Episode 2 - What's in it for you :Part 2

 

Welcome back,

Assuming Episode one met with your interest, I wonder how many of you solved the Camel Race brain teaser without pepping at the answer. When attempting to solve any type of puzzle or problem, giving up too soon,  and/or peeping the answers, is as useful to your practice as a glass hammer is to a carpenter.

Now lets try going a bit further.

I should state here again, the reason for this approach is because, higher levels of analytical intelligence require training and practice. In order to gradually pave the way for the mind to grasp alternative concepts and adapt to new thinking methods, the process must be both progressive and mentally stimulating. Brain teasers and puzzles provide the ideal starting point for this purpose.

The Camel Race brain teaser was designed to arouse your lateral thinking ability. In most cases the clues can be found in the subtext, subliminal suggestions rather than what narrative implies. However, in this case the most useful clue is there in the title; The Camel Race. Masters of  Critical thinking pick up on; attempts to misdirect , terminology that may there to mislead, phrases with multiple meanings and word definitions.

Lateral thinking methods are a set of techniques used to stimulate creative or "out of the box" thinking. Applying lateral thinking methods is a deliberate strategy to interrupt normal, linear thought patterns, to facilitate the transition between patterns, and to widen the range of possibilities.

Lateral thinking methods include the following characteristics:

• The nature of thought should be provocative, non-sequential, and non-logical.
• The process of lateral thinking should seek additional options, exploring unlikely paths, and does not have to be "correct."
• The process of lateral thinking should attempt to escape from established patterns, labels, and classifications.
• The results of lateral thinking are unpredictable.

Lateral thinking methods tool us with the ability to rotate the problem and approach the solution finding process from an alternative and/or unusual angle. Like a weak punch line to a joke, or a poor newspaper headline, you only get the link afterwards. Children also benefit from lateral thinking in many ways like:

• Innovate things and ideas
• Generate new suggestions
• Develop new concepts
• Solve problems in a creative manner
• Challenge and encounter instances of status quo to arrive at possible solutions

When children practice the disciplines of lateral thinking, they learn useful deductive thinking skills. The way we approach the puzzle can often distract us from the correct solution, bias and prejudice is often a hindrance. However, the mind of a child is free of  sexism, racism, political correctness, emotional baggage, and the social conditioning.  For example;

 

A French woman returns home from the office , she is thirsty but only has fruit in her fridge. How many ways can you think of to extract the juice from fruit?

In the above example the child's mind is not concerned with the woman's nationality or occupation, it is only concerned with thinking of ways to squeeze juice from fruit.

 

Ok so now take a look at the brain puzzle below. However, before you try it, now that you know the correct answer, remind yourself of  how you needed to look in order to solve The Camel Race teaser. Remember to visualise, take as long as you need to immerse yourself in the moment, put yourself in their shoes and feel your way to the solution.
 

The Creative Detective
A man was found dead in his study. He was slumped over his desk and a gun was in his hand. There was a cassette recorder on his desk. When the police entered the room and pressed the play button on the tape recorder they heard: “I can’t go on. I have nothing to live for.” Then there was the sound of a gunshot.

How did the detective immediately know that the man had been murdered and it wasn’t a suicide?

Post your answer in the comment box below.........


Critical Thinking Workout
 
Try the following questions, taken from an academic source, this will test your ability to think critically. If you get more than 50% of these right you're certainly strong on your lateral thinking skills (or maybe you're just good at puzzles!) I hope you enjoy getting your head around these exercises, post your answers in the comments below; 

 

Caution: Cheating is counterproductive!

1. Name an ancient invention still in use in most parts of the world today that allows people to see through walls.
2. A black man dressed all in black, wearing a black mask, stands at a crossroads in a totally black-painted town. All of the streetlights in town are broken. There is no moon. A black-painted car without headlights drives straight toward him, but turns in time and doesn't hit him. How did the driver know to swerve?
3. An Australian woman was born in 1948 but only celebrated her 16th birthday quite recently. Why?       
4. How many animals of each species did Moses take into the Ark?
5. In what sport are the shoes made of metal?
6. If a plane crashes on the Italian/Swiss border, where do you bury the survivors?
7. A man was pushed out of a small aeroplane, without a parachute but survived with no injuries apart from a few bruises. How was this possible?
8. If a red house is made of red bricks, and a blue house is made of blue bricks, what is a green house made of?
9. What can you hold in your right hand, but not in your left?
10. A cowboy rode into town on Friday, spent one night there, and left on Friday. How do you account for this?
11. What word is always spelled wrongly?

   12.  In many London Underground tube stations there are two up escalators but only one  going down. Why?


   13.  A man comes up to the border of a country on his motorbike. He has three large sacks on his bike. The customs officer at the border crossing stop him and asks, “What is in the sacks?”

“Sand,” answered the man.

The guard says, “We’ll see about that. Get off the bike.”

The guard takes the sacks and rips them apart; he empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand. He detains the man overnight and has the sand analysed, only to find that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags. The guard releases the man, puts the sand into new bags, lifts them onto the man’s shoulders and lets him cross the border.

A week later, the same thing happens. The customs officer asks, “What have you got?”

“Sand,” says the man.

The officer does another thorough examination and again discovers that the sacks contain nothing but sand. He gives the sand back to the man, and the man again crosses the border.

This sequence of events repeats every day for the next three years. Then one day, the man doesn’t show up. The border official meets up with him in a restaurant in the city. The officer says, “I know you’re smuggling something and it’s driving me crazy. It’s all I think about. I can’t even sleep. Just between you and me, what are you smuggling?”

What is the man smuggling?




Post your answers in the comment space below, all the answers will be posted in Episode 3. 

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THID (Truth Hides In Detail).

What's in it for you?

Greetings

 

For your consideration,

In the spirit of pragmatism (an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application) - this blog aims to provide a simple, but not simplistic, guide for the development of a critical thinking take on stuff.  

I am intrigued by; the root causes of incidents, the founding principles of processes, the common misconceptions related to realising our potential. Together polishing up our understanding of concepts we already know, then occasionally introducing principles and insights that may be new to you. We shall cover everything from the everyday common fair to more complex personal and interpersonal life challenges.

I shall attempt to combine the undoubted strengths of the informal logical approach with a newer but often, overlooked insight: that reasoning and analysis are always communicative acts.

 

In other words; taken from areas of my own study and life experience thus far, I will share ideas and insights, similar those previously posted on my FB wall. The intention here is to; share methods and insights in plain English, unscrambling the code, exposing the façade, revealing the misdirection and thereby ultimately, stimulating accurate thinking.

Everyone of us has  a  different perspective on the world, we all have own political outlook, religious beliefs and core values. Likewise, we all share the tendency to question the statuesque and our own behaviour at times.

Often, we hate to be disturbed in the beliefs and prejudices that have been handed down through heredity along with the family furniture. At maturity, too many of us go into hibernation, and live off the fat of traditional best practice. If a new idea invades our comfort zone, instinctively we react to challenge or discredit this unfamiliar concept and therefore, at first, we are reluctant to accept it.

Q. What qualifies me to make such claims about the proposed content of this blog ?


A. I am no more qualified to make such claims than any of you. Sharing information gives me pleasure.

New truths, if accepted at all, are taken with a grain of salt.

When people encounter new ideas that conflict with the ones they already have, they are faced with a number of responses. Often people choose to respond by simply denying the new information, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Often people invent totally new cognitions that, in their minds, counteract this new information. With this blog space I intend to feed your mind with as much new information as possible.

Ultimately, you have the freedom of choice, to accept or reject it furthermore, I encourage you to question everything.

Nothing is more tragic - or more common - than mental inertia

So for this reason the introductory blogs shall serve to pave the way for new ideas, so those new ideas will not be too severe a shock to the mind.

 

As a gentle example of this, solve the below brain teaser;

However, before you attempt to solve it, read it over again, then for a moment freeze your thinking. Try to lay aside your normal approach to problem solving. Resist the temptation to arrive at the most obvious conclusion. This would not be much of brain teaser if the correct answer was so obvious. Likewise  remember, brain teasers such as this, are always designed to mislead and/or misdirect you.

As your read the passage again pay attention to the terminology, visualize yourself immersed the situation itself. Do this for each character and variable in the problem considering all the potential suggestions that may have lead to the final outcome.

 

 

The Camel Race

 

An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city.

 

 

Q. What does the wise man say?

 

 

 

 

For the adept critical thinkers among you, I guess you already know what I mean about the truth hiding in the detail. This brain teaser is a perfect way to introduce the concept of looking beyond the surface. Which is precisely the reason why I decided to create this space.

 

The purpose of this blog space is to attempt to share useful life skills and alternative approaches to thinking that modern education seldom trains and prepares us for. While stimulating our ability to transcend the latent mediocre and reach for abundant wisdom, and enjoy greater accuracy of thought. 

 

Above all. I hope you find the following THID (Truth Hides In Detail) content useful and entertaining.

 

 

 

 

 

See below for the Answer...



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer : The wise man told the brothers to switch camels.