Monday, December 01, 2008

Channels of Reality

The channels of reality seem to fall into three distinct categories:

1. Input

That which is given, including what we give ourselves: Starting identity and Channels of interaction.
What Is.


2. Agency

Action.
To SEPARATE from that which is given.
To do.


3. Communion

Identity.
To JOIN with that which exists.
To become.


RESTLESSNESS | EQUILIBRIUM
We spin endlessly in this cycle in the hopes that movement will place us at a location that minimizes the need for maintenance. When we find that spot of equilibrium, the world makes sense and our relationship with the universe feels stable.

ENTITLEMENT | ADAPTATION
Sometimes, the world challenges the identity that we have established by violating the boundaries defined by the moral authority of our internal compass. When the code is broken, we have a choice to make: Either assert the correctness of our own code or accommodate the perceived usage pattern that has manifested from the input.

THE TRAP | THE CHOICE
We are trapped when there are no more choices to make.

Beliefs are a choice. It is the first choice we make.
  • The Concepts we believe influence the Inputs we choose to perceive.
  • The Inputs we perceive direct the Actions we choose to take.
  • The Actions we take dictate the Person that we choose to become.
  • That Person we become is a testament to the Concepts we believe in.
Identity is a choice. We will revise that choice often throughout our lifetime.

Friday, October 17, 2008

The Designer's Intended Value

Can a quality product be completed without a designer? Sure, if one of two things were true:
  1. Everybody on the production team was fully capable of cohesively visualizing the ramifications of their component before actually implementing it
  2. There was infinite time to iterate on the implementation of bad ideas until they become good ideas
Time is rarely infinite and trusting everyone on the team to maintain a cohesive vision of the product can be a gamble. For that reason, most projects will involve people whose role it is to supplement the team's ability to visualize the details before time is spent on the implementation of those details.

Depending on the industry, these people are called Producers, Directors, Project Managers, or Designers. The idea is that the cost of thinking is cheaper than the cost of doing production work before finding out that it was a bad idea, solution, or plan. The consequence of bad design is a bad product at best and an unfinished product at worst.

So... what are the broad metrics of a designer?
  • Pre-Visualization: Using associative cognition to set a good target in conjunction with analysis of resources to ensure that the target is completed in a form that satisfies the original aesthetic/pragmatic intent. Resources include time, people, tools, and feedback. Iteration can't be avoided, but it does have a cost associated with it. Therefore, one who is really good at pre-visualizing will be of higher value than one who does not hone this ability at all.
  • Two-Way Communication/Relationships: Debates will happen. People will not blindly follow. Reading minds is not standard practice. The designer is not always correct and is unlikely to know everything. Unless the designer is going to implement everything her/himself, this person will need to deal with people factors.
Nobody is perfect, and the same holds true for any Designer, Programmer, Artist, or whatever it is that describes any function for a human being.

The designer is the person who can hold it all in the head and communicate it to a team of collaborators: Scheduling, Planning, Creative Direction... these are all skill sets that can be contained in one person but may need to be delegated to others for large projects. Knowing when to delegate is key along with other skills such as knowing when to take a gamble or cut losses.

In Japan, this job function is not called "designer". Instead, they are called "planners". This seems to be a more accurate term as the emphasis of the function is not on creativity as much as it is on problem solving.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Going Meta

  1. If you live in a one dimensional world and go meta on that world, then you imagine what a second dimension must feel like by making conjectures about how occurrences in one dimension may have repercussions on that one dimension based on calculations that involve a hypothetical second dimension
  2. Similarly, if you live in a two dimensional world and go meta on that world, you imagine a third dimension where things are happening in the two dimensions based on effects/occurrences within the third dimension
  3. If we consider time to be the fourth dimension. Then going meta on the current state of our three dimensional world is merely taking time into account as we make our calculations of current state as a function of time.
  4. We could take time into account for our calculations of a one dimensional world or two dimensional world. It is possible to go meta on any non-apparent dimension for any existing model of current state because meta is merely taking a dimension into account that has always been there whether it is perceived or not
  5. Perception is in the eye of the beholder. Reality is what you choose to believe. We all live in our own delusions whether we believe that or not. The simulation model of current state is merely a delusion that we choose to believe based on stimulus and perceptual filters. We need a simulation model in order to predict states as a function of imperceptible dimensions
  6. We have the option to deal with the complexity of personal relationships by "going meta" on them. We can do this by believing in a personal model that is congruent with our current stimuli and perceptual filters:
    • We have, within each of us, the ability to broadcast signals that can be absorbed by others
    • We absorb signals generated by others
    • Signals we absorb will influence future generated signals from ourselves
    • All of us are universal broadcasters, capable of broadcasting signals that we have never absorbed, but major factors that determine the broadcast probability of a specific signal are...
      • Proximity of the receiver to the sender
      • Past absorption of that particular signal within the sender
      • Frequency of past instances of signal broadcasts from the sender
      • Sender's awareness of the signal potential
    • Every signal we are capable of broadcasting can be involuntarily broadcasted in a way that conflicts with our intentions. This occurs most often when the sender is not aware of the signal's existence or does not comprehend its potential repercussions
    • There are no absolute good signals or bad signals... those definitions come entirely from the receiver based on the receiver's personal reality which derives its criteria from past stimuli and perceptual filters.
    • Although the sender's criteria for positive and negative may conflict with the receiver's criteria, neither criteria can be said to be more valid than the other as they are both derived from personal delusions of potentially equal conviction.
    • Existing in a bubble without any outreach to society means that you will not affect society in any way, which means that you will not generate signals that enter the societal consciousness of signal flow, which means that the burden of acknowledging your existence falls solely on the self... if you were to exist within a self-contained bubble
    • Survival is not enough: The self is an insufficient validator of existence. Our species is hard wired to be externally motivated. Thousands of years of societal breeding have favored humans who are willing to do things for other humans. To give ourselves a reason to wake up in the morning, we are compelled to validate our own existence by generating signals within the range of valid receivers so that we can feel a sense of agency in the world that goes beyond just mere survival.