New ideas & novel perspectives

Yo,

Welcome to The Catalyst.

Today we’ll be exploring:

• How to conceive new ideas

• Digital brains & tools for thought

• AI’s weakness 🤝 Our strength

Thanks for taking the time.

Enjoy.

🧪⚡️🧪

EPIPHANIES

• Your mind is your most valuable asset.

  • New ideas and novel perspectives are where the diamonds are hiding.

• Obsession is the greatest competitive advantage.

  • Only the obsessed can compete with the obsessed.

• Evolution now operates on culture, not biology. 

  • Memes evolve infinitely faster than genes.

• “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.” -Jung

  • "Most people are afraid of the unconscious. This is what artists mediate and control." -Terence Mckenna

• Growth begins when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change.

GNOSIS

How to Think New Thoughts

Creators that make a significant impact don’t just share ideas they’ve learned from others.

They take what they learn to form new ideas and novel perspectives.

AI is monopolizing the knowledge of the world.

What’s a creator to do?

Think new thoughts.

The currency of the future is in ideas that do not yet exist.

It’s up to you to create them.

Idea Synthesis

The Hegelian dialectic is an evolutionary process, and it goes like this:

Thesis → Antithesis → Synthesis

So, you learn something new.

An idea.

That’s the thesis.

The antithesis is a contrasting or opposing idea.

Or it can be a different, seemingly unrelated idea.

Synthesis is achieved when those two ideas combine to form a higher idea.

A new idea.

That new idea (synthesis) becomes the new thesis, which gives rise to a new antithesis, and the cycle repeats ad infinitum.

This is how minds and ideas evolve.

Thought Leaders Lead with New Ideas

If you’re simply sharing ideas you find elsewhere, you’re a thought follower, not a thought leader.

Thought leaders lead with new ideas.

And new ideas are birthed at the intersection of existing ideas.

Knowledge Systems

The best way to reliably conceive new ideas is to leverage systems.

It’s common to consume content, get new ideas, and then go straight to creating and publishing.

What’s missing is a step and process between consumption and creation:

Conception.

This is how new ideas are born.

Tools for Thought

Over the last few years, a ton of new note-taking apps have been gaining traction.

These apps have been given the title “tools for thought.”

And that’s exactly what they are.

They’re a quantum leap forward compared to a physical notebook or old-school apps like Apple Notes

This new wave of apps are designed to create a non-linear network of notes and ideas.

The secret sauce is that you can link notes together in various ways, allowing you to quickly traverse notes and form new connections.

With the right system, new ideas practically invent themselves.

This networked approach to note-taking mirrors the human brain.

That’s also why these tools are often called “second brains”.

They enable you to create an interconnected network of notes and ideas, which become a source of endless inspiration and idea generation.

New ideas and novel perspectives aren’t the only thing these systems are good for.

With the right approach, you can use your second brain to create content faster and easier than ever before.

You’ll never sweat over a blank page again.

Getting to a first draft is a walk in the park, because all your ideas are in your second brain, waiting for your curation and composition into publishable content.

It’s like DJing your own ideas.

I’ll be sharing my setup and workflow, but that’s a big topic for another day.

AI Monopolizes Old Ideas

AI is changing every industry on the planet. Fast.

Endless new opportunities are unfolding, while an increasing number of careers are being automated to oblivion.

One domain that is due for disruption?

Education.

AI will soon be a better teacher than most teachers.

It will know all the world’s knowledge, and be able to instantly create custom curriculums based on a student unique needs.

So what does that mean for creators, educators and knowledge workers?

It means we need to start playing a different game.

No Ghost in the Machine

What do we have that AI doesn’t?

Mind.

Consciousness.

The ability to have divergent thoughts and hold novel perspectives.

Thinking things that have never been thought.

Connecting things that have never been connected.

Imagination, genius and soul.

AI is just a supercomputer that stores, reads and writes information that we invented.

It can remix those ideas, but it is incapable of thinking new thoughts and inventing new ideas.

Why?

Because thought requires consciousness.

AI doesn’t think.

It reads, remixes, regurgitates and calculates.

Only humans can think.

AI’s Weakness is Our Strength

No matter how fast it can compute, AI will never be conscious, and therefore it will never be able to invent new ideas, concepts and philosophies.

That’s where we have the advantage.

AI is a great teacher and assistant, but it will never be a philosopher.

As AI becomes more pervasive, it will become increasingly challenging to be a knowledge worker or educator if you’re not inventing the ideas, concepts, systems and philosophies that you publish.

When it comes to ideas, focus on genesis (thinking new thoughts) and synthesis (connecting thoughts in new ways).

Then put it out into the world and let AI do its job.

VIBES

Music makes the world go ‘round

Music is my deepest obsession.

(My work desk is 95% music gear, 5% laptop - if that says anything.)

Music the closest thing I’ve found to be a universal language, besides mathematics.

Leibniz was onto something when he said “music is the hidden arithmetical exercise of a mind unconscious that it is calculating.”

Music is a magical thing indeed.

Can’t live without it.

Thirsty?

Here, have some music.

It’ll quench your soul:

TOOLS

Work smarter.

Obsidian - A second brain and writing experience that is designed to last lifetimes.

Excalidraw - Create diagrams and graphics fast with a simple hand-drawn look. There’s an excellent plugin that brings Excalidraw inside of Obsidian.

Typefully - I’ve tried all the Twitter scheduling apps, and this one takes the cake. Gorgeous UI, amazing writing experience, minimal and focused.

READS

Expand your mind

100 Simple Truths - A collection of thought-provoking truths written by Traf. Ex: “6. Being creative is just combining interest with initiative.”

Feck Perfuction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life - A book by James Victore on getting out of your own way and making art that matters.

The Do Books - A collection of brilliant books that encourage and inspire.

Cyber Patterns - A newsletter about internet culture, memes and the digital renaissance.

Don’t just write words. Write music.

This sentence has five words.

Here are five more words.

Five-word sentences are fine.

But several together become monotonous.

Listen to what is happening.

The writing is getting boring.

The sound of it drones.

It’s like a stuck record.

The ear demands some variety.

Now listen.

I vary the sentence length, and I create music.

Music.

The writing sings.

It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.

I use short sentences.

And I use sentences of medium length.

And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals – sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

^{-Gary Provost}

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