We Don’t All Write for the Same Reasons

I had been meaning to write about Why, Where, and What I Write for quite a long time. This was partly to clarify my own thinking about writing. But it was also because I think the topic is relevant to this blog. Not just in describing it. But because here we deal with cognitive productiveness — and writing is a big part of that.

So, in response to a discourse topic over at Mac Power Users, earlier today, here at CogZest, I finally wrote and published what you’ve all been waiting for 🙂 Why, Where, and What I Write. I wrote the document as a web page rather than a blog post because it will necessarily evolve. I will write in new places. I will later share more information about why I write (partly out of gaining more clarity myself). But the document, with respect to motivation, will never be complete.

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Draft Manifesto for Integrative Design-oriented Cognitive Science and AI

This post briefly describes an approach to studying minds and designing artificial ones; the need to name this approach; the term integrative design-oriented as the name for the approach; and the need for a manifesto regarding the approach. In the main, it points to a draft manifesto.

For many years I was dissatisfied with the name I used to refer to a certain approach to human mind (cognitive science and AI). How we name scientific concepts is actually quite important. In Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective, I referred to the approach as “broad cognitive science”.[1] I used the term “broad” to convey an attempt to understand a wide spectrum of capabilities that are often treated in isolation from each other under the banners of “cognition”, “affect” (“emotion” / “attitudes”, “moods”), “motivation”, “volition”, “executive functions”, etc. The approach means not to study these functions in isolation from each other, but as interacting and often blended mechanisms. By “cognitive science” I also meant an expansive approach to understanding human mind — one that is truly interdisciplinary and computational.

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