The name of this blog, "Chavlei Shlomo" (The Ropes of Solomon), is derived from the midrash in Shir ha'Shirim Rabbah 1:1 in which the mishlei Shlomo are likened to ropes (chavalim) and cords that are connected together and used to draw cool, sweet, good water from a deep well. According to the midrash, the people in the village were unable to drink from the well until the "hero" came along and connected these ropes together, enabling the villagers to access the deep waters of the well.
We've been discussing this midrash in Rabbi Sacks's shiur for the past month, and I'm not clear enough on the idea to even write an elementary explanation, but I'll at least identify the main questions:
- What is the meaning of the mashal of divrei Torah to a deep well of cool, sweet, and good water?
- What is the meaning of the mashal of mishlei Shlomo to a series of connected ropes and cords?
- What differentiates the "hero" from the villagers? Apparently, nobody thought of this solution before. What is it about the villagers that blinded them to this solution, and what is it about the hero that enabled him to see it?
Note: In the first paragraph, I'll use quotation marks to indicate terms in the framework of the story analogue and asterisks for those in the framework of the wisdom one; e.g. "villagers"/*ignoramuses*.
ReplyDelete3. The two most essential aspects of decision making are
1) identification of the problem and
2) the unbiased identification of options.
The "villagers" identified the problem, which is that the *wisdom* was inaccessible, but they were unable to identify a solution to this problem. The *chacham*, however is able to identify a solution.
I saw a show this summer about moving houses. The problem here is that the house is in one place and you want it in another. In general terms, the solution is to move it. What really floored (house joke, right Danny?) me about this show was that it's not impossible. I thought, "Move a house?! Ha! It's huge! Impossible," when in fact, there are three ways to do it: pick the whole friggin thing up ("Pick it up?? Impossible!" Nope.), cut it into chunks ("Cut a house into chunks??? WHAT??") or move it brick by brick ("That will take FOREVER"). The point is that my naive definitions of houses and moving and junk and an implicit unwillingness to do too much work caused me not only to prejudicially discount perfectly viable solutions, but prevented me from identifying them in the first place.
I submit that I suffered from the same problem the villagers did, while the hero was able to offer a nonprejudicial analysis of the situation.
I'd like to also draw emphasis to something else: The hero couldn't have come up with a plan to move the house if he hadn't defined the problem more precisely than I did, by adding, for instance, "...but I can't move it right now because it's too big."
Ken
ReplyDeleteI think it actually helps to answer each of the questions about the house with the same answer- "impossible"
The issue with the hero is not that he defines "house" more precisely. Precision would imply that one's sense of the thing is in the right domain, ie subject to the right category. The villagers define the water, or anything outside of experience, as being in an imaginary domain with new rules- the deep.
Imagining things outside of experience as being in a new domain, outside the laws of nature, is not a lack of precision, it is an intrusion of imagination categories into the domain of mind.
I like your way of presenting the prejudicial answers.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to say that he defines "house" more precisely, but that he defines the problem regarding the house more precisely, which requires a proper categorization of the house itself. What I mean is that you'd only be able to define the problem as "I want to move the house, but I can't," that is in a general sense if you put it in the imaginary category of "Immovable Object." Whereas, if the house is in the real category of "Physical Object," the problem can be more precisely stated as, "I want to move the house, but I can't because it is too big and heavy for me to lift," which presents the possible solutions of
1) inventing a shrink ray and applying it to the house,
2) inventing a growth ray and applying it to your muscles, or
3) kidnapping Rick Moranis and torturing him until he gives you the plans for his.
And those are really the only options.
Ken
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference between defining a thing vs defining a problem?
Isnt defining a problem simply defining a thing I have interest in acting upon but lack the know how to do so ?
2. Some observations; the first two on the story, and the last one on what I'd like to develop to connect the allusion to the reality:
ReplyDeleteThe end of the ropes (rope joke, right Danny?) was not intrinsic, but led to the ability to acquire the water.
Each villager did not have to connect the ropes himself, but could use the ropes the hero assembled. Everyone had access to the bits of rope, but the hero put them in a useful framework.
Each mind operates in its own framework, with its own unique set of terms. One cannot jump from one framework and terminology to another wholesale, but must slowly develop and mutate the framework with which he currently works.
The definition of the problem is the definition of the interest in relation to the thing.
ReplyDelete...in relation to and in terms of...
ReplyDeleteLets apply your definition to "problem" as you used it in the case of the immovable house.
ReplyDeleteHow is "immovable object" necessarily a definition of interest with respect to the house?
Immovable could be an interest if a soul is doing the moving, but could also be a fact for a disinterested material actor. An immovable object would be immovable by a planet and galaxy as well.
"Immovable Object" is not a definition of the problem, but the category in which the house is believed to reside. This belief plays an implicit role when one is defining the problem.
ReplyDeleteSo is a "problem" something other than confronting a materially possible circumstance that has the accident of being a circumstance I desire to exist but do not know how to make exist?
ReplyDeleteHm. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but a way to put what I was saying before in terms similar to those in your question is that a problem is an articulation of the difference between the current circumstance and the desired circumstance.
ReplyDelete