February 2016

If evolution gradually produced learning and memory in the brain, and the brain developed "realization" out of learning and memory, can I safely conclude that evolution cannot dispense "faith" as part of the evolutionary progress hinged on "realization"? If so, we cannot make evolution sciences as an efficient tool in dismantling the Christian perspectives.

I think there is an example here, in using de Bono's terms of Po (Provocation), movement, and operacy, of masking good ideas behind strangely unhelpful words. I can't even find the term operacy in my C.O.D.

Why use such language when the same thoughts can be adequately expressed in simple, clear English?

Stuart it's a bit like learning the terms in a subject which is new to us. The word Po and the concepts it carries are quite clear but probably unfamiliar to most of us.

Here's another example. We might think, for example, that when we use the word relativity we understand all its applications and meanings. Yet it's much more ambiguous than we might expect. And in certain philosophical/scientific  contexts defies any conventional meaning. Einstein used the word in ways that actually undermine commonsense so as to provoke the situation (a Po) where we have to abandon the notion of time. Yes...the word relativity implies time is 'a stubborn' illusion in certain contexts. Most words acquire meanings not originally intended.

So, if we went to wikipedia on the word Po it gives a very clear understanding of what it means and implies. Po as a word is excellent to use but it's not in common usage. More common to those who use creative thinking tools developed by de Bono. Wikipedia as follows: -

A "po" is an idea which moves thinking forward to a new place from where new ideas or solutions may be found. The term was created by Edward de Bono as part of a lateral thinking technique to suggest forward movement, that is, making a statement and seeing where it leads to. It is an extraction from words such as hypothesis, suppose, possible and poetry, all of which indicate forward movement and contain the syllable "po." Po can be taken to refer to any of the following: provoking operation, provocative operation or provocation operation. Also, in ancient Polynesian and the Maori, the word "po" refers to the poporiginal chaotic state of formlessness, from which evolution occurred. Edward de Bono argues that this context as well applies to the term.