The Oxford American Dictionary defines paradigm as follows: “a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject”, originating in the ancient Greek paradeigma, combining the words for ‘beside’ and ‘to show’. Thus, a paradigm is a model or a standard against which we compare related items, theories or structures. It could also be said to be a frame of reference within which rational thought in a given field occurs, all other conceptions generally being considered outlandish or unlikely.
To truly embrace the idea of a paradigm as a tool for the implementation of ideas in the human realm, we must remember that a paradigm is just that, a tool. But whether it is science, politics, cosmology in the vague sense or in the sense of astrophysics, paradigms are all-too-often granted mystical status, beyond which reasonable thought cannot be imagined to continue.
Hot Spring, as part of the THINK innovation initiative, takes a different view: that the paradigm is a tool, but is also a step on the way to understanding our universe more deeply. Therefore, the paradigm shift is the goal: to achieve entirely new directions in thought and research, by understanding that the paradigm of the moment is either a gateway or an obstacle to deeper understanding, and then to go beyond, to the next, more broadly applicable, more daring paradigmatic step toward understanding.
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