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Tangled Phenomenon
Jun. 20th, 2004 06:00 pmOn rare occasions there seems to be a supernatural synergy unveiled between the challenges of the past and the unknowns of the future, specially coincident in the present. Those moments in the past convinced me that I am (or was) moving in a right direction for me.
I haven't had one of those in a long time. Not that I'm having one now, but I think I may be close.
( Philo-Psychological Diatribe about such moments )
I seem to be drawn at a frightful speed toward some vision of life-purpose, but I don't know what. The skills I need seem to include constructive communication (hypnosis, storytelling, teaching), social design (human systems dynamics, learning situations, engineering), and mental structure engineering (artificial intelligence, language design, philosophy). For a long time I've been watching this progress with curiosity, and I still don't know where it's going. (The obvious answer is religious-leader, but it seems like there should be a midway stepping-point.) The answer may be close.
Coincidence 1:
Claudia is endlessly involved in organizing activist events. She was asked by MIT's Program in Human Rights and Justice to create a web-based calendar to help them schedule, and agreed (despite not knowing any of the needed tools for doing such a thing). I had intended to let her figure her own way out.
A month later, this long forgotten, we were trying to find some project to collaborate on over the summer. After she refused to help me create a AI/virtual-sex program, I remembered my own plans for an events calendar. The idea was to make a online form of my Gumption Asylum: a online community of people in the greater-Cambridge area interested in personal improvement; a single source for events occurring at different colleges, independent groups (like the SCA), and art centers, with a setup to encourage group-attendance of events and discussion. I eventually realized that the two projects had the same first-90%.
Since starting this post, we've nearly finished the calendar. Feel free to try out and add bogus entries to the PHRJ Calendar, beta version.
Coincidence 2:
I worked for a long time on the syllabus for the Artificial Intelligence Workshop that I want to run at Olin (you can now read it). I wanted to pack each project full of AI methods, human modeling, philosophical insights, and create an overall elegance and direction in the class. It was too much to satisfy.
I was at the same time reading Trance-formations and trying to think of some world-betterment project for Claudia and I to work on. For world-betterment, I wanted to do something in education. Trance-formations spends a lot of paper discussing content in communication and effecting change: how it can be used, and how it can be left out entirely.
That was the key that I needed for a project I had been working on much earlier. Over the course of two intensive days I came up with a elegant, powerful structure for a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (too long for this margin), and built it into apparently unrelated pieces for my AI Workshop projects over the next week. If I can run my workshop, I will come out 80% of the way to my Primer.
Now if these two pieces decide to come together, I'll be set.
I haven't had one of those in a long time. Not that I'm having one now, but I think I may be close.
( Philo-Psychological Diatribe about such moments )
I seem to be drawn at a frightful speed toward some vision of life-purpose, but I don't know what. The skills I need seem to include constructive communication (hypnosis, storytelling, teaching), social design (human systems dynamics, learning situations, engineering), and mental structure engineering (artificial intelligence, language design, philosophy). For a long time I've been watching this progress with curiosity, and I still don't know where it's going. (The obvious answer is religious-leader, but it seems like there should be a midway stepping-point.) The answer may be close.
Coincidence 1:
Claudia is endlessly involved in organizing activist events. She was asked by MIT's Program in Human Rights and Justice to create a web-based calendar to help them schedule, and agreed (despite not knowing any of the needed tools for doing such a thing). I had intended to let her figure her own way out.
A month later, this long forgotten, we were trying to find some project to collaborate on over the summer. After she refused to help me create a AI/virtual-sex program, I remembered my own plans for an events calendar. The idea was to make a online form of my Gumption Asylum: a online community of people in the greater-Cambridge area interested in personal improvement; a single source for events occurring at different colleges, independent groups (like the SCA), and art centers, with a setup to encourage group-attendance of events and discussion. I eventually realized that the two projects had the same first-90%.
Since starting this post, we've nearly finished the calendar. Feel free to try out and add bogus entries to the PHRJ Calendar, beta version.
Coincidence 2:
I worked for a long time on the syllabus for the Artificial Intelligence Workshop that I want to run at Olin (you can now read it). I wanted to pack each project full of AI methods, human modeling, philosophical insights, and create an overall elegance and direction in the class. It was too much to satisfy.
I was at the same time reading Trance-formations and trying to think of some world-betterment project for Claudia and I to work on. For world-betterment, I wanted to do something in education. Trance-formations spends a lot of paper discussing content in communication and effecting change: how it can be used, and how it can be left out entirely.
That was the key that I needed for a project I had been working on much earlier. Over the course of two intensive days I came up with a elegant, powerful structure for a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (too long for this margin), and built it into apparently unrelated pieces for my AI Workshop projects over the next week. If I can run my workshop, I will come out 80% of the way to my Primer.
Now if these two pieces decide to come together, I'll be set.
