I’m not even going to apologize for the length… I think these newsletters are just going to be novellas/research papers/multi-disciplinary essays.
Tldr: I make an argument in favor of determinism and explain consciousness while I’m at it.
I also talk about being a polymath/multipotentialite, different types of power, hiring practices, and other stuff.
📚 What I’m learning and thinking 🧠:
Systems Thinking!!
Here’s the number one rule of Systems Thinking: There is no such thing as Systems.
Seriously! Systems are not *real*... they are not the thing in and of itself… they are just our perception and understanding of the thing. Therefore, they are always wrong in some way. If you can grasp this principle, everything else makes so much more sense.
I had a two-hour conversation with someone who introduced me to systems thinking. He’s a polymath and has helped solve some of the biggest problems in the world. He teaches practical systems thinking and how to apply it to the business world.
Edit: Unfortunately it seems I can’t share the main points I noted from that call, perhaps I will have to track down the various ideals from various authors and post them here.
Nonetheless, after watching a few Russell Ackoff videos I ended up spending most of my time writing up a sort of response/stream of thought as to how I think systems thinking should employ determinism as a core principle.
Sincerest apologies if you wanted to learn more about systems thinking itself! But I hope the notes I have here, links, and ensuing graph will provide a basic starting point to follow my stream of thought.
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Below is Boulding’s Hierarchy of General System Theory. This chart visualises the idea that there are different levels of systems that increase in complexity.
The following shows the types of systems for each of these levels and how much we know about them.
It's important to note that each system requires different ways of working with or thinking about those systems. A clock does not work the same as a cell. You can’t understand how a biological cell works by treating it as a clockwork machine. Similarly, social systems don’t behave the same way that a biological creature behaves. There are similarities, but they are not the same. This may seem obvious today, but much of our society is built upon a mechanistic view of the world. The entirety of the industrial revolution and everything that came from it was more or less created under the presumption that the entirety of the world could be understood through an analytical approach.
In fact, much of our society today, especially businesses, still treat their organizations as mechanical systems even though they are more like social systems. Remember that for later!
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Now on to Russell Ackoff. He was a pioneer of Systems Thinking. Check out these two videos:
Idealized Design - I won't spend too much time talking about this one. Just watch it yourself! Russell tells the story about Bell Labs and how they invented much of modern technology from one simple idea:
“The telephone system was destroyed last night! … We’re going to spend the next year reinventing it from scratch.”
This concept of building something from scratch with only the constraints of ‘technical feasibility’ and ‘operational viability’ is incredibly interesting! I’d love to see more folks do this today. But note! It requires a huge amount of communication. Even getting a clear understanding of those two constraints took them hours to talk through. It's not enough to just imagine what you can build, but to communicate the necessary constraints before diving into the ideation process. Then of course, researching, testing, and iterating on those ideas persistently.
Mechanistic to Systemic thinking - There is a LOT I can pull out from this video. Since its long, I’ll share a few notes, but I want to spend more time on the determinism aspect so I highly suggest you watch the whole thing yourself as well when you have the time.
Some notes:
A mechanistic view of the world is a natural result of believing in a closed, fully understandable system.
We assumed that everything could be understood by reducing concepts into the smallest, indivisible units
Analysis is the process of breaking things down into small concepts to explain how the bigger thing works
In a mechanistic world, everything can be reduced to (one) cause and effect.
Causality/determinism seems to be a cosmological ‘proof’ of the existence of God as the ultimate cause
We assumed we could explain/understand the universe without the environment.
“All the fundamental laws of physics tells us what will happen when there is no environment, not when there is one. So universality doesn’t derive from the fact that they apply in every environment, but from the fact they don't apply in any!” ~ Russell Ackoff
Determinism - There is no such thing as ‘uncaused events’... everything that occurs, has a cause.
Since everything can be understood, and every effect has a cause, we can explain everything through analysis of simple cause and effect
Isaac Newton was the first to bring together all these ideas. The Newtonian view of the world was based in theistic ideals
The world is a machine, built by ‘God’
This machine is ‘Doing God's work’ therefore, ‘we are here to serve his will’
The universe is a self-contained, closed system (i.e. a 'hermetically sealed clockwork machine’)
The mechanical view largely created the industrial revolution…
Gained a lot of ‘productivity’ and discoveries
Justified the uncapped growth of profit
Derived out of attempts to imitate ‘God’ and ‘do his will’ by creating machines just as he created the machine of the universe
Caused a lot of dehumanization (seeing people as ‘cogs in the machine’ or machines themselves, seeing nature as ‘resources’ for the machine, seeing humanity as ‘beyond’ environment and separate from nature, etc)
Systems Thinking signifies a shift in era to solve and explain things the prior paradigm could not solve.
Everything is a system
Nothing can be understood without the environment
Humanization of work and society
Different types of systems (mechanical vs organism vs social)
Systems Thinking allows a compatibilist/complementary approach, in which free will and purpose serves as a different way of viewing reality than determinism
There are quite a few other great things about the talk, but I want to focus on this idea of determinism because I think it is one of the most important things for our current society to address if we wish to save ourselves from the many injustices and consequences of the industrial age and beyond. Buckle up! We’re going deep. 😁
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Ackoff seems to classify ‘determinism’ as a strictly mechanistic idea, and ‘free will’ as a systems thinking idea. He says both are valid, complementary ways of viewing the world.. Just different.
However, I disagree with the idea that determinism is a strictly mechanistic way of viewing the world, and that systemic thinking is not deterministic. I understand this is not *exactly* what he was saying here, but the comment about each being useful in different contexts stuck with me.
I would like to show how a deterministic approach can be incredibly useful in everyday life, as well as on a societal level (in terms of how we make laws, incentives, businesses, etc). And why we should embrace determinism even within a systems thinking era.
First, I want to make clear that I think a deterministic approach does not necessitate reductive cause per effect, or that causality can only be understood in theory separate from the environment. I think determinism is even more useful when you consider the environment. Furthermore, the ‘environment’ is more than just the physical thing around us, but also includes genetics, social norms, and any other conditions in which we live.
I think everything has a cause, which can even include itself! The universe/multiverse need not have been created by some ‘divine’ being, it may have simply always been. It is eternal. We can get into how this works, but that’s a conversation for another newsletter. I understand that compatibilism/complementarity is simply trying to explain this feeling of ‘choice’ that we all seem to experience as conscious agents, but I think that is a misguided approach that creates more problems than it solves.
Though I have nothing against compatibilism, I think it makes a lot more sense for reality to be strictly cause and effect, how else would there be any conceivable order to reality if things just happened randomly without cause? (Even the ‘popping in’ of ‘random’ virtual particles could be caused by something we simply have no idea how to measure).
The existence of systems and environmental factors simply means there is/can be multiple causes for multiple effects. It does not (and should not) be reducible to just one (or a few) cause per effect. Furthermore… Just because we likely cannot know/understand everything, does not mean determinism is wrong or not useful. If anything, I think it is an even greater use of determinism.
To recap, my perception of determinism is as follows:
There is a cause for every effect
There can be multiple causes for every effect (and multiple effects for every cause)
The environment is key to finding the most relevant causes
We might never be able to know all the causes, or even the most important ones, this means we can always find better explanations of reality… put another way: Reality is not fully understandable, but we can always understand more of it.
I can probably say those better, but let’s go with it for now.
With that being said, here goes: 🤓
The illusion of free will is a useful illusion, but it also constrains our thinking and thus our imaginations to what we think each individual can do if they think it all comes down to choice. I think a deterministic perspective can be far more beneficial to individuals and humanity once we get past the initial shock one feels when you hear that free will may be an illusion.
Once you fully accept that choice is not really a good description of our perception of reality, we can begin the work of exploring more about reality. We can seek to learn more about the environment, the systems within and without our systems, and the interactions between it all. By accepting the possibility of determinism even within a Systems Era, we can seek to understand more about those systems beyond the mechanistic perception of ‘choice’, or the theoretical ideas of how something works ‘in a vacuum’.
The reason why I think determinism is more useful than a belief in free will is because the latter is highly imprecise and often leads you to terrible conclusions.
I suppose that's my biggest problem with Ackoff… for some reason, he does not talk about how choice is in-and-of itself a lower-level concept. ‘Choice’ seems to me a function of self-regulating systems.
Choice is defined as:
We use this word to try and describe the experience of having options and going with one as opposed to never having an option.
A clockwork machine does not have options, it simply does what it was built to do as long as it can.
Choice is introduced with self-regulation. When a system such as a bacteria has to respond to its environment in order to maintain its homeostasis. To survive.
Biological systems do their utmost to reduce even having to make choices, thus the use of instinct (a series of automated ‘choices’ preconfigured by prior reactions and results that are coded into DNA or biochemical form). Of course, many folks might not think of instinct as ‘choice’... but what else is it? You would have to view biological systems as mechanistic ones for it not to be a sort of effortless decision. Responding to one's environment in different ways is the essence of choice I think.
As biological systems get more complex, so too do the choices they have available. But, an important thing that I don’t see people talking about, is that choices become more abstract. Meaning an animal isn’t just making a ‘simple’ choice when it decides what to eat, that choice is actually an incredibly complex hierarchy of choices, from the cells that choose to send certain chemical signals in response to certain conditions in which activate the muscles and organs to react a certain way. By the time the animal becomes aware of all of these micro-choices, it is already along for the ride… Choice does not require thought.
Thought, aka Curiosity allows for the macro system of the animal to become aware of more choices so that it can adapt to the ever-shifting environment. As you move up the ladder of complexity, you move away from the direct nature of choice and towards more awareness.
Therefore, the difference between most animals and a human being, is not that we magically can make choices…but that we *think* about said choices. Free will assumes that we make choices independent of the environment. But the more we study the human brain, body, and evolution, the more we realize we are just like every other animal in that we do in fact make choices in response to the environment. The difference is that we are *aware* of those choices. Moreover, we are aware of the environment and how we *can* respond. This enables us to develop entirely new ways of responding. We no longer make choices blindly, we seek to understand why/how we make choices in order to give us the opportunity to make better choices.
We even have a specialized organ which makes those meta choices: the neocortex. Here, we are able to simulate imaginary choices continuously, creating models of the world that the rest of our mind and body uses to make real-life choices. The more aware we are of ourselves and our relationship with the environment, the better choices we can make.
Our consciousness is not the choice in and of itself… but the *awareness* of choices being made and the environments that mold those choices. Consciousness builds off of all that came before it: framework/structure, mechanistic input/output, self-regulatory choices, and biological instinct/intuition. Consciousness creates knowledge and wisdom, a sort of repository of past choices and future opportunities. It is not free will, but free thought… the act of thinking.
Continuing up the ladder, social systems abstract those choices even further… they aggregate wisdom and knowledge to create culture, which is learnings from past meta choices across an entire group of self-aware beings codified into a sort of organizational DNA.
Finally, we have transcendental systems, which take culture and thought to form spiritual beliefs and higher-level experiences that one can only have by becoming aware of one’s own awareness. It’s hard to explain this level, because not everyone experiences this on a regular basis. Many of us going long periods of time, maybe even our entire lives, without having a transcendent experience. Religion is built on this indescribable experience. It tries to ‘teach’ people how to feel this connection with meta awareness. We call this ‘God’ because it feels omniscient. Just like all the prior levels, there are multiple layers of complexity.
You can become aware of the concept of awareness … of your awareness shared with other people’s awareness, ad infinitum. It really is hard to explain. But I very much think that this is how we came up with the concept of a ‘higher power’.
If you think about how you think, this is called metacognition, and it feels like a superpower, because you can correct your thoughts even before you make them.. You can basically simulate your simulations of reality. Similarly, when you become aware of the shared knowledge of others around you, you realize that many of your experiences are related, and you feel as if you are sharing in a greater experience beyond yourself. Then you become aware of the fact that these shared wisdoms can guide you to make better choices that you never even thought to consider making. You therefore feel that somebody or something had to be reading your mind… guiding your path. But of course, this is all a recent evolution, there’s no way you can keep ALL of that in your conscious mind, so we create a specialized meta-brain to handle those tasks… we call that ‘God’... thus religion. Today, these transcendental systems are philosophies and meta-cultural beliefs.
It’s incredibly amazing, and I am still probably missing a whole host of complexity. But let's bring it back down to the individual human level.
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We are often led to believe that consciousness is the experience of ‘free will’ and free will is having choice… but that is wrong, it is fundamentally flawed because there are plenty of things that have ‘choice’ but do not seem to be conscious.
Consciousness seems to be the *awareness* of choices, not the having of choice itself. The subsystems within our body have choices. Our cells and organs and whatnot make choices everyday based on the mechanistic functions of even lower level systems. They do not think about said choices, or else they wouldn't be able to make choices.
By understanding this, we can transcend beyond our own limitations. In fact, we do this every time we invent something or think about something. The very act of creation defies (or expands) choice. If you are given option A or B, free will says you should choose either one… or maybe neither.. But it makes absolutely no logical sense for ‘free will’ to create option C or fuse the two to create D, or pull in prior decisions to create a whole alphabet of ‘choices’. Free will does not explain thought.
If our consciousness itself was ‘free will’, then we would never get anything done. We would fret all day about which choice to make and why and how and so on and so forth. Consciousness can only exist because we as animals became aware of choices.
Look at analysis paralysis and Hick’s Law (the more options people are presented with, the longer it takes to make a decision)… when we truly believe (ie become aware) that we have choices, we become incapable of making them. Thus the paradox of choice psychology. This may seem nonsensical in some ways… if becoming aware of choices makes it harder (or impossible) for us to make choices, then how did the illusion of free will ever emerge?
Simple.
Because free will is an intuition, not a knowledge. Meaning we don't actually *know* that we have choice… we *feel* like we have a choice… our brain naturally makes decisions without conscious thought by default. Our default conscious mind is aware that decisions are being made, but is not aware how those decisions are being made, so assumes that it consciously made them. I believe this is why we have SO many cognitive biases.. Because the brain is not made to think about every decision, it evolved to simply expand the body’s ability to become aware of the environment enough to make more decisions.
Once the system of the conscious mind becomes aware of a choice, the system seems to want to allocate the relevant information to inform that choice. Subsequently, the subsystems that actually make the choice can go about their business without the conscious mind trying to stop and analyse everything.
The conscious mind can only focus on so much, so long as it feels like it has some measure of control, then it doesn't bother actually trying to exert that control (and panicking when it realizes it can’t).
Consciousness allows us to simply be aware of the world… of the systems that make up itself and everything around it. But it does not control those systems.
So why is determinism useful? How can we move past that initial panic at all?
By teaching it. Again, the conscious mind is very meta. It is and can become aware of itself. We can teach our conscious mind its true value: to think, to wonder, to be curious.
Realizing that the value of yourself, of your consciousness, is not in making choices… but in understanding WHY those choices are made, will grant you the ability to give yourself more choices.
Curiosity is an inherently conscious thing. It seems to be the key difference between any being with apparent consciousness and those without. Curiosity is the desire to want to learn more and know why.
We can actually see this with non-human species that seem to have some level of consciousness. We call this ‘intelligence’ but what we really are seeing is consciousness (IMO). Self-awareness leads to curiosity.
Crows, elephants, monkeys, dolphins, etc… These animals all share some level of curiosity… and I’d be willing to bet that if we could plot their level of curiosity on a graph, and then plot their ‘intelligence’ or ‘consciousness’ it would correlate almost exactly. Perhaps it's a feedback mechanism, curiosity creates the space for consciousness to grow, and the growth of consciousness enables more curiosity.
But back to determinism… by realizing that the role of consciousness is curiosity and not free will, we can free ourselves from the despair of nihilism or apathy that often comes with feeling like you have no control. Because it shows that the purpose of consciousness, of the system that is our conscious mind, is what it does: to be curious. There does not have to be any plan set out before us by some divinity… simply being curious is the most divine we can be! (Well perhaps once we are able to think even beyond the transcendental systems, we’ll discover an even greater purpose, but this should suffice for now, I think)
This frees our entire society from utilizing low-level systems as poor methods of controlling or understanding people… because it shows us why all of these attempts fail. How can you create laws and markets to constrain, punish, or cater to our choices, if those choices are just a result of lower-level systems (ie environment, genetics, instinct, etc)?
A deterministic society is not one where people are controlled and predictable like machines… it is a transcendental society where we seek to learn and create better structures that lead to better choices, freeing our minds from the pointlessness of analyzing decisions we have no direct control over. It allows us to discover more about this reality we live in. A deterministic society is a curious society.
Instead of fixating on making good/bad decisions, we can ask what leads to making these decisions. The former implies that the only thing that matters is intention or intelligence and thus encourages people to assume intent, guess at what that person was thinking, or assume stupidity. But the latter realizes the importance of all the causal factors that lead up to this decision. This holistic approach encourages us to focus more on their environment, background, mental state, and so on.
As a simple example: If you know that doing X routine and living in Y environment will create Z lifestyle for you, you no longer have to struggle with trying out routines A - W and feeling like you are a failure because you didn’t get the desired result. You can utilize the intuitions and wisdoms of society to be in the ideal environment for your goals, spending the bulk of your time enjoying the process of learning why it works, how it works, and what else might work even better.
Whenever we make mistakes, no longer will we have to feel like we are faulty, but instead can seek out the many factors that may have led us to that mistake. Instead of internalizing failure, we can explore it. Instead of starting from 0 every generation with every decision, we can stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and have more respect for the environments that create/influence our decisions.
Our accountability and responsibility will be less concerned with agonizing over things we can’t control, and instead with being open to learning more. Learning more about all the systems that make us, all the systems that we are a part of, all the systems that we interact with. Being held accountable for learning is far more beneficial than being held accountable for making decisions we don’t actually directly control.
By bringing together systems thinking and determinism, we can explore the transcendental system that is our meta, shared consciousness. It is only then will we be able to map out reality more clearly instead of blindly stumbling around, mistaking obstacles for character defects or environmental advantages for ego boosts.
Just because free will is likely an illusion does not mean there’s ‘no point in making choices’ or that ‘people shouldnt be held accountable’ or that ‘life is meaningless’ or any of the other existential angst we may feel as a *result* of this idea. We can continue making choices, while at the same time holding in our mind the idea that every single choice we ‘make’ is a result of countless causal factors. We need to remind ourselves that our job and ‘purpose’ as conscious beings is not to make those choices, but to witness them… to think about them… to create more of them by becoming ever more aware of them.
We can only go with the flow, if we are aware of the flow.
Holding this idea in one’s mind allows us to be incredibly humble and curious about the world. Because if there are dozens or even hundreds (likely even millions) of causes for every decision, we can continuously make better decisions by learning more about these causes. This is a fundamental shift in how we think.
Furthermore, just because every decision has causes, doesn’t mean you will ever know all of them (or even the important ones). This may seem like cause to despair as well… if there is no way to truly *know* what caused your decision… Then what’s the point? What do you do?
Well… You explore!! :D You explore your identity by mapping out as many possible causes as you can imagine, and then connect those dots to form different pictures and tell different stories. This will allow you to see that your identity itself is flexible, amorphous, and more complex. It is not some straight path of cause-effect, it is a constellation of more causes and effects than you can possibly imagine. This means that you, yes you, are as beautiful as the night sky unpolluted by artificial light.
In fact, one can make a nice little metaphore, comparing light pollution to the illusion of free will. The arrogance of thinking that we are the ‘gods’ of this world and can do whatever we want blinds us from the majesty of the universe, and from our true potential for endless growth.
This is how we see ourselves, and thus reality, due to the artificial ‘light’ of free will
This is our actual identity, and reality, visible only beyond the artificial ‘light’ of free will.
Just like light in the city, it’s useful to believe we have free will.. It seems to light our way through the dark and allow us to work late into the night of our minds… (i.e. use ‘willpower’ to work through tough moments).
But just like light pollution, it comes at the cost of humility… of wonder… of curiosity beyond ourselves. The illusion of free will causes us to mistake individuality with egotism… it justifies us building monuments to ourselves… it justifies the destruction of the environment around us because we think we are all that matters, or that we are separate from/above the environment… It makes us forget that we are not alone in the universe. It makes us think that the only other life in the universe must be like us in order for us to see it.
But when you look into that endless sky full of countless stars, you can’t help but to imagine the possibilities.
I hope I didn't take that metaphor too far… its more of a double/triple entendre now :P
Before I move on, look at this again:
This is the exact same place, before and after a massive blackout in 2003. Just take the time to appreciate this for a second… In our everyday lives, over 80% of us live life thinking the night sky is fairly uninteresting and dark. We look up and probably never even realize how much we are missing. And then one day all the artificial light that we are so proud of goes away and we can see the vast beauty and complexity and depth of the sky. No wonder our ancestors were so curious. I have yet to see the ‘After’ with my own eyes… but I know it exists. I don't need to have faith, I just need to go where I can see it, and create a world in which others can see it more easily too.
The point is that free will over-simplifies and blinds us from our sense of self, and our role in the wider ecosystem. Mechanistic determinism over-simplifies that as well. However, systems-based determinism calls for humility and curiosity. It encourages us to be open to feedback and other perspectives. It requires a systematic approach (as opposed to a reductive analytical one) to see how everything interacts with one another. It inspires us to be more creative in how we diverge and converge in our thinking and creations. It invites us to question the narratives about how things are done. To imagine how they could be done differently, because there could be so many other ways that the various types of systems could come together, and so many other patterns that could emerge from non-traditional ways of looking at the world.
The same goes for you. If you feel like you are here for a reason. Recognize that you have no idea what that ‘reason’ might be. You have no idea and likely will never know all of the things that lead up to where you are now. And that’s okay. In fact, that is absolutely awesome! THAT is freedom. That is the freedom to explore different constellations and different identities. To explore different ways you can experience life. To revisit and explore stories you thought were complete. To realize that your entire system is just a perspective, and there might be better ones out there.
The infinite nature of systems-based determinism is powerful.
Systems-based determinism allows us to truly embrace ‘critical thinking’. If you are ever told ‘this is how we do things here’ or ‘thats just how it works’ or ‘its simple supply and demand’ in regards to economics, business, politics, philosophy, society, psychology, or anything else… you just remember that night sky and know that there is more to the story.
Remember, systems don't exist… and the idea of ‘free will’ is just another system, a lower-level one at that. We use it to try and describe our perspective… our shared experience of being conscious. But I think it's high-time we let that idea rest. There are more useful perspectives to adopt and explore.
It’s always good to look at multiple perspectives.
⚠️ INTERLUDE ⚠️
WOO!! That was a long one!! A solid HALF of this newsletter! (14 out of 28 pages!!) If you read all of that, please feel free to take a break if you haven’t already… and share this with the world!
Thanks so much!! If you’re still here, let us continue...
The Phenomenology of Spirit
I'm slowly but surely making my way through this book via my Learning Hegel philosophy videos. Sections 7-9 of the preface introduced and brought together some very interesting concepts:
‘Spirit’ was the term people (or at least philosophers such as Hegel) used to describe the ‘soul’ or consciousness in the 1800s. So the book is really an exploration of consciousness! This makes more sense to me now, as it seemed like the title of the book was referring to some sort of spiritual ideal. I have pretty much no background understanding of philosophy, especially not the philosophical texts of this time, so its great having Dr. Sadler to talk me through it. But yeah, it seems Hegel is trying to create a comprehensive understanding of what it means to be fully conscious, and is making a case as to how/why philosophy is the ideal tool to address consciousness (ie the ‘Spirit’).
Hegel uses the preface to not just introduce his ideas, but also *show* (plus tell) what philosophy is about. Through his preface, he exemplifies how philosophy is and should be a sort of active, full contact sport. He says that it is the grappling of ideas from multiple perspectives. It is hard and requires effort… but it is necessary if you truly want to ‘know’ something. He also specifies that philosophy is not for mere ‘edification’ (ie self improvement) and feeling smart or comfortable; it's for the purposeful and systematic process of understanding the world. It’s amazing how this is poignant even to this day! Many people today practice a kind of narcissistic or surface-level mindfulness and academic pursuit. They learn philosophical ideas only far enough to feel or look intellectual, but they don’t do the work of truly grappling with ideas and understanding why a philosophy is good or bad or what is useful about it. It’s easy to suss out these people once you realize this… but I won’t get into it here.
This is my favorite idea from the preface so far… he talks about how the desire to believe in the Divine (ie God or some other higher power) is such an important pillar of the human mind, that divorcing ourselves from that belief leaves a huge vacuum in its place. BUT, inb4 religious folks claim this as a reason to keep the ‘Faith’... belief in the Divine and the intuitiveness of ‘faith’ is like a crutch. Hegel shows how we use faith or intuition as a way to take for granted many aspects of life. Because of that, we don’t seek to question and ‘grapple’ with the larger-than-life aspects of our experience. Many people who believe in God (or some other ‘godlike’ replacement such as hedonism, politics, economics, nationalism, etc) don’t bother to question their god-like intuition.
“Spirit has not only lost its essential life; it is also conscious of this loss, and of the finitude that is its own content.” ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
You see, when we let go of this idea of the Divine, we are left with a huge gap, because there is so much about life that can’t be explained through everyday logic or scientific experiments. Much about consciousness is incredibly transcendental… therefore it makes us yearn for something just as big and all-encompassing as a divine idea. That is what philosophy is meant to do, that is what we should demand from philosophy! Hegel shows that the job of philosophy is not to make us comfortable about this loss of the Divine via intuitive feeling.. But to ‘meet this need’ by doing the hard work of understanding the Divine; by trying to explain consciousness, purpose, the universe, etc with a comprehensive system that is just as rigorous as any other ‘hard’ science. By doing so, we can be better people. We can go beyond merely ‘feeling’ comfortable with some intuitive meaning of life (and thus never being capable of truly understanding the universe) and instead endeavor to know more about the universe.
“The Spirit shows itself as so impoverished that, like a wanderer in the desert craving a mouthful of water, it seems to crave for refreshment only the bare feeling of the divine in general. By the little which now satisfies Spirit, we can measure the extent of its loss.” ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Take care to not let insubstantial concepts sate your thirst for knowledge. If you truly want to know more about the universe or any aspect of your experience, endeavor to do the hard work of figuring it out!
I’ve been learning a lot about what it means to be a polymath ever since I tuned into the Networking Cafe hosted by Dr. Barbara Kleeb. Once again, you can hear my fuller thoughts in this episode about interconnectedness and especially in the growing pains of a polymath episode. Here are a few thoughts on my exploring the idea of being a polymath:
It seems many polymaths have an intuitive feeling of Interconnectedness .. of realizing how much of the world is not as cleanly demarcated into categories as we are often led to believe. I always found it strange how subjects are often taught in isolation from other subjects, as if literature, history, math, science, etc are siloed disciplines unrelated to each other. As if psychology, biology, physics and so on are self-contained and complete descriptions of the world. In reality, each of these are inherently connected. They are systems and subsystems and meta systems… They are just our own perception of reality rather than reality itself.
Being a polymath feels like you can never really fit in with any particular group. Because every group is usually focused… you have a desire to fit in… but you also don’t want to fit in. You don’t want to ‘belong’ because that might limit you to one group or one identity. Being a polymath feels like a fluid that doesn’t want to be captured, but seeks to fill out every container it is put in…
Being a polymath gives you endless curiosity… but that expanded appetite can also manifest itself as deep, depressing boredom when that appetite is not met. Your ‘passion’ can take you in so many ways, and when you’re not allowed to pursue all of those passions, when you take people’s advice to ‘focus’ on just one thing, or are coerced into doing so, your mind suffers for it. It’s like being forced to only drink milk because it's supposed to give you strong bones; your body needs much more than milk to grow. Similarly, a polymath’s mind needs more than one passion or interest to sate their needs and curiosity.
Additionally, I applied to join the multipotentialite community called the ‘Puttyverse’... it seems like a community built by and for polymaths. It was founded by Emilie Wapnick who had a great Ted Talk coining this term. I understand why they have a closed community and will have to wait a few more weeks for the chance to join.
However, there was this test they had to see if you were a multipotentialite… and… maybe its just a cutesy thing and not meant to be serious, but I thought it quite silly. Don’t get me wrong, there were quite a few things that I vibed with and maybe I’ve just been studying surveys and psychographic studies too much, but having just three choices, each worded casually, seemed way too silly to be a realistic thing.
Nonetheless, I seem to be a ‘Sequential’ multipotentialite, which honestly resonates quite a bit.
Taking this test and reading the results brought to mind a metaphor I’d like to share, as I think it helps illustrate the problem with our (current) society not really caring about multipotentialite people. And how I think about the spectrum of polymaths.
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The metaphor is the idea of tabs. Everyone likely has opened up tabs on their computer device. Let’s say each tab is a passion or area of deep interest. A ‘purpose’. Most people likely only care to open up one or two tabs their entire life. If they ever do open up more it's just a passing casual curiosity meant to feed the main tab. You close any other tab that is not your main tab without much thought or effort. If you do change your main tab, its cause for massive re-analysis of your identity… a midlife crisis or a huge life change.
Meanwhile, there are others that regularly open up 3, 4, or even up to a dozen tabs throughout their life. Each of these are main tabs where they spend a huge amount of time or energy delving deep into for a period of time. Perhaps they spend most of their time in one or two or three at a time.. Perhaps they do all of them simultaneously. But the one-tabbers look at these folks with a side-eye, confused as to how they could get anything done without being able to ‘focus’ or ‘commit’ to one thing.
Then there are those with 20 tabs… with 30 or more. These folks not only have multiple tabs open at any one time, but they have multiple tabs on multiple windows in multiple browsers on multiple devices… all at the same time. Some of those tabs may simply be a different way to view other tabs, but most of the tabs are unique and as different from one another as can be, yet the people with all these tabs open worry about how they’re going to be able to open up more tabs without their loved ones or other folks thinking them absolutely insane… or perhaps they’re worried about how they can open up more tabs without the computer crashing. Either way, this is not enough.
Each of these people are just examples of the spectrum(s) I am thinking about when it comes to multipotentiality. It’s not actually three groups…
Furthermore, each type of person can view the others as inherently faulty or limited in some way. The one-tabbers view the multi-tabbers as either unfocused or pure genius, the multi tabbers view the one-tabbers as either uninspired or incredibly focused. What allows any of them to be their best selves is when they are allowed to do so…
If the one-tabbers become the majority and create computers that cannot handle multiple tabs, or create societal expectations that make multiple tabs seem bad, then the multi-tabbers may never reach their potential… as they will be too worried about trying not to crash the computer or fitting into societal expectations. The world needs people that can pull information from seemingly unrelated tabs.
Same goes for the one-tabbers… if only multi-tabbers are seen as geniuses or computers are ‘wasted’ on one-tabbers, then the one-tabbers may never become the specialists the world needs.
How can we value both/all kinds of people and stop biasing our ideas of intelligence/ability to any one group?
The intellectual potential of Battle Rap
Yet another masterclass in what good hip hop is all about! King Los and Daylyt had an incredible rap battle! It was a while ago, but I just watched it this week. Once again, I highly suggest you take a listen, even if you aren’t into rap, because it displays absolutely amazing use of wordplay, stage command, and mastery of the craft.
I’ve listened to a few battle raps and many of them are entertaining and clever, but this one showed me that battle rap can also be incredibly high concept! These guys manage to throw in everything from religious metaphors to comic references to physics principles while still sounding aggressive! Granted, a lot of their bars went over the head of the crowd (and mines) but the lyricism is much appreciated. I know not everyone appreciates this more cerebral approach, but I would like to see at least a few more true-to-the-culture battle raps that go beyond gun bars. (The few they made here were like satire!)
Furthermore, there is just is an incredible amount of allusions to battle rap history and culture that is moreso meant for the opponent and other high-level rappers.
Power Over is what we usually think of power. “It is built on force, coercion, domination and control, and motivates largely through fear.”
Power With is the naturally shared power of cooperation. “It is built on respect, mutual support, shared power, solidarity, influence, empowerment and collaborative decision making”
Power To is the freedom to do things. It is built on the “unique potential of every person to shape his or her life and world”
Power Within is essentially self-esteem. It is built on “people having a sense of their own capacity and self-worth.”
As you can see… only the first one is deeply problematic.
Having Power Over others is what we have been indoctrinated to believe is natural and acceptable today… it is an inherently autocratic and coercive power, in which one person or group or society has the ability to constrain another person’s freedom. It causes massive amounts of problems because of course, most people naturally yearn for freedom. Furthermore, systems which justify this coercive power over others are predisposed to corruption. It can be abused even by folks with good intentions, and it naturally attracts those who seek out power (egotists, narcissists, psychopaths, and other authoritarians).
This is why even systems like democracy and capitalism, which are meant to enable ‘freedom’ of all people, devolve into what we see now: systems of majority rules, oligarchy, corporatism, deep levels of corruption, and lack of empathy in leadership. Any system that justifies Power Over is inherently a coercive system motivated by fear.
Because our society has power over others, justice is constrained and biased towards those who have that power. I'm sure I don’t have to point to all the many times when people in power got away with crimes, much less to the creation of laws that made it legal to do inherently inhumane acts of violence and coercion.
Propaganda will have you believe that the alternative is ‘lawlessness’ and ‘anarchy’ as if these were bad things. It makes you believe that despotism and violence is the natural result of a lawless society. But that is simply not true.
When you have societies that share power with others, then you have a system in which every individual feels heard and seen. You have a system in which people gain the ability and practice the skill of communicating their desires. Negotiation and social skills are at their prime when you cannot force people to do what you want through any other means. You must convince them and show them the mutual benefit. More importantly, you can’t just convince them once and use that as an excuse to take what you want, that person can at any time revisit the relationship to see if it still benefits them. Therefore, you have natural accountability towards those with temporary elevations of power. And temporary elevations of power are actually temporary rather than constantly growing.
Even when people do bad things, because you have established a deeper relationship with them, you are willing to still employ empathy to understand why. Even when they are punished, it is rarely ever a lifelong disfigurement. Furthermore, you are not concerned with trying to control people who you don't even know and don’t care about.
Our entire society is deeply unjust because of this prevalence of coercive power and lack of collaborative power. The fact that most people view power as inherently negative or to be held cautiously and responsibly shows you this problem. When you are collaborative with others, you don’t even have to remind yourself to hold that power cautiously, it's organically designed to be held responsibly. That's a good user experience.
Power corrupts only when that power is inherently coercive.
We need to create a society such that we no longer employ coercive power as a default.
I look forward to learning exactly how this can be done.
Why the Hiring/Application process is so bad
An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is often a parasitic system. I’m borrowing the term from game design. Parasitic Design is where a mechanic is introduced that doesn’t actually add to the rest of the game, but depends on the other, core mechanics to function. It often takes away from the core concepts because it requires you to use them in order to utilize the new mechanic. Furthermore, if you remove that system, it wouldn’t actually change much about the game.
ATS are similar because they depend on the organization’s existing hiring process, but don’t actually improve that process. If you had bad job descriptions, an ATS allows you to just send that to more people instead of rethink your job description. It encourages you to create a larger funnel instead of a more focused one. Because you’ve created a wider funnel, you now need an automated system like the ATS to filter through all those applications! Because you don’t have the time (or energy) to review each application personally, you set further requirements and auto-filters such as having a cover letter, a resume with specific keywords, certain years of experience, and so on. But each of these requirements are not *actually* what you are looking for, they are just abstractions and workarounds to get down to what you really want to know: is this person the right person for this job and this team. If so, can I afford them?
I’ve talked to hundreds of hiring managers and recruiters and talent acquisition folks. I’ve hired nearly a dozen people in various roles. I’ve read through hundreds of applications myself. This process is a mess on every side.
Hiring should not be a numbers game. Nor should it be an inception of abstractions (I need help with x, but I don’t know how to find that or describe that, so I’m going to try and get people that sorta kinda do x already, and they seem to have y amount of years of experience and z skills; I think I can find that by creating a job description with y and z and then throw in t - w because I might need those too, but I’m not sure if they really have that or if they’re just lying so I will ask them a - g to see if it sounds like it might be what I need and then… )
People come up with all sorts of ways to indirectly find the talent they need, and applicants have to play the game or figure out a way to cut through all the BS which usually takes a lot of time… time which is at a premium when your survival depends on being employed. It’s ridiculous.
I think we can begin (dis)solving this problem by going direct. That starts with the organization actually understanding what they do, and what they need. Instead of having some top-down (coercive) power structure where people who aren’t actually doing the work dictate what the business needs are, the people actually doing the work can directly look for what they need.
There needs to be more transparency, so the people doing the work know the budget constraints and how much is needed to hire, train, and retain people. Ideally, this budget can even be shared publicly so there is more accountability about fair pay. If you are worried about showing your pay, its probably because you are trying to hide unfair pay. Privacy is for individuals, not organizations. You don’t have to share exactly what each person makes if they don't want to, but it makes sense to show how much of the budget is allocated towards each team, position, and so on. Competitors don’t poach talent due to sheer pay, it's almost always the cherry on top in addition to perceived culture, work, and opportunity for growth.
Furthermore, there should be transparency in what the application process actually entails. That includes questions, challenges, and so on. If you’re worried about people ‘rehearsing’ their answers, you probably don’t have good questions. And of course you should always have follow up questions during the interview unique to each applicant. That’s just a natural result of active listening rather than just going through the motions.
There needs to be better relationship building. If there is a talent team, they should have a strong relationship with each functional team to have a very clear, ‘boots-on-the-ground’ understanding of what the job entails instead of having to guess and extrapolate from keywords. If there is no talent team, then the functional team should regularly be holding events, talks, career days, content creation, or some other means of establishing connections with people outside of the company who might be interested in working there one day. This is a long game that creates a ‘stockpile’ of potential talent, while at the same time making it easy for applicants to learn more about the organization and the team(s) they are interested in working with. This greatly reduces the guesswork and reinforces transparency.
Finally, there needs to be standardization of this process. Every interview should have the same framework with the same basic questions (per functional team). This allows you to not only ensure a fair process, but also allows you to compare answers between applicants and discern patterns between applicants that ended up becoming great (or not-so-great) hires. This allows you to develop more organic signals instead of depending on industry standards and societal signals like degrees that may not apply to your organization. At the same time, it allows you to be more critical and reflective of your own process to find biases that are poisoning your culture.
You can also standardize a specific time of year or frequency of hiring so that you can dedicate that time to hiring. This means you don’t have to disrupt the usual business operations with hiring tasks and can focus fully on your applicants. This of course creates a better applicant experience as well.
There is much more I can say about this, but I’ll leave it there for now.
😰 Failures and Concerns:
Productivity vs Emergence
I got some feedback directly by two different people about my attempts at being productive. These folks are unrelated and come from completely different backgrounds, so I found it really interesting they converged on this similar thing.
My partner, who knows me a lot, mentioned I should ‘let go’ and the other person, who I just met, but has taught me a lot about being a polymath and systems thinking, mentioned that I should focus more on ‘emergence’ rather than trying to be productive.
I am honestly not sure exactly how to do this and am taking some time to figure it out.
But so far, the idea of ‘being the system’ as opposed to juggling every piece of my system is resonating with me.
I think the problem they are seeing is that I am too focused on ‘being productive’ as a reaction to the expectations of where I want to go or what I should be doing. Instead, I should be letting my natural interests, curiosities, energy, work ethic, and so on, to lead the way. That feels scary… because I feel like I’ve been doing that already and I still am not where I want to be… I worry that I am not doing enough to get out of poverty and work on all of my big ideas. But I suppose I need to be patient, enjoy the process/journey, and truly live in the present, rather than the future.
Project Sankofa
My business idea has been stagnating. I’ve procrastinated on moving forward because I have been struggling to finish my research plan… not because its hard or don’t know what to do perse, but I’ve been second-guessing myself in regards to if I should even do an initiative research plan vs if I should build something out first and then test it.
I wanted to initially do research because too many products are built out on assumptions and they rarely ever fix fundamental issues (or even realize the product has fundamental issues) later on.
However, starting with research without a product also makes it quite difficult to focus the research, especially since the problem I am trying to solve is not something that is easily described and informed through typical market research.
I am trying to address existential, societal problems that need to be solved on a systematic level. It feels as if reducing it to a niche to start inherently fails to address the interconnected nature of the problem.
But idk… maybe I’m just overthinking things again.
Resigned to loneliness?
I worry about being alone. I have great friends and it's growing. I certainly feel more connected than the last time I talked about this problem, but I still feel it nonetheless. Particularly, I feel alone in my attempts to build a business. I feel as if I have to wait to build something before finding people who can help build it further… I sort of envy those founding teams that were friends for years and happened to have just the right skill sets to build something from scratch together. I wish I had those skillsets… I wish I had folks with those skill sets.
But I know there are plenty of solo founders, and me being sad about it is kind of pointless. I just need to be action biased, persistent, and patient.
Financial status
My little sister just bought her own car!! She has been saving up for the past year working as a waitress and has finally gotten herself a decent little Honda. I’m so proud of her!!
At the same time, I can’t help but to feel frustrated with myself as well. Even though I know I do not and never have wanted a car… and continuously make decisions to spend my money on my partner that I don’t regret… I still feel this nagging thought that I should have gotten my own car. This is especially frustrating because I know myself enough to know that I really really don't like driving for long periods of time. And I really hate the entire car culture. I hate that I live in a state that is car-dependent. I hate car insurance. I hate car maintenance and if I ever did buy a car, I’d regret it the entire time and feel even more disgusted with being talked into doing so.
Yet I still feel this feeling… this insecurity in myself, my goals,and my decisions. It’s so silly.
I guess what makes it so bad is that I have never been able to save up that amount of money. Not because I tend to splurge on myself, I rarely buy anything for myself, but instead because I find it incredibly difficult to not share when my loved ones ask me for money or if I can see that they clearly need something. I don’t regret doing so… but I wonder if I am too ‘indulgent’ or too much of a ‘people pleaser’ (perhaps that's not the right word for this). I always find a reason to spend money, usually it's a good reason… because people need to eat, because bills need to be paid, because I want to see my significant other, etc… But I also can’t help but to see how this makes me seem/feel really stupid when folks ask how much I haved saved up for making this or that big purchase and I don’t have anything.
It's so silly… but there it is.
I don't know what to change. If I really tried to save up my money, I would have to sacrifice things I am not willing to sacrifice.. Things that I would deeply regret even after achieving my goals. I don't think those are the right kind of sacrifices to make. I guess I just have to make more money! :/
I also have been trying to find roommates to move in with. I will need to live closer to the arcade once I start back working there. But rent is quite high these days. Furthermore, they typically require something like proof-of-income for 3 months showing that you make 2-3 times the rent!! So a $2000 apartment (average rent in Atlanta) would require me to make $6000 a month!! Smdh. Insane. So I am looking to move in with some roommates at least in the short term… but many places don’t allow couples. Which would really suck. And many other places prefer women, at least on sites like Roomies.com. I found some promising ones on Facebook Marketplace of all places… but this whole process is just terribly frustrating.
🎶 Favorite Songs/Artists This Week:
Lil Nas X Album Reveal!!! I am SO excited for this album. This man is a genius on SO many levels. Check out this epic album tracklist reveal! And that album art!!!! 😍
GRIP Album - I Died For This!? I enjoyed this album! I really appreciate the diversity of sound and the persistent storytelling throughout. I especially enjoyed IDFT!?, Momma Told Me!, JDTTINT!?, Walkthrough!, Patterns?, and Pennies… Exit Stage Left!?
Beggin - Måneskin I remember hearing this song by Madcon about 10 years ago in Step Up 2 and was surprised to hear it on the radio again. Check out this epic water dance scene from one of my all-time favorite dance movies!!
Kool G Rap - Cannon Fire & Assassination Day EPIC!! This OG is amazing and I can’t believe I never heard of him before. Check out his verses in these short Spited lyric highlights. Imma have to look up his whole discography now.
Samad Savage - Hi Kanye Another underground artist that I really enjoy. The way he captures Kanye throughout the ages is absolutely amazing.
Juno Reactor - Navras (M4RCOX Remix) My partner and I rewatched the matrix series… that’s a conversation for another newsletter haha, but the last one had a song playing that I absolutely enjoyed… sort of. This is the actual song, and it is soooo weird because it starts off with this epic operatic chorus, but then switches jarringly into some electronic house sounds for the rest of the song. Weird. But I really like the remixes that extend that epic intro.
Other Stuff I wanted to talk about:
Bad UX
Copycat design
The problem of design and the power of aesthetic bias
Blaming the user & lack of accessibility
How the Speed of Light should inspire you to question all of reality
Why do photons move at C?
Does relativity prove that time is an illusion and determinism is true?
Flipping reality around...
The folly (and evil) of binaries (and absolutes)
Numbers example
Evens vs Odds…
What if all even numbers are deemed ‘evil’ Why? How? What does that mean?
Autism, Schizophrenia, psychopathy, etc
A spectrum we all fall on rather than a binary ‘condition’
Evil (vs Good)
Justifying inhumane behaviour
Encouraging apathy
Hitler and North Korea
Abortion
WTF Texas?!
Regressing back into the dark ages (ie the ‘good ole days’ of the 20th century)
Sex Workers
OnlyFans
The need for legalized sex work
The Erosion/Problem of Privacy
Vaccines, how to handle disclosure
The Dehumanizing effects of analyzing ‘Risk’ through people’s private data
Updates on my Projects
Personal Branding
Streaming Intelligence (Learning out loud)
🔌 Always Be Plugging:
Thoughts of a TechnoWizard - Check out my (almost) daily audiojournal if you want to hear my unrefined, raw ‘train(wreck) of thought’
A More Delightful Future - Listen to interviews with incredible people designing emergent technologies.
Becoming a TechnoWizard - Watch me learn about all manner of things on my quest to build a better, more magical world on my YouTube.
Path of a Trillionaire/TechnoWizard - Feel free to support me on Patreon! If you think this is a lot, watch what I do when I have some actual money in my pockets!!
TechnoWizard on Twitch - I’m going to start streaming some of the things I am reading and learning, live!
The Journal of TechnoWizardry - If you like this newsletter, please share!!
Thanks SO Much for reading this!! At this rate, I’ll probably be writing entire novels in these ‘newsletters’ by the end of the year. 😅 😂 But um… lemme know if you’d actually like to see that. I enjoy sharing so many of my thoughts here, but do you?
