*** With permission from Chet Richards & Chuck Spinney, April 8, 2025. ***

This podcast, based on a 1976 article by John R. Boyd, explores how we create and dismantle mental models to understand and interact with our environment—a crucial ability for independent action and survival. Boyd describes a dialectical process in which we first break down existing concepts (destructive deduction) and then build new ones by connecting isolated observations (creative induction).

He argues that this continuous cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction is driven by our goal to enhance our capacity for independent action. It is also shaped by concepts like Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and the second law of thermodynamics, which suggest that internal scrutiny increases uncertainty and disorder, ultimately fueling the need to develop new, broader perspectives.

This dialectical engine enables the construction of decision-making models for both individuals and societies.

Source: Chet Richards' website: https://slightlyeastofnew.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/destruction_and_creation1.pdf