COAIA Sequential Thinking

In the larger context of the "Steps in Structural Thinking Process," which is grounded in the principle that **the underlying structure of anything will determine its behavior**, **Step 2: Picture What Is Said** follows the foundational "Step 1: Start with Nothing." This step is crucial for observing reality accurately and without preconceptions, enabling a deeper understanding of underlying structural dynamics that cause predictable patterns of behavior. Here's a detailed discussion of "Step 2: Picture What Is Said": * **Purpose of Visual Language**: * The primary reason for teaching a visual language is that it allows one to **"think dimensionally, you can think structurally, you can think in relationships"**. * Unlike linear language, a visual language enables individuals to **"hold as many ideas simultaneously"**, which is vital for grasping complex interconnections. * This step aims to teach you **"how to look at something and understand what's there,"** rather than applying a pre-existing diagnostic model. * **Translating Words into Pictures**: * The process involves **converting verbal information into visual representations**. * An analogy given is having a **"little film crew in your head"** making a **"little movie"** of what the client is saying. This ensures a direct, unmediated engagement with the information. * For general terms, like "chair," one should picture a **"placeholder"** chair, understanding that while many kinds exist, they all share common characteristics. This allows for picturing without adding specific, unstated details. * **Evidence and Benefits of Visual Thinking**: * **Nancy Bell's Work**: The work of Nancy Bell, who teaches children with learning disabilities (like dyslexia) to picture words, sentences, and paragraphs, is cited. Her method shows that when students translate words into pictures, their **comprehension increases dramatically**. MRI brain scans reportedly demonstrate that this practice helps open up and activate visual centers in the brain, which may not be working as well in children with learning disabilities. This underscores the potential for developing visual literacy in anyone, regardless of their starting point. * **Eliminating Biases**: Learning to translate words into pictures is a technique that **"helps you eliminates biases that you might have"**. It makes it "easier for you to do step one start with nothing because then you're picturing just what the person said and nothing else". This ensures focus purely on the provided information, without external comparisons or theories. * **The "Art Class" Analogy for Observation**: * An art class example illustrates how easily **"concepts of color" can be substituted "for observation"**. Students, when asked about colors across the Hudson River, initially reported red, white, and orange for brick buildings and towers, based on their *concept* of what those objects *should* be. * However, when given a **"spot screen"** (a card with a hole to isolate color), they observed that distant objects appeared "blue" due to atmospheric effects between the viewer and the objects. This demonstrates that our minds often organize things, dislike "not knowing," and apply strong concepts that we mistake for reality, even without true observation. * The lesson is that structural thinking, like learning to truly see in art, requires individuals to **"look better at reality without the preconception of what you're going to find,"** which in turn allows for discovering different things. * **Connection to Subsequent Steps**: * By picturing what is said, individuals are better equipped to move to **Step 3: Ask Questions**. This visual understanding allows for identifying gaps, ambiguities, or contradictions in the client's narrative, leading to focused, internally-driven questions (information, clarification, implication, discrepancy) that expand and deepen the picture without importing outside information.