Does Recruiting Talent for Abstract Thinking Mean Hiring Fuzzy Memory?
Is being able to see the forest rather than the trees, or the form of the tree rather than the details of its resplendent colors and the crimps in the veins of its leaves and gnarly twists of its roots, or abstract similarities and differences in general, rather than concrete ones, not only a talent, but also at the same time a hint about the price of that talent?
Not Everybody is a Napoleon
My personal experience and ruminations suggest that indeed there may very well be a price that is paid for having a marked capacity for abstract thinking: That price, as a tradeoff, may be a fuzzy memory for concrete details.
If that is true, when hiring someone for a position that requires and is dominated by abstract thinking, it may be wise to assess the candidate’s capacity for recall of details—or at least of very important job-related details, especially details of the sort essential to doing the job well or at all.
In making such evaluations, you may find that there are some talents with an aptitude for both—e.g., candidates with the gifts of a Napoleon, who allegedly was able to simultaneously grasp not only the biggest abstract battle-table picture and maps of empire and battles, but also the location of specific platoons and their cannons in his vast armies.
Hitler reportedly had studied the architecture of the Paris Opera and had memorized the location and function of every room long before his infamous brief conqueror’s tour of Paris.
So thorough was his grasp of its details that he expressed puzzlement about a missing salon, until it was explained to him by the attendant that it had had been eliminated in a redesign—proving that not only is the “devil in the details”, but also that some devils have a devilish grasp of them.
French vs. English Minds
However, it is clear that this kind of near or perfect photographic recall is the rare exception.
My hunch is that having an average general’s capacity for abstract perception and analysis is far less likely to be combined with a foxhole private’s grasp of the front-line tank-tread, mud-level details—and not just because these may be genetically or psychologically independent talents, but possibly because they may, to a degree, be inversely related, i.e., the more of one you have, the less of the other.
The 19th-century science, French historian Pierre Duhem framed something akin to this difference by distinguishing what he called the “French mind” from the “English mind”.
On his historical and metaphorical analysis, French scientists (much like the philosopher Rene Descartes) historically favored abstract scientific theories laid out in abstract mathematical form, devoid of visual detail, whereas English scientists preferred visual models with a lot of visual detail, e.g., the atom as a mini-solar system or other mechanical models over French mathematical models.
To me, his distinction and description, accurate or not, approximates my own categorization and analysis of two perceptual and memory forms.
An Eye-Color Test
How many friends’ eye color do you know, i.e., can recall, right now? I recall almost none, but can provide a very decent abstract analytical account of my friends’ behavior. Now, you try it.
If you can remember most, if not all of your friends’ eye color, your perception of things may be what I call “Aristotelian perception”–perception of things as unique, concrete, vivid individuals, defined by their concrete details.
Of course, it may simply be that you have a great memory, period. If so, then assess your capacity for abstract, highly analytical thought to see how it compares with your memory.
CPU and MU Types
I’ve always believed that there two kinds of minds: those that function like computer CPUs vs. those that function like computer-memory and storage units.
The former are very, very good at filtering and compacting information into abstract formulations, processing and analyzing it, e.g., general principles extracted through a kind of inductive thought process, while the latter employ fewer filters and therefore retain more of the details.
As a consequence, the CPU types have much better recall of the abstracted distillations than of the details and process them equally abstractly and effectively, whereas the MUs (the memory units) have superior recall of concrete “unedited” details than of their compact formulations, implications and abstract features.
Some MUs, like the 18-year-old university prodigy I met during my graduate school days, can provide complete memory “storage dumps”, as he demonstrated by reciting huge chunks of dialogue from the movie Dr. Strangelove,in support of his claim that he could recite the entire script, as well as regurgitate two pages of any book verbatim within two minutes of reading the text once.
Although he was also interested in quantum physics and other abstract subjects, I did not have the opportunity to assess whatever talents he had for abstract thought.
The opposite—recalling few, if any. of your friends’ or acquaintances eye color correspondingly suggests that your dominant mode of perception and recall may be more abstract, what I’ll call “Platonic perception”, i.e., perception and memory of the abstract universal “form” or dynamics of things, at the expense of perception and recall of their concrete details.
A Near-Death Lesson
Another hunch of mine may help illustrate this: After my first of three parachute jumps near Toronto, I got a ride back to town from a man who told me of his own experience of “free fall”–falling from a broadcast tower frame while attempting to climb to repair it, at an extreme height.
He said that a rusted rung from the ladder dislodged from his hand, causing him to fall—into a swamp below and land on his back, where despite some severe injuries, he made a full recovery.
When I asked him whether he experienced slow-motion passage of time or saw his life “flash before his eyes”, he replied that it was the latter.
My instant interpretation was that, unable to summon up and recall any abstract rule, principle or guideline to cope with his life-threatening predicament through direct or random access, his mind did the next best thing: review the whole “film” of his life in “fast-forward” mode, hoping to glimpse some useful concrete detail.
That is to say, unable to save himself using Platonic perception or recall, he switched to a form of Aristotelian, concrete, detail recall. In his case, whether or not these two capacities varied inversely in his makeup or inclinations, the fact seemed to be that, under pressure, it was the sharp recollection of detail that he resorted to.
So I concluded that his flashing-life experience may be typical for those who, in such threatening situations, are not quite resigned to their looming fate—especially when there is clearly no abstract “rule” they can rely on to extricate themselves.
The Abstract vs. Concrete Mind Tradeoff
What his experience and the CPU-MU model suggest is that a capacity for sharp, concrete recall of details may be developed or accessed at the expense or in lieu of a capacity for abstract analysis of the same data.
Conversely, a capacity for abstract analysis may be developed or accessed at the expense of recollection of vivid, concrete details—especially minute ones, however important. This may be especially evident when we use abstract concepts to recall events or things.
For example, compare “The Great Pyramids of Egypt are polyhedra with triangular faces and a square base, not tetrahedrons” vs. “The Great Pyramids of Egypt display colors that vary with the time of day and angle of the Sun’s rays, their stones ranging from a soft yellow to a darker beige, closely fitted together, despite rough and crumbled edges of the blocks, entirely unsuggestive of the original gleaming limestone finish that originally covered them and which today remains only in small, irregularly-shaped dull patches.”
One final example, I would make a horrible witness to a robbery: The perp’s shoes, eye color, clothing, jewelry, distinguishing marks? Not likely—unless a bank was robbed by a babe in a bikini.
But, despite or because of this fuzziness of detail recollection, I might be able to offer some splendid speculative analyses of the robber’s motives or describe him or her abstractly, and therefore vaguely.
So, if you are looking to hire a candidate with either or both of the two abilities—Platonic abstract analytical thinking or Aristotelian great attention to and sharp recall of “special” (an important concept in Aristotle’s thought) and concrete details, try, for openers, just asking, “Can you describe your capacity for abstract and analytical thought?”
Then ask for concrete examples and details.