Mindset.  A modeling language for our own thinking.

This is the story of how we might work with computers to amplify our thinking.  The major hurdles are cultural, rather than technological.

• The value
• The history
• Cultural hurdles
• Solutions
• Implications

The value

We can consciously influence our own thinking.   The general rhythm by which we work with our thoughts is that we
1) accumulate more thoughts, encapsulating them as thoughts.
2) organize our thoughts, relating them.
3) visualize our thoughts, and reflect on them, leading back to 1).

Saulius Maskeliunas and I considered various ways that people have diagrammed thoughts, with special emphasis on the methodologies of the Unified Modeling Language.  I observed that sequences, hierarchies and networks are the basic ways of externally structuring  thoughts.  However, when we visualize, we use pairs of these structures, with one restructuring the other.  This gives a taxonomy of visualizations.  These visualizations are qualitatively related to various techniques of problem solving (Morgan D. Jones) and properties of complex adaptive systems (J. Holland).  [I have lifted much of the material below directly from the draft of the Mindset standard].

• Closed Sequence  Our mental picture is of a Chronicle, a sequence restructured with a hierarchy, as when we group together adjacent events into historical periods.  Systems use this to organize internal models, the selective emphases of experience.  Systems of thought often use this for selecting context.  Our mind moves from context to the event it influences.
• Acyclic Network  Our mental picture is of an Evolution, a hierarchy restructured with a sequence, as when we synchronize the branches of the tree of life.  Systems use this to organize building blocks, the generators of candidate models.  Systems of thought often use this for appraising scenarios.  Our mind moves from outcome to possibility.
• Unordered Hierarchy  Our mental picture is of a Catalog, a hierarchy restructured with a network of crosslinks. Systems use this to organize tags, distinctions that enable selective interaction. Systems of thought often use this for channeling convergence. Our mind moves from idea to related topic.
• Nondirected Network  Our mental picture is of an Atlas, a network restructured with a hierarchy of global and local views.  Systems use this to organize diversity, the stability of niches.  Systems of thought often use this for inspiring divergence.  Our mind moves from conception to suggested reconception.
• Directed Network  Our mental picture is of a Tour, a network restructured with a sequence that we walk along.  Systems use this to organize flows, the effects of propagating and recycling.  Systems of thought often use this for examining legitimacy.  Our mind moves from cause to effect.
• Open Sequence  Our mental picture is of a Canon, a sequence restructured with a network, as when reuse occurs within a Scripture, or within a factory line.  Systems use this to organize nonlinearity, where effects of changes can be disproportionate. Systems of thought often use this for ranking judgements.  Our mind moves from lesser priority to greater priority.
• Template (an internal structuring)  Our mental picture is of a Template, the internal structuring of a thought.  Systems use this to organize aggregation, the emergent attributes that distinguish a collective from its members.  Systems of thought often use this for analyzing independence.

We benefit  by reexperiencing our thoughts.  We may experience them statically - our mind is fixed, or dynamically - our mind moves from thought to thought.   We may experience them immersed in thought, or reflecting on our thought.  So there are four ways of experiencing our thoughts, and each way is supported by a different kind of media.

• Stable Immersed (as with Video): We are engrossed in a thought.
• Dynamic Immersed (as with Phone):  We are swept up by a motion from one thought to another.
• Dynamic Reflective (as with NotePad):  We stay suspended in motion by relying on the prompt for that motion.
• Stable Reflective (as with Poster): We keep a safe distance from a prompt that invites us.

The history

As we accumulate our thoughts, they become more valuable to work with.  Currently, great import/export is more important than great software.  Without an import/export  standard, people can’t afford to use the tools for long term serious projects, and without serious projects the tools don’t acquire the funds or the challenges needed to mature.

Cultural hurdles

It is a challenge to reach us, the individual users:

• Thinking is hard.
• Tools for amplifying thinking make our thinking harder!
• We don’t want to notice how little we direct our thinking.
• We don’t want to take on more responsibility for directing our thinking.
• We don’t want to consider that there are useful ways that we might direct our thinking that we don’t know about.

• Working on your thoughts by yourself is rarely considered “work”.
• Independent thinkers are not supported as such, the focus is on teams.
• They’ll pay much more for tools for collaboration than for tools for individuals.
• They need the assurance of an import/export standard.

• Tool designers are “artists” who pursue their own personal vision, and frequently don’t  actually use the tools they make.
• Toolmakers often assume that their supertool will take over the world and never consider establishing the actual benefits for thinking, offering import/export, or participating in a network of tools for thinking.
• Successful toolmakers get frustrated  because it is a niche market and they can be more successful elsewhere.

• We are expected to be lazy, rather than willful.
• Computers are supposed to let us think less, rather than think more.
• We are expected to be viewers, rather than authors.
• We are supposed to focus on objective facts, rather than the subjective facts that are the raw material for reflection.
• Whatever we do create is expected to be polished, like a brochure, rather than true to life, like a messy desk.
• So we are expected to organize documents rather than thoughts.
• Computers are good with rules, so researchers focus on semantics.
• People are good with structure, especially partial information, but researchers aren’t interested.
• Our academic culture does not acknowledge independent thinking.

Solutions

We have started by drafting Mindset, a simple modeling language for organizin g thoughts. MindSet assumes that we record "mental levers" to help us reexperience our thoughts.  MindSet has us identify a thought with a bundle of six mental levers: ID, FromID, ToID, Intent, Prompt, Content.  [I have lifted much of the material below directly from the draft of the standard].

• "Content" sustains our thought. Content is our lever to support immersive thinking. We record as Content that information by which our thought maintains our attention.  Content has nontrivial internal structure that engrosses us.  Content may be a paragraph of text, or any other expression of an idea, perhaps as an image, file, code, data.
• "Prompt" evokes our thought.  Prompt is our lever to support reflective thinking.  We record as Prompt that information by which our thought evokes our attention.  Prompt refers us to the Content.  Prompt is succinct enough so that we may view many Prompts at once.  Prompt may be, for example, a name, address or sign.
• "ID", "FromID" and "ToID" plot our thought locally.  ID, FromID and ToID are our levers to support dynamic thinking.  Together they let us interpret our thought (identified by ID) as the movement of our mind from one thought (identified by FromID) to another thought (identified by ToID).
• "Intent" pictures our thought globally.  Intent is our lever to support static thinking. We record as Intent our structural expectations for our thought with respect to all other thoughts. There are eight reserved choices for Intent, described above:  Unordered Hierarchy, Acyclic Network, Nondirected Network, Directed Network, Open Sequence, Closed Sequence, Independent Thought, Irregular Structure.  In these cases, Intent signifies our global expectations regarding the structure of the system formed by the local relationships described by all thoughts having that Intent.  We do not require that the local relationship actually satisfy our global expectations.  Intent simply makes explicit our mental picture within which we intend our thought to participate as a local relationship between two other thoughts.  Aside from the reserved choices, we are also allowed to create other choices for Intent, as needed, for our specific purposes.

We are also drafting various import/export formats for such tables.  One such format uses CSV and can be easily imported into spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel.  We also expect to have a format as an XTM (XML for TopicMaps) Template.

Next, we are promoting the use of software tools for collaborative accumulation of subjective experiences.  These are the “gas stations” that help fuel the projects that make the tools useful.  In particular, we want to establish a repository of use cases for tools for thinking.  The repository should help stimulate a market for custom software solutions.

Implications

Public Domain 2000