Challenges to the Reasoning Mind

by Jim Freund

            In a book titled Legal-Ease published in 1984 – forty years ago – I urged lawyers to adopt a broader outlook for solving problems than just focusing on the law. I told them that there are many recognizable counterparts in life generally to what lawyers do for a living – thinking, communicating, dealing with people, making decisions – that can offer helpful guidance if found and utilized.

             I recently re-read the first section of the book, which explores the way our mind works  (or sometimes, refuses to work), with a view to opening up the thought processes that may have become too fossilized over the years. I’ve selected excerpts from this first section, and (after eliminating the specific references to lawyers and legal matters) offer them here as suggestions that still provide a sensible general approach for all of us.

 

WHEN THE MIND SNAPS SHUT

             On a ski trip this past winter, I rented a car. After using it the first day to get to the slopes, I drove my son Tom into the village that night for dinner. We parked; I removed the key from the ignition, opened the door, and stepped out. A buzzer went off in the car when I closed the door, the buzzer stopped; but each time I reopened the door, the buzzer started again.

             Here’s the way my high-priced, abundantly trained intellect tackled this problem: Dammit, there must be a short circuit in this lousy rental car! Clearly, it’s nothing I can fix, and at least the noise stops when the door is closed.

             I walked away from the car. After a few steps, my son called out: “Hey Dad, your lights are on.” So they were. And of course, this was precisely what the buzzer was trying to convey. But I didn’t get the message.

             The reason the message didn’t get through was that the instant the buzzer went off, I classified the incident as a “mechanical problem”; and when confronted with a mechanical problem, my mind immediately snaps shut. Let’s face it, I’ve never been comfortable with technology. In grade school, I was the only kid in class who didn’t subscribe to Popular Mechanics; a series of erector sets from Christmases past lay unused in my closet. “Call the handyman” or “Take it back to the store” became my bywords for malfunctioning components.

            It had never occurred to me, until later the same evening during a post mortem with Tom, that so-called mechanical problems can often be solved through the application of simple logic, provided you make the effort and don’t panic.

             In retrospect, here’s how my mind should have worked at that moment (a process that required no mechanical aptitude whatsoever): The buzzer now goes off when I open the door. The buzzer did not go off earlier today when I opened the door. What’s the difference between now and earlier today? The difference is that now it’s night, while earlier it was day. What’s different in a car between night and day? Well, at night you use lights. Hey, maybe I better check whether I left the lights on . . . .

 

 THE UNFUNCTIONING BRAIN

             This piece is about not using your mind – the things people do to short-circuit the reasoning process. In addition to the snap-shut syndrome, I’ll touch on two other common bogeys; the repetition of learned behavior (even where inapplicable), and unconscious tricks we play on ourselves.

             Aren’t there areas where your mind simulates mine with a mechanical problem? For some people, it occurs on a problem they consider mechanical, but which may not require trigonometric precision at all – just the application of common sense. Economics, geography, psychology – so many of our disciplines repel their non-disciples, causing good minds to break off and flee in mid-thought.

 

THE PREMATURE LEAP TO JUDGMENT

             A variant of this problem involves leaping prematurely to an incorrect solution for all the wrong reasons, while ignoring credible evidence pointing you in the right direction. Wrong reasons include the intimidation you feel operating in a particular field, the desire to “get it over with,” misreadings caused by “a little knowledge” – perhaps even some guilt or other insecurity that has no place in problem-solving. This half-baked process can be worse than not thinking at all. Listen to what happened to me the other day.

             I had taped some music on a small, inexpensive cassette recorder. When I played the cassette on my more expensive large stereo, the pitch of the sound was lower than normal. The obvious explanation – that the large stereo mechanism was running at too slow a speed, which lowered the pitch – simply didn't occur to me. Why? Because an obscure warning in the long-since-discarded instruction booklet for the small machine popped into my head: Beware, if you leave this machine plugged into a wall socket for long periods (which I had done), certain dire events will take place. And now guilt took over – guilt at having ignored those finger-wagging instructions – and I whisked off on a clearly specious line of reasoning (excess electrical energy from the wall socket speeded up the mechanism, causing it to tape at faster than normal speed, resulting in low-pitched sound when played on a normal machine).

  That was all I needed. I didn't pause to test this absurd thesis (for example, by using a third machine, which I had handy). 1 ran to the store where I had purchased the small machine and announced that it was malfunctioning. When the salesman tried it with another tape, the sound seemed normal. (This caused the salesman to remark, with only the faintest trace of sarcasm, “It's like going to the dentist – the tooth never hurts when you get there.”) But I chose to ignore the evidence and instructed him to send the recorder away to its maker for the obligatory two month repair period.

  A week later, when playing another tape, I discovered that in fact the large stereo was at fault. Those of you who have dealt with New York appliance shops will not be surprised to learn that the small machine had yet to be been sent out to the manufacturer – a vexing subject in itself, but one for another day – and 1 was able to retrieve the recorder, apologize to it for doubting its capabilities, and restore the machine to its rightful place among my possessions.

Intimidation, haste, faulty knowledge, guilt – presto, a crazy result. Dees anyone out there feel a familiar twinge?

 

TRICKING OURSELVES

             How about the tricks we play on our minds? The real problem is that most of the time we don’t even know what we’re up to. Obviously, there are psychological factors at work here – but wait, don't let your mind snap shut at that subject! It's not necessary to put a shrink on retainer; just be alert enough to catch yourself in the act and realize that, whatever the deep-seated causes may be, this is silly stuff and need not continue.

I caught myself at one of these on that same skiing trip. I'm not particularly happy with my four-year-old skis, although there's nothing ostensibly wrong with them. Back in the days when I liked them, I would invariably lock or at least separate the skis when placing them on a rack at the lodge. On this trip, however, I found myself leaving the skis together and unlocked, a prime target for thieves. I suddenly realized that I wanted them to be taken, because then I would have to buy a new pair.

Now, it just so happens that I can afford new skis; so why, you may ask, don't I just go out and buy them? That's a good question. Why does my friend, a prosperous lawyer, bang his tennis racket on the ground and make other thinly disguised attempts to destroy it, so he'll be able to purchase a new one? We're just playing games with ourselves.

  We do it in the office, too. Every morning, for example, my secretary takes all the scattered papers on my desk and puts them in neat piles, so I can approach the day in less beleaguered fashion – though 1 know full well the same spectre of disorganization lurks in those tidy stacks.

 

STUCK IN A GROOVE

  Not long ago, I was walking through the Bronx Zoo, which is designed to provide large animals with some room to maneuver, I came to a spacious outdoor enclave for the polar bears, with a pool for swimming, rocks for climbing, and so on. One of the bears started to walk toward me, then halted and retraced his steps backward. I stopped to watch, fascinated. Over and over he would walk forward until halfway through the sixth step (with his left foreleg extended), at which point he would stop and begin the precisely correlative backward trek. At no time did he take any advantage of the water, the rocks, the rambling room.

            A zoo regular, passing by, saw my look of puzzlement and volunteered the explanation. This bear had formerly resided at an inner city zoo, housed in a small cage where 5 ½ steps brought him up against the bars. During those years, he had repeated this mind-numbing stroll so often that, even here in the wide-open spaces, he was unable to unlearn the behavior.

  Is there any polar bear in you? Sure there is. Let's say that you habitually get off a particular highway at a certain exit in order to reach your country place. Today, because you need to pick up something at a store, you plan to stay on the road for one more exit. Your mind drifts off, the regular exit looms up, and before you know it, you're off the highway.

  So, that’s my pitch – avoid these mindless pitfalls, use the brainpower you possess, and you’ll be more effective. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my smoke alarm is ringing; and assuming I can make my way through the flames to the intercom, I intend to get the handyman up here to shut the damn thing off . . . .

 

EATING AND HAVING CAKE

  One day in a delicatessen, I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. The man behind the counter asked, “On rye or on pumpernickel?” I could see the loaves of bread and each looked delicious; at that moment, I had a terrific yearning for both rye and pumpernickel. But I had to choose – and fast, since other people were waiting in line behind me.

  It's a situation we all face daily. People are always posing matched pairs of alternatives for us to elect between – the pernicious “either/or” syndrome. It's neat; it's tidy; but in 9 out of 10 cases, it presents a false universe. Invariably, other options are available. This is one more manifestation of a closed mind mentality, with particular reference to decision-making and negotiations. Let's play it out in terms of a hypothetical situation.

  A couple, about to go out for dinner, is discussing where to eat. He relishes Italian food; she has a yen for Japanese. They each feel strongly about their preference, and a temporary impasse results.

  It's an impasse that has to be resolved, or they'll go hungry – but how is it done?

Well, usually one of them gives in – perhaps trading his acquaintances for a future quid pro quo (as in the man saying, “O.K., Japanese tonight, but next week Italian”).

  Another common resolution, particularly when the negative feelings toward the other's preference are more pronounced, is to strike a compromise – neither Italian nor Japanese, but instead Greek. No one really wins here; in fact, both parties lose a little, since the solution doesn’t accommodate either of their stated interests.

  There's a third possibility available, however, but only if they recognize the implicit assumption of their debate – namely, that they're limited to one of the two cuisines. Why not approach the impasse by posing this question: is it possible to have both?

  Starting down this avenue, the initial task would be to ascertain whether a single restaurant exists that serves both Japanese and Italian food. Now, even in New York, which boasts some pretty fair combined cuisines (Japanese-French, Italo-Argentine, etc.), 1 can't recall any Nipponese Trattoria. Still, the act of visualizing such a restaurant – with a sushi bar up front and straw-basketed chianti bottles toward the rear – may be the catalyst for unearthing the second implicit assumption of their dialogue. Have you figured it out? It's that the couple is limited to patronizing a single restaurant. Who says? Only polar bears are so restricted!

  And so, she suggests that they go to Japan's finest, eat the sushi (he can pass, if he's not in the mood, or perhaps wolf down some yakitori ...), pay the tab, and cross the street to Little Italy for his pasta.

            It’s a neat solution – each gets his preference, and the unconventional splitting up of the meal should add to the festivities. What it required was breaking the either/or trap.

             I guess what I’m saying is that at times you may be able to eat your cake and have it too – though the solution might not be readily apparent. Many of those difficult choices we grapple with – and more than a few of the unsatisfying compromises that result – stem from too much rigidity in our approach.

             This point hasn’t gone unnoticed. Experts on negotiating, for example, stress the importance of inventing options – possible solutions, not readily apparent, which advance shared interests and reconcile difference in a creative fashion. And the either/or situation comes up a lot in terms of the frequent necessity to be in two places at the same time for two different events.

 

STICK THE CARROT

             Sometimes – particularly in problem-solving situations – the apparent necessity for choice is more implicit than explicit. I was taking a shower the other day, when suddenly the water became very hot. (To paraphrase Woody Allen, if someone in America flushes his toilet, I get scalded.) As I groped for the familiar knobs – none of those newfangled, single-control, joystick gadgets for yours truly – it occurred to me that there were three distinct ways to find relief: turn down the hot water, turn up the cold water; and do both simultaneously.

             Increasing the cold might suffice for water a few degrees hotter than normal; decreasing the hot would probably solve a temporary cold water deficiency; but for real scalding – which this was! – you have to go for broke.

             It reminded me of the Navy. Our ship – an icebreaker, which depended on quick maneuverability among the floes – had twin propellers with direct controls located on the bridge. Although most routine turns were handled through just the rudder, the technique for a rapid emergency turn to, say, starboard was to order “right full rudder,” jam the port throttle full speed ahead, and energetically back the starboard engine. This provided maximum turning within a minimum radius – much more efficient than the rudder alone, or an increase in the port side RPM’s, or reversing the starboard prop by itself. Parallels in life and law abound. In dealing with problems, we're rarely limited to a single technique, though it often appears so. Before acting, it's worthwhile to check whether there's another way or – even better – a combination of methods.

  The most familiar example, of course, is the carrot and the stick – a two-pronged approach to get people to do things they don't necessarily want to do. The carrot offers incentives; the stick threatens penalties. The carrot by itself may not be a sufficient lure to the less ambitious; the stick alone may get the job done, but with a resultant poisoning of the atmosphere. Often, the most effective technique is some carrot and some stick.

 

RYE-PERNICKEL

             Well, that’s about it – oh, yes; you're probably wondering what I did about the sandwich bread.

  Those who guessed that my solution was to order two ham and cheese sandwiches, one on each bread, give yourselves a C-minus – I don't like the implication of gluttony. Others, who put the ham on the rye and the cheese on the pumpernickel, rate C-plus or B-minus, though it's still heavy on the carbohydrates.

             Here’s what happened. I suddenly realized – notwithstanding years of established practice and the counterman’s phrasing of the question – that I didn’t have to make the election. “I’ll take one slice of rye and one slice of pumpernickel, please.” He gave me a strange look, but complied. The sandwich was delicious.

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