THOUGHTSIGNS ENTERPRISES

ThoughtEnActmentä Technology

[Modifed from Fred Reed’s “ThoughtWeaver” documents]

 

Introduction

This document introduces a new cloud-based Knowledge Development tool--ThoughtEnActmentä (abbreviated as TEnA)--as a further development and combination of several prior AutoGnome-based technologies including TrueThinker (knowledge management), ThoughtWeaver (ideation), and Dewey (collective inquiry).

[The AutoGnome (a Virtual Mind Clone) is a self(auto)-knowing(gnome) software system capable of autonomous inquiry, inference and intuition.]

 

Background

What problem does ThoughtEnActmentä address?

Web search (e.g., Google search) and social media (e.g. Twitter) technology have greatly accelerated the democratization of information, enabling new patterns of activity such as citizen science, prosumers (producers & consumers), and crowdsourcing. However, while this technology has enhanced capabilities to create, find, and share information, it does little to directly support creating new ideas and solving problems. For example, keyword search is highly effective for finding content when one has a clear idea of what one is looking for, but is useless when what is sought is not yet imaginable, let alone describable in specific keywords. While social applications such as StackOverflow help people solve problems, they do so by enabling and organizing distributed and asynchronous communications that are essentially the same as unaided face-to-face conversation. In other words, there is little direct support for the special processes related to generating creative solutions to difficult and ill-defined challenges. There is a long history of research and development of methods and processes aimed at enhancing “creativity”, but no solution has emerged that successfully exploits cloud infrastructure and emerging software capabilities.

We believe the fundamental problem preventing a breakthrough knowledge development application is conceptual, not technological. As long as “information” and “knowledge” are treated as objective content to be stored and transmitted via the cloud, the mysterious processes by which they come to be will remain hidden within the personal thoughts and actions of users of applications. The AutoGnome-based TEnA solution, however, is based on a radically different concept that integrates the subjective, intuitive, pragmatic, and creative nature of knowledge and information with the distributed computational power of the human-computer symbiotic cloud (technology and it’s users).

What are the potential benefits?

On an individual level, TEnA:

·         Facilitates and encourages a systematic and full process of ideation;

·         Captures the ongoing flow of ideation in a recoverable (and machine-interpretable) way to enable continuity of ideation over much longer periods of time and experimentation to overcome personal constraints on time and effort;

·         Exploits the cloud as a source of “proto-ideas” for incorporation into the user’s creative process in order to both avoid reinventing the wheel, as well as provide confidence that new ideas are genuinely novel;

·         Maps out the spread of social knowledge in order to both better ground the user’s thinking in broader consensus as well as conversely nudge such thinking in new and creative directions (i.e., ‘thinking outside the box’).

At a social level, TEnA:

·         Provides an explicit and transparent means for collaboration on all levels and phases of ideation and problem   solving;

·         Provides a rich archive of the ideation process to facilitate communication and argument for new ideas to   others;

·         Allows others to pick up trains of thought where others left off, or re-open such trains of thought (and resultant ideas) when new needs, conditions or capabilities emerge.

What’s the basic idea?

The basic idea behind TEnA is that the abstract theory of signs and sign processes laid out by Charles Peirce, Gene Pendergraft, and others, can be used to instantiate a relatively simple, concrete, but general process for ideation.  By itself, any tool for encouraging and guiding effective user behavior through this generalized process gains important benefits through completeness and consistency of habits.  In addition, by using social networking and web content as a reflection of the community in which ideation occurs, additional benefits are obtained through greater social awareness and variety.  And finally, by closely integrating human and machine representations (and ultimately mechanized thought!), additional benefits are gained through opportunities for machine-mediated human-to-human communication and collaboration, human-machine symbiosis, and ultimately any-to-any social collaboration in virtual communities of humans and intelligent machines.

ThoughtEnActment design

What are the important components of creativity?

At the base of the process of ideation embodied in TEnA are Peirce’s three categories, which for present purposes are called: Possibles, Examples, and Reasons. Every ideation or problem solving process will incorporate signs representing thoughts of these three types into a more complete Idea.

Possibles are conceptual building blocks that are selected and combined into more specific and complete ideas. 

Examples are specific combinations of Possibles brought together through the motivation of satisfying Reasons.

Reasons are the non-specific goals driving the thought process, such as desire to improve something or fulfill an unmet desire.

Another important distinction in TEnA is between the contexts in which thoughts (or, more specifically, signs representing such thoughts) are held: Communal, Personal, and Inquiry. The Communal context is that part of thoughts that are generally shared in a community through signs (e.g., words). But, TEnA users might differ on the relative Personal significance and meaning of such thought-signs, and each of those individuals might differ in what they are Inquiring about.

How are the components related?

Each of the first three categories (Possibles/Examples/Reasons) have a “life” in one or more of the contexts, taking on potentially different shades of meaning, value, significance, etc. in each such context. When certain Possibles are selected for a Reason in the context of an Inquiry, they become potential Features of an outcome of the inquiry. Similarly, when an Example is selected as satisfying some Reason, it is said to be a potential Solution. In general, the process behind TEnA is an iterative one that flows from Communal Possibles, Reasons, and Examples through the Personal and Inquiry contexts; while “weaving” new elements—either new to this inquiry, or completely new--into more complete Ideas through the intermediate stages of Features and Solutions.

What is the process that TEnA enables?

At the start, there must be some initiation of the ideation process on one or more user’s part.  They might have a general need they want to fulfill (i.e., starting with a Reason), or some new capability they want to exploit (i.e., as a possible Feature of a new idea), or some existing solution they want to improve or build on (i.e., starting with an Example). From any starting point, the Communal universe of ideas and their components is usually the raw material for weaving new ideas, as it is more efficient than starting with a blank slate. The inquirer will then select and interpret these thoughts Personally and in the context of the Inquiry at hand.  The result is an aggregate of selected Possibles, Reasons and Examples that are the focus of the first iteration of ideation. From this focus-in-context, the user further relates existing or novel Possibles and Examples with Reasons to form new potential Features and Solutions.  They may also iteratively value thoughts within each category (e.g., value one Feature more than another). Finally, when valued Features and Solutions are brought into conscience awareness, certain collections of them may begin to coalesce into more complete Ideas. At every iteration, the user will re-examine or add to previous judgments—such as selecting new thought-signs from the communal universe (or adding their own new thoughts to the mix); re-valuing and creating new potential Features and Solutions; and finally improving existing Ideas or creating new ones.

Such a process may proceed through the effort of one or many users bound to a common Inquiry (e.g., a family looking for a better vacation destination) with TEnA support. Perhaps more importantly, TEnA facilitates across inquiries and their respective user(s) by not only constantly building up and maintaining the Communal context in which Inquiry procedes, but also proposing relations between users and their Inquiries such as suggesting Features and Examples that others have valued for similar Reasons (e.g., travel destinations and features others have found novel or interesting).

How is the MindCloneä  to be used?

By observing how an individual or community selects, combines, values, and relates elements within the ideation process, an AutoGnomic MindClone can over time create a synthetic mind with similar habits of thought and action.  With this knowledge, the MindClone can anticipate the habits of the user (or community in general) to perform a number of potentially valuable services:

·         Make recommendations for new Possibles, Reasons, and Examples in the communal universe to be brought into the context of the inquiry;

·         Suggest Features, Solutions and eventually Ideas as starting points for user ideation and refinement;

·         Re-direct attention to non-habitual thoughts to help think “outside the box”;

·          Suggest opportunities for collaboration with like- (or unlike-) minded persons working on similar inquiries;

·         Gather and share information with other MindClones autonomously in “virtual collaboration”.