[topicmapmail] Vision #1: Our Society is Our Mental Workspace

[Andrius Kulikauskas]

I am sending a vision that might relate to Topic Maps, or at least some
of the recent ideas of Bernard Vatant.  This is a vision to foster
"thinking about our own thoughts". The main idea is that not just our
memory, our papers, our computers should serve as our mental workspace,
but we should be able to use our entire society.  But I don't picture
this happening by agreeing on ontologies, which I feel is oppressive. 
Instead, I think it's about supporting individuals so that, for example,
they don't lose all of their work if they decide to no longer work as
editors for the Open Directory Project, or want to work with a different
tool for organizing thoughts.  It's about supporting individuals so that
they can serve as reference points for particular ideas - people can
choose to point to their work as the "reference", for example, Steve
Pepper's papers may be the "reference" for what a TopicMap is - "we
agree with Steve".  And individuals want to be able to send out ideas
and see if they catch on, thrive, mutate like "memes". Such a vigorous
environment is much more important than any ontologies, for such
individuals.  Also, Bernard Vatant asked what is a thought? and I hope
to send more information about how I am defining "thinking states" for
my draft of the MindSet standard, but simply the author (the thinker)
uses thoughts as a form of punctuation for themselves, without which
they won't be able to reexperience that thought in any systematic way. 
So the purpose of the MindSet standard is not to define the thought, but
just to record enough of the structural system to facilitate that
reexperience.

I welcome comments on this vision and I certainly look forward to
working with anybody who might like to make it happen.  I am curious of
whether it relates to your vision for Topic Maps, and what that vision
might be.

Yours,

Andrius Kulikauskas
Director
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt/importexport.html
ms@ms.lt

> *********************************************
> A Vision for Thinking About Our Own Thoughts
> *********************************************
> 
> C h a l l e n g e :  Our minds are gifts, especially our ability
> to express our hearts.  We must apply our gifts on behalf of all, so
> that we share a joy that goes beyond our gifts.  We must aim, not to be
> comfortable, but to be open to each other, linked heart-to-heart.  This
> is what all would want us to do.   
> 
> V i s i o n :   Let every mind reflect every heart.
> 
> We wish to create an infrastructure that every mind might reflect every
> heart.
> 
> Our minds work particularly, they are optimized differently: they may or
> may not offer sight or hearing, they run at different speeds, they apply
> different languages, they contain different experiences.  Yet what truly
> matters are the general concepts that the mind can play with and reflect
> the heart.  These are the same for every heart.
> 
> We wish to rely on general concepts rather than particular minds.
> 
> By thinking about our own thoughts, we make our thoughts general.  We
> step beyond the special nature and particular experience of our minds. 
> We think unhindered thoughts, like children or fools, that can express
> every heart.
> 
> Having the wisdom of experience, it takes an act of will to abandon it. 
> We wish to support every will, both by diminishing the unnecessary
> difficulties, and encouraging the necessary resolve.
> 
> We encourage ourselves to look at our thoughts from new perspectives,
> that we might have new feelings, see new connections.  We eliminate our
> expectations, the meanings derived of our unique experiences.  We brush
> aside patterns that they may rise anew, independent of any perspective,
> for our thoughts can encompass more than our minds, and the patterns
> that persist are profound. 
> 
> We make it simpler to hold our thoughts, that we may walk around them,
> and separate the general content from the particular presentation.  We
> extend our mental workspace for our thoughts, putting to memory, writing
> on paper, recording with computer, and most importantly, granting to
> society our thoughts that they may thrive. 
> 
> We develop tools by which we may shape our minds, working with
> one perspective, but regularly switching to another, fostering the
> difficult habit of embracing that perspective which may best further
> shape us.  
> 
> We rejoice that we may build tools with software, but we look to every
> aspect of everyday life throughout the entire world as a workspace that
> we all may think about our own thoughts.
> 
> We think of ourselves as both makers and users of tools for thinking. 
> Thinking is so fundamental, that makers must think as users, and users
> must think as makers.  
> 
> We expect our tools to be true, so we create them for the benefits of
> shaping our minds through long term use.  We wish our tools to be kind,
> and prefer to serve the preferences and requirements of particular
> minds, rather than all minds.  We intend our tools to work together, and
> so we concentrate on specific uses.  We support modeling languages and
> import/export standards as the assurance of the long term relevance of
> our work with our tools.
> 
> We appreciate the difficulty of comprehending and supporting a
> particular perspective. We value the integrity needed for designing
> genuine tools for working with thoughts.  We accept that each of us must
> choose our own styles, licenses and languages.  We feel that the chief
> motivation by which we may work together is the joy that we share with
> all who find our tools useful. 
> 
> We feel that users of our tools will have the greatest joy when the
> thoughts they express can thrive within a network of tool making users,
> and take on a life of their own.  We wish to bring to life this network
> that it may bring down every limit between our minds and our society.
> 
> We live in a conceptual space where we may speak to each other
> heart-to-heart.  We extend our thinking without bound until our concepts
> flow unhindered across society.  We alert ourselves to every mind that
> hopes to be heard.  We invest in the thoughts we share that allow us to
> work together. We make way, deeply and practically, for every old or new
> concept that opens any mind to our language of joy.   
> 
> Public Domain 2000
> 
>