Space of Possibilities Archives

I enjoy working Sudoku puzzles, especially the hard or challenger level, and I always look forward to the super challenger puzzles on the back pages of Dell’s Crazy for Sudoku books that take days to complete. (They look like the puzzle pictured above.)

A friend once said that she’d completed a Sudoku puzzle and, having solved it, did not see a point in doing it again. Certainly completing a puzzle successfully is one point of Sudoku, but for me it’s the incomplete puzzle that’s juicy, especially if I’m struggling with it and not sure I’ll be able to solve it.

Sudoku puzzles are a great example of one of the aspects of existential troublesome knowledge I talked about in the last blog post: what we don’t know exceeds and is more important than what we know. The numbers that are not filled in are more important than the numbers that are filled in. And there’s no way to know at the outset which numbers go in which blank spaces. You can only find out by taking action. As you fill in more numbers, you get more information, and eventually you solve the puzzle. This is a life lesson some of us struggle to learn.

There’s always a point where I feel stuck, at least with some hard or challenger level puzzles. I can’t find a next number to fill in. I used to get frustrated when I was stuck, but after going through this process so many times, I’m quite familiar with it and am no longer frustrated by it. I think Sudoku has trained my brain to recognize that being stuck is a temporary condition and so I actually appreciate the experience now.

I don’t know if or how I will solve the puzzle, but I now appreciate the space of not knowing, of uncertainty, because it’s also the space of possibilities. This is the same space I get into when I’m grappling with a conceptual problem or puzzle. And in both Sudoku and conceptual problem-solving, one is more likely to arrive at a “solution,” by trying different approaches.

If the only puzzles I have available are easy or medium level, I create “rules” to make them at least a little bit more challenging. I would never, for example, start by filling in all the 1s, 5s, or 9s I can fill in because that’s too easy. But in a challenger level puzzle, I would definitely start that way in order to get at least a few spaces filled in.

In Sudoku, there is only one correct solution to the puzzle. The same isn’t necessarily so for conceptual puzzles where my aim is usually to arrive at a provisional assessment rather than a definitive conclusion because in the conceptual world we never have all the information. But I don’t think this difference is particularly significant, and I heartily recommend activities like Sudoku to train the brain to appreciate uncertainty and to sort of force ourselves to recognize how much we don’t know—and how neither condition is either fatal or even undesirable.

Moving around Inside the Space of Possibilities

The fact that what we don’t know is more important than what we know has been a subject of discussion in classes, workshops, and individual meetings. I asked a couple of different groups to consider, write about, and summarize their responses to statements that described different aspects of our lack of knowledge. Here’s what they had to say. (The statements they are responding to are in italics.)

Our predictions about the future are constrained by the present.

When we try to imagine our future, we can only see a small slice of possibility—based on our current mental model. The same is true about understanding our past—we do so based on who we are in the present. When we move to a different rock, we see new things and, to some extent, lose sight of what we saw before. —Susie

We are driven to make sense of the world, whether or not the world makes sense.

It never occurred to me that one would not be able to make sense of the world. Why, all one has to do is work hard enough, read, listen, observe, and have the intelligence to integrate all the available information, and understanding will come. Right? I’ve long assumed that the world not making much sense (in many ways) was a failure on my part (I’m obviously not getting it all, nor fast enough) because of course all things must be understandable, given the right type and amount of information/instruction etc. —Lisa

Our brain habitually constructs coherent and compelling stories—tailor-made for each of us—based on the information available and our mental model of the world.

We seem to live in some illusion of reality or a unique reality to each of us that is constantly shifting towards a pre-existing story that the brain has developed. We aren’t aware of the information that the brain is picking, discarding, ignoring or overlooking until after the fact. How to consciously participate in this story of our own reality? If it’s based on the information available to us and on our mental model of the world then it’s necessary to expand both, to become aware of what the brain is choosing to add to the stories. —Imelda

We prioritize cause-and-effect explanations and discount randomness (because we can’t account for it).”

How can we imagine a future without our history? Can I only imagine a future rooted in my past or can I possibly imagine a future untold? To understand that we are not divining our future but to accept that randomness plays a role in a possible eventuality serves up the possibility for change. —Sammie

Each of us is weaving stories, not uncovering absolute truth.

There are facts. 2+2=4. Truths are when we try to assign meanings to our perceptions of something that happened. Each of us has our own way of assigning meanings so no truths can be absolute, or shared by everyone. So we might as well weave beautiful stories, or at least useful ones. —Ann

We mistake perception for reality.

My perceptions seem to be more on the trees and not the forest. Actions and thoughts seem to be driven by a false narrative of what I perceive to be true. I can base life itself on little discussion and shoot from the hip decisions made in the small dark damp room on my shoulders, without much input from “me.” —Kelly

Our predictions about the future are constrained by coherence.

The future is way more exciting with those blinders noted. I am not even confined by my imagined trajectory! Why not create? —Adam

Onward

I invite you to consider these statements for yourself, along with the comments prompted by them. Where do they take you?

Asking ourselves what we don’t know in a given situation is useful even if we can’t answer that question just because it’s a reminder that we are always—100% of the time—operating based on limited information. Could there be something we don’t know, the knowing of which would change everything?

There’s troublesome knowledge—and then there’s existential troublesome knowledge.

The concept of troublesome knowledge was developed in academia and has since been applied and utilized in many academic and non-academic areas including scientific exploration, mathematics, politics, finance, history, and even writing.

To refresh, knowledge is troublesome when it:

conflicts with preexisting beliefs, especially if those beliefs are deeply held
is counterintuitive or seems illogical
is complex or difficult to understand
is disconcerting
requires a (transformational) change in self-perception

Troublesome knowledge within a field of inquiry or endeavor is one thing. But troublesome knowledge about the very nature of how we as humans function and our experience in and of the world—i.e., existential troublesome knowledge—is something else altogether. It’s troublesomeness squared, at the very least.

Many of our most basic assumptions about ourselves…are false. —Leonard Mlodinow, Subliminal

Phenomenal Individualism and Its Implications

The pursuit of existential troublesome knowledge leads us to a number of inescapable conclusions that point in the direction of what has been called phenomenal individualism.

Our experience is not an accurate reflection of reality, which means things are not as they seem.
We cannot fully know or access the experience of any other person or creature.
What we don’t know far exceeds what we know, and no matter how much we learn, this will always be the case; yet we operate as if what we see is all there is (WYSIATI).
Not only is everything everywhere in motion all the time, but everything (including each of us) is a process, and everything is an interpretation.
Rather than being, or resembling, a mechanical system, each of us is a complex adaptive system, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
These factors all constrain our experience of being in the world—and there is no way out of these constraints—but they also create a space of possibilities, including the possibility of creating transformational change.

I believe the fact that our experience is not an accurate reflection of reality is the foundational threshold concept that we must get (incorporate into our mental model) in order to grasp the nature of our existence and experience: our space of possibilities.

You may recall that threshold concepts are likely to be, among other things:

Transformative: they lead to a significant shift in perspective that alters our sense of who we are as well as what we see, the way we see it, and how we feel and think about it.
Irreversible: they involve crossing a “threshold,” after which our previous understanding is no longer readily accessible.
Integrated: they reveal relationships and connections of aspects and ideas that were previously seen as unrelated.
Troublesome: they are difficult concepts to grasp and are therefore troublesome (see troublesome knowledge above).

The Space of Possibilities

What you or I make of the characteristics that circumscribe our existence—how we interpret them and work with them—depends on our mental model of the world, which includes our personality and our beliefs.

Do you find the idea that things are not only not as they seem, but never as they seem disturbing, confusing, trivial, or intriguing?

Is the idea that the extent of what we don’t know will always be far greater than the extent of what we know frustrating, obvious, or expansive?

Does knowing that everything you experience is the result of your brain’s interpretation of data that other brains are very likely interpreting differently make you curious or does it feel unnerving or even threatening?

The Thin Slice

It has become clear that our brains sample just a small bit of the surrounding physical world. —David Eagleman, Incognito

Although what Eagleman says is true, and it’s possible to grasp the concept intellectually, it is simply impossible for us to experience. That’s because our brain is continuously assessing and interpreting the data it has access to as if it is all the data there is. How else could it operate?

If we really understand and acknowledge this aspect of reality—that we are always working with limited information we treat as if it is all the information—we must realize that a likely majority of the conclusions and explanations we take for granted are inaccurate, sometimes extremely so. Our brain can’t take into account factors of which it is unaware. Yet there are always factors that affect us of which we and our brain are unaware.

The conclusions and explanations we arrive at daily are often good enough for us to get by—not so erroneous they threaten our survival. But that isn’t always the case. And even if they don’t threaten our survival, they can modify our mental model in ways that lead to maladaptive perceptions of our internal and external world. Taking all of our perceptions for granted can have detrimental effects on our experience and therefore on our actions in and reactions to the world, as well as our wellbeing, and our relationships with others.

We are not significantly different from humans of the past who didn’t believe in the existence of germs or bacteria because they couldn’t see them with the naked eye. Or humans who believed the earth was the center of the solar system. Or that the brain was a useless organ—or that we only use 10% of it. Or that our memories are accurate, and eye-witness accounts are reliable.

When more information was obtained, we modified our understanding of germs and the solar system and the brain and memory and eye-witness accounts. We have enough information now to modify our understanding of how we operate and how our experience is based on our interpretations.

If we don’t, or don’t want to, understand this thing called phenomenal individualism, we will constantly be at the effect of our mistaken beliefs, locked into a perceptual and experiential system within which we have very little room to maneuver and no room at all to create transformational change.

On the other hand, we can step into and take an active role within this space of possibilities.

More to come!

Sudoku, Provisional Assessments,
and the Space of Possibilities

Moving around Inside the Space of Possibilities

Onward

Existential Troublesome Knowledge

Phenomenal Individualism and Its Implications

The Space of Possibilities

The Thin Slice

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