Urgent Evoke

A crash course in changing the world.

Three heads are better than one when it comes to understanding!


I first really thought about the idea of triangulation when watching the Leonard-Cohen-song-filled teen angst movie Pump Up the Volume, where the FCC uses triangulation to locate Christian Slater’s character’s mobile pirate radio station, in a properly geeky version of
Hollywood’s classic chase scene. There were three vans picking up his radio signal that converged upon him, as they drove in the direction of the signal, until they caught up with him for the climactic scene for the final battle between censorship and freedom of speech.


Using the information coming from three different perspectives really is a very accurate way to pinpoint the specific location of something you’re interested in, even if you aren’t a geeky teenager stuck in an unhealthy, repressive school (and governmental) system.


This same triangulation approach can be used on a much more broad and even metaphorical way. For example, to define a word, find three very different types of people, and ask them what the word means in as much detail as possible, and plot out where the three meanings most
strongly intersect. This gives you a dictionary-style objective idea of where that word is centered in the world of ideas and concepts. For example, what does "evoke" mean to you?


Similarly, one can approach understanding the larger things in life, such as growth, health, love, peace, and so on, by seeking information about the thing from three different fields of expertise, for example biology, physics, and art. For example, we can look for the intersection of all the
ideas expressed about love that talk about the chemistry of cells, the forces of nature, and the creative stories told throughout the world that are so full of so many diverse kinds of emotionally charged, sensual materials.


And while this triangulation technique may seem to leave you with the “least common denominator” (which sounds kind of lacking in power, I suppose), it really might be better thought of as directing you to the strongest point that will allow you to aim most effectively when shooting for your goals.


So the next time you want to get a more precise understanding of the heart of the matter (or the heart of the energy), to find the center of meaning, to uncover the location of the root of the problem, or to define the boundaries of the most basic idea that rests within a more complex and fuzzy concept, you can find three very different viewpoints, and use those three different perspectives of reality to find the center point of it all, because at the very center of all human beings is, indeed, their heart!




Views: 25

Comment by Daniel LaLiberte on April 14, 2010 at 2:13pm
I think this is a great idea to explore. Relates to the wisdom of crowds as well, where the average of forces by all members of a crowd may tend to be a better choice than that of any "expert".

As a way of making this more quantifiable, consider that for a 2D problem, such as location on a map, you really only need 2 vectors to determine the location. The intersection of two lines on a plane is a single point. And for 3D, you need 3 vectors, etc. So the more complex the problem, the more independent variables it has, and thus the more dimensions there are in the space of solutions, so you need at least as many opinions as the number of dimensions. Probably 2 or 3 times that number just for better reliability.
Comment by Turil Cronburg on April 14, 2010 at 5:09pm
Yeah, ideally, you want to get three to four opinions that are representative of very different groups, rather than just individual opinions. And each group can itself use triangulation to come up with a general consensus of what best represents their perspective.
Comment by Sarah Shaw Tatoun on April 14, 2010 at 5:40pm
Beautiful post, Turil. I've been thinking lately about different perspectives in science, but you remind me that it's a lot broader than that.

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