IS IT TRUE?: How to sort truths from lies.
In our exploding world of cybermedia with photoshop, digital manipulation and peer2peer messaging at the speed of light, I believe that the global epidemic spread of lies may be one of the most serious challenges facing long-term human survival.
I believe this challenge needs to be taken very seriously and could be considered to be of a threat level similar to that of Swine or Avian or Bird Flu. Many scientists share this view.
As an antidote, I am now putting forward a new thinking methodology to help meet this challenge. To follow on from the previous SOT thinking tools, thinking hats and brain software, this new tool is called: greyscale thinking: how to sort a truth from a lie.
What Makes A Great Teacher?
I was recently contacted by a young man in London who is a teacher/coach and personal trainer/consultant. He is in the early stages of his career and he sought my advice. He asked me this question: What makes a great teacher? That is a very good question. It’s exactly the question he should be asking as he embarks on this vocation.
My response to him was this: While there are many things that can make a teacher a much better one there is one non-negotiable, one litmus test, which defines a great teacher. This test is about how the teacher’s performance stacks up to the BIG question: IS IT TRUE?
Is It True?
Is what the teacher is teaching a TRUTH or a LIE? The answer to this question is what sorts out the frauds from the professors. If this test is passed then the teacher can be a great teacher if not then the teacher will always be a failure … in my view.
Making Claims
Anyone can make a claim. All sorts of claims are made in business, in science, in religion, in families, in governments, in education, in politics, in the media. But is it a true claim? Does it corresponds to reality? Or, is the claim a lie? How do we know? Does it even matter?
Yes. It does matter whether a claim is a truth or a lie. For example, many people believe things which are dangerous lies. These lies may have been protected from thinking for hundreds of years. These lies all have consequences which may range from deception to dementia to death.
Like a brainvirus, these lies can infect the brains of very young children. This is happening right now to millions of children as you read this article. I do believe that the global epidemic spread of lies may one of the most serious challenges facing long-term human survival.
ANTIDOTE: If you feel this is important (please don’t spam lists of people) but send this article on to selected friends, colleagues and family who may find it useful.
Greyscale Thinking
To help meet this challenge I am introducing the idea of greyscale thinking (US grayscale). Greyscale thinking is simple, fast and scientific. Anyone, anywhere and anytime can use greyscale thinking to help sort out a truth from a lie.
Any child can learn to use it. Greyscale thinking can be taught to kids by parents and by teachers. Any employee can learn to use it. Greyscale thinking can be taught to employees by managers and business leaders.
The idea of greyscale thinking is: claim divided by questions equals truth or lie. This idea can be expressed as the formula c÷q=t>l.
This means that once a ‘claim’ is made it can then be subjected to ‘questioning’. Questioning reveals whether the claim is closer to being either a ‘truth’ or a ‘lie’.
Six True Questions
SIX TRUE QUESTIONS: The methodology of greyscale thinking is the cognitive skill or habit of putting a CLAIM to the SIX TRUE QUESTIONS: What and Where and When and Why and How and Who – (Click here for more on the questions).
The answers to each of the 6 questions moves the CLAIM to and fro along the greyscale continuum: | a TRUTH - w? w? w? w? h? w? – a LIE |
______________________________________________________________________________________________
| a TRUTH • • • • a LIE |
______________________________________________________________________________________________
The answers to each of the 6 questions indicate, on the balance of the evidence, whether the CLAIM is more likely to be a TRUTH or more likely to be a LIE.
MAIN POINT: You will have noticed we are saying “a truth” rather than “The Truth”. Searching for truth is a journey and not a destination. We are more concerned with being right than being righteous. No individual brain can ever contain perfect knowledge of all possible facts. No brain can ever know the contents of the other people’s brains who are also involved in the situation. No brain can ever be have ownership of The Truth. And, that’s the point.
The rule of science is that you can have a good idea today, a better idea tomorrow, and the best idea … never! Why? Because there are always more facts to uncover–more opinions, more priorities, more options, more consequences, more positives, more negatives, more objectives, more measurements, and more experiments that can be tested. History has shown this to be a truth.
It is the deliberate effort one makes to move closer to a truth and to move further away from a lie that produces all the benefits of greyscale thinking.
No claim should ever be protected from questioning
Any claim that has ever been made in all of history and any claim that ever will be made can be illuminated, examined, investigated and accepted or rejected using the 6 true questions of greyscale thinking: What and Where and When and Why and How and Who – (Click here for more on the questions).
What is greyscale thinking?
Greyscale (or grayscale) thinking is a tool for sorting out truths from lies.What is Truth?
Truth is that which, on the balance of evidence, corresponds to reality.There are two serious cognitive problems we need to solve to survive and prosper. Greyscale thinking is a powerful tool anyone can use for solving both these problems.
Problem One: How to know if a truth is really a lie?
Problem Two: How to know if a lie is really a truth?What difference does it make?
The difference is an immediate increase in:
• your survival intelligence,
• your skills to survive and prosper in a rapidly changing environment,
• your speed of thought.How long does it take to learn?
It takes ten minutes a day, for ten days, to learn greyscale thinking.•
March 13th, 2010 at 10:39 am
I believe that this is the best way to find out when someone is lying to you about something or trying to take advantage of you by lying. I really love this way of thinking it always works for me specially with my co-worker i let them forget for a few weeks then i asked the question again most of the time the answer they give me is not even close t what they told me before. to me keeping the six question in mind is the best way to grow.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:37 am
The six questions lead to a better view of the situation.
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:32 pm
RE: Any claim that has ever been made in all of history and any claim that ever will be made can be illuminated, examined, investigated and accepted or rejected using the 6 true questions of greyscale thinking.
What and Where and When and Why and How and Who.
This article contains brilliant observations, that help keep me focused now. I undertook some School of Thinking lessons a long time ago – this led me to questioning many things. A result is that I think I can ask more questions than I could previously, discerning more details.
So I ask myself a question: Is it right to accept or reject a claim, when you know that further questioning could result in you reversing your decision?
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I had read a book written by a private investigator. The topic was on how to tell if someone is lying. The book stated, keeping asking them questions at different times, and just rephrase the questions. It has always worked for me, even the best liars slip up and can be caught off guard.
The questions remind me of the “Question Authority” bumper stickers. I agree, if we just accept what we are told, we are just sheep and are not thinking for ourselves. If we question everything, we are using our minds and thinking and it may be the truth or not, at least we have the power of mind to determine it so.
I have a friend who thinks he “knows certain things are right.” I explained to him that since what I think today is “right” may change tomorrow, then I can never be 100% sure about anything. He got really mad at me. I ended up explaining to him this idea of mine more and eventually he was okay and accepted this.
After talking with him and using this website, I realized he did not know psychology, philosophy or physics and that our thinking was just very different.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:19 am
The saying ” The truth shall make you free” comes to mind. But the problem is , what is the truth? Hundreds of years ago, the current “truth” was that the earth was flat . Now that has become an “untruth”. We now know that the earth is not flat.
A “truth” is a collection of facts, and an interpretation of those facts.Because the facts can change or the interpretation can change, the “truth”becomes relative and changeable.
Because as humans, we have limited sense perceptions we shall never discover the absolute truth. Our reality is essentially a human reality. A beetle has a thousand times better sense of smell than humans. a dog also possesses much greater hearing than humans. Our vision is limited as well. Also our thinking and reasoning abilities are limited by our ability to interpret the world.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am
We were taught to use this style of thinking…’critical thinking’ in the late seventies while I was at secondary school…I never see this style of thinking portrayed anywhere, except maybe when studied at university doing my honors in nursing where w taught to critique…it seems to me people really don’t have the ability to dissect information from this who, what, why, how, stance. I have passed it on to my very clever twin daughters.
Great to see this style of thinking, critiquing here…and so lovely to hear about the righteousness distinguished from ‘being right’ and the useless drama righteousness creates and the stagnating effect on thinking.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:42 am
A wonderful explanation about the logic of think
November 11th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Brilliant. I teach this poem to my class of 7 years olds.
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small-
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes-
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
The Elephant’s Child