PBL
 

As you may be aware, "grocking" (sic) relates to a novel by Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land". The author spells it "grok" (king). It describes a state of mind that inhabits the realm of complete awareness.
John Boyd, the noted combat theoretician and combat pilot calls it "In The (OODA) Loop". It has been described in many ways over time: "Swordlessness", the Eye, the "Zone", etc. Not new, it surprises many people when they first "grok" the description. Some call it focus, that is incorrect, it is awareness cubed; focus is a narrowing, awareness is a dilation. It is a concept that is being applied in many ways in many new areas of endeavor.

airfoilmod

What some in aviation would refer to as "situational awareness".

airfoilmod,

No, I wasn't. I just picked it up from my pals. Thanks for the background! (Being a Brit, spelling it without the "c" grates on me; I think I'll leave it in.)

PLovett,

Well, not quite. It is obviously related, but it is both more and less. (Not that everybody in aviation uses the term in the same way!) When mathematicians or computer scientists or physicists suddenly understand how to solve a problem, or how a particular construction works, that is not appropriately described as "attaining situational awareness". But it is grocking.

And on the other hand, if you are in a airplane, and you are situationally fully aware, you cannot just suddenly lose that in an instant if nothing else changes. But you can "lose the bubble" that quickly. There is a cognitive switch.

It is a bit like Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit picture, that you can see as a duck or as a rabbit, but not both at the same time. Your brain switches between the two (and you can help it, but sometimes it just does it by itself). Or the 2D cube outline which can be interpreted as being seen from different spatial positions relative to the cube. These are in an obvious sense symmetric states, whereas grocking and failing to grock are not. But grocking, and failing, has some of that cognitive duck/rabbit feel about it. I don't know whether, from a neuropsych point of view, similar things happen in the brain (I don't even know if the CAT-scan people can trace duck-rabbit changes), but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

The TAO "bubble" concept that Rochlin was talking about obviously has to do with integrating complex sets of information, and there are obviously times when one can integrate more and times when less. Just as there are times when I can read faster than at other times, with the same level of comprehension. But mathematical grocking is not like that at all. It is more or less sudden comprehension. And the information may not be complex (indeed, often it is sparse).

It is related to being "with the airplane" versus "behind the airplane".

There are indeed slight differences between all these examples that I think we can remark, but I am suggesting that there is a cognitive phenomenon common to them. I wonder if the CAT-scanner people could find a signature?

PBL

PBL

Thanks for the expanded explanation. I certainly didn't comprehend the fact that you can "lose the bubble" without there being a change in the prevailing environment.

Better
 

Better than being with the Aircraft, is to be "ahead of it". Situational awareness is probably a "minimal" level of what the bubble people mean. With respect, "situational" implies a "lock" in the "present", a possibility of missing what's coming. Again, Focus is a word pilots use (guilty) when instructing others, and is woefully inadequate to describe what's needed in certain flight regimes, and recommended for all of them. A Blue Angel described it to me as "being as one". When the Boss wants a manouver, he states it, and all follow, as if they were all one. "thinking" can get you and your wing killed, "focussing", same. It is an intuitive ability to act as one with others, or well ahead of your "space" as a single. We teach this at the Leadership Academy, as do countless others in different domains.

VH-NXE, Boeing Company 717-200
 

Ex the ATSB Website- Release Date: 27 March 2008

Occurrence Number: 200800641

Link Below-

ATSB VH-NXE- Preliminary

Currently being repaired. Looks pretty nasty from the photos I saw. Boeing sure know how to build a hangar (with a/c). Shouldn't be to much longer before the aircraft is back in ADL for cabin re-fitment and back into service.

$4 million is the AOG estimate.