Variation and selection

This page is a rough draft!

How are teddy bears able to help when they are "doing" so little? Well, the thing is, fairly random changes and differences (even misunderstandings) can shake things up and lead to very different spaces of possibilities. Left to the talker's own devices, this is going on for them, too, but teddy bears helpfully bring a different set of sources of variation. You get different fodder for the process of variation and selection to work with. In other words, the combination of having many different new things to choose from and then getting to pick from them can take you a long ways.

These selection processes are influencing how the different pieces of the puzzle are coming together, and they operate differently if you're talking to a teddy bear.

So the different pieces of the puzzle can come together differently

The selection processes at work can be both conscious (with the talker choosing to go down certain paths and not others, or going with one word choice and not another) and unconscious. Selection can operate in an either/or way, where some things are getting to participate in your process and some aren't. Or it can be that some things are given higher priority than others. Responding to things differentially and having these differences get amplified is one way that fairly random small differences can end up making big differences. So, as a teddy bear that isn't "doing" much, you can easily be contributing to processes that have great power.

These selection processes are influencing how the different pieces of the puzzle are coming together, and they operate differently if you're talking to a teddy bear.

So the different pieces of the puzzle can come together differently

coming together, and they operate differently if you're talking to a teddy bear.  In addition to that, the teddy bear is also providing their own sources of selection.  For example, with just a raise of the eyebrow, the teddy bear can weigh in on how fruitful they think it might be to continue with the way they think you are proceeding. 

Different spaces of possibilities

With TBTS, one important part of the magic is that talkers have lots of room for their own thoughts. Because of this, they can get some of the benefits of engaging with someone else and yet keep some of the benefits of working as if they were by themselves.

But, because the talker is doing most or all of the talking, of course, that means that the teddy bears aren't "doing" that much. So, how are teddy bears able to help when they are doing so little? Well, the thing is, fairly random changes and differences (even misunderstandings) can shake things up and lead to very different spaces of possibilities. Left to the talker's own devices, this is going on for them, too, but teddy bears helpfully bring a different set of sources of variation. You get different fodder for the process of variation and selection to work with. In other words, the combination of having many different new things to choose from and then getting to pick from them can take you a long ways.

The selection processes at work can be both conscious (with the talker choosing to go down certain paths and not others, or going with one word choice and not another) and unconscious. Selection can operate in an either/or way, where some things are getting to participate in your process and some aren't. Or it can be that some things are given higher priority than others. Responding to things differentially and having these differences get amplified is one way that fairly random small differences can end up making big differences. So, as a teddy bear that isn't "doing" much, you can easily be contributing to processes that have great power.

With TBTS, it sets up the circumstances for different sources of selection to be operating differently, for both you and your teddy bear. Some of these selection processes will involve coming up with things by thinking through things, other things will just jump out at you. Having a teddy bear along for the ride will cause different things to jump out at you automatically. So, one reason to recruit a teddy bear is because things can feel much easier when they are happening automatically, and this can help you with building momentum and gaining traction.

With Teddy Bear Tech Support is, one important part of the magic is that talkers have lots of room for their own thoughts. But, that, of course, means that the teddy bears aren't "doing" that much. So, how are they able to help us when they are doing so little? Well, the thing is, fairly random changes and differences (even misunderstandings) can shake things up for us and lead us to very different spaces of possibilities. Left to our own devices, this is going on, too, but teddy bears helpfully bring a different set of sources of variation. Teddy bears also set up the circumstances for different sources of selection to be going on for both the talker and the teddy bear. With how our thought processes are evolving, there are always the powerful forces of variation and selection at work in where they are going. TBTS not only brings different kinds of fodder to add to the processes at work, but also provides ample room for the talker to run with ideas as things proceed along.

Shaking things up a bit. Generates changes Things are now different Keep some things, get rid of some things Continue to explore some things further, give up on others

Fairly random changes and differences can shake things up.

For evolution, variation and selection are held to be the fundamental processes. Do these processes have analogues in problem-solving? A moment’s reflection will reveal that they do—both require the continual generation of new variants (“ideas” in the case of problem-solving, genotypes in the case of natural selection), and both require a means of evaluating this material—selecting that which is promising to be preserved and explored further while discarding that which is not.

Finding out what we have to say as we inhabit different spaces of possibilities is what Teddy Bear Tech Support is about. Bringing a teddy bear into the equation brings in many changes, changes to the ---circumstances---, changes to the ideas that get thought about and talked about, emphasized and discarded, and ...

Finding out what we have to say as we make our way through what can be thought of as the exploration space of possibilities is what Teddy Bear Tech Support is about. Bringing a teddy bear into the equation brings in many changes. There are new sources of variation in the circumstances and sources of variation in the ideas that get talked about. Just the act of talking, where you can only say one thing at a time, (versus getting to think about lots of things at once) causes there to be more selection going on than if you were working quietly by yourself.

The power of variation and selection is at work with pretty anything you might do, so it's no surprise that it would be at work with Teddy Bear Tech Support. But, since operating in different modes and involving different people is key to Teddy Bear Tech Support, it brings a lot of sources of variation into the picture. You'll see what I'm talking about starting 4 paragraphs from this one.

Let's look at an example where your teddy bear is a recording device instead of a person. Let’s say that you need to write something up for a class assignment, and you’re wanting to get clearer on what the most important points are that you need to make.

Sometimes, with using a recording device, I have trouble really committing to pretending like I’m talking to a real person. When this happens, it can help to treat it like leaving a voicemail to someone. After I make the recording, if I find that I want to share the recording with the person, I then email the audio recording to the person. (This is very easy to do with the Voice Memo app on my iPhone.)

Notice how different it would be in the two cases, one where you don’t have any intention of sharing the recording, and the other where you do think you’re likely to share the recording. Notice how different it would be to have some different people in mind as the teddy bear where their personality or what they already know about you and the situation can come into play (instead of talking to the teddy bear as if they were just anyone). There are lots of different ways to have the space held differently with different teddy bear setups.

One reason I’m asking to you stop and notice how differently you would experience these setups is because the magic of Teddy Bear Tech Support is often the result of the power of variation and selection. What am I referring to when I say variation and selection? It is the process of doing things differently and then choosing the pieces of what happened that seem the most promising for making more progress. Often, it’s that your teddy bear setup helped you to tweak things a bit (where the tweaking is the source of variation), and voila talking to your teddy bear works its magic and you have better places you can choose to then work from. As I’ve been describing variation and selection, I’ve talked as if you’re only doing the selection afterward. But, selection is also happening while you’re talking to your teddy bear. For example, if you’re just thinking, you can think of five things at once. But, if you’re talking out loud, the process of talking out loud causes you to do the selection process of filtering out what you’re saying to just one thing at a time.

That’s one reason why it feels remarkably different for me to talk out loud with a recording device versus without a recording device. With the recording device running, I feel the pressure to avoid recording long stretches of silence. Because this keeps me talking in a steady stream, I get to find out what happens when I maintain constantly doing the selection process of filtering my thoughts down to just one thing at a time. Not only that, it can help me with committing to going down just one path with what I’m saying and continuing to build on it rather than saying, for example, “No, I don’t like that” and doing a lot of starting over. It’s just a whole different ballgame from me just trying to work on things where it’s just me thinking by myself. It’s like the difference between thinking about writing and actually writing. Sitting around thinking about writing (especially if you’re like me and want things to spring perfectly from your head) doesn’t get you to the same places (to say the least) as actually getting things out onto paper does. And sitting around thinking is what happens for me when I try to talk out loud without the recording device, I tend to trail off and shift back into just doing a lot of thinking without talking. The key is to have it feel like someone or something is paying attention. Because of that, the space has been held for me to do a different process of variation and selection than without the recording device.

Human teddy bears

Among many other advantages, human teddy bears add in their own sources of variation and selection to your process. For example, let’s look at human teddy bears that are constrained to only mirror back parts of what you’ve said at times they think it’d be helpful. One way they can add variation is by using their own words when mirroring what you said back to you. By selecting when and what to mirror back to you, they can highlight different things for different reasons. It might be that they are mirroring back a part that you seem particularly excited about, or one that you seem to be trying to talk yourself into but aren’t really that excited about. Or, it could be a mirroring back of a part they found confusing or didn’t make as much sense to them.

Misunderstanding as a source of helpful variation

One source of helpful variation is one that you might find surprising. Not surprisingly, group problem solving typically yields better outcomes than having people work on solving a problem by themselves. What you might find surprising is that research has shown that one reason for this is that people often misunderstand each other when solving problems in groups. Misunderstandings are a rich source of helpful variation! Everyone’s mind is engaged in coming up with possible solutions. What’s going on in your mind is different from other people’s. Instead of hearing what someone means, you hear what you are expecting to hear. Because of what was going on in your brain, you weren’t able to take in the intended meaning and so you misunderstand what you're hearing, but it fits as a piece of the puzzle you needed with the solution you were working with. This often leads to a good solution, and voila a misunderstanding helps to lead to a good solution.

Let me make the connection between the previous two paragraphs clearer. Misunderstanding what you’ve said is a source of variation. That can be a way that teddy bears contribute to your process. Now that I’ve made the connection clearer, let me now add something else to that. Instead of a misunderstanding, it could be that they left out an important point (while mirroring back what you said) and leaving it out helps to highlight it for you. This might cause you to then say it again or rephrase it for your teddy bear or flesh out more of why it’s important to you, and you might find doing one of these things to be particularly helpful.

We’ve looked at the idea of the teddy bear getting to be in the driver’s seat as to when it initiates mirroring things back to you and thus what you get to be listening to them say. Alternatively, you can have it so that the teddy bear gets to do a wider range of things than only mirroring things back, but you get to be in the driver’s seat with telling the teddy bear what you want it to do and when. For example, you might be writing something up, and you could ask the teddy bear to be the one to flesh out one of the ideas, to think of an example or to provide an explanation, or to spell something out in greater detail. You get another mind to help you explore the space of possibilities, and you get to see how that helps you to bring yourself to the ideas in a different way as you have different reactions and thoughts about what you’re listening to the teddy bear say. You might even only be half listening to what they are saying while you’re busy having your own thoughts. You get to do that. You get to have them provide that kind of environment for you with all its different sources of variation, and you get to see where that can lead you.

Playful participant vs controlling dictator

Pardon my dust: Need to paraphrase from this excerpt instead of quoting it here

From the Bringing out the Best in Ourselves chapter from the book Fostering Reasonableness: Supportive Environments for Bringing Out Our Best [1]

"imagine yourself not as a controlling dictator of [your] mental processes but instead as a playful participant."

While we can’t control what’s going on in our subconscious, we can feed it with certain inputs or at least put ourselves in the right conditions to let our brain resolve the issue subconsciously. Such inputs might come in the form of the thoughts we nurture, activities we engage in, and the places we choose to visit. For example, when tackling a difficult task, one could consciously consider some alternatives and allow time for them to gestate. When the subconscious has finished processing, the answers bubble up to our consciousness. Such a mechanism underlies Boice’s (2000) recommendation to new faculty members to start before feeling ready and quit before feeling done. Different types of inputs may also be helpful. Problem solving may be aided by a long walk to take a break in a natural setting (Ivancich, Chapter 5; Sullivan, Chapter 4). Sometimes, providing less information may be an effective approach (Johnson, 2012; R. Kaplan, Chapter 2). Since the subconscious is out of our control, it may feel risky to rely on it. A helpful framing may be to imagine yourself not as a controlling dictator of our mental processes but instead as a playful participant.