metaphorical thinking

we cut the world into pieces with words, distinctions, categories. analogy and metaphor sews things back together, reminds us of the inherent sameness of everything

Using LLM products today feels a lot like using early cars in the 1800s: clearly magical, clearly going to change the world, and really hard to drive.

The first cars didn’t have steering wheels (they hadn’t been invented yet), so you’d steer them with a big lever called a tiller. The problem with tillers is that they are imprecise, which made drivin... See more

Language models can take a big chunk of text and smush it down like a foot crushing a can of Coke. Except it doesn’t come out crushed—it comes out as a perfectly packaged and proportional mini-Coke. And it’s even drinkable! This is a Willy Wonka-esque magic trick, without the Oompa Loompas.

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new."

(Ursula K. Le Guin)

a metaphor for this strategy

let me leave you with a metaphor to describe this way.

don’t be a hunter-gatherer in the wild, competing for food.

go build yourself a magical forest-farm, and grow your garden of nourishing things. and wait. trust that the right people will come.

when they do, be hospitable and kind to them. you will recognize them, an... See more

Few things give me more of an instant seratonin boost than discovering a new metaphor, and Headlands Center for the Arts recently served up a lovely one. The multidisciplinary arts center just north of the Golden Gate Bridge (where, on another tangential note, I had my 8th grade graduation party) shared that 2023 Artist in Residence Daniela Rivera ... See more

“You pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of architecture.”