Human beings. What are we going to do with ourselves? We are born fixers. And I mean literally, born, as in since the dawn of time. When there were cracks in those cave walls, you can be sure we were there with our primitive spackling tools to patch them right up.
Well, OK, home improvement was not quite the priority on the honey-do list, what with the more immediate issues—predatory birds, lions, poisonous snakes, the occasional out of hand neighbor. The kinds of things we had to fix back in the day were life and death. And thus it was in that milieu of danger at every turn that our inner alarm system—our fight-or-flight responsiveness to threat—developed.
So while we have the amygdala, the C.O.O. of the brain’s alarm system, to thank for bringing us to this day there’s a bit more she wrote. Sensitivity (reading the fine print of a situation) is not the amygdala’s strong suit. So when we find ourselves feeling threatened not by a large bird with claws, but none other than our adult daughter standing before us upset about a non-large bird issue like, maybe, just for the sake of argument…having a stressful situation at work, it’s the amygdala showing up first that instantly makes us feel like our child’s distress is a fire to put out.
In those moments that call for empathy, compassion and soothing, the amygdala shouting fire! is more of the problem than the solution. I know this well. As an anxiety therapist, I speak to patients all day about ways to override and reset the amygdala when the proverbial snake turns out to be a harmless stick.
And though I try to live by what I teach, there are those moments where my blindspots are pointed out to me. Like by my daughter and the aforementioned situation at her job, right away I picked up my spackler and got to work. I jumped in with all the different ways my daughter might look at the situation, all the different things she could do to make it better.
In fact, I had so much to say about her situation, I’m not sure she could get a word in edgewise. What she wanted, in her words, was empathy, period, and I handed her a to do list. Gotcha. Whether we are talking to our children, our coworkers, our partners, even ourselves, I think my daughter hit the nail on the head. When we are upset we want empathy, period.
Not the laundry list of things we need, could, or should do. Not yet, and maybe not ever. At the very least we need to pause and listen, the longer the better, before we ask if those spackling tools that our primitive instincts are tapping behind our backs are actually being requested.
How do we do this? How do we tell our amygdalas to send the fire trucks back to the station? How do we turn off our revving engines running circles around an unsuspecting troubled person who has come to us for comfort, but is getting more upset by our (even with a Ph.D. in psychology) bungled response? What’s really the fire?
We need to take charge of our own discomfort with someone else’s discomfort and realize our desire to solve things or to make invisible the things we can’t solve is…. drumroll please… our own problem—not the other person’s. The person who is in need of soothing was not in emergency mode until they were inundated with our to-do list for them. Not exactly what we were going for.
If we as helpers can punch in the security code of our own amygdalas, do an override, take a breath, and remind ourselves that what is needed from us is not the brave slaying of dragons and such, but sometimes the braver offering of compassionate words or simply saying “yes—that sounds hard,” or “I’m sorry that’s happening,” or EVEN: “Tell me more about it” (because our to do list essentially conveys: tell me less) we will be a different kind of hero.
We are protecting ourselves and each other from our desire to fix and in so doing, will find a place where understanding ripples out and smooths the way for all of us. And when each of us forgets about this idea, which we inevitably will given our jumpy amygdalas, let’s just agree to turn to each other and say, “Empathy, period, please!” Or… if you prefer… “Hold the spackler, please.” Namaste.
A digital exhibit of the human brain Source: Bret Kavanaugh on Unsplash
All marketers dream of getting into the minds of their consumers. Well, Twitter’s cybernetic super-intelligence is the new secret key to unlocking human brains.
Calling Twitter a “cybernetic super-intelligence” sounds like script from a science fiction movie. But it’s actually true, and every Twitter user is a part of that massive, insight-ridden brain.
What we mean by the technical term is that the social media platform consists of billions of interactions among users every second of the day, making it function as a collective intelligence hub.
Even Elon Musk—as scary as he seems sometimes—understood the power of Twitter’s data. He recently tweeted, “Because it consists of billions of bidirectional interactions per day, Twitter can be thought of as a collectiv, cybernetic super-intelligence… with a lot of room for improvement.”
What does it mean for advertisers and marketers like you? Well, the data available within Twitter is so rich with interactions that it gives you a unique view of people’s minds. And if that doesn’t give you superpowers as a marketer, we don’t know what would.
Let’s take a closer look at the practical uses of Twitter’s cybernetic, super-intelligent brain.
Where Does Twitter’s Data Come From?
The data that makes Twitter so special comes from the interactions that happen between users. That could be a tweet, a retweet, a like, or a comment. Adding up all those interactions creates a real-time map of human thoughts and opinions.
Twitter said its platform is meant to be the “pulse of the planet.” And with over 450 million monthly active users and an average of 500 million Tweets per day, it’s not far off from its objective.
In marketing and advertising, tapping into that vast data pool is an incredible opportunity to mine gold nuggets. You can use it to understand what people think about your brand, products, competition, and anything else you can think of.
For example, let’s say you want to know what people think about the new iPhone. You can search Twitter and see hundreds of tweets about it in real time. You can then use that data to understand what people like and don’t like about the product and use it to your advantage.
You can also use Twitter’s data to track sentiment around your brand. Are people happy with your products? Do they have suggestions for improvement? Are they talking about you at all? All of this is valuable information you can use to make better decisions about your marketing and advertising efforts, getting access to their minds like no other technology can.
And keep in mind that these are only the tip of the Twitter brain iceberg. As we continue learning about its collective intelligence, the possibilities for using Twitter’s data for insights are endless.
What are Some Practical Uses for Twitter’s Data?
Twitter as a social media company has always been a place for people to share their thoughts and feelings. But what if those thoughts and feelings could be turned into cold, hard cash? Turns out, they can! All you need is the right tools and a little bit of know-how.
Here are four practical uses of Twitter’s brain:
Advertising: Twitter’s ad platform is already quite sophisticated, but it will only get better as they collect more data. The more data they have, the better they’ll be able to target ads and ensure they’re reaching the right people.
Competitor Research: Twitter is an excellent place to keep an eye on your competition. You can stay one step ahead by monitoring what people say about them in real-time and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. You’ll be attacking before the war happens.
Customer Service: Twitter is also a great platform for customer service. Not only can you address complaints and concerns in real-time, but you can also use Twitter’s data to proactively improve your customer service, knowing what people usually complain about and such.
Product Development: Finally, you can use Twitter’s data to guide your product development. By understanding what people want and need, you can develop products that are better aligned with customer needs—even if they haven’t realized it yet.
Twitter is a powerful tool with a lot of deep-seated insights. As marketers, we need to learn how to harness that access to human brains and use it to our advantage. After all, Twitter is a cybernetic super-intelligence, and we are just beginning to scratch the surface of what it can do.
Case Study: White Swan Detects Early Onset Alzheimer’s with Twitter Data
Let’s see Twitter’s cybernetic super-intelligence in action.
White Swan is a registered charity in England and Wales that aims to improve health and well-being through technology and analytics. Since it discovered that Twitter was a hub of “a million minds” where everyone talks about the symptoms they have or observed from family members, White Swan decided to use its data to learn more about certain diseases.
One of the diseases it decided to test with Twitter data is detecting if a child has early onset Alzheimer’s—the most common type of dementia. White Swan banked on the realization that people tweet about their experiences with health problems, like how most of us tweeted about COVID-19 when the pandemic was in full swing back in 2020.
By accessing Twitter’s cybernetic super-intelligence, White Swan figured is finding clues to help diagnose early onset Alzheimer’s in children, as it was all based on real-life, personal experiences. This achievement is a huge breakthrough, as early detection is key to managing the horrid disease.
This case study is just one example of how Twitter’s data can be used for good. As we continue to collect more data, who knows what other insights we can glean from it? Twitter’s cybernetic super-intelligence creates customer-based products, helps you make ultra-relevant marketing campaigns, and can even give medical diagnoses!
What the heck? Why are we only learning about this now?
Cybernetic Super-intelligence for the Deepest Customer Insights
Twitter’s data is a valuable resource for marketers and businesses. By understanding how to use it, you can get insights into your customers, your competition, and just about anything else you need.
Think of it as having access to people’s thoughts, opinions, and experiences without any biases—isn’t that the information marketers dream of? And it’s fully available and accessible today.
All Elon Musk has to do is figure out how to make Twitter data easier for people to use for good. Our company Black Swan Data is already doing our share of the mission with our Trendscope tool. But there are still so many opportunities out there to utilize collective intelligence for the improvement of our world.
We’re sitting at the edge of our seats just waiting for the moment to happen.
I’m CEO and co-founder of Black Swan Data, one of the U.K.’s fastest-growing and most exciting tech companies. After studying Cognitive Science in the 90s, I started
We asked a theoretical physicist, an experimental physicist, and a professor of philosophy to weigh in. During the 20th century, researchers pushed the frontiers of science further than ever before with great strides made in two very distinct fields. While physicists discovered the strange counter-intuitive rules that govern the subatomic world, our understanding of how the mind works burgeoned.
Yet, in the newly-created fields of quantum physics and cognitive science, difficult and troubling mysteries still linger, and occasionally entwine. Why do quantum states suddenly resolve when they’re measured, making it at least superficially appear that observation by a conscious mind has the capacity to change the physical world? What does that tell us about consciousness?
Popular Mechanics spoke to three researchers from different fields for their views on a potential quantum consciousness connection. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a theoretical physicist, an experimental physicist, and a professor of philosophy walk into a bar …
Quantum Physics and Consciousness Are Weird
Early quantum physicists noticed through the double-slit experiment that the act of attempting to measure photons as they pass through wavelength-sized slits to a detection screen on the other side changed their behavior.
This measurement attempt caused wave-like behavior to be destroyed, forcing light to behave more like a particle. While this experiment answered the question “is light a wave or a particle?” — it’s neither, with properties of both, depending on the circumstance — it left behind a more troubling question in its wake. What if the act of observation with the human mind is actually causing the world to manifest changes , albeit on an incomprehensibly small scale?
Renowned and reputable scientists such as Eugene Wigner, John Bell, and later Roger Penrose, began to consider the idea that consciousness could be a quantum phenomenon. Eventually, so did researchers in cognitive science (the scientific study of the mind and its processes), but for different reasons.
Ulf Danielsson, an author and a professor of theoretical physics at Uppsala University in Sweden, believes one of the reasons for the association between quantum physics and consciousness—at least from the perspective of cognitive science—is the fact that processes on a quantum level are completely random. This is different from the deterministic way in which classical physics proceeds, and means even the best calculations that physicists can come up with in regard to quantum experiments are mere probabilities.
“Consciousness is a phenomenon associated with free will and free will makes use of the freedom that quantum mechanics supposedly provides.”
The existence of free will as an element of consciousness also seems to be a deeply non-deterministic concept. Recall that in mathematics, computer science, and physics, deterministic functions or systems involve no randomness in the future state of the system; in other words, a deterministic function will always yield the same results if you give it the same inputs. Meanwhile, a nondeterministic function or system will give you different results every time, even if you provide the same input values.
“I think that’s why cognitive sciences are looking toward quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, there is room for chance,” Danielsson tells Popular Mechanics. “Consciousness is a phenomenon associated with free will and free will makes use of the freedom that quantum mechanics supposedly provides.”
However, Jeffrey Barrett, chancellor’s professor of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California, Irvine, thinks the connection is somewhat arbitrary from the cognitive science side.
“It’s really hard to explain consciousness, it is a deep and abiding philosophical problem. So quantum physicists are desperate and those guys [cognitive scientists] are desperate over there too,” Barrett tells Popular Mechanics. “And they think that quantum mechanics is weird. Consciousness is weird. There might be some relationship between the two.”
This rationalization isn’t convincing to him, however. “I don’t think that there’s any reason to suppose from the cognitive science direction that quantum mechanics has anything to do with explaining consciousness,” Barrett continues. From the quantum perspective, however, Barrett sees a clear reason why physicists first proposed the connection to consciousness.
“If it wasn’t for the quantum measurement problem, nobody, including the physicists involved in this early discussion, would be thinking that consciousness and quantum mechanics had anything to do with each other,” he says. At the heart of quantum “weirdness” and the measurement problem, there is a concept called “superposition.”
Because the possible states of a quantum system are described using wave mathematics — or more precisely, wave functions — a quantum system can exist in many overlapping states, or a superposition. The weird thing is, these states can be contradictory. To see how counter-intuitive this can be, we can refer to one of history’s most famous thought experiments, the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox.
Devised by Erwin Schrödinger, the experiment sees an unfortunate cat placed in a box with what the physicist described as a “diabolical device” for an hour. The device releases a deadly poison if an atom in the box decays during that period. Because the decay of atoms is completely random, there is no way for the experimenter to predict if the cat is dead or alive until the hour is up and the box is opened.
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Treating the cat, box, and device as a quantum system with two possible states—“dead” or “alive”—before the box is opened, means it is in a superposition of those states . The cat is both dead and alive before you open the container.
The problem of measurement asks what is it about “opening the box” — analogous to making a measurement — that causes the wave function to collapse, and this superposition to be destroyed, resolving one state? Is it due to the introduction of the conscious mind of the experimenter? Early quantum physicist Eugene Wigner thought so until shortly before his death in 1995.
Physical Body and Quantum Mind?
In 1961, Wigner put forward a theory in which a mind was crucial to the collapse of a wave function and the destruction of superposition which persists in one form or another to this day.
Wigner and other physicists who adhered to the theory of conscious collapses—such as John von Neumann, John Wheeler, and John Bell—believed that an inanimate consciousness-less object would not collapse the wave function of a quantum system and would thus leave it in a superposition of states.
That means placing a Geiger counter in the box with Schrödinger’s cat isn’t enough to collapse the system to a “dead” or “alive” state even though it is capable of telling if the poison-release atom had decayed.
The superposition remains, Winger said, until a conscious observer opens the box or maybe hears the tick of the Geiger counter.
This leads to the conclusion that there are two distinct types of “substances” in the universe: the physical, and the non-physical , with the human mind fitting in the latter category. This suggests, though, that the brain is a physical and biological object, while the mind is something else, resulting in so-called “mind-body dualism.”
For materialists like himself, Danielsson says the collapse of a wave function in quantum mechanics is a result of an interaction with another physical system. This means it’s quite possible for an “observer” to be a completely unconscious object. To them, the Geiger counter in the box with Schrödinger’s cat is capable of collapsing the superposition of states.
This fits in with the fact that quantum systems are incredibly finely balanced systems easily collapsed by a stray electromagnetic field or even a change in temperature. If you want to know why we don’t have reliable quantum computers, that’s a part of the reason—the quantum states they depend on are too easily disturbed.
Additionally, as Barrett points out, there are a number of ways of thinking about quantum mechanics that don’t involve the collapse of quantum superposition.
The most famous, Hugh Everett III’s many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, suggests that when the experimenter makes a measurement, the wave function doesn’t collapse at all. Instead, it grows to include the experimenter and the entire universe, with one “world” for each possible state. Thus, the experimenter opens the box not to discover if the cat is dead or alive, but rather, if they are in a world in which the cat survived or did not.
If there is no collapse of superpositions, there is no measurement problem.
Clearly, with Noble Prize winners like Wigner and Roger Penrose persuaded that there may be something in a possible quantum-consciousness connection, however, the idea can’t be entirely dismissed.
Kristian Piscicchia, a researcher at the Enrico Fermi Center for Study and Research in Rome, Italy, certainly agrees. He is part of a team searching for a more profound understanding of the mind and the relationship between consciousness and the laws of nature.
This team recently set about testing one particular theory that connects consciousness to the collapse of quantum superposition — the Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory (Orch OR theory) — put forward by Nobel Laureate and Oxford mathematician Penrose and Arizona State University anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in the 1990s.
Testing Quantum Consciousness Theories
Orch OR theory considers quantum collapse to be related to gravity and argues this collapse actually gives rise to consciousness. According to some approaches to Orch OR theory, the superposition collapse mechanism underlying it should cause the spontaneous emission of a tiny amount of radiation. This distinguishes it from other quantum consciousness theories as it makes it experimentally testable.
“When a system is in a quantum superposition, an unstable superposition of two space-time geometries is generated which determines the wave function collapse in a characteristic time,” Piscicchia tells Popular Mechanics. “The mechanism takes place at the level of microtubules in the brain.”
Microtubules are a key element of eukaryotic cells that are critical for mitosis, cell motility, transport within cells, and maintaining cell shape. Hameroff’s theory sees microtubules in brain neurons as the seat of quantum consciousness, maintaining quantum effects just long enough to conduct computations giving rise to consciousness before collapsing.
“A sufficient amount of microtubule material would be in a coherent quantum superposition for a timescale of between half a second and ten milliseconds until a collapse event results in the emergence of a conscious experience,” Piscicchia says. “We designed an experiment being sensitive enough to unveil eventual signals of gravity-related spontaneous radiation, at the collapse time-scales needed for the Orch OR mechanism to be effective.”
He adds that the results the team obtained place a constraint on the minimum amount of microtubulins needed for this form of Orch OR theory. This limit was found to be prohibitively large, meaning the results indicate that many of the scenarios set out by Hameroff and Penrose’s quantum consciousness theory are implausible.
Piscicchia points out that the team’s work can’t rule out all possibilities, however, and further testing is needed.
Yet, the existence of the quantum consciousness concept itself—and the way it is represented in popular culture—could present a threat to further scientific investigation.
The mind-body dualism suggested by quantum consciousness can be a potentially slippery slope that has led some proponents away from science and into the supernatural.
The concept has also been seized upon to explain the existence of the soul, life after death, and even the existence of ghosts, giving rise to a cottage industry of “quantum mysticism.”
“There’s lots of literature that uses the authority of physics and in particular quantum physics in order to make all sorts of claims,” Danielsson explains. “You can earn a lot of money by fooling people in various ways to buy not only books but also various products. It gives the wrong view of what science is.”
“Quantum mysticism makes it very difficult for serious scientists to think about problems like quantum mechanics and consciousness.”
The physicist also believes that it is definitely the case that the rise of quantum mysticism is hurting legitimate research. “Quantum mysticism makes it very difficult for serious scientists to think about problems like quantum mechanics and consciousness,” he adds. “This is because there is a risk that you might get associated with things which are not so serious.”
Danielsson doesn’t rule out that even if the mind is a purely emergent property of the brain, and thus completely physical in nature, the phenomenon of consciousness may require new physics to explain it. He doesn’t necessarily think that this needs to be quantum mechanics, however.
“That doesn’t mean that there might be many interesting phenomena new to quantum mechanics that might appear in the living world, including in our brains,” he concludes. “One shouldn’t say that quantum mechanics is trivial and that there is no mystery to it.
“It’s just another fantastic property of the world that we are living in. It’s not mystical in a supernatural way.”
Mission statements remain key aspects of businesses since they remind employees and leaders of what the business stands for. These mission statements can inspire people and help them become unified, so a business needs to know how to create one. This means you must review the approaches and strategies available, so you can craft a great mission statement to help your business.
How to Come Up with A Good Mission Statement
1. Know What You Want to Accomplish
If you plan to craft a mission statement, you need to understand what your business plans to accomplish. For example, some businesses want to help people feel happy and beautiful while others want to get people to find their own homes. While your business wants to make money, it needs to have another point it can focus on.
This means you need to consider the position of your business, so you can find an ideal mission statement based on the situation. The statement won’t work if your business doesn’t identify one related to it. Because of this, you need to form a connection between your statement and business by working towards a goal.
2. Look at the Big Picture
Once you identify the goals you plan to accomplish, you need to look at the situation from a larger scope. This means identifying why your business wants to reach a goal, so you can see the situation with the bigger picture in mind. For example, if your business wants to encourage people to purchase homes, you need to figure out why you want to do so.
For example, a life coach mission statement can mention wanting people to succeed, so it does this by offering its services. This means you need to understand how your business benefits its customers, so you can build your statement around it and understand the bigger picture.
3. Make it Relatable
Not only do you want your mission statement to point towards a goal, but you also want it to stand out as a relatable one. This means you need to identify one that customers and average people understand and want. You must get your customers involved and invested in your mission statement to help you succeed.
You want your customers to feel invested, so they gain a reason to support your business. If they want to see you fulfil your mission statement, they’ll continue to make purchases and support your cause. That way, your customers can feel good about helping you out while your business continues to make money.
4. Focus on Simplicity
As you craft a mission statement, you can focus on simplicity to make it better. It needs to catch the attention of people, so you can’t make them too complicated or long. This seems unnecessary, but doing so can make your mission statement strong overall. Mission statements should stick to one idea expressed in a single sentence.
If your mission statement drags on for multiple sentences, it becomes overwhelming and unappealing. When this happens, customers and employees forget about it since it becomes too long to remember. Instead, you need to make the mission statement a single line people can easily memorize and remain focused on to help your business out.
5. Ask for Suggestions
Developing mission statements helps businesses succeed, but some people struggle to create them on their own. You don’t have to think of a mission statement since you can turn to people in your business for assistance. This means you need to take the necessary time to talk with people throughout your business to receive suggestions.
You can talk with the leaders and ask them what they think might work as an effective mission statement. You can also ask customers and employees for their opinions, so you can identify more options for your mission statement. Once you find one, make sure you give credit to the person who came up with it.
Conclusion
A mission statement allows you to represent your business through a simple phrase and idea. Make sure you focus on creating a mission statement, so you can find one to represent your entire business. As you focus on this, you can impress your customers while encouraging your employees to work towards your mission statement goal.
There is a river of experiences, sensations, thoughts, memories, and visions that roll through the brain from moment to moment. Each part of this neural river leaves the brain slightly changed.
Because the human brain has neural plasticity, which is the ability to strengthen, weaken, or even prune neurons and synapses, this plasticity at the cellular level allows the brain to adapt, to learn, and to grow at the conscious level, while conscious mental activity guides the plasticity.
The brain adapts to how it is used. Devote your time to video games and you will develop a brain more adept at video games. Studying Renaissance architecture will tune your sensibilities to form, shape, and design. During the Renaissance, individual artists were “artist-architect-engineers” skilled in multiple disciplines. Leonardo Da Vinci’s first job was as a musician. He painted, sculpted, invented, designed weapons, launched plans to reroute a river, assisted in staging pageants, studied anatomy, and drafted plans for an ideal city.
Today, one is dubbed a Renaissance person for indulging in multiple pursuits or a “jack of all trades, master of none.” A jack of all trades is considered shallow, a person with skills in many fields, but no single area of expertise. In the 21st century, we expect expertise. For better or worse, we live in an era of specialization. The specialized fields of the last century have become narrower and more focused: for example, a doctor to an oncologist to a small cell oncologist.
And we expect specialists with a single area of expertise to solve problems in their domain. Of course, we want the specialists to have thorough mastery of their domains. But too much focus down one microscope and soon everything looks the same. As the saying goes: to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. The vision necessary for innovation becomes blurred.
Innovation comes from flexible thinking.
Flexibility is the ability to bend without breaking. Cognitive flexibility is the mental ability to adjust focus from narrow to broad, to switch between different task rules, and to hold multiple concepts in mind at the same time. Or as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Our 21st century specialists concentrate on a narrowing band of information. Innovation, however, requires new information or seeing known information in a new perspective. New information and perspective come from exposure to different, often unrelated domains. Innovation grows from cross-pollination between disciplines, and what you see outside your normal scope of vision.
Watch Flies, See Clues
The river is caramel brown, stagnant in the tropical sun of Southern Thailand. The torrid heat leaves you in a loop of torpor. The stillness of the summer heat is punctuated only by the movement of flies. The lethargy and silence mark the ideal time to think about… robotics.
Dr. Rodney Brooks is a roboticist, inventor, founder of iRobots and the former Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT. In the summer of 1985, he was on vacation from MIT visiting his Thai in-laws who, fearing for his safety, insisted that Brooks stay on the deck of their stilt house built over the river. Brooks had little to do but watch the flies and the birds and the river.
At the time, Brooks was working with his team at MIT to design and a build an independently mobile robot. Their prototype robot would move one meter and then stop. It then spent 15 minutes constructing a new three-dimensional model of the room to be able to move forward another meter. Watching the flies from the stilt house in Thailand, Brooks had an insight. Their prototype robot drew on all the computer power of the MIT mainframe and could only move one meter every 15 minutes.
I watched these insects moving around on the ground and in the house. And– these insects certainly didn’t have much in the way of brains, certainly in the number of neurons that we sort of knew that insects had at the time and sort of knew how fast they computed. They didn’t have as much computation as our big main frames really…well…so it seemed strange to me that they could just wander around– if they’re flying– at a meter per second and our mobile robots could only move at a meter in 15 minutes. Something, something didn’t compute.
… So, I started to think, well, well, what are they doing? [Flies] can’t be doing what our robots are doing. And our robots at the time were looking with their cameras and then trying to build a complete 3-dimensional model—computationally. And I guessed that probably the insects weren’t doing that.”
Insects are the most ubiquitous and numerous animals on the earth. Their evolutionary success is not based on intelligence, insight, or computation. It occurred to Brooks that building a complete model of the world hindered a mobile robot. Why not give the robot the instincts of a bug?
Roboticists were working from an assumption that the robot needed a control center, a cognition box, as if robots needed the higher cognitive abilities of humans. Brooks concluded that flies engaged in sensory-motor coupling, that is an action taken in response to the environment. As Brooks said:
“While watching videos of insects walking over rough terrain, I noticed that many times they would miss a foot placement and stumble.” The other insect legs responded instinctively to overcome the stumble. In another example, an insect calculates how quickly something is looming. It’s a calculation made on the fly, if you will, without processing the information through a central cognition box. For Brooks, the key was the simplicity of the cues and responses:
“So, I started thinking about how I can put those simple cues into a robot and then I built … the robot Allen. It could wander around at a slow walking speed, but not only could it wander around and not hit things, it could wander around and not hit crowds of people moving through its… its world.”
It takes a flexible mind to watch flies and see clues to robot movement. Brooks keeps his mind open to all different kinds of information, both inside and outside the field of robotics:
“I just read a lot of stuff. …It filters by, and I pick stuff out… I got lots of websites and lots of newsfeeds that I just continuously read. And I get little clues. Someone says “oh, there’s some interesting thing that happens with this animal” and then I’ll take that, and I’ll go and look up the scientific literature on it. I’m a sort of a sifter.”
Choose to See More Closely
Present in an unfamiliar environment, Brooks created an unexpected analogy using only what he could see. He jumped disciplines to see how flying insects might inspire the design of robot movement. He chose to see the world differently: these may be flying insects, but what could they also be?
H-IQ pushes students and adult participants to look at the world with fresh eyes. Obviously, Brooks had seen flies before. We all have. But on the deck in Thailand, Brooks chose to see more closely: how do they fly with such tiny brains?
After you’ve generated ideas, H-IQ presents questions that help students see ideas from different perspectives. H-IQ also provides a period of idea incubation. Incubation— a time without conscious mental effort—will help your idea circulate through your subconscious.
Effective imagination requires finding a balance between thorough knowledge of the domain and an openness to looking outside the domain for new insights.
H-IQ, the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire, will be available soon in a completely revised form. H-IQ will help you capture your ideas and stir up your imagination. But it will also engage you with metacognition—thinking about your own thinking: how do you generate ideas? What works for you?
By: H-IQ is the on-line imagination tool that jumpstarts student creativity and your own
Source: Gratner/iStock, used with permission
