thinking is an active pursuit — one that often happens when you are spending long stretches of time staring into space, then writing a bit, and then staring into space a bit more. It’s here that the connections are made and the insights are formed. And it is a process that stubbornly resists automation.
it is probably a mistake, in the end, to ask software to improve our thinking. Even if you can rescue your attention from the acid bath of the internet; even if you can gather the most interesting data and observations into the app of your choosing; even if you revisit that data from time to time — this will not be enough. It might not even be wort... See more
Human minds are not elusive, ghostly inner things. They are seething, swirling oceans of prediction, continuously orchestrated by brain, body, and world . We should be careful what kinds of material, digital, and social worlds we build, because in building those worlds we are building our own minds too.
The framework for Strategic Intuition calls the moment before a creative spark a state of ‘presence of mind’, a moment in which diffuse-mode thinking connects the dots. Research suggests this is a pretty common occurrence:
In a 2019 study, 98 professional writers and 87 physicists recorded their most creative idea each day, as well as what they wer