(2021-06-11) Selforganizing Ideas

Gordon Brander: Self-Organizing Ideas. Organizing ideas through sheer force of will is difficult, and I am lazy. Luckily there may be another way. Given the right mechanisms, the right conditions, and enough energy and time, a system can self-organize.

Two important prerequisites for self-organization:

Self-organization happens through composition. Composition is combining things with other things to create new things.

You can think of the units and the mechanisms of composition together as an alphabet.

Another example: files and copy-paste are like the lego dot of computing

Files and copy-paste separate data from application, to enable composition. Composition of what? Apps.

Evolution is composition with memory

Evolution emerges in any system with: Mutation; Heredity; Selection

When we write, we flatten the cloud of associated ideas in our head into a linearized subset (lossy). The reader then unflattens this linearized subset into their own cloud of associated ideas (lossy). Each lossy step is an opportunity for mutations in understanding to emerge. Useful mutations are remembered (selection) and shared (heredity). And so... mutation, heredity, selection. Ideas evolve!

If we want to generate self-organizing ideas, perhaps what we want is less like prose, and more like an index card, where 1 card = 1 idea.