My blue puzzle piece - home

Imagine a picture puzzle.... It comes in a box filled with hundreds of pieces. When assembled, it may depict a landscape, perhaps, with large swatches of blue sea and blue sky. Imagine my mind is like one of those picture puzzles, and so is yours. I take one of those blue puzzle pieces, give it to you, and declare, “Here's a bit of the picture in my mind. I give it to you so you can see the picture I see.”

a new piece

Ideas, wrapped in behaviors

Expressing ideas, the act of communicating, is behavior. More ...

key pieces, popular items, quick links

Books | the culture domain | Two Three questions | Iceberg | Finger trap | math | To be wise is to see | George Box

Most of the pieces, a nearly complete table of contents

Introduction
What's this puzzle piece metaphor all about?

Two questions
I think they're worth asking ... and worth answering.

Seeking solutions in the culture domain

Tip of the iceberg

To be wise is to see
(illustrated by two popular optical illusions)

Most models are wrong, but some are useful.
the wisdom that George Box sees

Escaping a finger trap
and related thoughts about warning signs and wisdom

Books, by writers who see
Please note, however, I don't do book reviews.

Math as metaphor
Some say 2+2=5. Some say it's 3. Others have a problem with 8.

Cynicism is is a self-imposed blindness

Culture as conspiracy theory
There's an iceberg involved. Do you see it, too?

This is not about not
It's amazing how often we stumble over this tiny word.

Some assembly required: Rough drafts and miscellaneous pieces
(opens in a new window or tab)

Feel free to comment here.

I take that piece from the sky portion of my mind's picture puzzle, but you find it fits best in the sea portion of yours.

Brown smoke cloud covers Asia

“Thanks!” you say, as you join my sky piece to your sea puzzle. And off we go, cheerfully believing we have accomplished something, that we have communicated.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Sometimes I think of it as the illusion of information. If I hand you a blue puzzle piece from the picture in my mind, but I don't describe the surrounding picture from which it came, I set up both of us to misunderstand each other, to miscommunicate, to see only an illusion of information.

This site offers a collection of puzzle pieces. These are the pieces I find most helpful to create a coherent picture of the world around us.

Some pieces I have yet to assemble or integrate can be found at the companion blog, Another blue puzzle piece.

Contents, pieces, connections ...

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