinating man, Lieutenant. . . . You pass yourself off as a puppy in a raincoat happily running around the yard digging holes all up in the garden, only you’re laying a minefield” (3).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the Columbo method, and how does it differ from the Socratic method?

Challenge - That is the Question:  Do a search for quotations about “questions.”  Select one quotation that you like, and write a paragraph explaining why you think the quotation is an important one.

Sources:

1-de Botton, Alain. The Consolations of Philosophy.  New York:  Vintage International, 2000.

2-”The Columbo Technique.”  Changing Minds.

3-Griffiths, Mark D. ”The Psychology of Columbo.” Psychology Today, 20 Feb. 2018. 

THINKER'S ALMANAC - February 19

According to Copernicus, what is true knowledge?

Subject:  Metacognition - Copernicus’ Definition of True Knowledge

Event:  Birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473

Today is the birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, a man who not only changed the world as we know it but also the universe.  

Born in Poland in 1473, Copernicus was both a polyglot and a polymath.  He spoke Latin, German, Polish, Greek, and Italian.  In addition to holding a doctorate in canon law, he was also a physician, mathematician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist.  Today, we know him best as the astronomer who challenged the orthodox belief that Earth was the center of the universe.  Fifteen hundred years after the ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy established his theory that the planets, the sun, and the stars revolved around a stationary Earth, Copernicus presented his revolutionary theory.  He claimed that not only did the Earth rotate on its axis, but also that Earth and the other planets revolved around the sun.  Copernicus’ work in astronomy was the quintessential achievement of the Renaissance, totally transforming mankind’s view of the universe and paving the way for future work by Galileo, Kepler, and Newton.

A true man of science and of learning, Copernicus embodied the Renaissance ideals of searching for knowledge and challenging conventional wisdom. His opus On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres was published in 1543, the same year he died (1).

One quotation that typifies Copernicus’ scientific approach is one that uses simple terms to express a profound insight:

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Today cognitive psychologists sum up Copernicus’ insight using a single term: metacognition.  Meta is Greek for “about,” and cognition is Latin for “to know.” Metacognition, therefore, is “thinking about thinking.”  More than just being aware that we think, metacognition is the process of monitoring our own thinking.

As Copernicus reminds us, metacognition is not just what we know, it is also being aware of what we don’t know, as well as being aware of the ways we sometimes delude ourselves.  To understand the ways we think best and the ways we fall short of sound thinking, we should always keep in mind the relationship between both knowledge and ignorance.  

Notice, for example, how the following wise voices from the past express this relationship:

-Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.  –Confucius

-The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents and the ocean was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. –Daniel J. Boorstin

-The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. — Socrates

-The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. — Elbert Hubbard

-To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. — Benjamin Disraeli

-The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. — Frank Herbert

In the book Make It Stick, the authors discuss one specific learning strategy that employs metacognition to help learners be more productive and more efficient in their study.  The strategy is called retrieval practice, and recent studies have documented that this strategy is much more effective than rereading a text, highlighting a text, or even reviewing notes.

The key aspect of retrieval practice is self-quizzing or testing.  When reading a text or listening to a lecture, therefore, the student should generate questions for self-testing.  Once the student has finished reading or listening, he or she should use the questions to recall and recite out loud the facts, concepts, or events from memory, without using the book or notes for reference.  The basic premise of retrieval practice is that learning that sticks is learning that is effortful.  Furthermore, the effortful act of retrieving knowledge from memory strengthens the memory, increasing the likelihood that knowledge will stay in long term memory.  Like walking an unfamiliar path through the woods, the more you travel the path, the more confidence you have in remembering your way without getting lost.  Retrieval practice also decreases the likelihood that 

students will delude themselves into believing they know what they don’t know. Since the strategy requires that students recite answers aloud without notes, they are able to exercise good metacognition by clearly determining what they know and what they don’t quite know yet (2).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is retrieval practice and how does it relate to metacognition?

Challenge - What Do You Know?: How can you apply retrieval practice to increase your metacognition?  Select an article or short story that you have not read before.  As you read the passage, write down three questions based on the key ideas you’re reading.  When you finish the reading, put the passage away, and attempt to answer each of your questions by reciting the answers out loud.  As you answer each question, rate your level of confidence with your answer on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being you feel highly confident; 1 being you need to look back at the passage to answer).  Once you have finished, take a moment to reflect on the strategy.  How did it feel to answer out loud?  Do you feel like this strategy will work for you in the future? 

Sources:

1-” Nicolaus Copernicus” - New Mexico Museum of Space History

2-Brown, Peter C., Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel.  Make It Stick:  The Science of Successful Learning.  Cambridge, Mass.:  Harvard University Press, 2014.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - February 18

What does an ancient story about a shepherd who finds a magic ring teach us about justice?

Subject:  Thought Experiments - Ring of Gyges

Event:  Birthday of Austrian physicist Ernst Mach, 1838

Imagine being a scientist so accomplished that they named the speed of sound after you; furthermore, imagine being so accomplished that Albert Einstein credited you with inspiring his Theory of Relativity.

The scientist imagined above is not a figment of your imagination; instead, he was a real person, the physicist Ernst Mach, who was born on this day in 1838 in Austria.  More than just a scientist though, Mach was also accomplished in the fields of philosophy and psychology.

We often picture accomplished scientists doing experiments in their laboratories, but what we don’t often contemplate is the level of both curiosity and imagination that precede physical experiments.  It is in this area that Ernst 

Mach was also accomplished, recognized as a pioneer in Gedankenexperiment, the term that originated in Germany and is known today in English as “thought experiment.”

In an essay he wrote in 1897 “On Thought Experiments,” Mach discussed how innate human curiosity is the spark that ignites the imagination, the mind’s laboratory, to visualize ideas long before they become physical facts:

Our own ideas are more easily and readily at our disposal than physical facts. We experiment with thought, so as to say, at little expense. This it shouldn’t surprise us that, oftentime, the thought experiment precedes the physical experiment and prepares the way for it. (1) 

Of course, long before the terms “science” and “thought experiment” were coined, philosophers were employing their imaginations to conduct experiments of the mind.  For example, in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Socrates paints an imagined scenario of men living their entire lives chained in a dark cave, seeing shadows rather than reality.  He then imagines what might happen if one of these men were released from his chains, freed to see the real world outside the cave.  Through this exercise of imagination, Plato provides us with insight into how philosophy can equip us with a broader view of reality while at the same time warning us of our blind spots and our human tendency to confuse perception with reality.

Another ancient thought experiment from Plato’s Republic, presents a story about human nature that addresses the following questions:  Is it true as the famous quotation by Lord Action proclaims that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”?  And does true justice exist in the world, or is it just a facade motivated by self-interest?

In the story, a seemingly humble shepherd name Gyges finds a ring that suddenly gives him great powers:

According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result—when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; whereas soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. 

After telling the story of the Ring of Gyges, the narrator asks the reader to join him in a thought experiment:

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who 

argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. (2)

The thought experiment attempts to illustrate the paradox of justice -- that justice and injustice, instead of being opposites, are really the same thing.  Justice is never authentic; instead, it is merely an act, motivated by the fear of 

being exposed for who we really are: people who would act unjustly if we, like Gyges, could get away with it.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the Ring of Gyges thought experiment, and how does it challenge our thinking about justice?

Challenge - Imagination Lab:  Research some other famous thought experiments.  Pick one that captures your imagination.  Explain the thought experiment, and explain why you find it interesting.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

February 18, 1884:  Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published. Unlike other American novels of the time, which were imitations of European literature, Huckleberry Finn was a truly American book, the first to be written in the American vernacular.  Twain’s revolutionary move was to give the narration of his book to the uneducated, unwashed Huck, who speaks in dialect and introduces himself in the novel’s famous first sentence:

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another . . . .    

Sources:

1-https://fs.blog/2017/06/thought-experiment/

2-Plato’s Republic 

THINKER'S ALMANAC - February 17

How did a doctor get an idea for a revolutionary medical device by watching children play?

Subject:  Invention - Stethoscope

Event:  Birthday of French physician Rene Laennec, 1781

It was baseball great Yogi Berra who said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” It is also true that you can hear a lot just by listening.  One man who exemplified the benefits of both watching and listening was a French doctor named Rene Laennec, who was born on this day in 1781.  

Today we take it for granted that doctors wear white coats with stethoscopes draped around their necks and shoulders.  This was not always the case.  From the days of Hippocrates -- the father of medicine -- physicians practiced the art of “auscultation,” (from the Latin verb auscultare “to listen”) by placing their ear directly on a patient’s body to listen to the internal sounds of the heart and lungs.  This was often embarrassing for women when examined by a male doctor. 

One day in 1816, when Rene Laennec was preparing awkwardly to listen to the chest of a female patient, he had an epiphany.  He remembered watching children play with long hollow sticks.  They would place their ear on one end of the stick, scratch the other end of the stick with a pin, and listen as the sound reverberated loudly through the stick.  Based on this memory, he rolled up a piece of paper into a cylinder and placed one end of it on the patient’s chest.  He was extremely pleased with the results:  not only was the use of the cylinder less intrusive, but it also allowed him to hear the beat of the patient's heart more clearly and distinctly than he could with just his naked ear.  Laennec dubbed his invention the “stethoscope” from the Greek stethos -- meaning “chest” -- and skopein -- meaning “observe.”

Within two years of inventing the stethoscope, Laennec received a favorable review from the New England Journal of Medicine, which caused the majority of doctors to adopt the innovation.  In 1852, the stethoscope was improved when George Cammann produced one with two earpieces, the version we recognize today.

Both sadly and ironically, a stethoscope was used on Laennec as a patient when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.  He died in 1826 at the age of 45, only ten years after his great discovery (1).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  How did observation lead to the invention that helped physicians listen better?

Challenge - Once Upon an Invention:  What is another invention that has an interesting backstory?  Research an invention, and tell the story of its inventor and its origin. 

Sources:

1- “Viewpoint: The curious history of the first stethoscope.”  March 1, 2010

https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/category-47287/viewpoint-curious-history-first-stethoscope