{"id":15384,"date":"2012-10-08T17:35:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=15384"},"modified":"2012-10-08T17:35:05","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:35:05","slug":"form-is-insight-the-bow-to-arrow-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=15384","title":{"rendered":"Form is insight: the bow to arrow paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — a post in my importance of form in intelligence<\/em> series — ]
\n.<\/p>\n

Ben Turner<\/strong>‘s tweet<\/a> today —<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

neatly encapsulates the “counterintuitive” paradox by which bow and arrows — and catapults too, for that matter — work. You pull back to send forwards<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

The Chicago Tribune report<\/a> which Turner links to contains the following paragraphs:<\/p>\n

Gurdon spoke of his own unlikely career as a young man who loved science but was steered away from it at school, only to take it up again at university.<\/p>\n

He still keeps an old school report in a frame on his desk: “I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist… This is quite ridiculous,” his teacher wrote. “It would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who have to teach him.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s funny here is that our new-minted Nobelist liked this comment well enough to frame it. He has shown the teacher in question to be wrong, no doubt about it, and perhaps given others who have received similarly negative advice some encouragement along the way. <\/p>\n

But here’s my question: did that unflattering report somehow propel him to greater effort?<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

For your thinking pleasure in the matter of the bow to arrow paradox<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\nreverse psychology
\nblowback
\nreculer pour mieux sauter
\ncounterintuitive
\nunintended consequences<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s really quite a party for the party-going mind. Does your mind party?<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

There will be more posts in this “form is insight” series, as time and tide permit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — a post in my importance of form in intelligence series — ] . Ben Turner‘s tweet today — neatly encapsulates the “counterintuitive” paradox by which bow and arrows — and catapults too, for that matter — work. You pull back to send forwards. ** The Chicago Tribune report which Turner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,34,789,436,32,286,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-education","category-prediction","category-psychology","category-science","category-series","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15384"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15395,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions\/15395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}