Select an object you use every day, such as your phone, your fridge, your car. Write down in your Book of Wonder what you know for certain about how it works, what you perhaps know, and what you definitely do not know. For example, if it is your phone: how does a signal reach it? How come it can connect to the Internet? What makes a touch screen possible? What is electricity? How is it produced, and how does it reach your home? How does it charge your phone’s battery?
After writing down your list, research all three areas – what you know for sure, what you perhaps know, what you don’t know. It does not need to be a scholarly, in-depth research, but it needs to question even the things you are entirely sure you know.
How much new information did you find out? How many things did you discover you had taken for granted, without really knowing them?
How many more things do you take for granted every day?
Write down in your Book of Wonder a very obvious statement. For example: Cats like to play. Then question it. For example: aren’t there individual differences among cats? How can you be sure that the behaviour you define as ‘play’ is, indeed, play? Write down all the things you need to take for granted in order for that statement to hold true. For example:
Most cats are similar, I know exactly what ‘play’ is, humans and animals ‘play’ in similar ways, I have observed enough cats to know what I am saying, cats exist… and so on.
How many of those statements are demonstrably true, when subjected to rational analysis? How many of them could you demonstrate yourself, and how many are beliefs you hold for no good reason?
Thinking is an undervalued activity. What little thinking we do, we do while on our commute, while doing the dishes, while listening to music. It is very unusual to just sit down and think, without doing anything else. Because of this, our mind has very little training in what it is designed to do.
So we shall do just that. Every day for a week, sit down and think for seven minutes, making a chain of logical statements. Start from something you are absolutely certain of: for example, that you are sitting in your room. Then think of something you can safely deduce from what you just thought. For example, that if you are sitting in your room, then you must have a chair.
Be careful, and question this second statement thoroughly. For example, could you not be sitting on the floor?
When you come up with a second statement that satisfies you, move on to the next one. Continue the same chain for the seven days of the exercise, picking up every time from where you left off the last time.
You might notice that it becomes extremely difficult to keep focusing on the chain of thoughts. You will be tempted to check your phone, to stand up and make tea, and you will notice your thoughts drifting away. When this happens, gently bring yourself back to the exercise.
Each time, make notes in your Book of Wonder as soon as the seven minutes are up.
On the last day, look back at your journey – how far did you travel from your first statement?
Every day for a week, write down in your Book of Wonder three things you don’t know. For example: how the human brain works, how birds navigate during migration, why we age. It does not matter how banal or oddball the things are – it is your list and nobody is going to look at it and judge you for it.
At the end of the week, look at the twenty-one problems you have listed. How many of them make you curious enough to go and look for an answer?