I just had an interesting conversation with Chat GPT. I asked it a question about the state of the world, expecting it to come back with answers. It did come back with some answers but actually also wanted to know what I thought, what solutions I felt might work, as well as sharing some of its own solutions. I guess it all goes into its database of knowledge.
The interchange was quite challenging. The questions it asked made me think deeper about what my own opinions were, and why I had come to those conclusions. I came to the conversation in the spirit of enquiry, wanting to understand opposite facts and perspectives. I came out of it with some broader knowledge but also with a deeper understanding of my own views. It can take another person, or means, to shed light on one’s thought processes.
I realized later that this kind of exchange has become quite a novel experience in real life, human to human, so to speak. People seem to have lost the curiosity to ask what another person thinks – particularly if that person tends to have an opinion opposite to their own. I notice also that people can often assume that everyone present has the same view as they do, and show no interest in discovering whether this is true. It’s as if people are fearful that if they do open up to new perspectives, the ground will fall beneath their feet, rather than that they may arrive at a better understanding of a situation, even if they continue to hold onto their original belief about it.
Equally there is a helpless-hopeless mood afoot, whereby we just complain about all the world’s problems rather than seeking to share or create solutions. Yet we need to have these conversations, as we need all the knowledge and ideas people have in their heads if we are indeed to arrive at the much-needed answers to the problems we currently face.
If we avoid discussing the knotty problems, no-one gains any broader knowledge or insight. We learn nothing. Listening to podcasts does not challenge our thinking in the way a conversation with another human being does, especially as most people listen to podcasts that just reinforce their own views.
Yet, as Einstein said, we can’t solve a problem from the same state of mind in which it was created. We have to look at things differently, and this can take two. Challenging oneself may well not be enough. We need the workings of more minds than our own. Without that deeper conversation, each one makes an assumption, often faulty, about what the other is thinking, and why they are thinking that way, without actually asking and it takes everyone involved precisely nowhere.
In Agnes Callard’s book Open Socrates a key message is how it takes another person’s questions and opinions in order to truly shape one’s own. A challenge to our opinion enables us “to explore the thoroughly familiar territory” of oneself, “as though one was in an uncharted land.” And the person asking or disputing also learns more, so as to sharpen their own thought-process.
This is what happens in a coaching or therapeutic environment. The coach or therapist questions and checks one’s thoughts and beliefs and helps one to gain insights as to why one has ended up in a situation, or why one has developed certain perspectives and, specifically, whether they are useful and relevant to one now.
It also happens in innovation and in any entrepreneurial venture. Someone has an idea, another person checks, analyses and challenges that idea, and in that process the idea is either ditched as unworkable, or becomes stronger. It takes time, reflection, listening with a mind open to being challenged and changed. It also takes the humility to realise that we could be wrong about certain things and that none of us has all the answers.
Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, is reporting how smart phones are reducing our ability to think and concentrate. How will future generations get on in a meeting full of different opinions, or having to read and analyse a long business report I wonder? More to the point, how shall they develop the new ways of thinking required to change the world if they do not allow for that creative process of sharing and discussing ideas with others, followed by analysis, reflection, and finally, hopefully, innovation?
Some Gen Zs, I read this week, are receiving education in how to have social contact with others as they enter the workplace, as they are so used to interacting with their screens. They have not learnt to interact confidently with other human beings. The screen-based reason for this is new but needing to break through shyness and awkwardness as young adults is not new. Throughout our history we have had to teach the art of conversation, debate, listening and articulating an argument. It doesn’t come naturally. It takes practice, skill, and some courage. It isn’t necessarily about winning points. It’s about connecting with others and in this we may be able to find ways to improve situations or just make the most of life.
Despite all the talk of welcoming diversity and neurodiversity, there is very little enquiry or solution focus in what I see or read in the media. It’s polarised, as if politicians and commentators alike prefer to stick with dystopian speculation or simply blame others. What we need is creativity. In this exploration we may discover that we share more aims and values than we had imagined and be able to work together to create change.
As people seem so unwilling to have a quiet, reasoned debate where they seek to learn more about a subject, or at least why their friend or colleague has come to their conclusions, perhaps in future the only option for such conversations will, indeed, be with Chat GPT. A rather depressing thought. On the other hand, if we open up to the habit of listening to others plus interacting with Chat GPT, we shall, as my grandson reassures me, have the means by which to solve the world’s problems. Let’s hope he’s right!
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