Ever since the invention of the computer, it has been used for the processing and computational powers it has that are far beyond those of the human mind. TurboThought uses the computer in a new way - to unlock the kind of processing powers in the human mind that are far beyond the capabilities of any computer. By cultivating the free association process, TurboThought stimulates the intuitive and creative faculties of the mind for problem-solving. The result is that the solutions to problems can arise quickly through spontaneous insight, rather than after the prolonged periods of struggle and strain that occur when we try to "wrestle" our problems to a solution.
TurboThought is a computer representation of a technique, called "the card method", that was described by David Seabury, a psychologist who wrote and taught in the earlier part of this century. There could be no better introduction to TurboThought than his description of the card method:
For a great many years I have received credit for more intelligence
than I possess. This is because of being able to solve what seemed to
some people to be quite unsolvable problems. It was not my brains that
unravelled the riddles but the use of the efficiency method of thinking.
I doubt if you could add 90871951784 and 139375827 in your head. I
am sure you can do it quite easily on paper.
It is amazing to see how many people try to solve their problems in
their heads. When they fail, they consider them to be unsolvable. They
would not find the solutions difficult if they would do them in written
form.
I personally use three-by-five filing cards because they are easier
to handle and to move into various positions.
Time and again men and women have come to me with problems that
had not only caused them worry but years of strain. They were often
surprised at how promptly the enigma was clarified. I recall one case
where a businessman brought me a problem that had absorbed the board
of directors of his company for many months. We discussed the situa-
tion in a two-hour interview. When the next day I was able to give him
the answer to his problem, he could hardly believe his ears.
Before coming to the solution of this man's problem I had written
over two hundred cards - one factor, one idea only, on each card. Every-
thing he had said to me as well as all I could remember or reason out had
gone onto the cards. Then, using my whole office floor, I placed the
cards in as logical relation as I could imagine. But soon I was moving
card after card into different positions and studying different combina-
tions. I had to write new cards that the new relations suggested. How
many millions of combinations of cards, of ideas, of facts and figures
can be produced with two hundred cards, I do not know. I do know that
not a human being has ever lived who could carry in his head the enlight-
enment of all the combinations I made in an evening. New insight on the
problem did not result from each move. Understanding of the situation
began to appear only after a series of placements.
Thus the first process in the use of the cards is called a free asso-
ciation method because one moves the cards spontaneously in response to
whatever the chance combination suggests. It is always wise to let the
cards reveal what they happen to show from unplanned arrangements before
a controlled process is used. Having written down all that one has so
far learned, the next step is to combine the card method with the what-
how-why-who-where-when technique and to separate all the cards into six
groups under the heading of these six key words...Analyze the "whats" by
themselves as factors with which you must deal. How did they come to
pass? Why are they there? Who played a part in their existence? Where
are these "whats" and where did they come from? When did they appear?
This is the first step. It places the problem and reveals what it is.
The second step considers how one is to proceed, having achieved the
preliminary clarification of the situation. How must he now act, and
why? Who can he get to help him, and where? When should he make the
first move?
It is obvious one next asks oneself, "Why am I the one to do this?
Who else is involved? Where is he, or are they? When could one expect
to know which of the people or the forces concerned can be successfully
dealt with?"...
After this is done, rearrange the cards into a logical order, keep-
ing the six groups entirely separate. One need not always use so exhaus-
tive a survey, but in such a serious case as I had to consider the full
process was necessary.
Soon I was excitedly writing down the information that various combi-
nations made evident. Before two hours of this card shifting and ar-
rangements had elapsed, a starkly clear picture of the company's dilemma
and the way out of it was before me. I could not in years have thought
through such a complex business difficulty. The solution was certainly
not created by me. The cards and the what-how-why-who-where-when
process did it. This procedure has done it for me many times. Using
this technique, a man of only reasonable intelligence can think out an
intricate problem more easily than could a genius.
The card method is not limited to the clarifying of commercial diffi-
culties. It is adjusted to all sorts of needs. For years I have used it
to make the titles of books, articles and lectures. I write down on
cards all possible words that might be in a title, one word on a card.
Then I move the cards from position to position until the title appears.
To the card method I also owe many of the contributions I have made to
the field of psychology, but feeling that the cards did it, I have never
wished to claim credit for any advancement of our knowledge that may
have resulted.
I know of no procedure that can more surely remove worry and strain
from one's work, if that work is more than manual. Even home, marriage,
and child-rearing problems are greatly clarified by use of this concrete
system.
Whenever you cannot seem to think your way through a situation with-
out exhaustion, use the cards. Write only one fact, one idea, one ele-
ment of your problem on a single card, for you will need to be able to
give any fact, idea, or element a new context. This is the purpose of
moving the cards about. Think deeply what each new context has to say to
you, for in the new relation may be hidden a most significant message.
...It must be apparent that in the use of the efficient thinking me-
thods one is not so much using his own mind as he is following thinking
processes that allow it to work for him. The card technique includes
both the free and the controlled association processes, while the what-
how-why-who-where-when procedure is only a vehicle into which intelli-
gence spontaneously flows. Both are ways that work for one so that his
own efforts are eased.
Now with Turbothought this problem-solving method is updated into the computer age, making it even more effortless. Your factors can be typed rapidly into text areas that take the place of the index cards of the original method. The rearrangements of the factors into new contexts can happen with the click of the mouse. And instead of requiring your office floor, or even the top of your desk, the entire process is contained in your computer screen.
The more you use TurboThought, the more you will find yourself turning to it for a wide variety of tasks. Use it to plan an event... a trip itinerary... break a project up into tasks... even use it to help you solve the daily Jumble in the newspaper.
Take the time to read through the Instructions, and then you will be ready to try the sample problem included with TurboThought (see README.TXT). After that, you will be able to effortlessly benefit from the turbo-boost that TurboThought gives to your problem-solving.
