Here’s a slightly uncomfortable analogy: humans are large language models running around on two legs.
The human brain is a pattern engine that specialises in languaging—turning patterns into words. Most of what we call “thinking” is really this:
• word searching,
• sentence generation,
• story editing.
It may feel like thinking. But it’s really just languaging and languaging is not thinking.
NOTE: Clearly, there’s a lot more to humans than LLMs. The human brain also has to run a body which is something LLMs cannot do.
AI systems like ChatGPT, Meta, Claude and friends are also LLMs. Feed them a prompt and they generate the most statistically likely next word. They speak confidently, fluently, instantly. And they do it with speed.
Humans may be similar in some ways, but also with hormones and childhood.
The lateral thinker Edward de Bono once observed:
“If the average human did three minutes of real thinking a day that would be very high.”
Three minutes.
The rest is scripted language and emotional defence. Languaging is inside-the-box. Real thinking—especially curious thinking—is outside-the-box.
The problem isn’t that we’re not smart. The problem is that we use our smarts to protect the box instead of stepping out of it.
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Lesson Four DFQ is:
In human thinking what’s the difference between inside-the-box and outside-the-box?
(To qualify for your DipX10(SOT) certificate post your answer in the Comment section below).
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Next lesson: The Brain Network Behind Wonder.
for me Outside-the-box thinking is about what if? it is about removing constrainst and limits and being creatve through fresh thinking or adapting existing models from different environments into new areas
Nearly all our thinking is subconscious and habitual – reverting to familiar patterns of thinking and then believing that we are being rational and logical. i would even call this inside the box thinking, it is is just pattern recognition and jumping to distorted intepretation of what is happening, that is, there is little thinking going on. Out of the box thinking is the ability to have new thought, to look at the world with new eyes, to seek to learn something new and to arrive at a new perspective, one that is far more functional based on the context we find ourselves in
Inside = default scripts
outside = “hang on… what if this is dumb?”
Inside-the-box thinking is generally restricted to thoughts and ideas which conform to a set of assumed constraints – analogous to being confined inside a box. Outside-the-box thinking is not subject to any limitations – it is much more imaginative and can draw inspiration from a multitude of sources.
Maybe the box is what we know, and outside the box is not limiting what we know? Being open the incremental learning of failure.
Thinking inside the box: building on knowledge, experience, education, principles, premises that are familiar and feeling ”comfortable”.
Thinking outside the box: not fearing to challenge what we already feel comfortable with. Being brave enough to admit that what we see and feel may not be the undisputed path to the truths we seek to find.
Love this. Thinking outside the box comes at a cost to a lazily wired brain. We do repetitive and easy tasks, so this all makes complete sense.
Three minutes in a world of “time poor” intellects, I do wonder how long we each spend each day defending our own predispositions?
Great read today
Inside-the-box means the current view feels like reality, not just one option. Outside-the-box is remembering there’s a box at all — and that you can actually leave it.