[ recap ]

Last week we looked at David Bowie's advice: never play to the gallery, and if you feel safe in what you're making, you're not working in the right area.

George Hotz's essay argued that AI will produce all the derivative, safe work for free. What's left is work that only someone with conviction could make.

[ thoughts ]

One of my current favourite websites is Antikythera - a site that documents ancient computing mechanisms, consciousness research, and intelligence theory. The site presents Blaise Agüera y Arcas's book "What is Intelligence?" as an interactive web experience.

The book's central argument: intelligence isn't one thing. It's not a single measurement or fixed capacity. It's multiple systems processing information in different ways, perceiving different patterns, navigating different kinds of complexity.

This connects to Aldous Huxley's idea from "The Doors of Perception." He described consciousness as a "reducing valve" - the brain filters out most of reality just so you can function. You're not perceiving everything. You're perceiving what your current filter allows through.

Perception is active filtering. And if Huxley is right, then changing your perceptual filter changes what problems you can see and what solutions become visible.

This matters because being stuck on a problem often means you're using the wrong filter. The problem hasn't changed. Your way of looking at it needs to.

[ creativity ]

Three people I've shared clips from recently at @contemporary.blueprint:

Alan Moore talks about writing as consciousness modification: "You are modifying the consciousness of the reader, and therefore, modifying the reality of the reader."

He's saying you're not reporting reality, you're actually creating it. Every sentence is an instruction for how to think. The question isn't "is this accurate?" but "what does this make people think?"

Arundhati Roy on the writer's job: "The world is very busy classifying and codifying and putting people into silos. It's our job to be unpopular. It's our job to stand alone and say what we really think."

When consensus wants you silent, your job is to speak. The crowd's approval becomes a warning sign.

Anthony Bourdain on risk and receptivity: "If you won't risk a bad meal, you'll never find the magical one. Stay humble and grateful, and remember you're probably the least prepared person in the room."

Accept what you don't understand. Risk the bad experience. Assume you're the least prepared person present. The uncertainty is where you find something real.

[ making ]

Take a project you're stuck on and look at it through one of these three filters:

Moore's filter: What does this make people able to think? Not what it says, but what it makes thinkable. Write one sentence describing what becomes possible in someone's mind after they engage with this.

Roy's filter: What are you not saying because you want to be liked? List three things you're avoiding. Don't explain why. Just list them.

Bourdain's filter: What's the version of this that scares you? Not the safe version. The one where you don't know if it works. Describe it in one paragraph.

Pick one filter. Apply it. Write it down.

Huxley called consciousness a reducing valve - you filter reality to function. These three filters change what you can see. The same filter shows you the same problem.

[ sign off ]

Moore, Roy, and Bourdain clips are available at The Contemporary Blueprint.

See you next Sunday, anonymous reader.