REFRAMER - A New Generation Of Thinking Software

REFRAMER - A New Generation Of Thinking Software

The computer and thinking
The thinker and pioneer computer developer Douglas C. Engelbart said of the computerization revolution, that he sees in its development so far the beginning of a road that does not foretell its continuance. We have used computers thus far as instruments of control, says Engelbart. The real revolution, to his mind, will occur when we succeed in moving from governing devices to accelerating devices. The REFRAMER software was developed with this vision in view.

The introduction of computers to organizations, school, universities and private homes has brought about technical improvements in processes of data gathering and processing - but not to a breakthrough in modes of thinking and learning that precede the gathering and processing. The most dramatic development occurred in the availability of information. The link of every organization, home and office to Intranet or Internet has made information available in a way unknown in the past. Anyone can now search for information suitable to his or her specific needs and to the exact context that interests him or her, without limitation of time or space.

Yet we must distinguish between refining the methods of transmission and utilization of information and improving the processes of "knowledge generation." Information is not knowledge. It is possible to package information and to distribute it separately from the process and context in which it is created. Knowledge is not separable form context. Knowledge is a process of interpretation and not a definitional outcome. Knowledge is always "in being" in the mind of the thinking individual or group. As soon as it is packaged, it loses its quality as knowledge and becomes information (Brown & Duguid, 2000; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Knowing is qualitatively different from the processes of the management of information, and at the same time is not separate from them. Knowledge, on the one hand, draws on information for relating it to the state of the world, and on the other hand creates a setting of coherence and preservation of relevance, upon which processes of information gathering may be carried out.

The processes of gathering and processing of information that we carry out in our intensive daily framework encourage very specific thinking processes. These are not necessarily the same thinking processes we need for coping with the issue of the main managerial and individual thinking of our time, i.e. the need to cope with rapid changes in our environment that force us to reexamine and change the overt and covert concepts and models by which we think about ourselves in relation to this environment.

We may learn this from the business and management domain, that uses and applies very advanced technologies and computer programs, and even tries to develop an integral management concept, "knowledge management" for use in the organization. Even in organizations applying the most advanced processes in these areas, it was found that they aided in improving the quality of managerial decisions only in quite specific areas, mostly of secondary importance for the survival and development of the organization. As a whole, they did not improve the organizational insights needed for handling the conceptual race with the rapid basic changes occurring in the business environment and with the increase in their complexity. The basic gap in this race was increased rather than decreased.

What is the reason for this? Are the hopes we pin on technologies as possible tools for improving thinking processes fundamentally unsound? Are we impatient, and must realize that the suitable technologies have not yet ripened, and we must simply wait for them? Or is the potential already there, and the main technologies already exist, but what is lacking is the conceptual framework - including theories and methodology - needed in order to harness these innovations to the areas of improvement of human thinking in the context of reinterpretation (and not only improving the efficiency) of the old? It is our belief that the answer lies mainly in the third possibility - in not harnessing existing technologies to cognitive coping with the growing changeability and complexity of the human action milieu.

The assumption that there is complementarity between computational thinking and human thinking, and that computational thinking enhances human thinking, is comfortable and even partially true. But the thinking capabilities we develop from the computational point of view are very specific, and may be included in the domain of "problem-solving" processes, or "lower order thinking capabilities" (Resnick, 1987). These are the capabilities that enable us to do what we already know how to do in a more reliable way, faster and more accurate, but within our existing thinking patterns and frameworks. Coping with a changing environment requires the breaking of frameworks and the establishment of new patterns. When we are faced with a new reality or with the necessity to reinterpret an existing reality in a different way a different kind of thinking activity is needed: restructuring of the problems or the operation of "higher order thinking capabilities."

The "lower order thinking capabilities" include the skills of information retrieval and organization, and drawing both simple and complex causal inferences about the interrelations between variables. We also employ our "lower order thinking capabilities" to deal with new complex problems (e.g. strategic changes in the competitive environment, technological innovations, implementation of advanced systems etc). By doing that, we refer to such complex problems (that in essence cannot be reduced) as if they were compound problems that can be reduced into their components. We then gather information about them, and perform inference drawing processes. Then we reconstruct what we believe to be the "factual truth" updated for the various components of what we assume to be "the whole", in a thinking process of graded causal connection. Thus we solve problems in the world.

By "higher order thinking capabilities" we mean those cognitive skills needed for identifying a significant organization in what did not previously seem so - the ability of conceptual thinking with the use of analogies and metaphors - in order to clarify the essence of the problem that is in need of clarification as a whole, without reducing it into components. This is a thinking process that develops associatively and is not based on an assumption of a pre-existing model. The "higher order thinking capabilities" are those enabling us to conduct in the course of the thinking process also that thinking which controls and directs its own thought processes - what is termed "thinking about thinking." "Higher order thinking capabilities" are those by which we develop knowledge about context, that is always beyond general information. We do it by our ability to identify the tension between existing information and what we know through our own experience in context; yet we are still unable to formulate its meanings and implications. "Higher order thinking capabilities" are those by means of which we as human beings conceptualize our own condition in order to generate new knowledge - thus we reformulate the problems we are faced with, in order to try later to solve the problem. The implementation will thus be coherent, and the result will be relevant.

Each of us has "higher order thinking capabilities" in one level and shape or another; but most of us are unaware of them, and are not skilled in their application.

The use of computer technology directs and develops in us mainly the "lower order thinking capabilities." REFRAMER is the first software to be constructed from the start in order to change this state of affairs.

REFRAMER - computer applications for enhancing "higher order thinking capabilities"

Management theory conceives of the managerial problem as "problem-solving" that motivates the optimization of organizational processes. It identifies the issue of thinking with a "decision-making process" - a rational process of information processing in order to reach the decision with the highest payoff. The people of the organization are the "decision-makers" and "problem-solvers" through processing information. The organization as a whole is seen as an "information-processing machine." In this thinking context, high hopes were placed on the application of computer technologies for the improvement of "decision-making" capabilities in organizations. These hopes were based on the advantage of the computer in doing computations that are more rapid than anything the human brain can do, and its superiority in logical analysis of information and causal contexts. Indeed, a whole industry was developed of software offering "thinking solutions" based on these assumptions. Also belonging to this family of computer "solutions" for "thinking" problems are the Data Analysis and Mining Software Tools and the Expert Systems. These tools, among others - are based on the assumption that it will be possible to improve decision-making in various domains by constructing software for "problem-solving" that will include rational thinking algorithms "taken from the minds" of specialists and their "implantation in expert systems." Computer technology has also been applied to the construction of "decision-support systems" that offer logical ways of coping with complex decision problems, by pointing to the logical causal interrelations between multi-dependent variables.

These systems, sophisticated as they may be, are still based on the "lower thinking capabilities" - reducing complex problems into their components according to given criteria, drawing inferences of cause and effect relations about each of the "components," and reconstructing of the components into a whole, in a graded causal connection. In spite of all the sophistication invested in them, their contribution to the development of "higher thinking capabilities" is minimal. Simon described the large gap between the complexity of the problems the organization has to deal with on the one had, and the limitations of human thinking when examined as an information-processing machine on the other hand, in view of this complexity (Simon, 1969).

The starting point of PRAXIS was that one has first to invest in researching the theory, the methodology and the ways of imparting of "higher thinking capabilities," both in the individual and the organizational context. Only after clarification of the difficulties encountered by individuals and groups in performing thinking processes that require the use of "higher thinking capabilities", and on the basis of this knowledge, did the company develop applications based on computer technology in order to assist the individual or groups to surmount these difficulties. These are embodied in the REFRAMER software.

REFRAMER?S new innovations and possibilities for individuals and organizations

We shall present below the main innovations of the software and the new possibilities it enables, on both the individual and organizational level.

On the individual level

? Advanced technologies of graphic representation have been applied, in order to enable the thinker to represent the advancement in his thinking as it is formed. Thus, rendering the process more visible to the thinker himself or herself, and enabling him or her to perform "thinking about thinking" as it is taking place.

? The software encourages the user to be aware of concepts by which and through which he or she thinks. It forces him or her to elicit concepts and uses of them as he or she did before in an implicit manner, and to make them conscious and explicit. Rendering the concepts explicit enables a new bridging between them and other concepts, and raising new concepts not hitherto considered, which connected to the meaning of the context. This conceptual development enables on its part the elicitation of previously tacit experiential knowledge, and to turn it into overt knowledge.

? The software enables and encourages simultaneous use of both the verbal and the visual dimensions of thinking. These different but complementary representations serve as additional means stimulating the thinker to "observe" his thinking through processes that are difficult to perform or even to deem possible without the feeling obtained from experiencing thinking by means of the software.

? In the course of structuring thinking, the software creates a drawing of a seemingly spatial map of the structure formed by the thinking process, thus enabling a broad and multi-contextual spatial vision of the development of associative thinking in the thinker, with all its complexities. Thus, the software affords the thinking a self-view and self-criticism that would be impossible without this support.

? The computer technology is applied in REFRAMER also to expand the limits of the "focused associations" of thinking. The main block to the development of thinking in "focused associations" is the difficulty of the "brain" to follow each process and to remember the associative shifts and their connections to the topic. The associative process tends to "run away" from the topic, and the thinker finds it difficult to maintain the necessary complementary contradiction between freedom in maintaining "associative thinking" and the discipline needed to focus on the problem. He also finds it difficult to follow this complex process, which is beyond the "natural" human memory capabilities. This difficulty also precludes the possibility to examine the associative process and to develop the skill for achieving it. The REFRAMER contains the necessary aids to assist thinkers to overcome these difficulties.

? The software's attributes of multi- dimensional representations of the development of thinking afford many possibilities for thought interactions, while the user is constantly negotiating the meanings of ideas and concepts. It thus assists the user to construct a broad and thick-precision thinking construct about his thinking.

By means of these attributes, REFRAMER succeeds in acting upon the user as a facilitator, guiding the user in the utilization of his higher thinking capabilities in order to examine the validity of his or her present thinking construct, in its adaptation to the context of the problem before him or her, and in changing and enriching it according to the context. All this - without any assumptions in the software about the contents of the thinking or any model about the problem itself.

On the group and organizational level

The software was designed in such a way, that it enables the integration of thought accelerating processes, both for individual and groups.

? The software enables the user to maintain both the "image of his or her thinking process" - in what is termed "Deliberation-Space Maps", and the "conceptual image" that he or she created - in what is termed "Setting Maps." The representation of the thinking process parallel to a rich representation of the concept creates what may be called a "memory" of the thinking process, and enables "connecting" and referring to it at any time. A memory of the thinking processes themselves along with the associative passageways and their contexts, and not only the outputs of thinking, aids in turning the whole process into an overt process to him or her who created it, as well as sharing it with others in the organization. It is also possible to examine it post facto, in order to learn its attributes and improve upon it.

? In the organizational context, the maps representing the concept create a new tool for inter-personal and organizational transmission of concepts, deliberation spaces, considerations and conceptions. This tool aids in preventing the familiar organizational failure of continuing to hold on to decisions long after the reasons for them have been deleted from the organizational "memory," and in many cases - long after the logic that has led to them no longer exists.

? In contrast to the organizational communication of commands and directions that are in many ways the completion of the process of investigation, transmission of concepts through the maps representing them makes it possible to continue and maintain - along with the transmission of directions - an additional channel of understanding and discourse inside the organization, about the meaning and interpretation of these directions.

? Since the process of creating new concepts is mainly a group process that takes place through discourse, REFRAMER utilizes computer technology in order to enable maintenance of structured discourse processes within a group as well as between groups who develop a common conception from different perspectives of observation and experience. The software demands of its users a discipline of conceptual precision, aiding in the processes of learning through discourse by preventing the familiar failures of useless debates about similar ideas expressed in different words. Alternatively, they prevent false beliefs about the existence of common understandings where they do not exist.

Thus, through the REFRAMER, it is possible to maintain in the organization a level of innovative development of ideas before and beyond the familiar processes of planning and decision-making, and maintain this level of molded thinking parallel to them. The software enables the maintenance of a continuous complementary tension between the processes of control that ensure the application of the program and an adequate operation of the decision-making process according to present concepts, and the examination of the concepts upon which they are based. On the other hand, such a combination bolsters the understanding of the concept behind the commands and directions, thus supplying an answer to their major inherent limitation - that they never suffice to describe the complexity of reality.

These attributes of the software place it in a position not only of an aid to individual and group thinking, but as a platform to change in organizational culture. REFRAMER enables to generate in the organization accelerated processes of creating and developing knowledge, while no longer placing the person in the organization as a information-absorbing individual who receive orders from an outside source in a given world, but as one who actively participate in molding and transforming world.

References

Brown, J. S. & Duguid, P., The social life of information. Harvard Business Press, 2000.

Nonaka, I. & Tskeuchi, H., The knowledge - creating company. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Resnick, L., Education and learning to think. National Academy Press, 1987.

Simon, H., The science of the artificial. M.I.T Press, 1969.

Engelbart, D. C. web site (one of many) - http://unrev.stanford.edu/index.html