A Universal Theory of Everything, Christopher Murphy

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A Universal Theory *
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* …of Everything
Christopher Murphy
FOWD, New York · 4 November, 2015
• It’s a two part talk:
• The ﬁrst part explores the importance of developing curiosity, exploring strategies for ‘priming the brain’ and ensuring it’s constantly nourished.
• The second part looks at writing and other forms of ‘connecting’ as a process through which new ideas are developed, challenged and tested.

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• As usual: I’m going to do my best not to swear, however, should I be afflicted by this force of habit during today’s session, I wholeheartedly apologise.
It’s just in my nature.

• How do you ﬁnd the things you don’t know about? What Donald Rumsfeld calls the ‘unknown unknowns’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk

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“ There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There
are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we
don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we
don't know we don’t know.”
—Donald Rumsfeld
• You might intensely dislike Rumsfeld, but his logic stands.
• What are your unknown unknowns?
• (A clue: You won’t know, because they’re unknown. However, the more you explore the more you’ll uncover.)

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The Unknown Unknowns
• There’s a lot in the world we don’t know, the more we can move that knowledge into the ‘what we know’ category, the more we can achieve.

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What I’m not talking about…
• Grunt
• Gulp
• Macaw
• I’m not going to talk about tools or techniques. I think these are easily learned through tutorials.

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Grunt
• Grunt is the noise a pig makes.

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Gulp
• Gulp is the sound I make when I’m drinking a pint of Guinness.

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Macaw
• And a Macaw is a type of bird.

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These are all tools, easily learned.
* These are my known unknowns.
• Gulp, Grunt, Macaw… All are tools, easily learned. These are (or were) my known unknowns. (They’re now known knowns, for me.)

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Consider the bigger picture… *
* This is more important and has more longevity.
• What interests me more than tools or techniques is zooming out and thinking of the bigger picture. The context in which we all work.
• That’s what I’ll be exploring today.

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@fehler #FOWD
Twitter
• I’m @fehler on Twitter.
• I’d appreciate if you’d hashtag any questions or comments you have with #FOWD, that way we can continue the discussion online.

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What I’ll be covering…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Opening the Aperture
A Note on Reading
A Latticework of Mental Models
Why I Write
Putting it out there…
• So, what will I be covering?

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But ﬁrst… a little light reading.
• Before I get started, I’d like to recommend a little light reading.
• In addition to my work as a writer and designer, I’m an educator, so you won’t be surprised to see a list of key texts that inform my thinking.

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• I’d like to recommend the following books.

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• You might think that you know how to read. Think again. Buy this book, it’s wonderful and it will change how you read:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671212095/monographic-21

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• Innovation is easy, you just need to prime the brain. Scott Berkun’s book dispels a few myths of innovation, it’s a great book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1449389627/monographic-21

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• Finally, Peter Drucker’s ‘Managing Oneself’ is a short, but powerful book, which focuses on the principles of managing oneself, exploring the need to
constantly learn new things:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/142212312X/monographic-21

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1. Opening the Aperture
• To grow as creatives we need to prime the brain. We need to ensure it is constantly nourished with new inputs.
• We need to ‘open the aperture’ and widen our frame of reference to encompass new ﬁelds of knowledge.

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Ideas don’t materialise in a vacuum. Without constant input,  
the outputs will inevitably remain the same. As such, it’s essential to
maintain an inquisitive mind, ensuring a steady ﬂow of  
new triggers and stimuli that enable your thinking to evolve.”
—Good Ideas Grow on Paper, (Me), 24 Ways
“
• I wrote this in 2010, I’ve been reﬂecting upon it ever since.

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Shit in. Shit out.”
—(Me, also.)
“
• Put another way: Shit in. Shit out.
• The only place we put shit in and get something else out is gardening. (Not one of my strong points.)

• We’re often guilty of looking at the world through a very tight aperture. We might look at the focused frame of the web that we work in and that’s all we
see.
• To truly grow we need to let a little more light in.

• When we open out the aperture and let a little more light in we become better creatives.
• You need to widen the frame of reference.

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• I’ve been writing about the creative process throughout the year in a series of articles for The Pastry Box. This is one of a series of a dozen pieces on
improving your creativity.

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Talk to any successful creative and you’ll ﬁnd that they’re widely read.
Their libraries are vast and often eclectic…”
“
• As I put it, in that article…

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…a tome on the rigour of Grid Systems in Graphic Design sits comfortably
next to a thesis on the poetics of The Shape of Time itself coexisting with a
treatise on the nature of Improvisation.”
—Widen the Frame of Reference, The Pastry Box
“
• Expand your library to include as much as you can.
• Libraries needn’t cost a fortune, second hand bookstores contain a wealth of inspiration, everyone can afford a library and if you want to improve, you
should endeavour to build one.

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Over time your library grows… *
* …and by ‘library’ – in this case – I mean mind.
• Your mind – and your creativity – will grow faster if you constantly nourish it.

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• Aaron Draplin, Jessica Hische, James Victore…
• The earlier in your career you are, the more restricted the pool of knowledge from which you can draw and, as a result, the tighter the pool of possibility.
• To grow as a creative, you need to enrich the well from which to draw.

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• Jan Tschichold, Dieter Rams, Paul Smith…
• As you advance in your career, your well of knowledge deepens.
• It perhaps widens to encompass other ﬁelds of design.

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• Jan Tschichold, Dieter Rams, Paul Smith…
• Egyptian Burial Customs, African Tribal Masks, Anthropology…
• Until you reach a level of understanding where everything – even seemingly unrelated elements – connects.
• In this phase you add material that might not seem relevant, but which is, of course, entirely relevant.

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• Born in 1886, James Webb Young rose to prominence as a copywriter and later vice-president of the advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. Born in
Cincinatti, I like to think of him as the original Mad Man from this classic era.
• His book – ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas’ – is fantastic.

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A Technique for Producing Ideas
• Gathering Raw Material
• Mastication
• Drop Everything and Walk Away
• Out of Nowhere an Idea Materialises
• The Morning After
• James Webb Young likens this process to a kaleidoscope…

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Every really good creative person whom I have ever known has
always had two noticeable characteristics…
“
• Writing in 1939, Young states:

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First, there was no subject under the sun in which he could  
not easily get interested – from, say, Egyptian burial customs to
modern art. Every facet of life had fascination for him…
“
• Good creatives have a passion for knowledge acquisition.

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Second, he was an extensive browser in all sorts of ﬁelds  
of information. For it is with the advertising man as with the  
cow: no browsing, no milk.”
— James Webb Young
“
• You never know when the material you’re absorbing will come into play.

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The Kaleidoscope
• Young likens this process to a kaleidoscope…

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• Starting out on your career the number of pieces of coloured glass in the kaleidoscope - the inputs you have consumed - are, by deﬁnition, limited. The
possible combinations are, as such, limited too.

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• As your knowledge widens, however, your bank of awareness grows, resulting in richer patterns.

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• The more you consume, the richer your outcomes.

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• Until you build up a rich and diverse bank of knowledge.

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• This is a lifelong process. Everything you consume is grist to the mill.
• As the content you consume increases, so too are the outputs you are capable of creating.

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The choices you make, the types of content you consume, shape  
your thinking and shape your outcomes.”
—Designing the Mind, The Manual
“
• This sentence, from my chapter for Issue 1 of The Manual, neatly summarises this process.

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2. A Note on Reading
• You all know how to read, right? But do you, really?

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• Mortimer J. Adler explores the importance of improving your reading skills in his excellent book, ‘How to Read a Book’. I recommend it highly.

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The Four Levels of Reading
1.
2.
3.
4.
Elementary
Inspectional
Analytical
Syntopical
• Adler explains that there are four levels of reading.

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Level 1 - Elementary Reading
• The Basics
• The cat sat on the mat.
• Reading 101
• The ﬁrst level, elementary, is the kind of reading taught in elementary schools.
• I like to think of it as the nuts and bolts of reading, the fundamentals.

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Level 2 - Inspectional Reading
• Systematic Skimming
• Title, ToC, Index, Back Page Summary
• Superﬁcial Reading
• Inspectional reading, one level higher, involves ‘Systematic Skimming’ and ‘Superﬁcial Reading’.
• This isn’t going deep, it’s rather skimming across the surface. You’re asking: “Does this book deserve more of my time and attention?”

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In tackling a book for the ﬁrst time, read it through without ever stopping
to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away. You
understand more as you re-read a book the second, third, fourth… time.”
—Mortimer Adler
“
• De-intensifying the process speeds you through new material.
• If it’s important, you will return to it.

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Level 3 - Analytical Reading
• Classifying a Book
• Deﬁning the problem the author tries to solve.
• Note Taking
• At the third level you’re pursuing a thorough reading experience. This involves hard work (surprise!).
• In this hard work, however, lies deeper understanding.

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“ Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to
be chewed and digested.”
—Francis Bacon
• Adler quotes Bacon (the philosopher, not the painter).

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Level 4 - Syntopical Reading
• Many Books, Multiple Angles
• Probe Disparities
• Form your own informed opinion.
• Syntopical reading involves reading many books on the same subject and comparing and contrasting their ideas. Reading at the highest level, it is both
demanding and difficult.
• This comparing and contrasting is about *deﬁning your own, informed viewpoint on a subject*.

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3. A Latticework of Mental Models
• Once we have all these new inputs, the real magic happens…
• You begin to join the dots and build ‘a latticework of mental models’.

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6.
5.
3.
7.
1.
2.
4.
• As we saw when we looked at syntopical reading, we’re seeking connections.

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• Charlie Munger dropped out of college, served as a meteorologist in the US Army Air Corps, and attended Harvard Law. At age 31, he met Warren Buffett,
who convinced him to go into investing. His net worth is ~$1.3 billion.
• Munger is Warren Buffet’s partner at Berkshire Hathaway. He’s an incredibly smart gentleman.

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A Latticework of Mental Models
• By ‘Mental Models’ Munger is referring to taking a handful of the most important and useful ideas from all disciplines of knowledge and learning them to
ﬂuency so they can be used together to solve difficult problems.

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• Munger stresses the need to avoid getting stuck in a single discipline and then trying to use it to solve all problems. He calls this ‘Man With a Hammer
Syndrome’, As he puts it: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

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A Lollapalooza Eﬀect
• Munger states that when a number of mental models interact they can create a ‘Lollapalooza Effect’, where the power of the ideas together is greater
than each idea alone.

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1+1=3
• You might know this theory of relatedness as ‘Gestalt’.

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1. Psychology
2. Economics
3. Anthropology
5. Mathematics
4. Cinema
6. Pricing7. Accounting
• We need to reap these varied ﬁelds of knowledge and ﬁnd the connections that exist between them.

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• When we connect this richer framework of knowledge we build a solid platform on which to build as creatives.

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A Richer Mind
• The result is a richer mind.

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Gathering is only half the equation…
• Gathering is only half of the equation, however.
• We need to put our thoughts into order.

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4. Why I Write
• This is very personal to me, but it’s important.

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I write to clarify thought.
• The written word helps me wrestle my thoughts into a sense of order.

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• Whether it’s a series of articles I’ve committed to write on the nature of creativity for The Pastry Box.

• Or a series of short books, like these on the craft of words, for Five Simple Steps.

• Or a chapter of a book, that wrestles my thoughts on idea generation into shape, for Smashing Magazine.

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These cumulate.
• These thoughts cumulate. They help me to understand the world.

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1+1=3
• The result: 1 + 1 = 3.
• The ideas collected, more than the sum of their parts.

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Sharing helps…
• Sharing is important.

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• Cat Noone writes about the importance of sharing your thoughts with others through the medium of the written word, in an article titled ‘Your Writing Is
Crucial’.

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• She writes about the idea that ‘Writing is a Playground’.
• This appeals to me…

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Play
• When we play, nothing matters. Play helps us to ﬁnd ourselves.

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5. Putting it out there…
• You have to put it out there…

• I’m sharing my hidden ‘notes to myself’ here, because I think it’s important.
• You can see from these notes that I’m wrestling with thought.

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Socratically Speaking
• We are all like Socrates. We need to engage with the material at hand.

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“ The Socratic method is a form of inquiry through discussion between
individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical
thinking and to illuminate ideas. […]
• The ‘Socratic Method’ - challenging our thinking through a discursive process - allows us to move towards understanding.

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“ It is a dialectical method, often involving a discussion in which the
defence of one point of view is questioned; one participant may  
lead another to contradict himself in some way, thus strengthening  
the inquirer’s own point.”
• This is all about the internal monologue. Wrestling with thought.

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The Internal Monologue
• This happens when you write.

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Writing Yourself Into Existence
• You can write yourself into existence. Using the written word to shape yourself.

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David Weinberger, 2001
• This is David Weinberger (co-author of ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’) writing in 2001. It’s 14 years old, but it’s 100% relevant.
• This is why I think writing on the web is important, or speciﬁcally sharing your writing

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Once you have a blog you notice more, you start to think, ‘I might  
write about this on my blog.’ ‘What do I want to say?’ ‘What will people’s
reaction be?’”
—Euan Semple
“
• As Euan Semple puts it: “Over time you get better at noticing, and the better at noticing you get, the more noticed you get!”

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Sharing Shapes You
• Sharing what you create enables others to reﬂect back. This reﬂection might lead to a more balanced or nuanced opinion. The feedback shapes you.

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YOU OTHERS
• When you put something out there, you’re projecting a persona.
• What you say and do communicates who you are and how you want to be perceived.

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YOU OTHERS
• Only when your peers validate what you are (trying to) project will you become the person you want to be.
• Others ‘reﬂect’ on your persona and, through feedback, help you to shape it.

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YOU OTHERS
• Deﬁning who we are is a social process, and one that is in constant motion.
• Through what we communicate, and how that is perceived and validated, we become who we are.

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In closing…
• To summarise…

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The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation
and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.”
—Steven Johnson
“
• Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being ‘brilliant’.
• Go forth and learn! Put more parts on the table.

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Real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance.”
—Aristotle, Socrates, Confucius…
“
• Understand yourself. Understand the gaps in your knowledge.
• Find your unknown unknowns and turn them into known knowns. That way you’ll grow.

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Thank You
@fehler #FOWD
• Thank you.

A Universal Theory of Everything, Christopher Murphy

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A Universal Theory of Everything, Christopher Murphy