I would like to explore the mental tools that help us solve problems and create things. Have you any that you use?
One that I like is an intuition pump it is a special type of thought experiment designed by philosopher Daniel Dennett to bypass formal logical argument and lead people to a strong intuitive conclusion.
Dennett published a 2013 book titled Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, which compiles 77 of his favorite thinking tools and thought experiments covering the mind, free will, evolution, and meaning.
I use a design spiral a lot in design work. But can’t post photos yet so I can’t show the outcome of I do with it in design work.
The design spiral in engineering is an iterative process model—most famously created by naval architect Harry Evans in 1959—where a complex design is repeatedly refined through successive loops that grow closer to a final, optimized solution.
The design spiral is sequence of
operations is often referred to as a spiral, where the designer runs through all the design steps and then returns to the starting point, where upon a new ‘turn’ begins. After several turns the process may have produced the desired result.
This is DIOTIMA a sailboat I designed and it’s half model, concept drawing, construction line and plans.
The naval architectural ratios I did without a 3D modeling long program
Then I did a 1:4 scale model because I don’t have enough money by to lose on a wooden sailboat.
SONG OF MYSELF
WALT WHITMAN
“380 This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
381 This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.”
As far as I’m concerned you’re a 1-man-band, an all-rounder. I’m more of a theorist and it’s rare to find someone who’s both the brains and the brawn of a project.
Your sail-boat is absolutely amazing! I’ve built boats too, origami boats and that’s about it. I remember myself as a child, wanting to build a flying machine. I’d even collected the parts, but I’d overestimated my own engineering skills and that was that - a big 0.
I admire Dennett though it seems he and I disagree on some issues like AI - the 22nd century’s newest tool. Yes, he’s known for making intuitive arguments. One intuition pump of his is using ordinary objects - like paintings - as aids to understanding. Did you watch his Bacteria to Bach talk? He compares a termite castle in Australia to the Familia Sagrada in Spain. In one of his first ever youtube lectures he uses a painting to show how consciousness is an illusion. It seems what look like humans from afar are simply blobs of paint on closeup examination.
Scorpion
Thanks,
We all have our failures and we all be broken.
Sailing is a part of me and my children have never known not sailing.
Opening stanza of the poem
“Ships” by Robert Rose
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made,
For somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid, A soul that sings with the ship along through plunging hills of blue,
And fills her canvas cups of white with winds that drive her through."
Sailing has helped me with the broken parts.
Here is my rendering of the famous staysail schooner NINA designed by legendary American naval architect W. Starling Burgess at the Needles lighthouse off the coast of the Isle of Wight UK.
If you look closely at the right hand side of the lighthouse, most of it is missing I thank you for drawing that in with your brain because I still have a lot to draw on it.
She was lost at sea with all hands on board and I pray they all had a coin for the Osman.
Ups and downs, just like the waves.
I was into poetry too but now I almost never read poems. I half-remember a pirate song about 15 men on dead man’s chest and row, row, row your boat is one of my favorite nursery rhymes.
I was introduced to lost ships by Charles Berlitz, who wrote a book on The Bermuda Triangle. As a young man I was fascinated by tales of ships disappearing with the entire crew. Later, as my eyes grew more accustomed to the light so to speak, I realized that many of the stories were embellished to make them stranger and more mysterious. Probably to boost book sales. It’s like one knows, deep down, that one needs at least 1 coin for that last boat ride. Charon won’t be denied his fare,
We would put a Charon’s obol under the mast to pay the ferryman for passage across the River Styx.
I was reading some Mary Oliver poetry last week. Some of her poems are intuition pumps and have changed the voice and rhythm in side my head before. This one stands out today.
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Here is a new mind tool I have drawn into my head. I use art to channel thoughts for specific outcomes like design. I have started drawing portraits and here in the drawing below I used some optical illusion from da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The eyes follow you because they are slightly offset. In her smile he uses an effect called “sfumato” a smoky effect that allows the corners of the mouth to forum a smile when your eyes glance away from the a mouth that is not a smile. Didn’t do well with the smile because the mustache gets in the way.
I don’t mean to imply I am anything like da Vinci but he is my friend now.
First You have To Row A Little Boat
For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.
And so in time the rowboat and I became one and the same-like the archer and his bow or the artist and his paint. What I learned wasn’t mastery over the elements; it was mastery over myself, which is what conquest is ultimately all about.
Richard Bode
Shove me into shallow water.
These are all free, floating rationales, bottom up thinking, and usually leads to nowhere but for an artist they can be essential tools for creativity.
Then after collecting thoughts you moved to a top down bottom up Modus operandi and hopefully something comes out the other end. You have to find some method to the madness to create for a lifetime.
For-thought leds one to for-knowledge.
The design spiral modus operandi is to.
Struggle: complete a turn of the spiral.
Release: do something enjoyable. I would suggest go sailing.
Return: to the spiral and view its compositions in a space time model.
Repeat:
I find asking my myself what is the quality, quantity, relationships, and modality of each component of the spiral helps me to understand how and if they fit together appropriately.
I used a design spiral for project in my custom design and build furniture company. Here is an armoire I did And the spiral was a great tool to give me peace of mind that the project was going smoothly.
A Story Told in Wood.
The Solid Walnut Armoire I design and built in Victorian revival style.
A story in wood of the Arthurian myth as told by Gawain and others.
The lower section is about Merlin’s encounter with Uther Pendragon and the building of a castle by Arthur father Askanar. The two hidden dragon eggs under mountain were it was to be built.
Excalibur is the sword that divides the doors and extends into the lower sections connection the two story of Arthur and Merlin.
The upper section is about Arthur Camelot, as you look at each carving you can attribute them to Arthur story. The handle are dogwood flowers for the christ, shields are for the Knights of the Round Table, columns are for the Camelot, Excalibur connect the two stories together with the story of sword and the stone, on the hilt of Excalibur is a lions head is for Arthur, a top of that is a clock for the round table its self, and the finials are the for the grail and the search of the pure of heart.
I’ve become interested in Zettelkasten and the world of personal knowledge management (PKM). Zettelkasten is the idea behind note-taking apps like Obsidian, which is what I’ve been using in my own implementations.
The idea is you have folder full of notes (just text files), which are hyperlinked to each other, creating a navigable web. Structure comes from the connections, not from any folder hierarchy. It’s non-linear, decentralized, and infinitely extendable. Organizing ideas becomes a matter of associations, not classifications.
To be honest, I’m not sure to what extent I am implementing a true Zettelkasten and to what extent it helps in everyday life anyway. I do use it, but I think I enjoy the idea of it more than anything else. I find it interesting partly because its history is connected with philosophy and social science. Walter Benjamin used something similar for writing his Arcades Project, and Niklas Luhmann was central to its development (I think it was his version that became the model for apps like Obsidian). On top of that, the resulting structure, which can be represented by a graph view, is rhizomatic in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari. Here is one of mine:
However, it wasn’t rhizomes I was interested in, but constellations, Benjamin’s concept that was taken up by Adorno. I found that using Obsidian’s local graph view, which centres the graph on a selected node/note, I could represent constellations quite well:
I don’t actually know if implementing these is a way of understanding things and concepts such as factories and reification, or if it’s a way of visualizing the method of constellations so as to understand Adorno—or both.
I really like these models and I like the fact that Benjamin use the term constellations to describe his model.
The night sky constellations are Memory Anchors like Argo Navis Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts. They hold information of many types telling us how to navigate, track the changing seasons, map regions of the night sky, and morality tales. Storing information and opening dopamine pathways. “The information of humanity in space-time”. Quite the trick and great a model for mining and storing information.
and that’s about it. I remember myself as a child, wanting to build a flying machine. I’d even collected the parts, but I’d overestimated my own engineering skills and that was that - a big 0.
