‘If you give computers to young children, they start to believe that you don’t have to think, all you have to do is search’

(Laughs) Well, interestingly, today people talk about big problems in our climate and all that. What I'm talking about is a much bigger problem, which is the poor state of world thinking: that our thinking is not very good. And we have essentially done nothing about thinking outside mathematics for 2,400 years, since the gang of three -- the Greek gang of three (Socrates, Aristotle, Plato) -- designed 'software' for thinking, which we've used ever since.

•With Buddha somewhere around the same time, as well.

•And perception comes from prejudice, and vice-versa.

It can be from prejudice. Unless you develop habits of opening up your perception . . . I'll give an example. In South Africa, in the Karee mines, where seven different tribes work, there have been 210 major fights every month based on traditional hostility. Colleagues of mine taught different ways of thinking to these totally illiterate minds -- never been to school one day -- and what happened? The fights dropped from 210 a month to just four. Now, in other words, once you change people's perceptions, you change their emotions, you change their behavior. Very powerful, very powerful. Our existing thinking is very good. The rear left wheel in the motorcar is very good, nothing wrong with it. But if you believe that was all you needed, that's not enough. We need perceptual thinking, we need creative thinking, we need design thinking, we need logical thinking. All of them, yes. But judgment and logic are not enough.

... contd.