2011-06-17 18:30-22:00 cooperative mind meetup "t4.6" "thinking about thinking things thing" t4 big history - collective learning "google is doing it wrong" - why? most communication is missing the target assertions are bunk art is a certain kind of attention to experiences in daily life now is the mashup of all the pasts we remember and the futures we would like to create dan newcome: personal knowledge management systems ubernote dump stuff in and tag it later "nukularize 'em" rika antonova: how to coherently share systems of thoughts with others pulling together data from different sources; email, voice recognition, wikipedia, camera pranav mistry sixth sense theo armour: how do we get our data back, find it again daily notes fallen angel investor folksonomy, natural ontology, hierarchy of needs what is above "self actualization" common denominator -> foundation for universal ontology? travis wellman: not so into ontologies we need a data format for data formats, an abstraction for abstractions way to merge networks of ideas, not ai maps of sets in future, wont be able to talk everyone will have their own api teach a deaf blind kid haskell ben lipkowitz: humans limited communication goes past each other, information goes past repetition only way to remember how to make technology a part of yourself, wearable computers laptop interrupts social flow clone of memex motivation to work on stuff, code review session welcome to come to cooperative mind and work on it tuesdays thursdays, 2hr on yours 2hr on mine Adrian king: devices, magic glasses, natural interactivity ai in games, agenda of a non human thing, what's its motivation? thoughts i just cant think unless i have this electronic device where's my mind going if it's not in my head anymore? aspects of my personality bound up in SL avatar that don't manifest IRL ever since i learned to fly, haven't had nightmares about falling "i've pretty much told all my good ideas to other people" - feynman files: distributed cognition paper people in a group know how to prompt one another to surface information they didnt know that they knew "i beseech ye, think that in the bowels of christ that ye may be mistaken" - oliver cromwell nature of being human is that part of us is outside ourselves andy clark, naturally born cyborgs mine the worry language, where did you get it, is it yours? futler! mezzo! what? the western subjective self is based on language when they taught them language, they didn't know how to dance a story anymore (podcast) marshall macluhan i think in pictures; words are a way to transfer things to other people most thoughts we want to express are memories how far could we go if we stopped talking and communicated using visual and audio recording technology but, abstraction is very powerful i'm sweating, hopped up on abstraction! john alderman: as a kid we were encouraged to write diaries etc, but always lost track of it spent all morning writing dreams, now too busy spaced repetition, learning languages memory and creativity are inextricably linked a beautiful thought, this thought is worth slowing down and thinking how to identify a thought that is going to be fruitful i take a lot of notes, but can't find them self-assembling library of experiences and thoughts napster: first self-assembling library of music in human history how to signal to people that thoughts are important and beautiful two things that didn't seem likely to occur at the same time some people need a purpose, a direct call to action in order to do anything note-taking doesn't have a benefit until working with it for a while sell the feeling instead of explanation, "it's a magical bucket for your thoughts" feeling can be an effective information transfer mark carranza: qs conference, got more validation in 10 minutes than in the last 27 years being able to have tools that are elegantly furnished i want to create an instrument, like a really good violin, that someone can use to do what i would never imagine punk rock piano simple enough to master at many different levels, instantly beneficial "coupling" between inner system and outer system invention is going so fast nobody will ever have time to master them before obsolete we're wasting a profoundly valuable human resource, "my seven year old knows how to program the vcr" because when you're seven, everything is confusing, everything equally easy to learn happens when you're seven, doesn't happen when you're forty wasting learning capacity/competence on transitory quickly-obsoleted technology we expect that our lives will be radically altered by technology year after year, wtf! computers are going to get better at using humans iphone intuitive to children because physical analogy --- traditional recruiting model: a funnel, many go in one comes out alternative recruiting model: many points of light, each matched up with ideal job that's not soy sauce! --- basic index of files on my computer travis wellman: spatiality interact with data on your phone without looking at it each piece of data has a hash, finger gestures correspond to first two numbers in hash michael pope: i think in 3d, shapes assumed people thought the way i did 3d crossword puzzles i'm trying to learn how to express myself more clearly sell mode: pass myself off as not the expert listener is who performs communication ghost diagrams pattern recognition is how you recognize a good idea? tools to increase pattern recognition as a skill i could teach a machine to be a recruiter, getting people to listen to it is harder jeff bragg: cognitive modeling, i.e. swarm intelligence associative nature of memory, ontologies are bunk monica anderson, ai meetup salient features of experiences for future use paraconscious not subconscious, conscious mind is not superior to the rest not is it the largest part multiple modes of thinking contribute to what seems to be a unified mind i wouldn't have a job if i had a choice i'm kind of a novelty whore hey, let's all drink kool-aid and go to disneyland johnathan kolyer: i accidentally outed myself as a hermetic philosopher interface design now referred to as interaction design; "interface" is now considered "disastrously bad thinking" the behavior of interacting with a system is a human designed thing most software systems are ultimately tools for thinking and communicating mark carranza: plato was really into the idea of writing, hypomnemata, hypomnesic principles papyrus was an exciting technology imported from egypt there's a lot of bad thinking about thinking what's the point? if it doesn't have a point, it just doesn't get me off, it's not beautiful because it's fun, no rational goal jim geison: system to help you optimize your life knowledge of objectives, external world, solve for most likely way to achieve desired result if you don't remember your ideas you can't create off of them how to capture ideas that are transient beyond a certain amount of stuff it becomes difficult to dig through the challenge is curation, how to figure out what's important wouldn't it be great if everyone could benefit from everything that's known about the world what's happened in similar situations, probabilistic analysis of what course of action worked and didn't presumption of neutrality of tool, skeptical of implied neutrality any tool conditions the behavior of the individual who uses that tool, cut in direction tool cuts well what would have to happen to optimize your life "when i hear this i think of the christians and the lion, and i'm the lion" i'm suspicious of "better" because it's better or because we can't not build it? capability better than no capability evolutionary fitness, will we be here in a thousand years gregory bateson, cybernetics conference; the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation optimization is for a desired outcome set by an individual what about the group? invisible hand makes everything work out since this was engaging enough to last until 10:00 then we should do it again membership cooperative for thinking private, protected, your thoughts arent sold to other people my way of doing it is only one way of doing it tuesdays and thursdays here to code, want others coding next to me for a kick in the ass