a while ago a friend of mine was having
trouble in his parrot going through
difficult times and facing dire
decisions he had obviously been thinking
a lot about what it meant to be in a
relationship to express how he felt he –
he did this diagram what interests me of
this example is the fact that while he
was having those troubled times my
friends had the need to express what
being a relationship looked like I would
say he even wanted to see what his
thought about being your angel shape
would look so he did this drawing but he
didn’t just do a diagram he drew his
thought drawing is thinking and to think
is the diagram to think is the diagram
now this has tremendous implications and
to understand the implications it has we
really need to understand that the world
is not as it is as we see it the world
is as we think of it consider this is
this a pen when many of you might think
it is but it’s actually not it’s just a
piece of plastic with some ink inside or
an illustration on a screen or a
toothpick or a rocket or a spoon to
steer my tea at this point I am not
seeing a pen anymore I am seeing a spoon
because that’s how I’m thinking of it
thinking has the power to generate the
narratives we live in how we see our
life is the life we will have thinking
generates the cultures that mold the
world diagrams can help us understand
how we think they can help us see how we
think and they might even help us choose
what we want to think that is the
tremendous power of diagrams and
in order to unlock it we need to
understand why and how diagrams our
thoughts so let’s take a little journey
and let’s start with the body as it
turns out our body is our mind
cognitive science has afforded us the
idea of the embodied mind it teaches us
that our whole body is a cognitive and
thinking system that includes
not only our brain but also our limbs
and our nervous system going within them
or our senses etc this destroys this
dualistic vision of the brain cut off
from the body and it helps us understand
that our thinking depends on the very
nature of our body mind our body thinks
and our body remembers proprioception is
the quality that explains this it is the
reason all of you in this room know
instinctively that you are wearing your
shoes even though you don’t have to
think about it right you are wearing
shoes I hope it is the reason why you
can jump onto a bicycle and know how to
information obtained from proprioception
is then reused in other more abstract
tasks another interesting idea is that
of the extended mind Andy Clark and
David Chalmers bring this crazy but
amazing example auto has Alzheimer’s
and he wants to go down to the local
market to buy some groceries but he
knows that by the time he gets there he
will have forgotten what his groceries
are so he writes down the list of what
he wants to buy in his notebook and he
goes down to the market and sure enough
by the time he gets there he has
completely forgotten what he wanted to
buy this information has been erased he
has Alzheimer’s he he doesn’t have it in
his system anymore unless he takes out
his notebook and remembers at which
point it’s fair to ask where is Otto’s
mind and is the notebook
a part of it this shows how our mind
throws thoughts into the world onto
external surfaces to help it think to
help it liberate precious cognitive
space when we draw we free space to
remember we free space to get
perspective and think about our thoughts
we free space to generate more complex
thinking when we draw we transcend the
limitations of our body and extend our
another huge idea is space diagrams use
space the same way our body uses space
to interact with the world from our
experiences of the world will generate a
spatial comprehension of the world than
is natural to us diagrams emerge from
this spatial concept that comes from the
body our thinking is spatial in nature
and it is built it’s structure is built
upon spatial sets of relations the space
and geometry are really even in our
whole bodies and you know in all the
space that we use around from our
experiences we know of such concepts as
up or down
big or small warm or cold these basic
concepts then are used for more abstract
and complex thoughts these are made
through some really beautiful idea it’s
called the metaphors of the body how
they are explained to us by george
lakoff and mark johnson and these are a
couple there is up and there is down
because the ground and there is gravity
pretty obvious but from that basic
thought we then generate metaphors
metaphors such as up is good down is bad
up is happy down is sad up is alive down
is dead
up is more down is less
a recent survey asked across countries
this question if these two circles were
people which would be the richest yeah
you are right we are all thinking
diagrammatically another from our
knowledge of the body we then also have
a concept of in or out naturally from
this in and out concept we generate a
center periphery metaphor that same
survey asked if this five circles were a
rock band who would be the singer in the
band is it in the center metaphors of
the body are the basis of language there
in all our languages there in the words
we speak well there in the mass we make
and they most certainly are in the
diagrams that we do I would like to
share now five diagrams that I
absolutely love and their intrinsic
powers and qualities this is a
mathematical equation it shows a system
with a set of relations I’m sure all of
you know what it means this is the same
equation in its diagrammatical form now
it is called a pulley system of
relations the mathematical version of
the equation and the diagrammatical
version of the equation give us the same
information this means they are
information equal but the diagram is
computationally better why because of
our instinctive knowledge of up and down
and gravity we can easily operate on the
visual form of the equation imagine you
need to cut your 10:18 train and you’re
late and you’re getting to the station
and you’re facing this panel for
departure times in the first panel there
is a set of times that is organized in
no special way on the second panel there
is a set of times that is organized in a
chronological order in the third panel
there is a set of times that is
organized in a chronological order
a line-break every other hour it’s
obvious that the last panel is the one
that will have helped you catch the
10:18 train and this is because of the
arrangement of the elements in space
which is in itself extra information
this is not design or typography or
decoration this is actual information
it’s diagrammatic knowledge great minds
from all sorts of fields and all
different times have afforded us with
amazing diagrams like that one of
mathematician John Venn and this has
really been kind of them because it
means we get to play with within these
diagrams without having the slightest
clue of the mass behind them I for one
don’t know the mass behind this one but
it means we get to play around and see
what the blend between Kim Kardashian
and George Michael might look like or
what happens what you put pizza sorry
pineapple into pizza which is heresy or
what would happen if we gave steroids to
the green Teletubby when this happens we
are thinking within the diagram and in
our mind we lose sight of the structure
of the diagram we are having what
charles sanders peirce called an
imaginary moment it’s the moment when
our thoughts and the diagram are the
same thing upon which we operate it’s
the closest I can get to prove that
diagrams are thinking diagrams can give
us meaning big data is useless unless
it’s meaningful the value is not in the
information itself but in the
intelligence and the knowledge that we
can get from the meaning that we make
from the raw numbers this diagram shows
average earnings for the same jobs
comparing them between those of men and
women but it’s only one we draw the line
of equal pain that we see who is getting
paid better and it’s only when we see
the 25 percent difference gap
that we could see the pattern that’s
emerging this is meaningful information
it’s as meaningful as instantly knowing
the difference between the slow and
decreasing growth of logarithmic growth
from the strong and energetic
acceleration growth of exponential
growth I would like to show you one last
example this is one of the most
culturally strong diagrams I know it is
Abram Maslow’s pyramid of human needs in
his theory Maslow proposes that humans
have a series of needs and that they are
organized in a hierarchical way from
bottom to top this means that you will
not have the next need if you haven’t
fulfilled the previous want in other
words you won’t feel the need for love
but this really has saved how we think
this is the belt the world we have built
it has been argued that this same
diagram provides conceptual basis for a
view of society that is class divided
one in which people struggling with the
needs at the bottom of the pyramid are
of a lesser class than those dealing
with the needs at the top but what if we
could see the world differently what if
we could change this site and this
construction of the world what if we
could see it in a circle Manfred
max-neef has provided the human scale
development theory and he argues there
is no hierarchy amongst needs and that
they are complementary and simultaneous
and that there’s a system of trade-offs
in the process of need satisfaction this
is a fundamental change in how we see
ourselves
it is a disruption in society in how we
can build it it will change how I treat
my next-door neighbor and the difference
is not in the theory it’s in the diagram
it’s the difference between a circle and
a triangle diagrams have been around for
a while in fact for as long as we can
think but for some reason they have been
kept circumscribed to technical circles
and belong only to economic economists
and marketeers academics or
professionals but as all the examples
I’ve shown demonstrate diagrams can help
us in all sorts of problems big and
small in our daily life why don’t we use
this language more and what could we
achieve if we had a diagrammatically
educated society I’m sure my friend will
fall in love again
and when he gets into those first dates
with his part pumping with acceleration
in love he might just remember that
little drawing he did way back when and
maybe that will help him work out what
he expects of a relationship on his new
partner it is no promise that the
relationship will last but I wager that
this language is easy to learn it’s in
our bodies it comes naturally and it
works for everybody across cultures it
can help us build the world we want to
see I say we claim this power I say we
teach it to children we put it in
schools and in households it is the
power to see the world differently it is
the power to draw our ideas it is the
power to think through our scribbles let
us use it thank you [Applause]
trouble in his parrot going through
difficult times and facing dire
decisions he had obviously been thinking
a lot about what it meant to be in a
relationship to express how he felt he –
he did this diagram what interests me of
this example is the fact that while he
was having those troubled times my
friends had the need to express what
being a relationship looked like I would
say he even wanted to see what his
thought about being your angel shape
would look so he did this drawing but he
didn’t just do a diagram he drew his
thought drawing is thinking and to think
is the diagram to think is the diagram
now this has tremendous implications and
to understand the implications it has we
really need to understand that the world
is not as it is as we see it the world
is as we think of it consider this is
this a pen when many of you might think
it is but it’s actually not it’s just a
piece of plastic with some ink inside or
an illustration on a screen or a
toothpick or a rocket or a spoon to
steer my tea at this point I am not
seeing a pen anymore I am seeing a spoon
because that’s how I’m thinking of it
thinking has the power to generate the
narratives we live in how we see our
life is the life we will have thinking
generates the cultures that mold the
world diagrams can help us understand
how we think they can help us see how we
think and they might even help us choose
what we want to think that is the
tremendous power of diagrams and
in order to unlock it we need to
understand why and how diagrams our
thoughts so let’s take a little journey
and let’s start with the body as it
turns out our body is our mind
cognitive science has afforded us the
idea of the embodied mind it teaches us
that our whole body is a cognitive and
thinking system that includes
not only our brain but also our limbs
and our nervous system going within them
or our senses etc this destroys this
dualistic vision of the brain cut off
from the body and it helps us understand
that our thinking depends on the very
nature of our body mind our body thinks
and our body remembers proprioception is
the quality that explains this it is the
reason all of you in this room know
instinctively that you are wearing your
shoes even though you don’t have to
think about it right you are wearing
shoes I hope it is the reason why you
can jump onto a bicycle and know how to
information obtained from proprioception
is then reused in other more abstract
tasks another interesting idea is that
of the extended mind Andy Clark and
David Chalmers bring this crazy but
amazing example auto has Alzheimer’s
and he wants to go down to the local
market to buy some groceries but he
knows that by the time he gets there he
will have forgotten what his groceries
are so he writes down the list of what
he wants to buy in his notebook and he
goes down to the market and sure enough
by the time he gets there he has
completely forgotten what he wanted to
buy this information has been erased he
has Alzheimer’s he he doesn’t have it in
his system anymore unless he takes out
his notebook and remembers at which
point it’s fair to ask where is Otto’s
mind and is the notebook
a part of it this shows how our mind
throws thoughts into the world onto
external surfaces to help it think to
help it liberate precious cognitive
space when we draw we free space to
remember we free space to get
perspective and think about our thoughts
we free space to generate more complex
thinking when we draw we transcend the
limitations of our body and extend our
another huge idea is space diagrams use
space the same way our body uses space
to interact with the world from our
experiences of the world will generate a
spatial comprehension of the world than
is natural to us diagrams emerge from
this spatial concept that comes from the
body our thinking is spatial in nature
and it is built it’s structure is built
upon spatial sets of relations the space
and geometry are really even in our
whole bodies and you know in all the
space that we use around from our
experiences we know of such concepts as
up or down
big or small warm or cold these basic
concepts then are used for more abstract
and complex thoughts these are made
through some really beautiful idea it’s
called the metaphors of the body how
they are explained to us by george
lakoff and mark johnson and these are a
couple there is up and there is down
because the ground and there is gravity
pretty obvious but from that basic
thought we then generate metaphors
metaphors such as up is good down is bad
up is happy down is sad up is alive down
is dead
up is more down is less
a recent survey asked across countries
this question if these two circles were
people which would be the richest yeah
you are right we are all thinking
diagrammatically another from our
knowledge of the body we then also have
a concept of in or out naturally from
this in and out concept we generate a
center periphery metaphor that same
survey asked if this five circles were a
rock band who would be the singer in the
band is it in the center metaphors of
the body are the basis of language there
in all our languages there in the words
we speak well there in the mass we make
and they most certainly are in the
diagrams that we do I would like to
share now five diagrams that I
absolutely love and their intrinsic
powers and qualities this is a
mathematical equation it shows a system
with a set of relations I’m sure all of
you know what it means this is the same
equation in its diagrammatical form now
it is called a pulley system of
relations the mathematical version of
the equation and the diagrammatical
version of the equation give us the same
information this means they are
information equal but the diagram is
computationally better why because of
our instinctive knowledge of up and down
and gravity we can easily operate on the
visual form of the equation imagine you
need to cut your 10:18 train and you’re
late and you’re getting to the station
and you’re facing this panel for
departure times in the first panel there
is a set of times that is organized in
no special way on the second panel there
is a set of times that is organized in a
chronological order in the third panel
there is a set of times that is
organized in a chronological order
a line-break every other hour it’s
obvious that the last panel is the one
that will have helped you catch the
10:18 train and this is because of the
arrangement of the elements in space
which is in itself extra information
this is not design or typography or
decoration this is actual information
it’s diagrammatic knowledge great minds
from all sorts of fields and all
different times have afforded us with
amazing diagrams like that one of
mathematician John Venn and this has
really been kind of them because it
means we get to play with within these
diagrams without having the slightest
clue of the mass behind them I for one
don’t know the mass behind this one but
it means we get to play around and see
what the blend between Kim Kardashian
and George Michael might look like or
what happens what you put pizza sorry
pineapple into pizza which is heresy or
what would happen if we gave steroids to
the green Teletubby when this happens we
are thinking within the diagram and in
our mind we lose sight of the structure
of the diagram we are having what
charles sanders peirce called an
imaginary moment it’s the moment when
our thoughts and the diagram are the
same thing upon which we operate it’s
the closest I can get to prove that
diagrams are thinking diagrams can give
us meaning big data is useless unless
it’s meaningful the value is not in the
information itself but in the
intelligence and the knowledge that we
can get from the meaning that we make
from the raw numbers this diagram shows
average earnings for the same jobs
comparing them between those of men and
women but it’s only one we draw the line
of equal pain that we see who is getting
paid better and it’s only when we see
the 25 percent difference gap
that we could see the pattern that’s
emerging this is meaningful information
it’s as meaningful as instantly knowing
the difference between the slow and
decreasing growth of logarithmic growth
from the strong and energetic
acceleration growth of exponential
growth I would like to show you one last
example this is one of the most
culturally strong diagrams I know it is
Abram Maslow’s pyramid of human needs in
his theory Maslow proposes that humans
have a series of needs and that they are
organized in a hierarchical way from
bottom to top this means that you will
not have the next need if you haven’t
fulfilled the previous want in other
words you won’t feel the need for love
but this really has saved how we think
this is the belt the world we have built
it has been argued that this same
diagram provides conceptual basis for a
view of society that is class divided
one in which people struggling with the
needs at the bottom of the pyramid are
of a lesser class than those dealing
with the needs at the top but what if we
could see the world differently what if
we could change this site and this
construction of the world what if we
could see it in a circle Manfred
max-neef has provided the human scale
development theory and he argues there
is no hierarchy amongst needs and that
they are complementary and simultaneous
and that there’s a system of trade-offs
in the process of need satisfaction this
is a fundamental change in how we see
ourselves
it is a disruption in society in how we
can build it it will change how I treat
my next-door neighbor and the difference
is not in the theory it’s in the diagram
it’s the difference between a circle and
a triangle diagrams have been around for
a while in fact for as long as we can
think but for some reason they have been
kept circumscribed to technical circles
and belong only to economic economists
and marketeers academics or
professionals but as all the examples
I’ve shown demonstrate diagrams can help
us in all sorts of problems big and
small in our daily life why don’t we use
this language more and what could we
achieve if we had a diagrammatically
educated society I’m sure my friend will
fall in love again
and when he gets into those first dates
with his part pumping with acceleration
in love he might just remember that
little drawing he did way back when and
maybe that will help him work out what
he expects of a relationship on his new
partner it is no promise that the
relationship will last but I wager that
this language is easy to learn it’s in
our bodies it comes naturally and it
works for everybody across cultures it
can help us build the world we want to
see I say we claim this power I say we
teach it to children we put it in
schools and in households it is the
power to see the world differently it is
the power to draw our ideas it is the
power to think through our scribbles let
us use it thank you [Applause]
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