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Calendar of Projects

The main emphasis of the Minciu Sodas laboratory in 1999 is on creating a software environment for a single thinker.  In 1998 we proposed that software be created to let one reorganize one's notes in three different ways: sequentially, hierarchically, and crossreferentially.  Such software would facilitate deep thinking.  In the first half of this year we are starting up several ongoing surveys to lay the theoretical groundwork and to explore who might use such software.  Our first survey records the existing tools for thinkers and organizes them according to the faculty of thought they support.  Our next survey looks for prospective users of the software and applications they envisage.  Our third survey looks for examples of how information is organized.  This will help us check whether the sequential, hierarchical, and crossreferential paradigms enjoy a special status in organizing information.  The results we have so far suggest that the organization of robust information typically involves a paradigm shift, in that one starts with one of the three paradigms, but it breaks down and gets patched up with another paradigm among the three.  We intend to study the theory of object oriented programming as a source of concepts for organizing code that may carry over to organizing ideas.  We also intend to study Unified Modeling Language as a means for allowing a variety of conceptual visualizations that may correspond to the paradigm shifts that we are observing.  At the end of the year we will conclude our investigation of the three paradigms with a look at the psychological literature to see how they may relate to the extension of various kinds of memory.

In the summer of 1998 we plan to study the software needs of independent thinkers from around Lithuania by pairing them up with programmers at weekend seminars at the Minciu Sodas laboratory in the Folk Creativity Club in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.  The study will show where we can use off-the-shelf products, and where we need to program new ones.  We will also start work on making prototypes of the three paradigm software that can reorganize notes sequentially, hierarchically, and crossreferentially.

Intend to Extend

Our method of research is exploratory.  It consists of small projects by which we intend to extend an idea.  Each project is defined by a hypothesis (what idea we intend to extend), a motive (why we intend to extend it), and an investigation (how we intend to extend it).  Successful investigations generate observations (insights) and reservations (doubts) which may serve as hypotheses for new projects.  As we do many projects, we become more conscious of the hypotheses and the relations between them, and we also acquire more intuition about them.

The exploratory method described above is a consequence of natural constraints on knowledge, time, and finances.  It challenges us to make a conceptual advance with a small project that may last six months and involve one hundred hours of work.  Our method may seem unusual in that the observations and reservations generated by our investigation may have nothing to say as to whether the original hypothesis is true or false.  Such an approach, however, is quite common in mathematical research, where the truth of a hypothesis may remain unknown for many years.  It is an approach helpful in forming reasoned opinions, the kind needed for embarking on practical applications and financial ventures.

List of Projects

100. Propose Software Addressing the Needs of a Deep Thinker, Andrius Kulikauskas, (March 1998 - October 1998)
Hypothesis: An environment for group work should be based on a good environment for individual work.  It would center on the ability to organize notes sequentially, hierarchically, and crossreferenced.
Motive: Create software for general work on philosophy.
Investigation: Program an environment for individual work allowing notes to be organized sequentially, hierarchically, and crossreferenced for deep thinking.
Observation: Resulting software could be more important for the casual user than the operating system.
Reservation: Did not use the same data in three different ways, it was uncoupled, because lacked a standard, need to do philosophical work to develop the standard.
Publication: Andrius Kulikauskas, Ar kompiuteris pades mums susikaupti ?, Infobalt association journal Laikas, October 1998, (in Lithuanian).

101. Survey Existing Tools for Thinkers, Andrius Kulikauskas, (December 1998 - March 1999, and then ongoing)
Hypothesis: No tool exists that does the job, otherwise everybody would know about it.
Motive: Find prospective clients for the laboratory, and a basis for them to collaborate.
Investigation: Look on the Web for anything vaguely related, and classify according to the type of faculty supported.
Obseravtion: The tools are falling into broad categories.  Also, tools for visualization seem to be related to the paradigm shifts.

102. Survey Prospective Applications for All Purpose Software for Deep Thinkers, Andrius Kulikauskas, (January 1999 - May 1999, and then ongoing)
Hypothesis: A software environment for deep thinking would have many practical applications.
Motive: Find possible collaborators, subjects for future products, relevant market need, prepare work for study of needs of thinkers.
Investigation: Query leaders of professional associations how their members might use such software.

103. Survey Ways of Organizing Information, Andrius Kulikauskas, (May 1998 - July 1999, and then ongoing)
Hypothesis: All organizational forms are constructed only from sequential, hierarchical, and crossreferential contexts.
Motive: Find real life cases where the same ideas are used in different structurings, so there is a practical need to switch from paradigm to paradigm.
Investigation: List forms of organizations, as many as possible, and group them by the way they use these three paradigms.
Observation: The data is suggesting a theory of paradigm shifts and associated visualizations.
Reservation: I am unfamiliar with the type of philosophical structure that is arising and I doubt its ability to support a matrix for options.  This suggests to me that ultimately this may be a way of looking at the problem that is unhelpful.

110. Analyze and Extend Concepts from Object Oriented Programming to the Architecture of Thinking, Andrius Kulikauskas with Raimundas Vaitkevicius, (January 1999 - June 1999)
Hypothesis: Concepts from Object Oriented Programming carry over to ideas.
Motive: Tap into experience of object oriented programming, especially because this will help expand results from individual work to group work.
Investigation: Analyze the basic concepts from a straightforward book, "Object Technology, A Manager's Guide" by David A. Taylor, and establish the appropriate analogy.

111. Classify the Methodologies Supported by UML, Andrius Kulikauskas with Raimundas Vaitkevicius (March 1999 - September 1999)
Hypothesis: Methodologies can be classified according to the visualization/paradigm shift they correspond to.
Motive: Provide additional data for survey of organizational forms and a practical direction of application, in a language shared by others.
Investigation: Analyze the methodologies discussed in "UML Distilled" by Martin Fowler with Kendall Scott, group by paradigm shift, create glossary of resulting identifications.

120. Describe the Qualitative Differences between Organizational Paradigms, Andrius Kulikauskas,  (February 1999 - December 1999)
Hypothesis: Sequential, hierarchical, crossreferential paradigms are qualitatively different, a complete set that has a philosophical basis.
Motive: Need to make this concrete so we can understand the paradigms and explain the benefit of each.
Investigation: Review academic research, especially in psychology regarding memory, and also in philosophy of education, consider each as extending memory in a different kind of way, structure the purposes, and thereby the means.

130. Investigate the Needs of Thinkers, Saulius Maskeliunas, (May 1999 - October 1999, then ongoing)
Hypothesis: The software needs of thinkers who work on involved personal projects will flesh out the underlying structure of the best environment for casual users.
Motive: Have a strong theoretical foundation from which every particular problem can be based, formulated.
Investigation: Invite by contest independent thinkers working on original projects to the Folk Creativity Club for weekends, or week long stays, pair them up with programmers.  Analyze their needs, then create or adapt software, relate the needs to the software capability.

140. Program Prototypes of Supersystem, Raimundas Vaitkevicius, (July 1999 - June 2000)
Hypothesis: Supersystem, correctly set up, can meet all of the needs of thinkers that arise.
Motive: Have a solid foundation to underlie specific programs for visualizations so there can be a standard for exchanging information between them and for switching from one program to another.
Investigation: Start programming a model that handles the tasks that come up for the needs of thinkers and interfaces with various on the shelf programs.

150. Classify the Functions of Hyperlinks, Andrius Kulikauskas, (August 1999 - February 2000)
Hypothesis: Hyperlink usage is given by the sevensome and could be coded universally.
Motive: Be able to create an explicit standard for hyperlinks, if possible, for presenting semantic information syntactically, making the angle of information explicit and thereby clarifying the sharing of information.

155. Make Explicit Criteria for Comments on Suggestions, Andrius Kulikauskas with Jurga Girciene, (Jan 1998 - November 1999)
Hypothesis: "Traffic rules" based on an analysis of a communal project would let people contribute constructively even to nonsynchronous projects.
Motive: Use the heart/world methodology to design a reate tools and methods for people to be able with different interests to help each other in projects involving common data.
Investigation: Apply exercise method to concrete example of Lithuanian linguists, professionals and amateurs, to systematize the criteria relevant in evaluating proposed replacements of loan words.  Draw up a model for communication employing the resulting criteria.

160. Survey Standards for Structuring Information, Andrius Kulikauskas

170. Formulate a Standard for a Syntax of Thoughts,  Andrius Kulikauskas, (October 1999 - March 2000)
Hypothesis: There is a natural and sufficient way to treat a thought as a record in a flat table consisting of a field for unlimited text and fields for supporting syntactic relations between thoughts.
Motive: Create philosophical, mathematical, and computer science standards around which collaborating companies could rally.
Investigation: Review our research, define the simplest and strongest constraints that allow for all of the syntax possibly needed.

300. Develop Strategy to Produce a Documentary Film through Creative Feedback, Andrius Kulikauskas, (September 1998 - November 1998)
Hypothesis: Idea can be artistically and financially successful by developing it in the public domain.
Investigation: Apply heart/world method to a documentary film project, to its idea and to its production strategy.
Observation: Resulting strategy attracted a coproducer, seemed practical financially, see extracts from newsletters.
Reservation: Tremendous pressure on artistic leader, must have artistic confidence to allow the idea develop under unforeseen outside influences.