How can we develop transformative tools for thought?

Created: October 19, 2021

How can we develop transformative tools for thought?, Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen.

Notes

  • A more powerful aim is to develop a new medium for thought.
  • Such a medium creates a powerful immersive context, a context in which the user can have new kinds of thought, thoughts that were formerly impossible for them.
  • The range of expressive thoughts possible in such a medium is an emergent property of the objects and actions in that medium.
  • Developments that have already occurred:
    • Language
    • Writing
    • Music
    • Printing press
    • Computers
  • It’s difficult to write about tools for thought because “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.
  • The computer didn’t come out of a goal-directed process for “lets build this machine”, but emerged as a concept after Alan Turing and Alonzo Church explored mathematical questions.
  • Brain-computer interfaces: imagine ourselves in 4 dimensions, traverse a Riemann manifold or have multiple tracks of conscious attention.
  • The LOGO programming language was originally intended as a “Mathland”, where children could be immersed in mathematical ideas.
  • Tools for thought can have a low floor (anyone can use it) or high floor (it’s tricky to use), low ceiling (it’s not adapted for professional work) or high ceiling (professionals can use it).
  • It’s hard to invent tools for thought where your personal concerns aren’t directly connected. It’s like a writer trying to build a differential geometry program.

Thoughts

This is something I’ve been thinking about recently, mostly sparked by learning to drive. Driving is very complex (in comparison to other activities like walking) but incredibly useful, and it’s only through long, focused learning that you can learn to do it.

It’s a similar story for learning how to write or how to use mathematical notation. It’s tricky, but you learn it gradually over the course of several years in a classroom to the point where it becomes almost second nature. You internalise the rules of the formal system.

What ‘superhuman’ capabilities could you develop if you practiced long and hard at something seemingly intractable? Learning to drive lets you move around easily and freely, learning maths and language lets you model and think about complex problems. What new medium could there be, seemingly unaccessible and opaque from the outside that let you be more effective?



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