Generating Random Inputs

Generating random inputs

The two main ways of bringing about random stimulation are:

• Exposure.
• Formal generation.

Exposure

The division between exposure and formal generation of random stimulation is only one of convenience. If one actively puts oneself into a position where one is subjected to random stimulation that is part exposure and part formal generation. The following points may serve to illustrate the way random stimulation can be used.

1. Accepting and even welcoming random inputs. Instead of shutting out something which does not appear relevant one regards it as a random input and pays it attention. This involves no further activity than an attitude that notices what comes along.

2. Exposure to the ideas of others. In a brainstorming session the ideas of others act as random inputs in the sense that they do not have to follow one’s own line of thought even though they occupy the same field of relevance. Listening to others even if one disagrees very strongly with their ideas can provide useful input.

3. Exposure to ideas from completely different fields. This sometimes goes under the heading of ‘cross disciplinary fertilization’. It means discussing a matter with someone in a totally different field. For instance a medical scientist might discuss systems behaviour with a business analyst or with a fashion designer. One can also listen to other people talking on their own subject.

4. Physical exposure to random stimulation. This may involve wandering around an area which contains a multitude of different objects, for instance a general store like Woolworths or a toy shop. It may also mean going along to an exhibition which has nothing to do with the subject you are interested in.

The main point about the exposure method is to realize that one is never looking for anything. One could go to an exhibition to see if there was anything relevant. One could discuss a problem with someone in another field in order to hear their views on it. But that is not the purpose. If one goes looking for something relevant then one has preset ideas of relevance. And such preset ideas of relevance can only arise from the current way of looking at the situation. One wanders around with a completely blank mind and waits for something to catch one’s attention. Even if nothing seems to catch one’s attention there is still no effort to find something useful.

Formal generation of random input

Because attention is a passive process even if one wanders around an exhibition without looking for anything relevant attention does tend to settle on items which have some relevance to the established way of looking at a situation. No matter how hard one tries to resist doing so one is still exerting some selection. This reduces the random nature of the input but still allows it to be very effective. In order to use truly random inputs one has to generate them deliberately. This seems paradoxical in so far as a random input is supposed to occur by chance. What one actually does is to set up a formal process to produce chance events. Shaking a pair of dice is such a situation. Three methods are suggested below:

1. Use of a dictionary to provide a random word.
2. Formal selection of a book or journal in a library.
3. The use of some routine to select an object from the surroundings (e.g. the nearest red object).

Formal selection of a book or journal simply means that one makes a point of picking up a journal from a particular position on the shelves no matter what the journal may be. One opens it and reads any one article in it no matter how remote these may seem. One can do the same thing with a book. These are but examples of how one can set up deliberate habits or routines in order to generate random inputs.