Variant: We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
Source: 1980s, That Benediction is Where You Are (1985), p. 18
Context: From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully. Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems — the problem of God, problem of a dozen things. So our brains are conditioned, trained, educated to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, and to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems and, therefore, being centred in problems, we can never solve any problem completely. It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: Is it possible not to have a single problem but to face problems? But to understand those problems, and to totally resolve them, the brain must be free.
“Science never solves a problem without creating ten more”
“Any problem in computer science can be solved with another level of indirection.”
Attributed to David Wheeler by Butler Lampson in his Turing Lecture https://web.archive.org/web/20070221210039/http://research.microsoft.com/Lampson/Slides/TuringLecture.doc (17 February 1993)
Lampson uses the phrase without attribution in Authentication in distributed systems: theory and practice https://doi.org/10.1145/138873.138874 (November 1992)
“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”
“You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree.”
As quoted in "Andrea Mitchell's exclusive interview with Sen. Olympia Snowe" by Weesie Vieira (29 February 2012) http://info.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/29/10541107-transcript-andrea-mitchells-exclusive-interview-with-sen-olympia-snowe.
Context: What are our obligations to the country and to the people we represent? It's the coming up with effective solutions, sitting down and working with the issues. Sitting around table and sorting through the differences.
You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree. The United States Senate is predicated and based on consensus building. That was certainly the vision of the founding fathers. And if we abandon that approach, then we do it at the expense of the country and the issues that we need to address to put us back on track.
"The Big Problem Binge," The New York Times (1965-03-18)
“You will only be remembered for two things: the problems you solve, or the ones you create.”
