Cognitive Revolutions
This is an idea I'm still workshopping. In summary, new knowledge gets created or discovered over time, as long as people seek it. When that new knowledge is discovered, the means for communicating this new knowledge is poorly defined and crystallizes over time.
The best example is language. It is one tool that really separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. As Yuval Noah Harari describes in Sapiens, the ability of humans to organize and take action based on things that are not real is not seen elsewhere. People go to war over trivial matters. The ancient Egyptians built pyramids to bury their pharaohs.
Language is a cognitive tool. But we have different types of languages now. Languages to express different ideas concisely. Mathematics, musical notation, programming languages, football play calls, internet slang, etc.
A new cognitive revolution is brewing - AI. There is a lot of talk about it positive and negative. The risks are real and AI is becoming more accessible. I think it is a democratizing tool. But democracies require participation.
We've watched as people have used the internet to leverage themselves to abundance and influence. We've also seen people describe what it's like to be on the other end of that. AI promises to be much more and much faster.
What happens when you don't partake in a cognitive revolution?
I intended this as an article for my blog a few weeks ago. But I didn't think it was ready yet. I still don't. Hoping to connect the dots here over time.
I've probably repeated this one enough.
Excerpt: “Companies are legal fictions which we find convenient to use to move capital around and balance accounting ledgers.“
Names like Hunter, Cooper, Tanner become appealing as those professions become alien to us, more symbolic than real; after the collapse, our children will be named Recruiter, Codeninja, Webdev, out of the same abstract nostalgia
neoltitudex.comThis actually wouldn't surprise me
Much of our seeming intelligence actually comes not from raw brainpower or a plethora of instincts, but rather from the accumulated repertoire of mental tools (e.g., integers), skills (differentiating right from left), concepts (fly wheels), and categories (basic color terms) that we inherit culturally from earlier generations.
Joseph Henrich • The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
You cannot outsource your thinking to machines you don't understand
You cannot navigate an increasingly complex world without thinking about things that aren't designed for your understanding
Damned if you do… and if you don't
There is no alternative
Knowledge already exists all around us in abundance. We are changing how people take in, handle, contextualize, and deploy that knowledge at the most practical level. We are building the cognitive infrastructure of knowledge work – not the devices or apps they run on, but the “mental software” running on people’s minds that allows them to use those... See more
Tiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: The 10-Year Vision
⚡️This is the record of a species that discovered a cheat code and has no intention of ever giving it up.
Inflation is not an accident.
It is not a flaw.
It is not mismanagement.
It is a civilizational operating principle.
And once you see it that... See more
SightBringerx.com
This Louis CK bit, rent free forever
captures the great chasm of our times https://t.co/8AP1e67tkK
We get familiar with convenience rather quickly
Knowledge expands in a fractal manner. All the new knowledge is found in the cracks that are on the edge of the ever-expanding plane.
To study in crystallized fields, seek out institutions. Communities of practice in new fields.
