Refaraming intelligence: Untangling a complex world

Reframing Intelligence:
Untangling a Complex World
Zvi Lanir

Some people associate the concept "intelligence" with "intelligent behavior;" others - with psychometric tests measuring IQ. I see in "intelligence" a concept expressing the demands for thought placed before us by the changing world in which we act. This view is similar but not identical to the view of the scholar of intelligences Howard Gardner, who describes "intelligence" as the ability to solve problems and design products important for a cultural setting or a particular community.1

During the first half of the 20th century, "intelligence" was grasped as identical to IQ - the "intelligence quotient" - a measure of the thought processes required for the solution of logical problems. This interpretation of the concept of intelligence represented the demands placed before man by the longing for optimization of the industrial culture at the time.

Disillusionment from the ability of logical purposefulness to solve the human problems led to a new perception of rationality. Daniel Goleman claimed in the nineties that the depiction of human intelligence as consisting solely of the ability to solve logical problems, is partial only. He offered the term "emotional intelligence" (EQ) as a complementary and even more important concept for the uniqueness of human intelligence.2

Toward the second half of the nineties, in connection with the new wave of yearning for transcendental meaning,3 books started to appear dealing with "spiritual intelligence" (SQ) - by means of which man can understand his existential significance and realize it in full.4

The human reality in which we are living at the beginning of the third millenium is characterized by a drastic rise in complexity and in rapid basic changes in the human environment, and raises the need to examine yet another intelligence - that by means of which human beings execute their thought processes, enabling them to change their mental models: The Reframing Intelligence.

The pressing needs of dealing with the solution of problems in the real world require a study of Reframing Intelligence. In a deeper sense, this intelligence is connected with the essential change in human perception of the cognitive processes about the nature of phenomena. These processes began with the discoveries of physics at the beginning of the 20th century, and ripened with the breakdown of the great ideologies and doctrines, which we are witnessing at the present time.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Niles Bohr, Werner Heisenberg among others generated a basic change in our perception of "truth" and in our ability to reach it. They showed that any knowledge we have is observer-dependent and context-dependent. We can only know the aspect of reality for which we are searching, according to the means we use in our search. To use Heisenberg's words: "What we see is not nature as it is, but nature as it is presented by our research method... Our scientific task in physics is only a matter of asking questions about nature in our own language, and an effort to get an answer from the experiment using the means available to us... On the stage of reality, we are both actors and observers."5

Heisenberg and other physicists, among them Albert Einstein, thus generated a change in our understanding of the nature of our consciousness, and in our responsibility toward it. Everything depends to a large extent on ourselves, the questions we choose to ask and the point of view we project upon the phenomena by our thinking. Science invites us today to acknowledge that reality and truth are beyond our limited grasp. However, it invites us to celebrate the many faces of truth and to take responsibility for our role in its discovery.

In the second half of the 20th century, we witnessed a sweeping process of disenchantment (a term coined by Max Weber) with the great ideologies and dogmas. Its most dramatic expression was the loss of faith in communism that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent the undermining of the Western capitalistic system and its accompanying democratic values (to which adhere in the belief that it is the lesser of all evils). So is our disenchantment with the idea of "progress," which goes along with a resistance, and even repellence from the idea of return to basics, as it is expressed for instance in Islamic fundamentalism. This process of disenchantment based on the great ideologies and doctrines has transferred to man himself the responsibility for interpreting his situation in relation to his environment.6

The first wave of disenchantment and despair from the great theories and doctrines gave birth to post-modernism and de-constructivism. From the point of view of thinking, de-constructivism is a process of Deframing - raising our consciousness to prevalent models and beliefs in order to undermine them. Deframing shakes our premises based on common perceptions, but does not create a new construct of Reframing.

Later, new questions began to surface. Isn't there a new constructivism (re-constructivism) beyond de-constructivism? Are we left only with being drawn to a nihilistic relativism, existential and conceptual?

In these contexts, Reframing Intelligence represents an approach that may be described as post-post-modernism or as re-constructivism. This approach stems from the conviction that we must activate those cognitive abilities that enable us - as societies, as organizations and as people in our daily life - to be constantly conscious of our mental models and of their being Frames; to execute processes of Deframing of framings that have lost their intepretative relevance, and at the same time - know how to complete the process through a new Reframing.7

Raising our consciousness to Reframing Intelligence thus leads to Re-constructivism - a response to the growing need of man to interpret himself and his environment in a continuous process in view of his daily struggle with changing reality and based on this reality. As such, the Reframing process is not only a process of perceptive emancipation, but also a process of assuming human responsibility. But, as mentioned, the direct reasons for the need for Reframing Intelligence are tied with mundane needs of survival and the capability for personal, group and organizational struggle for existence.

We act in an environment in which basic changes are occurring at an unprecedented rate. These changes constantly turn irrelevant the mental models with which we interpret our environment. We pay a very high price (human, social, military, political and economic) for the growing gap between the rate of occurrence of these basic changes and the relative slowness of our own mental models constructed through social processes. This may be illustrated by two recent examples - one from the economic realm and one from the military.

The collapse of the Nasdaq was not only a collapse of the stock exchange but mainly of a mental model developed through social processes in which many factors participated - economic journalists, analysts, academic experts, etc. - whose logic was accepted by the corporations. This collapse marked an undermining of the prevalent model - "The New Economy" - on which many business conceptions, value and risk evaluations, capital investment criteria, partnerships and mergers, methods of employee rewards, etc. had been built. When this model was shaken, each of the corporations faced an urgent need to reinterpret itself in its own unique contexts. But, even in this new situation, the corporations heeded to the advice of experts, who as a rule interpreted reality in accordance with existing mental frames. Therefore, instead of each corporation examining itself according to its specific context and crystallizing a new mental frame corresponding to its defined needs, they focused on implementing "situational changes" within the logic of the former model (downsizing, cancellation of projects, etc.), instead of the needed "basic changes."8

I do not claim that such situational changes were not needed, but that the basic premises of the business should also have been examined, and its mind-set restructured. Such a process usually did not take place, and therefore the drastic situational steps taken did not save the corporations from collapse.

The second example is the surprise terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Immediately after this event, the Americans were shocked: How was it possible that preparations for such a complex terror attack, that must have lasted many months, escaped the notice of the open ears and eyes of the FBI? It gradually emerged that the problem was not in the lack of information, but in a mental model of security that was inappropriate in its interpretation. As is well documented, the diagnostic value of information is determined by the mental model used for its interpretation. Information congruent with the mental model is accorded a high diagnostic value; information not having an appropriate mental model for its interpretation is ascribed a low diagnostic value, or goes unnoticed. This phenomenon has been researched and demonstrated in other famous examples of strategic failures - Pearl Harbor, Germany's surprise attack on Russia in World War II (the Barbarossa operation), and the surprise attack of the Arab states on Israel during the 1973 (Yom Kippur) war. This phenomenon of a "basic surprises" (as distinct from "situational surprises") exposes a mental model of security irrelevant to the reality that suddenly hits one in the face; and the process of recovery and relearning following such a "basic surprise" is long and dear. Not only has the intelligence system collapsed, but so has the relevance of the operational response as a whole.9

These two examples - and there are many others in our public, organizational and private lives - illustrate the urgent need for the creation of awareness to this critical problem and for the improvement of our ability to carry out processes of Reframing of the mental models by which we interpret reality. Reframing Intelligence comes to deal with these topics.

Yet it does not suffice to state that there is a human need for a certain type of thinking in order to establish a case for a new intelligence. To establish this claim, Reframing Intelligence must pass three main tests:10
a. It must generate a new level of execution not reached through the other known intelligences.
b. It must simultaneously represent innate thinking abilities as well as acquired abilities that can be further developed.
c. It must represent cognitive abilities and skills, whose coming together engenders a single gestalt quality beyond their simple sum.
As will be shown below, Reframing Intelligence passes all of these tests.

Toward Reframing Intelligence
In Western culture, most thinking employed in everyday life is of the logical-mathematical type, according to Gardner's classification. As schoolchildren, we are taught and drilled to refine these thinking skills by means of questions we are expected to answer using logical inference of cause-effect. As we get older and face more complex questions, we are taught that in order to solve complexity logically, we must break the problem analytically to its simplest logical elements, and predict the causal relationships between them. As adults, we enter organizational thinking circles in which we are taught to think in terms of planning that assumes a linear logical process, step by step, such as: goal-setting; establishing measurements, comparison of actual achievement against the goals; analysis of the reasons for differences; establishing desirable administrative activities; taking action, and long term planning-execution control.11

Most business models are based on such ways of logical judgement. Our brain is trained in logical thinking even when we work with computers, whose logic is binary. We are persuaded that through such thinking computers can reach high achievements, which we ascribe to human thinking at its best. Thus for example, there are computer programs that compete successfully with chess champions. They do this by systematic analysis of all the possible moves, and a step by step calculation of the best move. The rate of calculation of these computers is so much higher than that of the human brain, enabling them to do these computations with amazing efficiency and to use this advantage against the human player who uses another type of thinking strategy.

The thinking process ascribed to logical intelligence is extremely effective in the premise of a given model, and in the framework of the given rules of this model; but it falls apart if a change is required in the perceptual model itself. In other words, logical thinking is effective within the framework of given rules of the game, but loses its validity in situations of changing rules. Logical intelligence is useful to man in arriving at computational inferences within a space of given possibilities and rules; but it becomes useless and even leads to failure when the new rules of the game are as yet unknown to the thinker.

Contrary to logical-mathematical intelligence, that is in effect an "Or-Or" binary thinking within a given model, emotional intelligence - connected with the human capability to maintain associative thinking - helps us make connections between things having no clear logical connection.

The associative capabilities are important, and characterize human thinking no less, and maybe more than logical thinking. They enable us to reach a range of contexts beyond the rational ones. While rational thinking is mainly "convergent," associative thinking is in essence "divergent," enabling us to raise surprising possibilities we would not have arrived at had we focused solely on rational thinking.

Most researchers of thinking agree that there is a connection between two types of nervous systems in the brain and the two types of thinking - logical and associative. The process of logical intelligence takes place in the nervous system of "serial neural connection," and the process of emotional intelligence is based on a "parallel neural connection." The serial neural connections in our brain enable it to act according to rules and to think logically and rationally, step by step. The complex neural networks, composed of tens of thousands of neurons acting simultaneously, enable the existence of associative processes connected with emotional intelligence.12

The complex neural networks in our brain enable us to create immediate and direct emotional connections, such as the connection a baby makes between his hunger and his mother's breast; and even to make more abstract yet still immediate connections such as those between "house" and "comfort," or between "mother" and "love." These networks are also at the base of our mental ability to make distant and sometimes surprising connections, such as those we find in the poetic quote, "Blue is the color of your golden hair."

In practice, the study of emotional intelligence has contributed mainly to the acceptance of both the need and ability to discuss emotions and their importance in problem solving. This study enables us to grasp emotional processes intellectually, and to advance learning as well as the development of our emotional capabilities by giving a wider range of answers to existing problems.13

Emotional intelligence enables us to assess a situation in a different and deeper way, including dimensions beyond those of logical-mathematical intelligence. Yet it sometimes seems that an attempt was made to ascribe to emotional intelligence all aspects of human and group behavior not explained by rational intelligence.

Important as both logical-mathematical and emotional intelligences may be, they do not represent the highest forms of human thinking. We can impart to computers a high IQ, and they will know the rules and be able to act according to them infallibly. As to emotional intelligence, at least in its associative form, animals also use rapid associative thinking, and it plays an important role in their survival. We ascribe emotions to our pets, and it can at least be said of them that they feel the state they are in and react accordingly.14

Yet both computers and animals cannot consciously enact the Reframing of their thinking. They can increase the range of symbols and distinctions in the frames of their mental models, but they still act within these frameworks. Only human beings are able to change the rules themselves and to broaden the scope of their consciousness and their world; but the implementation of this capability is not at all simple.

Zohar and Marhsall bring in their book the following anecdote. Imagine a goldfish swimming in a bowl. The fish is not aware that he is in a bowl and that the bowl is filled with a liquid we call water; but if it will elevate itself above the water, it will be able to see the bowl and its fellow fish in a new way. It will realize that the possibility exists of a world outside the water. The authors compare us to the goldfish in the bowl, acting according to a mental model we do not realize. In order to be able to discern this model and the possibility to reconstruct it, we must rise above the bowl.

Yet, will our "elevation," with the change of perspective accompanying it, necessarily be followed by a Reframing that will enable us to create a new mind-set? This process seems to entail great cognitive difficulty, and does not usually occur. In any case, only very rarely do we manage to jump outside the bowl and to be aware of our own conceptual model. This happens, for example, when we hear a good joke. The sense of being freed from our rigid mental model makes us burst out laughing. This is a sort of jump outside the bowl for a split second, after which we fall back into it with a thump.15

Thus, for instance, we are "elevated" for a brief moment when we read the shrewd sayings of Oscar Wilde, such as: "Resist everything except temptation;" "Time is waste of money;" "A man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person;" "I remember having read somewhere, in some strange book, that when the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers."16

I wish to emphasize here the distance between our ability to shake our mental model for a moment and our ability to construct an alternative mental model. Such attempts usually prove futile. The cognitive capabilities with which we can effect a Deframing are not sufficient for effecting Reframing. Moreover, the fact that we are able to recognize the absurdity of our mental models does not mean that we are aware of these mental models in their entirety. Such awareness may exist in the framework of science, where models are purer and more synthetic, and are based on logical-mathematical thinking; but "natural" thinking environments do not easily lend themselves to this. Attempts to bring together both types of thinking - logical-mathematical and associative - in a methodical fashion, as a process aimed at breaking outside the conceptual model, achieve results quite short of what is needed for Reframing. The same occurs with the use of other methods, such as de Bono's "lateral thinking."17

As a rule, de Bono's examples of lateral thinking do not depart form the existing mental model, despite the "creativity" ascribed to them. They are not more than a near association teaching the use of the existing model in a more flexible manner, not changing it. The long-term effect of lateral thinking goes in the direction of empowering the model by adding a "new" way for its application. The more radical process of "distant artificial association," in which a random word is chosen for the continuation of a discussion on a given topic, also does not make for awareness of the mental model and its meaning, let alone for a systematic change in this model.

To sum up, Reframing was not created as a new quality output of the two familiar forms of thinking in themselves - logical-mathematical and associative intelligence. Even when they are consciously used to challenge each other, this still does not suffice to create Reframing. The question is thus asked: what additional cognitive capabilities must we use to achieve Reframing?

In order to advance toward an answer, let us turn to the realm of study of "Abstract Symbolism" - dealing with the basic cognitive connections of conceptualization that constitute the building blocks of Reframing processes - as it is reflected in Terrence Deacon's work. Deacon claims that the capability of symbolic abstraction is unique to man, and is the source of the development and uniqueness of human language and thinking. It is for this uniqueness that he refers to the human species as "The Symbolic Species," this being also the title of his book.18

Deacon describes a hierarchical structure of our thinking through language. On the lower level of this structure are the "sign stimuli" or "token," having a semantic conceptual relationship with a "signified object." (e.g. "pencil," "pen," "ashtray"). Above them is the level of understanding through familiar relationships among objects, that he terms "indexical relationships" (e.g. "pencil-paper," "ashtray-cigarette:" when we say "pencil" our association brings up "paper;" when we say "ashtray" we have the association of a "cigarette"). Such combinations may include a wide variety of relationships between objects. Animals can also have such associative, indexical, complex thinking. When you say to your dog "outside," he connects it with a series of inter-relating objects, such as relieving himself, crossing the street, a leash, etc.).

Common to both levels is the fact that the concepts relate to objects in the physical world. Yet only human beings, and apparently no other living creature, are able to cross what Deacon terms the "symbolic threshold" - reaching thinking by means of symbolic representations whose meaning is not clarified in relation to physical objects but in relation to other representations.

Abstract symbolic thinking is characterized by representing not only objects in the world but mostly interrelating concepts. The meaning of each concept is clarified by means of other concepts in the conceptual system with which it is connected. A change in the meaning of one concept changes the meaning of the other concepts in the system, thus causing a change in the whole system. Deacon emphasizes that the process of conceptual association is "systemic" in nature (as differing from "systematic"). A symbolic abstraction does not occur from an aggregate of formless elements combined in various haphazard ways; they relate to each other in a systemic way.

This description is important in that it may serve as a basis for the creation of awareness not only of any single concept but also of the mental model as a system. Herein lies the key to its change.

The power of the mental model lies in the systemic dependence between its interpretive concepts. Its advantage as a systemic model lies in the fact that it relieves us of the need to go though the whole chain of thinking about the topic every time we think about it. This attribute has a clear advantage when the mental model is used in an environment of stable interpretation, in which the range of change of events may still be explained in the framework of the "conceptual space" that the mental model allows us.19 In our case, it is important to emphasize the systemic resistance of the mental models to any change in themselves. Every one of the arguments composing the mental model is backed by a broad network of other arguments justifying it when doubts arise about its validity due to some bit of information or argument that do not suit it. Because of this important systemic attribute of the mental model, we prefer to term it "mind-set" (we will henceforth use both terms interchangeably).

Deacon's descriptions of symbolic thinking do not sufficiently explain when and how the thinker makes the shift from thinking about the object (whether in terms of tokens or indexical relationships) to conceptual thinking - thinking how the subject thinks about the object. It explains even less how the thinker thinks conceptually as a process developing into a systemic examination of his perceptions - his mind-set.

Deacon describes thinking-language relationships as social, neurological and evolutionary processes. He does not deal with the question how human beings may perform processes of Reframing in a conscious manner. When we examine his words from this point of view, we discover the great difficulties in performing these processes. It seems that even when they are in a situation that obviously demands Reframing, and even recognize the need for it, people still avoid this process. Apparently it is in our nature, but it definitely does not come naturally.

As we have found by experience, the Reframing process requires a combined system of appropriate theories, methods and tools that will ensure that the person, the group or the organization will think about the meaning of matters with which they deal in everyday life, in the specific context in which they find themselves. Some considerations of this approach are presented below.

Methodology for the development of Reframing intelligence
The research institute "Praxis" has been systematically examining for over a decade our cognitive difficulties in executing Reframing.20 Below are some issues faced by "Praxis" in the course of developing a methodology that will turn Reframing into an applied intelligence.

First, the methodology should respond to the question how we arouse the awareness of a thinker to the need for conceptual thinking. Although we all possess the theoretical ability to carry out such thinking, we usually do not implement it in practice. The default in our thinking is thinking in words as if they were terms maintaining signifier-signified relationships to a particular object to which they point - and not as concepts open to interpretations changing with the context. Thus for example, CNN broadcasts after the "Twin Tower event" used the word "terror" as if it were a term relating to definite objects within the world of phenomena, and not as a concept the significance of which requires reinterpretation as a result of the dramatic event.

From the many experiments we have carried out on people's thinking in these situations, we have learned that we can arouse them to a conceptual awareness when we instruct them "to think of the meaning of the concept in context." While the reason for the effectiveness of the first part of the instruction is clear enough, since we point to the thinker the type of thinking we wish him to carry out, the reason for the second condition - "thinking in context" - needs explaining. This instruction causes the person to move to thinking about those experiential meanings that he has thus far not consciously related to the concept, not considering the new dimensions that his experience may awaken in him in order to understand the concept. In other words, we arouse him to seek the meanings from within the reservoir of his "tacit knowledge."21

What is this reservoir of tacit knowledge? We have said that we are creatures who learn without difficulty knowledge and logical-mathematical judgement patterns supplied us from outside. We can overcome gaps between what we have learned and what is needed in context by means of our associative ability even without having to examine systematically our conceptual models. The knowledge we acquire from experience - "know-how" as opposed to "know-that" - that is not expressed in our manifested causal-logical perception, is our tacit knowledge. It is tacit because it has no logical explanation in the framework of our existing models. The symbolic abstraction of the meaning of this knowledge enables us to turn it into manifested knowledge, and at the same time to rethink the meaning of the concept.

Let us illustrate how the aroused thinking about the meaning of the concept raises other concepts to our awareness. In order to do this we shall re-examine, using the knowledge we now possess, the thought process illustrated in the words of the poem: "Blue is the color of your golden hair." Out of the special context of the experience of observing his beloved's hair, the poet acquires new tacit knowledge. He senses that the manifested knowledge from his existing mental model, in which the natural color of hair may be black, blond or brown, does not adequately describe what he is experiencing now. Usually people leave this experience as "tacit knowledge" that does not connect with their mental model and therefore does not enrich or challenge it. Yet the poet, having a high sensitivity to the meaning of words, succeeds in an almost "natural" way to make a symbolic abstraction of his feelings and thus turn his tacit knowledge into manifested knowledge, which he transmits to the reader.

We will find that he does this by means of a thought process in which concepts relate to each other. He performs a process of conceptual association, by means of which he imports a "far" concept - "blue" - into the description of the golden hair of his beloved. The very thinking about an experience without any fitting concept for its description arouses a search for other concepts for its interpretation.

Such conceptual association is different from the type of association of "pencil-paper" or "ashtray-cigarette," not only in that the last are associations of near physical objects, but also in two other ways. First, in the process of conceptual association and placing the concept in a new context, the meaning of the concept changes. "Blue," when presented in the new thought context, is a "blue" of a different meaning than that which it had before. Second, the demand from the thinker to interpret these different meaning will lead him to bring other conceptual associations to interpret the concept. The poet does not face such a demand, and the "poetic" experience he brings to the reader is sufficient for him. This experience can be described from its effect on thinking as a leap out of the consciousness bowl, later to fall into it again.

When the goal is to conduct processes of Reframing, the thinker must explicitly conduct a continuous conceptual associative process, in which other concepts are brought up for examination from the mind-set reservoir, their meaning changing in this process. The Reframing methodology should provide an answer to the question, what is the basic thinking construct that arouses and enhances such a process?

We have found that this is basically a triadic coonstruct.22 The connection between concepts in such a systemic structure is a connection of "complementary divergence" - two contradicting concepts maintaining structural tension between them and at the same time complement each other (as opposed to the familiar binary structure of logical-mathematical thinking, in which the two concepts are exclusive of each other).23

Here, too, it appeared that people whose thinking is not used to this construct find difficulty in imagining it and conducting the necessary process. When we developed a triadic visual image to represent contexts of complementary divergence in a given context, the ability to conduct such a process markedly improved. Our studies showed that when people use the representation of the triad, they succeed in gaining new insight and to create in their thinking a continuation of a rich associative conceptual process, in the course of which they "import" new concepts and gradually create a complex systemic structure of concepts and connections between them. Following a relatively short practice, they are able to adopt this kind of thinking with no much effort.

However as the process continues, when they are asked to propose an "organizing concept" for all concepts and insights arrived at during the process on a higher level of abstraction that gives them an organizing meaning, they again come up against a considerable cognitive difficulty.

In order to overcome this difficulty and increase awareness to the frame formed, and enable a conscious follow-up of its complexity, we use the special software developed for this purpose - the Reframer - utilizing an advanced technology of graphic representqtion.24 The software creates a suitable platform for conducting the processes described above, and represents to the thinker the process of systemic development of his conceptual thinking by means of a map reflecting the system of attributed relations that develops between concepts. As the system of concepts develops and branches out, the map represents a more complex network of junctions, connections and "conceptual neighborhoods."

This representation in itself alerts their thinking to the meaning of the construct and to a re-examination of the contexts they had formed through their visual representation in space. They re-examine this representation, and often change the contexts and learn from this change about the systemic conceptual thought frame that they have created. They succeed in gradually developing awareness to the existence of an organizing meaning of the conceptualizations produced in the process, at a much higher level of symbolic abstraction; and to conceptualize in a new "organizing concept" the meaning of the complex perceptual construct they have created. It must be noted that this is not merely a process of changing a mental model while constructing a new systemic conceptual system, but a change from a tacit model to a manifested one - from a model of knowledge that is "more than we can express," according to Polanyi, to a model that can be talked about, examined and designed consciously and explicitly.

Finally, we must illustrate how this method enables us to effectively activate a conceptual model as well as the new insights, in order to relate in a new and richer way to the world of physical phenomena. In other words, to illustrate how it is possible to cross again with the aid of these new insights to what Deacon terms indexical relationships, and from there to the level of tokens.

Human thinking can develop a unique strategy for dealing with complex situations - the thick-precision strategy. When this thinking strategy is used, the subject simultaneously throws on the object many projections, divergent but complementary. Although none of these projections accurately describes the object, this combination of complementary divergence of projections leads to the unique result in which, with the increase in the thickness of various aspects associatively projected by our brain on the object, its power of distinction will grow more accurate.

There are many examples of achievements that our brain can reach by using this strategy to distinguish similar yet different situations. Thus, our brain easily distinguishes between a cup, a vase, a ball and a jar - all similar yet different to each other - by throwing many projections on the object. The number of projections our brain throws without our awareness is enormous. Each projection is not exact, but a combination of many inaccurate projections allows us to arrive at fine distinctions that even the most advanced computer programs, based on logical calculation capabilities must faster than the speed of calculation of the human brain, will hardly be able to reach.

In contrast to the unconscious process of distinguishing between the objects mentioned above, the new method of Reframing allows us to carry out these processes consciously.

The rich and ramified conceptual structure created by the process of Reframing, represented in the map described above, is a powerful cognitive aid to throwing new rich and conscious projections on phenomena, and to reaching multi-faceted and at the same time more penetrating distinctions of these phenomena. These abilities may be used not only for better distinctions between "similar yet different" objects; their main importance is in more sensitive distinctions in distinctions between representations or concepts that are "similar yet different," and in making use of these new distinctions to recreate processes of Reframing.

The R&D of Reframing Intelligence presented and illustrated in this article was aimed at enabling people to utilize their unique innate thinking capabilities. Thus, in order to help them deal with a complex environment in which rapid basic changes are occurring, requiring them to constantly accommodate the conceptual model by which they interpret and construct their world. This heavy burden is laid today upon each individual, and is not the domain of specialists only.

"Praxis" has drawn from various theoretical-scientific sources - philosophical tracts25 as well as cognitive-psychological research.26 It has developed a methodology and tools that enable people from all walks of life to experience the use of Reframing Intelligence in order to deal with the thinking requirements that today's reality, complex almost beyond untangling, sets before them. "Praxis" proposes an approach that will enable us to develop specific thinking abilities suitable to the changing time, place and needs of each individual and community. This approach passes all the tests required to establish a "new intelligence:" it generates a new level of execution not achieved in the framework of other know intelligences (IQ, EQ, SQ); it simultaneously represents abilities inherent in each and every human being as well as acquired abilities whose development enables us to reach a higher level of accommodation, beyond thinking in given mental frames; and finally, in contrast to a list of sporadic and arbitrary abilities and skills such as the "multiple intelligences," offers different abilities that are included in a single systemic logic, maintaining holistic discriminations and associations between its components.

Our experience shows that the adoption of such an approach may bring about important and unexpected conceptual and practical breakthroughs, in our personal, group, organizational and communal life.

Notes

1. See Gardner, H., Multiple Intelligence: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books, 1993; Gardner, H., Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

2. In this context, it is worthwhile to examine other views. See: Sternberg, R. J., & Ketterman, D. K. (eds.), What is Intelligence: Contemporary Viewpoints on Its Nature and Definition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub. Comp., 1986; Goleman, D., Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.

3. One of the expressions of this wave is the rising popularity of literature and products dealing with what is termed the "New Age."

4. See: Zohar, D., & Marshall, I., SQ: Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence. New York: Bloomsbury Pub., 2000; Wolman, R. N., thinking with Your Soul: Spiritual Intelligence and Why It Matters. New York: Harmony Books, 2001.

These are the major intelligences, but they are not the only ones. Gardner lists eight and a half intelligences: linguistic intelligence, musical intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, naturalistic intelligence (manifested among biologists, ecologists, etc.), as well as what he terms as half intelligence - existential intelligence. Many scholars, such as R. J. Sternberg, criticized Gardner claiming that his theory about the multiplicity of intelligences is actually a theory of abilities. We in this context have no interest to argue on this issue.

5. Heisenberg, W., "The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory," in Physics and Philosophy. London, 1958, Chap. 3.

6. A fascinating discussion of this aspect may be found in: J. F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

7. See: Lanir, Z. & Sneh, G., Beyond Post-Modern De-Construction, 2000. WWW.PRAXIS.CO.IL.

8. The distinction between these two types of change has been formulated in different ways by different thinkers: Aristotle's "alterations" as against "coming-to-bes" or "passing-aways;" Piaget's "assimilation" as against "accommodation;" Kuhn's "normal science" as against "scientific revolution;" Watzlawick, Weakland and Fisch's "first-order change" as against "second-order change;" Argyris et al.'s "single-loop learning" as against "double-loop learning," etc.

9. Lanir, Z., Fundamental Surprises: The National Intelligence Crisis. Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1984 (Hebrew).

10. These criteria are largely congruent with Wolman, who points to Mayer, J., Salovey, P., and D. Caruso, "Competing Models of Emotional Intelligence," in Sternberg, R. J., Handbook of Human Intelligence, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

11. Brink, V. Z., & Witt, H., Modern Internal Auditing: Appraising Operations and Controls. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1982, pp. 83-86.

12. Goleman ascribes our emotional ability to the "amygdala" at the base of our brain, in which a primary thought impulse is formed even before the processing of the information by the neo-cortex. He claims that this allows us an immediate or pre-thought response before our reason is introduced. But all efforts to situate different types of intelligence in distinct sites in the brain are as yet contentious. This discussion is beyond our scope here. When we refer to Reframing Intelligence, we will refrain from ascribing it to any definite area in the brain.

13. Goleman, D., Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books, 1999.

14. It may rightly be claim that this description disregards higher aspects of emotional intelligence and human feelings, and neglects to mention spiritual intelligence. But as the reader will notice, the Reframing methodology and many aspects ascribed to emotional intelligence, mostly those ascribed to spiritual intelligence, are related. The Reframing methodology deals with conceptual processes through which the thinker brings together and activates thinking by declared knowledge with thinking by tacit, experiential and subjective knowledge (including emotional dimensions, imagination and even spiritual sensations).

15. The comic, whose punishment is laughter according to Henry Bergson, is a mechanism aimed at exposing our rigidity - in body, spirit or character. "What life and society demand of each one of us is an ever active awareness that will note well the marks of the present state; and a certain flexibility of body and soul with the aid of which we can adjust to the present state." See: Bergson, H., Laughter. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956, pp. 17-18.

16. See: Oscar Wilde's Guide to Modern Living (Ed. by J. C. Batchelor & C. McNeer). New York: Doubledy, 1996.

17. De Bono, E., Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity. New York: Penguin, 1986.

18. Deacon, T. W., The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

19. Margaret Boden proposed this term in relation to "the generative system which underlines [the relevant] domain and which defined a certain range of possibilities." See: Boden, M., The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. London: Abacus, 1991.

20. About Praxis, see WWW.PRAXIS.CO.IL.

21. See: Polanyi, M., Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966; Polanyi, M., The Tacit Dimension. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966; Polanyi, M., Knowing and Being. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.

22. Varela, for example, defines a triadic construct as "the complementation of the ways in which pairs... are related and yet remain distinct: the way they are not one, not two." Varela, F. J., "Not One, Not Two," in The Co-Evolution Quarterly, Vol. 11, Fall 1976, p. 62; Chiari, G., & Nuzzo, M. L., "Constructs and Trinities: Kelly and Varela on Complementarity and Knowledge," Paper presented at the Seventh International Congress on Personal Construct Psychology, Memphis, TN, August 1999.

23. Lanir, Z., & Sneh, G., Systemic Thinking and Complementary Divergence, 2000. WWW.PRAXIS.CO.IL.

24. Lanir, Z., Reframer .WWW.PRAXIS.CO.IL.

25. See, for example, Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953, especially the references to language games and family resemblance.

26. See for instance: Bateson, G., A Theory of Play and Fantasy: Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine, 1954; Kelly, G., The Psychology of Personal Cosntructs. New York: W. W. Norton, 1955; Piaget, J., The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence: An Essay on the Construction of Formal Operational Structures. New York: Basic Books, 1958; Piaget, J., Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child. New York: Viking Press, 1971; Vygotsky, L. S., Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986; Rosch, E., Lloyd, B. B. (eds.), Cognition and Categorization. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1978; Tannen, D., Framing in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993; Boden, M. A., Dimensions of Creativity. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1996, pp. 75-117.