LIAL 61: May 25, 2021

Unlike the brain, the file cabinet approach makes it difficult or impossible to remix or reuse the same piece of information. Each time a change is made to any given file, it has to be tracked down and updated in every location in which it exists. This leads to redundancy, with a cluttering of near-identical ideas, and significant work any time a s

... See more

The synthesis and cross-pollination of ideas from diverse fields presents low-hanging fruit for both individuals and society. The investment of time and effort required to become a specialist quickly runs into a point of diminishing returns. By contrast, accumulating a ‘talent stack’ of dilettante-level knowledge or skills can unlock insights and o

... See more

Clearly a fundamentally different approach is required. The Roam vision for human knowledge is a collective, open-source intelligence, constantly rearranging, iterating and evolving in the pursuit of truth. Each of us would become a node within this collective intelligence, forging links and creating networks, sharing the very best each has to

... See more

Users can remix and connect ideas in multiple overlapping hierarchies, with each unit of information becoming a node in a dynamic network. Any given node can occupy multiple positions simultaneously, convey information through defined relationships, and populate changes throughout the graph. With weightings assigned to the strength of relationships

... See more

We are experiencing an unprecedented explosion of knowledge. Every day, 2700 books are published in the United States alone, 6850 scientific papers are authored, more than 2 million blog posts go live, and 294 billion emails fly back and forth. The amount of total data produced with every rotation of the Earth would fill a stack of books stretching

... See more

Current solutions also lack interconnectivity. Many files are divorced from context; cast into a drawer, rather than methodically fitted into a broader framework of knowledge. Knowledge trees can create pseudo-relationships between files nested within a given hierarchy, but these are not explicit, and can only describe a vertical ‘parent and child’

... See more

The uptake and growth of prediction markets has been dampened by regulatory issues, but possible workarounds include a non-fiat token, or reputation-linked points system.

Just as humans are incapable of generating random numbers, we struggle to consciously generate random ideas - to the point where actively trying to ‘think differently’ often seems to only further calcify existing patterns. Instead of attempting to brute-force creativity, the brain must be confronted with novel stimuli in order to reorganize its per

... See more