Forum Posts Feed
2019 reflection question
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 13, 2020 at 09:06 AM
I entirely agree: mental structures are a vital prerequisite for setting up useful/usable data structures, but do themselves evolve as you continue to use your digital structures. As multidimensional organisms, our minds evolve as we use them (although habits can cause a whole bunch of structures to become ossified), which directly impacts our external methodologies. I guess computers are the closest thing we’ve found to an external tool that can be persuaded to more or less mirror what’s going on internally. Pen and paper being the predecessors (and still preferred by some); Minority Report-style manipulable holographics being, I suspect, the next step (actually, maybe the Tony Stark/Iron Man UX is closer to the next evolutionary stage).
All mediated through our amazing hands/fingers/speech mechanisms, of course. Prior to achieving true brain-to-machine interfacing…
washere wrote:
>I already knew my data was more important than the latest snazzy jazzy
>apps.
>But I realized more important yet, was my data structures.
>
>And i am not just talking about the apps’ or digital data structures,
>that is the outer circle.
>
>But also my mental data structuring for new ideas. These are symbiotic
>with the digital data structures, influence is both ways.
>Because these mental data structures, which go largely unnoticed, shape
>my data, my ideas.
>These are the inner circles.
>Even then, there are more important factors than these mere surface
>mental mechanics.
>
>
Posted by washere
Jul 13, 2020 at 02:35 PM
>>MadaboutDana wrote:
I entirely ...
Yes, well said.
Goes even deeper than that in near future, had basic brain interface research for a while. Elon musk announced couple of days ago wired interface to brain announcement soon. Not so keen personally.
As for the meat of the matter, coming Singularity, another whole level.
Also, It, or they will not be what everyone assumes for now.
Ultimately the bio grey cells, and much more in us peasants, will remain uniquely priceless.
Posted by jaslar
Jul 13, 2020 at 03:20 PM
Thanks for these last responses, which get at the substance of my original question.
I was fooling around with old software (KAMAS under DOSBox-X) and realized that all of this use of outliners through the years has had a profound and enduring effect on my thinking. It’s much like the research concerning learning to read. People who read (and, I’m extrapolating, people who use outliners and no doubt other kinds of thinking tools) have been found to use the skill as an armature, leveraging linguistic building blocks to climb a little farther and faster than the same person would without those skills.
Personally, I think the effect is based on at least two things:
* the persistence of categories. I’ve been using outliners since 1982, across journals, correspondence, hobbies, and work projects. Some of those headers/tags/subject headings keep showing up, year after year. They change in emphasis, or cluster with sometimes changing additional categories. But this helps me to figure out which things matter to me. Or also to discover that some recurrent notions have their own biases and flaws, and have to change.
* the philosophies inherent in hierarchy: main headings, at least two supporting subheadings, a flow and balance in the development of ideas.
It’s that pleasure of thinking better, more comprehensively, and in ways that patterns may reveal themselves, that keep me CRIMPing.
Posted by washere
Jul 13, 2020 at 03:38 PM
I’ve been noticing this for a year or so, outlining affecting how I think as well as other tools I use. I’ve stopped it. When noting down new ideas or reorganizing or recall for use, of course use the tools, but then leave it. When thinking, noticing & barring their structures.
It’s the old ai issue: hierarchical vs distributed. Analytical vs analytical, top-down vs bottom-up, heuristic trees vs neural nets, Minsky vs Von Neumann, huge field.
Another area, somewhat researched, how a century+ of films affected people’s thinking, memories, dreams etc.
They’re just tools, like a light to see with, but if you stare into the light itself makes you not see other things, whatever their uses, use it but then….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6zJ7IsJkM
Posted by washere
Jul 13, 2020 at 03:40 PM
>> Analytical vs analytical
Analytical vs Perceptual