2021-10-31

• I stumbled on Gordon Brander's newsletter - https://subconscious.substack.com/ - and have been poring through it. Some great thoughts on tools for thought.
  • Seems very IndieWeb in spirit. Plus tools for conviviality, commons. Also Conversation theory, Systems thinking.
• Tools for thought and conversation theory

We often talk about knowledge as if it is a storable commodity. We gain, gather, and transfer knowledge, share knowledge artifacts, build knowledge graphs.

Conversation Theory takes another view. It sees knowledge as conversational. Knowledge exists subjectively in our minds, and is constructed through conversation with others

– Notes are conversations across time

A conversation can happen between yourself and yourself, across time, through the notes your past self took for your future self. An autopoietic system where information time travels between your future and past self in a meaningful cybernetic loop.

– Notes are conversations across time

• Sorted out the issue with case-sensitive org-roam completion - it was not actually an org-roam thing. (setq completion-ignore-case t).
• Tarot for thought
• "Capture-organize-synthesize is like those glasses from They Live — when you look through this lens, it suddenly becomes clear that many of our creative tools are backwards or broken!"
  • Some golden stuff here on how existing tools get these wrong - Unconscious R&D
• I worry a bit that the tools for thought space tilts towards an individualistic outlook, e.g. 'how can I accumulate knowledge to monetise my Substack newsletter'. Even the collective knowledge management from the VC-backed offerings has a 'knowledge as capital' feel. Let's not let that happen and make sure all this is liberatory technology, yes?