"The little son came to his father and asked: what is good and what is bad?" At this level, they usually say, “Do it! Don't do that! ” Without much explanation. Our managers sin with this. They give orders and wait not for questions, but for exact execution. Subordinates in this case gradually degrade, turning off their own brain. Or they connect it only in order to think of not rushing to carry out the order, because it can be canceled or another, more important task will come down.
The second level of maturity is "WHAT?"
I remember that it was a real discovery for me in management training. Before that, I felt like a very cool specialist, who knew "HOW" in the first specialty. And then it turned out that the world is more complicated, and if you did the right thing that nobody needs, then I'm sorry … “HOW” was not enough to be effective. It was necessary to understand “WHAT” to do in the current situation, which can, of course, change.
The third level of maturity is “WHY? WHAT FOR?"
If knowing "HOW" is practical, knowing "WHAT" gives tactical advantages, then the answer to the question "WHY?" – strategic! This is about maturity, about long planning horizons. For large companies doing business for a long term, this is the main question – "WHY?" Because you can win all the battles, but lose the war. Simon Sinek talks and writes a lot about this in his books. One of them seems to be called – “Start with WHY”
Engineer: I also noticed how people seemed to make completely different choices in the same situations. Some thought in the category “I need it now, and then at least the grass won't grow!”, while others took into account the consequences that may come in the future in a few years.
Writer: Agree, in this light, the behavior of a true believer may seem less naive, who answers the questions “why” at a particular moment, having eternal life as the planning horizon…
Consultant: Well … three levels: "HOW", "WHAT" and "WHY". But I have defined one more – the highest level of maturity, the fourth – ONTOLOGY. This is a search for answers to the question – how everything is organized. For example, we do not ask ourselves a question – why not take a step from the roof of a 15-storey building? As if everything is clear: if you take a step, you will fly down and crash to death. This is how the physical world is organized. Therefore, I am sure that once you understand the ontology, you can very easily answer all the previous questions – WHY? WHAT? HOW? This means that it can help anyone in any area. Although in scale it already looks like science. And if the answers are given only on the first three levels, on the first two, or, in general – only to the question "HOW?" – this is definitely a methodology!
Writer: “Methodology” – from Greek – the teaching of methods. As I understand it from our conversation today: science is more powerful than methodologies, which can be many different on one topic. And you, by the way, do not bother that there are also a lot of sciences? A whole Academy of Sciences was established :)
Engineer: It's getting late, can we continue next time?
Consultant: I have an answer to your question! But, in order not to interfere in a heap, I agree – let's go next time.
Engineer: Fine!
Writer: Well, good. See you again, my friends!
03 Philosophy
Consultant: I definitely enjoy our philosophical conversations with you. At first, I confess, the Writer seemed too emotional to me. You, Engineer, were too rational. And the only common thing that united us then, as it seemed to me, was that together we graduated from one "applied mathematics" at the university, there are common themes and a common language. But then our life paths diverged, and when we began to communicate again, I asked myself – "why be together again if we have become so different?" Is nostalgia for adolescence a sufficient condition for friendship?
Writer: Heartless bastard!
Engineer: I agree.
Consultant: Wait a minute, let me finish! Engineer, do you remember how we argued about communism and capitalism? I had just finished my second managerial education and was trying to explain to you that “it's easier to break than to build”. That it is possible, probably, to return the plundered factories, but then they also need to be competently managed and developed. It is wrong to make a revolution, demolish the existing organization and say that you have done your half of the work and someone else has to continue somehow.
Engineer: I didn't say that. On the contrary, we then invited you to a meeting of our cell, so that you made a presentation about management to us.
Consultant: It was during the preparation of the presentation that I understood the main idea, which now I find more and more confirmation – we do not hold the whole one at a time! We, like those sages, hold some trunk, some tail, some something else. The elephant appears only when we get together and start communicating. Remember this picture?
Engineer: Sure. Square, triangle and circle are projections of a three-dimensional object onto orthogonal planes. If we position ourselves so that everyone can clearly see only one side, then everyone will see his own figure, different from the rest.
Consultant: Everyone will have their own truth. And until we get together and discuss something in common, but from different points of view, we have no chance to understand what we are really dealing with. One lives in the world of triangles, the other in the world of squares, and so on.
Writer: In the world of shadows. And if there is no source of light, then – generally in darkness.
Consultant: The most striking thing is that as soon as you have gathered an understanding of the subject from the three shadows, you can now change the lighting at any angle – you will still recognize this particular object in any shadow.
Writer: It's like a teacher who knows his topic well.. He can answer the question not with a quote from a textbook, but the way the answer is refracted in a specific situation, taking into account how old the student is in front of him and what are his abilities to perceive information.
Engineer: By the way, about perception. But an object, not a scientific object, but the one that is drawn on the board – after all, it can smell, make sounds, taste different, have different temperatures from different sides. Imagine how our brain, simultaneously collecting information from different receptors, collects a holistic multidimensional object and keeps it in focus and dynamics of change.
Writer: It seems to me that the person himself for another person is the most complex object, which is somehow collected in pieces in the head and then lives there. And every time you interact with this person, the projections of the whole are rechecked, something is added or removed, the model of this person is refined in the head.
Consultant: This is despite the fact that, as the Engineer says, we do not see the person directly. There are photons flying to the retina of the eye, there are sound waves, there are molecules of smell, the warmth of touch, and all this is combined with the image of this person in memory, which is refined with each new portion of information. Returning to our previous conversation: there is a person somewhere in the external environment, and in our head we see him only as a float on the surface of our consciousness… People, like fish in the ocean of life, touch our sensory hooks, fishing lines are pulled, and we sit on the shore of our consciousness and talk with floats :(
Writer: Have you ever wondered what “consciousness” is? Tell me, how many fingers do you see?
Engineer: Two.
Consultant: I do confirm, two. But what's the catch? It is the usual test for the presence of consciousness. When a person falls unconscious, after he is brought to his senses, he is asked about the number of fingers to make sure that it is adequate.
Writer: It turns out that you know that there are two of them. And you know. And I know. And we have “co-knowledge” or “co-science”! Latin roots confirm the same meaning: consciousness – shared knowledge. An interesting lesson is to take a close look at English words starting with “co-” and “con-”.
Engineer: It turns out that consciousness is somehow connected with language? We are with you in the Russian mind, the British in the English mind, the Chinese in the Chinese. And when we learn other languages, do we expand our consciousness?
Consultant: Square, triangle, circle…
Engineer: I disagree. “A chair” is “a chair” everywhere despite the wording of the language.
Writer: And what about different associations and connotations?
Engineer: It turns out that there is a certain capacity of the language, and it depends not only on the number of words, but also on the number of connections between them. Just like with human neurons! According to the latest data that I heard, there are about eighty billion of them, and there are more neural connections that these neurons form among themselves than there are stars in the sky! Some incredible numbers.
Consultant: I heard that a child, when he is born, has many more neurons than an adult. During growing up, those neurons that were not activated and did not begin to participate in neural connections die off. How a sculptor gradually removes everything superfluous from a single piece of marble and the figure remains.
Writer: The main question is – what is superfluous in our brain? Returning to the language. From the age of one, my wife and I taught our son three languages at once – English, French and Russian, of course. Courses for toddlers, tutors. The first words he began to speak in English. Apparently, because the words are shorter – "cat", "dog"… The idea to develop a child through learning different languages from childhood belonged to my wife, and at first I looked closely, but then I realized that there was no overload, languages were learned playfully – and I calmed down. It is interesting that during a conversation, the son freely switches from one language to another, never mixes them up. If I see an object, for example, an apple, then the Russian word “apple” appears in my head, which I can “translate” in the same head into “apple” in English. Just the way we learned languages – translation. And the son saw an apple for the first time, when he did not know any name, he just saw a tasty object. Heard three different names and remembered. That is, in my head “object – word 1 – then word 2”, and in his brain all connections are immediately ignited “object – word 1”, “object – word 2”, “object – word 3”.
Consultant: This is how our sciences are divided. Biologists have one language, chemists have a second, physicists have a third, but an apple is one object!
Engineer: Again – a square, a triangle, a circle…
Consultant: Yes, the world is complex and diverse. First there was philosophy, which posed general, existential questions. As knowledge accumulated, differentiation began, splitting into various sciences, in each of which related knowledge accumulated, its own language appeared. So much so that scientists have ceased to understand each other. But, by the way, there is a demand for the integration of sciences under one roof. All innovation is the result that appears at the junction of the integration of what was previously separated. To go far – as a consultant, I very often organize an environment in which employees from different departments finally begin to understand each other, although they seem to have spoken the same language before. And from this new understanding, there are explosions of efficiency.
Engineer: Now it is clear why our Doctor of Science is called “PhD” – Doctor of Philosophy. Ph.D. in mathematics, Ph.D. in physics, and so on. I just now realized.
Consultant: Apparently yes. How different methods relate to the same science. Similarly, different sciences belong to the same philosophy. And if a separate science answers the question – "How is the world organized in the plane of certain knowledge", then philosophy tries to answer one main question – "How is the World actually organized?"
Writer: Philo-sophy – from Greek – is the love of wisdom. But, if we are talking about a real questioning about the organization of the world, then religion appeared earlier. Appeared and developed. From answers to the questions “why the thunder is thundering” and “why the wind blows”, to the monotheistic religions of our time. At the same time, I consider it a profound delusion when they immediately slide down to the question “Who organized the World?” And argue whether “He” exists. From this all the problems. Religion answers precisely the question "How the World is organized" and "What is the place of human beings in the World?" The very word “religion” – “re-ligare” from Greek – reconnection, reconnection of what is already connected. Take two points in space. How many lines pass through them? One. The only one. And when we draw this line, or describe it by laws in science, there is a connection in our minds of two points, which are already connected, without you and me. In this sense, the concrete philosophy, which describes the World better than anyone else, approaches the concept of "religion".
Engineer: Personally, I can draw many lines through two points.
Writer: But only one of them will be a straight line, a trajectory along which the light travels!
Consultant: I'd rather stay on the philosophy floor. It is no longer as crowded as on the floors of methodology and science. In addition, the higher you are, as they say in our management, the less pressure on you from above! :) But I won't climb to the floor of religions. I'm afraid that at this altitude I may not have enough oxygen. In fact, historically, different peoples approached the ultimate foundations in different ways, so it turns out that there is nothing new – the same square, triangle, circle. You, the Writer, even though you say temptingly, that everything is simple and clear there, and the light in one straight line passes through two points. Well, do you at least admit that the light can be of different colors?
Writer: My light definitely shines and warms me, I will not tell about others and I will not impose. Each lamb will be hung by its own tail. See you again, my friends!
04 Knowledge and Faith
