Is "tools for thought" a scientific field? A design discipline? A "scene" in the arts? A tradition of craft? Day to day—what should I do today?—I feel pulled wildly between these framings.
Newly unlocked "letter from the lab" on navigating this tension:
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I agree, it seems like craftmanship. But what a diverse and joyful mix of cognitive science, philosophy, psychological semantics, linguistics, computer science, neurosci and so forth. I especially enjoyed a recent book Supersizing the Mind by a philosophy professor Andy Clark
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Clark's great!
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I have yet to read the letter, but I see it as the new wave. The way things should and will be.
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The mindmap, the concept map, the flow chart the info graphic; all tools for thought. What the [ ] arena has provided is a more effective, efficient & easier way 2link2 & from. The dimensions of thought processing have been expanded & we seem to be converging with the machine
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Appreciate your reflections as always!
Reminds me of this model of HCI research as problem-solving that's been really helpful for me and my students grapple w/ how we are engaging in "research" (vs. engineering, and contra pure "science")
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You might also enjoy this piece describing the "accountability" of design, and its associated epistemological ambiguity and "productive indiscipline": wendynorris.com/wp-content/upl
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I suspect that you may be misreading the origin story of VisiCalc: youtu.be/ORvwzo-f1Sc They seem to have been driven by a serious context of use and a humble desire to _serve_ others who had the same problems rather than abstract science or innovation for its own sake.
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Yes, I agree! That's why it's in the "design" section rather than the "science" section. This account seems (to me!) compatible with the internal experience I describe; see e.g. the discussion at 6:49 ("How do you represent values in formulas?", about finding the primitive)
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