LOGIC

It is not possible to dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.

Logic is the tool that is used to dig a holes deeper and bigger, to make the altogether better holes. But if the hole is in the wrong place, then no amount of improvement is going to put it in the right place. No matter how obvious this may seem to every digger, it is still easier to go on digging in the same whole than to start all over again in a new place. Vertical thinking is digging the same hole deeper; lateral thinking is trying again elsewhere.

The disinclination to abandon a half-dug hole is partly a reluctance to abandon the investment of effort that has gone into the hole without seeing some return. It is also easier to go on doing the same thing rather than wonder what else to do: there is a strong practical commitment to it. It is not possible to look in a different direction by looking harder in the same direction. No sooner are two thoughts strung together than them is a direction, and it becomes easier to string further thoughts along in the same direction than to ignore it. Ignoring something can be hard work, especially if there is not yet an alternative.

These two sorts of commitments to the half-dug hole may be regarded as commitment of invested effort and commitment of direction. By far the greatest amount of scientific efforts is directed towards the logical enlargement of some accepted hole. Many are the minds scratching feebly away or gouging out great chunks according to their capacity. Yet great new ideas and great scientific advances have often come about through people ignoring the hole that is in progress and starting a new one. The reason for starting the new one could be dissatisfaction with the old one, a temperamental need to be different or pure whim. This holehopping is rare, because the process of education is usually effective and education is designed to make people appreciate the holes that have been dug for them by their betters. Education could only lead to chaos if it were to do otherwise. Adequacy and competence could hardly be built on the encouragement of general dissatisfaction with the existing array of holes. Nor is education really concerned with progress: its purpose is to make widely available knowledge that seems to be useful. It is communicative, not creative.