Concepts

Dr Luke Houghton is at it again, wondering whether a change of concept is as good as a holiday? My immediate response is that a holiday is only as good as its changes to concepts!

What do we mean by "concept", here? Dr Houghton talks about Peter Checkland's definition: "a framework of ideas". But the simple fact is that ideas do not exist, as such. Ideas are abstractions from concepts, rather than concepts being compositions of ideas. If we think about a chair, we may think about a particular chair or about the abstract concept of a chair. In either case, our chair exists in our thoughts not in isolation, but in conjunction with other ideas, such as sitting, dining, reading, interior design, manufacturing, other chairs, memories involving chairs, dreams of chairs, fantasies about chairs, the Freudian interpretation of the chair symbol, stools, benches, sofas, rocks, tree-trunks... There is no end to the framework of ideas!

The essence of a chair, if we may talk about such a thing, is an abstraction that each of us has developed separately from our many real and imagined interactions with chairs. And this (mutatis mutandis) is true of all our ideas and concepts. Even our ideas about and concepts of ideas and concepts. Life is about developing concepts, either adding new layers to our existing concepts, or challenging them.

Which brings us to holidays. An important part of the abstract concept of a holiday is change. Rest and enjoyment are other important parts, but change is of the essence. By putting yourself into a different relationship with the world, you challenge your prevailing system of concepts. You see yourself not as local, resident, employed, but as global, visitor, at leisure. And from these changes in perspective come changes in the theories you have about the world and your place in it.

But while a holiday would not be much of a holiday without conceptual change, conceptual change is perfectly possible without a holiday (indeed, it is inevitable). The wisdom we recognise in "a change is as good as a rest", though, is that our prevailing system of concepts can become so oppressive that we need relief from it. And we know that making changes to our current situation can lead to just such relief. The important point is that it is the relief we value, whether it is the result of change or rest. And the relief is always only ever a change in the prevailing system of concepts.

What is less generally appreciated is that there is no need for physical change or rest, for this relief to be experienced. It's just that we have a tendency to keep running along on the same mental tracks unless we are derailed. We don't have to, but we almost certainly will; it's the way we're made. So, we can take a holiday, we can do something different, or we can just change our minds. At times of stress, knowing how to jump the mental tracks without, as it were, losing the plot, is what preserves the essence of The Thinking Person.