Why ‘cognitive categorisation’ is fundamental to how we think, exemplified by the challenges The See Through Network faces in explaining itself.

People coming across the See Through Network for the first time usually try to understand it by cramming it into one or more familiar categories, like ‘NGO’, ‘Carbon Credit Standard’, ‘Charity’ or ‘social media influencer’, depending on which part they first encounter. This article explains the basis for this confusion, in the hope of facilitating future disambiguation.

Drummer Joke Alert

A drummer becomes sick of being the butt of fellow-musician jokes about being talentless and stupid. 

After years on the road, this drummer is exhausted by lugging cumbersome kit around, and fed up with seeing the lead singer, guitarist – even the harmonica player – disappear arm-in-arm with groupies while the drum kit is still half-dismantled. 

By the time the last cymbal stand is crammed into the van, the groupies are long gone. After yet another long solo drive home to instant noodles and a lonely can of beer, this drummer wants out.

Next morning, the drummer donates the drum kit at a charity shop, goes next door, strides up to the counter, and announces to the sales assistant ‘I’ve decided to become a guitarist’.

‘OK’, says the assistant, ‘How can I help?’.

‘You know the Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Fender Stratocaster?’ asks the drummer.

‘Yes’, replies the assistant. ‘What about it?’.

‘The model with the gold-plated, engraved SRV pickguard and 3-tone sunburst?’, continues the drummer.

‘I’m listening’, responds the assistant.

‘I love the feel of its oval neck profile, the tone those Texas Special pickups give you, and its distinctive reverse vintage-style tremolo bridge’, enthuses the drummer.

‘Are you by any chance a drummer?’, asks the assistant.

Astonished, the drummer replies ‘As a matter of fact, I do happen to be a drummer. I don’t think we’ve met before – how on earth could you tell?

‘This is a cheese shop’, replies the assistant.

Categories

That drummer joke is in the drummer sub-category of the ‘dumb musician’ joke category.

The dumb musician joke category is a sub-category of the ‘dumb X’ joke category. Every culture has its own variant, substituting local punch-down categories –  blondes, Irish, Polacks, Swedes, white people, black people etc..

Dumb X jokes are themselves a sub-category of the ‘category error’ punchline. 

Category error jokes are characterised by a set-up that encourages the listener to believe the story is about Thing A, only for the punchline to reveal it’s about Thing B.

A moment’s thought  – AKA ‘getting the joke’ – reveals Things B to have been equally plausible all along. 

This misdirection has many forms, such as puns:

• Q: What’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A: A carrot.
• Fifty Years In The Saddle, by Major Bumsore.
• Q: What’s brown and sticky?  A: A stick. 

The point here is not to explain humour, but to point out the ubiquity of category errors.

Categories as short-cuts

The world being complex and ever-changing, living organisms use short-cuts to navigate its complexities and constant challenges.  

Even the simplest of life-forms has a surprisingly long list of ‘if A then B’ rules. 

Consistent application of these rules, combined with evolutionary adaptation, have enabled Earth’s earliest life-form to still be here, 3.5 billion years later.

Humans may only have been around for 0.009% of the existence of the Western Australian stromatolites, still emitting puffs of oxygen that enable Homo sapiens to breathe, but we didn’t get where we were today without evolving a pretty sophisticated array of far more complex short-cuts. 

The results have been remarkable. It took stomatolites billions of years of tiny oxygen puffs to raise atmospheric oxygen levels to 20%, permitting our evolution. By contrast, humans have started to change the composition of our atmosphere in less than 200 years, simply by combusting vast quantities of fossil fuel. 

Such ingenuity requires a hugely complex variety of short-cuts. The ones we’re conscious of we call, ‘rules of thumb’, ‘common sense’, ‘gut feeling’, ‘intuition’ or ‘best guesses’, but most of them we have no idea about.

Neuroscientists, however, study our brains’ hard-wired categorizations for a living. Since the 1970s, Artificial Intelligence (AI) pioneers have tried to emulate the brain’s cognitive and learning processes.  

‘Neural networks’, as they called their models, are modelled on human cognition, and are made up of categories. More precisely, cascading, interconnected, variable filters consisting of an unimaginably diverse range of sensors, each responding to subtly different data characteristics, from colour to shape, texture, smell, language, connotation, and emotion. 

Neural networks form the basis of AI. Ironic, as the instinctive capacity to categorise is literally what makes us human.

So what have jokes and AI got to do with climate activism in general, and the See Through Network in particular?

The New New Thing

Call it the ‘Pioneer’s Problem’.

Q: What links:

• New political parties naming themselves/coining slogans defining their unique offer
• Genre-defying music bands fiercely resistant to ‘being pigeonholed’
• Vacuum cleaner inventors explaining why their technology is revolutionary
• Silicon Valley Overlords insisting their disruptive platforms are immune to old constraints, from copyright law to hotel/taxi regulation
• Climate activists claiming they operate in a completely original way

A: They spend most of their time trying to convince sceptics ‘this time it’s different’. 

This may take the form of a joke, but the Pioneer Problem can be deadly serious. 

• If you’re doing something that hasn’t been done before, how can you get other people to recognize they’ve encountered an entirely new category, rather than a new example of a pre-existing old category in their mental filing cabinet?

• To put it another way, how can you prevent people from trying to cram this New Thing into an adjacent Old Thing folder, instead of listening to what you’re actually describing, and writing a label for a new Thing folder?

It can be frustrating. Ask any:

• would-be politician who failed to convince anyone they were ‘beyond the tired old politics of left and right’
• washed-up band that ‘rejected corny labels like ‘punk’, ‘country’ or ‘glam-rock’
• retired inventor whose ‘revolutionary new technology’ patent was rejected
• Silicon Valley Overlord manqué, whose ‘this time it’s different’ pitch failed to budge any venture capitalist funders

But what about a climate activist network that’s trying to do things differently?

Hear our song.

Here are a few common instances of the Pioneer’s Problem, with real-world examples experienced by the See Through Network since its 2021 launch.

Plan A: Be Positive!

As simply, concisely and directly as possible, simply state what you are, and let your uniqueness speak for itself.

Here’s the See Through Network’s standard ‘cold call/elevator pitch’ version.

The See Through Network is a global alliance of experts from a wide range of backgrounds and expertises, working towards a shared Goal of Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active.

That’s 34 words: around 24 seconds for the average English-speaker to hear, or 14 seconds for them to read. 

This ‘executive summary’ version is often demanded by impatient executives too busy to invest more than a minute or so in assessing anything novel. They’re quick to tell you they don’t have the time to read an article, let alone scan some FAQs, or browse an entire website.

If the elevator doors are about to open, it can be even shorter (‘We measurably reduce carbon’), but the less information you provide, the greater the risk of category error.

Plan A Pros

Rarely, Be Positive! works. 

That is to say, the listener, having carefully listened to each of the See Through Network’s 34 carefully-chosen words, seeks elucidation:

• How many countries?
• What kind of experts?
• What does ‘carbon drawdown’ mean’?
• How do you define ‘inactive’ or ‘active’?
• Who or what endorses you? 

These are open questions, demonstrating an open mind. 

This process involves the same investigatory parts of the brain an ant uses when running into an object blocking its path, a rat uses when assessing the rat poison you’ve just placed in the loft, or a baby uses when presented with a mushroom on a fork for the first time.

They are first examinations of an unfamiliar object, to determine exactly what kind of object it is.

In adult humans in this context, it’s the neurological equivalent of sorting through a kitchen rubbish bin, and carefully examining each item before determining which recycling wheelie bin to place it in: grey for household waste, brown for compostable organic matter, blue for plastic, black for glass, yellow for metal etc.

Such examinations are great, but rare.

Plan A Cons

More often, Be Positive! backfires

No matter how carefully the Network’s 34 words have been selected to avoid familiar categories, the moment a listener decides to assign what they hear to an existing pigeonhole, they stop listening.

In neuroscience terms, a particular concatenation of synapses in their brains, that collectively detect a pre-assigned category, go ‘ping’ simultaneously. 

When this happens, ears close, and tongues flex, ready to formulate the category-critiquing thought triggered by one of those 34 words.

Once triggered, such listeners respond according to the wheelie bin into which they’ve already decided to sort your garbage. 

These kind of responses can also come in the form of a question, but the nature of the question betrays the colour of the bin into which they’ve already deposited your Be Positive! description:

• So you’re trying to save the planet? (‘Climate Activist’ bin)
• Who funds you? (‘Greenwashing’ bin) 
• What are your certification fees? (‘Carbon offsetting’ bin)
• Who supports you? (‘Influencer endorsement’ bin)

Such category error responses are hard to row back, because they radically change the implicit roles.

In an instant, The See Through Network and Listener are transformed from Storyteller & Audience, into Supplicant & Benefactor. Interestingly, a category error response is just as likely if the Listener initiated the conversation by asking ‘what exactly IS The ‘See Through Network’?’. Logic is not a factor. 

In a further irony, this backfire scenario is itself an example of category shift. An attempt to frame the conversation as a positive New Category Revelation, following a synaptic sequencing in the listener’s brain, becomes a negative Old Category Deletion.

What, 34 words ago, started as a front-footed introduction to an entirely new wheelie bin, in one synaptic flash becomes a defensive rearguard action.

The rest of the conversation usually consists of a futile effort to retrieve your words from the array of inappropriate wheelie bins into which the listener has shoved them.

Plan B: Triangulation

Geographic triangulation uses the intersection of three fixed points to locate a fourth. Storytelling triangulation can involve any number of locators, from two upwards. 

Consider the ‘X meets Y’ formulation, familiar to Hollywood producers, which requires only two fixed points to define a third:

• It’s Star Wars meets Casablanca!
• It’s Annie Hall meets Godzilla!
• It’s Jaws meets Blazing Saddles!

Other formulations can involve multiple categories, modifiers and variables, to define precise categories:

• Homo sapiens
• Proto-Indo-European
• Lower-upper-middle-class
• Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung (German for ‘motor vehicle liability insurance’)
• Taumata­whakatangihanga­koauau­o­tamatea­turi­pukaka­piki­maunga­horo­nuku­pokai­whenua­ki­tana­tahu New Zealand village, Maori ‘the summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the slider, climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his kōauau (flute) to his loved one’

Plan B Pros

Triangulation, when it works, turns categorization lemons into storytelling lemonade.

Rather than resist pre-determined categories, triangulation actively embraces it. 

By staking out known categories, triangulation invites the listener to imagine what the as-yet undescribed space in between might look like. It’s a pre-emptive leveraging of our impulse to sort things into familiar boxes.

The See Through Network version goes something like:

• You know how anyone in the world can flag an error on a Wikipedia page and appeal to volunteer editors to improve it? By being radically transparent, The See Through Network uses the Wikipedia model to outsource its quality control and guarantee continuous improvement at zero cost!

• You know how governments, businesses and NGOs around the world base their sustainability ambitions on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? By making all its methodology and data open source by default, The See Through Network uses the SDG model to facilitate widespread, rapid change at zero cost!

• You know how Linux is an open-source software operating system, owned by no-one yet used by businesses and governments around the world and facilitating multi-billion dollar companies like Red Hat? By describing all aspects of its methodology in detailed articles linked to freely available real-world instances, The See Through Network uses the Linux model to permit anyone in the world to use its resources and adapt them to local needs, at zero cost!

When it works, triangulation exploits our categorizing urge like a cartoonist conjuring up a cat with nothing more than a particular combination of circles, triangles and squares.

Sketch out the right set of familiar objects, and you can magically invoke something entirely different.

But not always.

Plan B Cons

Plan B, as a tacit acceptance of the likely failure of Plan A, carries the same downsides.

First, triangulation is like telling someone not to think of a polar bear. Kick off with ‘Star Wars meets Casablanca!’ and you may spend the rest of your time trying to tell your interlocutor to forget about superheroes and wartime espionage. You’ll soon wish you never mentioned them.

The problem is that however deftly executed, triangulation involves defining a new thing by delineating a gap bordered by old things.  

When it works, triangulation can help lay the foundations, warm up the crowd, and roll the pitch. Describing a negative space, however, also leaves a vacuum to suck in all sorts of random, irrelevant thoughts, including those you can’t predict and didn’t intend.

When triangulation goes wrong, it goes very wrong. Pitch Star Wars meets Casablanca!  to the wrong listener, and the potential for category errors multiplies. They might:

• Think you’re talking about Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system
• Miscategorize Star Wars for Star Trek. 
• Think you mean ‘Capablanca’, and start wondering how Cuban chess grandmasters figure in your move mashup
• Never have heard of either movie

So even if your listener is an expert on Wikipedia, SDGs and Linux, the success of the See Through Network’s triangulation approach still faces the fundamental problem of how open-minded and focused your particular listener is.

Are they still listening? 

Or are they waiting for you to draw breath so they can tell you their opinions of Wikipedia’s funding system, the SDG that infuriates them, or relate an amusing anecdote about the time their colleague’s Linux laptop caught fire?

Plan C: Horses for Courses

Plan C is to have many different explanations for many different audiences.

Instead of trying to micro-tweak one perfect slide deck, elevator pitch, video or article, craft loads of different stories, and tailor each one for a specific audience.

Have them at your fingertips to deploy as soon as you (irony alert!) reckon you’ve pigeonholed the type of person you’re talking to. 

See Through Network examples include:

• business-like 2-pagers for busy executives
• ⁠⁠ontological taxonomies for AI nerds
• organization charts for management consultants
• ⁠children’s’ fables for primary age children
• videos that look like property shows for property show fans
• original investigative long reads for deep divers
• ⁠cringeworthy Dad jokes for Dads
• ⁠games for gamers
• ⁠interactive speeches for school language days
• ⁠⁠poems for the poetic
• ⁠⁠East/West 4-string cordophone swaps for the musical
• ⁠⁠podcasts for the ear-rich and eye-poor
• etc

For good measure, explain the Methodology that ties all these apparently unrelated approaches in an unusual FAQ format, itself a demonstration of the methodology it describes.

Plan C Pros

There’s something for everyone.

If you come across someone that none of your prepared versions fit, and you think they might be a new sub-category of the See Through Network’s target audience, ‘tailor’ a new one.

1. Take measurements.
2. Cut the See Through Network cloth to create a new figure-hugging outfit.
3. Try it out with multiple fittings.
4. Once it fits, add it to the rail of off-the-peg outfits for next time.

Bingo. One more way of explaining See Through Network to the ‘etc.’ bucket in the list above.

Plan C Cons

Like proverbial blind men feeling different parts of an elephant, first impressions matter.

Just as one blind man feeling only an elephant’s tail might categorize elephants as ‘long, thin snakes with a hairy end’ while another, after palpating its flank might categorize them as ‘a land-based whale’, first impressions can be hard to shift.

Someone who first encounters the Network as a potential See Through Carbon Pilot participant might assume the See Through Network is a carbon reporting database.  

Another who first encounters a See Through Together video short from Ben Law’s Woodland Year, having searched YouTube for ‘perfect charcoal’, might assume the Network is a repository of woodland craft tips.

Storytelling categories

As communications have become more sophisticated, our taste for neat endings may be becoming simpler.

Take the movies. Cinemas are dominated by blockbusters featuring binary tales of good and evil.

There is a separate category for stories of complexity and nuance, like the ones that dominated Oscars and cinemas in the 70s. Increasingly, if they get made at all, ‘complicated’ films are condemned to brief arthouse runs and midnight screenings.

Walt Disney was a master manipulator of categories, and his methodology is instructive. 

Disney sifted the dark, morally ambiguous European folk tales compiled by The Brothers Grimm for source material. 

After cherry-picking the least gruesome and fatalistic tales, he sanitized their random violence, recast victims as heroes, and assigned evil intent to their antagonists. 

Once Disney animators had worked their anthropomorphic magic, amping up juvenile facial features, substituting primary colours for shadow and murk, replacing cacophonic soundtracks with uplifting ditties, Disney had shifted the Grimms’ dark tales into an entirely new, shinier, category.

Flushed through Disney’s filters, they became animated morality tales. Audiences loved Disney’s clearly-delineated Goodies and Baddies, and the good guys always won.

Disney versions of Snow White or Cinderella would have been unrecognizable to the 19th-century peasants who watched Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm scribbling down the dark tales their grandparents had passed on to them. 

Tastes change, but as our world becomes more complex, our appetite for simple answers grows. 

21st-century audiences have inherited a sub-category of Disney’s simple morality tales. Superhero franchises replace hand-drawn animation with pumped-up movie stars and CGI, but push the same storytelling buttons. 

Technically Technicolour, morally black-and-white.

Punchline

Climate change is the ultimate complex, messy, spaghetti-tangled story. 

The Greenhouse Effect is a never-ending franchise. Beginnings are hard to discern. Cause and effect are even harder. There’s no ending in sight.

No wonder there’s not much of an audience.

The complexity of our planet’s biodynamic systems are so far beyond our understanding, it’s understandable why most of us prefer less demanding, less upsetting alternatives:

• Ignore it: stay at home doomscrolling, play video games, or despair in a dark room.  (Big Oil’s preferred outcome).
• Make money: focus on upselling popcorn and fizzy drinks in the foyer – no need to even see what’s playing. (Big business’ favoured role).
• Stick to big franchises: the bad guys will only prevail up until the final reel, when the good guys will win again, just like last time. You know they’re all fantasy, but that’s what’s on offer. (Unwilling Inactivists watch a lot of these kinds of movies).
• Boo the Baddies: cheer the ones in the white hats, boo the ones in the black hats. Whether the Baddies are hoaxers, foreigners or The Establishment, loud booing leaves you feeling like you’ve done something. (Populists and demagogues make loads of these movies).

In truth, in an audience of a hundred, there may only be a handful of people who want to see the start of the See Through Network’s complicated story, and even fewer left when the lights go up.

There are, after all, so many distractions: focus on more manageable problems instead, keep making money from business as usual, listen to the people saying climate change is a hoax, foreign plot, Deep State stitch-up, or culture war skirmish.

But when the lights go up, there may be a few people left in the auditorium. They may be all that’s required to convince the next sitting there’s a new category of movie to be seen.

You never know, somewhere among them, there may even be a cheesemonger with a Stevie Ray Vaughn Stratocaster.

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To join the See Through Network, email: volunteer@seethroughnews.org