Is "by the book" a form of mental illness?

Often trying to accomplish a known task requires exploration. I've seen it in my work many times. We may have a product to build, but finding the best way to produce it requires imagination and intuition. We often pull from previous experience (which also involves technical knowledge--the book) and reassert it with new ideas. Even after that, we will work to improve the process. I think even the police will reform their policies and procedures as situations demand change.

I understand your point, but going by the book doesn't always provide the best answers. Sometimes it's just a general guideline that points in the general direction. Law is very stringent, for sure. But sometimes that is changed to conform with current social norms--the legalization of marijuana, gay marriage, etc.

 

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True. But it is an excellent default for a known task, covering most cases, until such time as one enters the unknown.

The answer to the OP's question therefore would be:

Someone unwilling to break from a BTB approach may find themselves stumped. That could be a problem.

But BTB is definitely a wise approach to a task with an otherwise clear goal, and certainly not any sort of mental illness.

 

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No , I wouldn't call it a mental illness. Certainly it is a reliance on caution rather than taking risks.

 

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Nope. In fact, it is a very good thing that good surgeons do things "by the book" - a lot of people's lives are saved as a result.

 

Or a licensed professional engineer. Or a doctor. Or a driver. Or a member of a society that has laws!

Oy!

 

In general, the boundaries that you are allowed to push are well defined and violating them has well defined consequences. So I would say that you are judging the issue backwards: violating clearly defined rules when one knows them and knows the consequences for violating them may well be a symptom of mental illness.

 

People who follow rules to the letter and think too literally might be autistic, but that's not a mental illness.

 

I strongly agree. "Going by the book' means following an established procedure. Choosing to do that has nothing to do with mental illness, that I can see.

Following procedure is often the best thing to do, not only in law (where it is often mandatory), but in many technical situations as well. There are often step-by-step procedures for assembling or disassembling something, for example. Medical diagnoses often require a whole series of tests necessary to distinguish between medical problems that present the same symptoms.

I remember using a transmission electron microscope back in my old university days. That was all procedure, steps that had to be carried out in specific order. If switches and valves were activated in the wrong order horrible things could happen, such as drawing oil from the vacuum pump into the scope's vacuum tube, effectively ruining the exceedingly expensive instrument.

 

Where would we be if people hadn't challenged boundaries? Some of the greatest men in history were heretics in their day.

 

That is not the point of this thread.

No one is suggesting that 'winging it' doesn't have its place.
What is being suggested is that following the wisdom and knowledge laid down by one's predecessors definitely does have its place. Indeed, it needs to be the default, until such time as one reaches a boundary of knowledge or circumstance.

This is comparable to the hackneyed expression "thinking outside the box". One cannot think outside the box unless one has first studied the box itself. (Something that should be Rule Zero in any science forum's rulebook.)
Your greatest men in history could not have challenged boundaries without knowing in exquisite detail where those boundaries lay.

Newton didn't invent calculus out of whole cloth, or Universal Gravitation from his imagination - he was an accomplished mathematician. He could only go beyond the known because he was intimately familiar with what the known already was. And he studied it By The Book.

 

Precisely Dave. These are the times when it is appropriate to question the rule book:
1. When technology, or culture, or economics change significantly.
2. When the rule book doesn't seem to be working.
3. When the rule book has been in use for some time.
4. When an amusing alternative occurs to one.
5. On wet and dreary Thursday afternoons.

 

Well, thank you for that statement. Alas, something we can agree.