Everything is storytelling15 days beforeEverything is storytelling. It’s all a little bit of a lie, a…The Upper Limit Of Understanding

Change2022If you’ve read my stories before, you may recognize the familiar stair-step…Mental models2022I use the term “mental models” a lot, and so I figured…Everything is storytelling2019Everything is storytelling. It’s all a little bit of a lie, a…The System of Self2019Here’s a checkpoint for Archeology of Self, a marker of where I’ve…Walking down the yellow-brick road of everything being storytelling, I stumbled into a handy metaphor of system models. If my Self is a complex adaptive system and the reality outside is also such a system, my lifelong process of meaning-making could be viewed as asymptotically constructing a more accurate model of reality. Let’s unpack that.

The OODA Loop2021One of the lenses for which I tend to reach frequently is…This is a story of interaction between two systems: the Self and the Context. The Self is well, me. The Context is the reality. The Self is receiving signals from the Context as the Input, and the Context is receiving Signals from the Self as the Output.

On the Riverbank2019I am on the riverbank. In front of me, a river of…For example, there could be some sensory Input (seeing an apple), and then some action as an Output (reaching for an apple). This interaction of two systems is continuous, with many inputs and outputs happening in parallel, like a river.

Some Inputs are nourishing to Self, and some are harmful or even fatal, a SIGKILL of sorts. Given no other recourse, the Self makes a significant assumption: that it can influence the Context by varying its Output. Having this influence motivates Self to learn to predict the Input based on the Output. Thus, from the perspective of Self, the name of the game is Understanding, or learning how the Context works.

How we engage with LLMs2023When we engage with an LLM with an Opportunist Mind, we are…To excel at this game, the Self constructs a meaning-making device: a Context Model. It’s an internal proxy for the Context and is used to evaluate the Input and discern an Output. It’s the vehicle for answering the question: “What is the meaning of this Input within this Context, and what is the appropriate Output that influences the Context most effectively?”

For example, I hear a driver behind me honking. The Context Model helps me make meaning of what might be happening (“they want me to hurry up and move”), and select an appropriate action (“curse them under my breath”).

The Relationship Polarity2021I’ve been feeling a little stuck in my progress with the Four…Transformational Learning2020Building on the ideas in The Suffering of Expectations, I want to…With such a setup, the accuracy of the Context Model becomes paramount, and the Self is highly motivated to continuously improve upon it. Thus, the Context Model is constantly developing. The inputs that are congruent with the model’s current structure are used to reinforce it. The inputs that aren’t congruent challenge it and eventually spur a structural change within the Context Model: a transformation. I say “eventually” because I notice that the model is naturally resistant to change. I see that often, the incongruent inputs are being re-fed back into the model from memories, appearing in consciousness as fretful relitigations of past conversations or actions, beating myself up, etc. These are useful signals indicating that the model as it exists today is due for re-structuring.

Model compression and us2022I wonder if the nadir of the hero’s journey is marked by…Model flattening2021If you know me, you were probably expecting me to inevitably stir…Touching infinity2022As we explore the process of understanding, it may not be immediately…Each transformation brings more complexity to the model. The model becomes more subtle, more attuned to, more representative of Context. What used to be a matter of primitive impulses becomes connected through causal chains. What used to be concrete becomes abstract. What used to be a strict taxonomy becomes a cross-categorical cloud. The Model’s complexity grows over time.

Life of a solution2022Looking at the framework in the previous piece, I am noticing that…A Classroom for Humanity2019Why is it that some people are unable to see a different…Because the Self contains the Context Model, the complexity of the Self increases as the model transforms. From this perspective, in its process of continuous development of the Context Model, the Self strives to at least match the complexity of Context. Within the Game of Understanding is the drive to grow and develop, based on this fundamental assumption: if the Self becomes as complex as the Context, it will be capable of containing an accurate Context Model, which produces perfectly effective Outputs and predicts every Input.

To put it in more dramatic terms, understanding the meaning of life becomes possible when I completely understand the world around me.

Somatic Signals: How I use the Four Needs Framework2020This post marks a second anniversary of my self-work journey. Wow. 2020…An important insight hides in those last three words: “world around me”. The two systems in this story, the Context and the Self, are not peers. The Context includes and transcends the Self.

Archaeology of Self2019Every experience I have is a new lesson in life, a new…In this arrangement, the Context Model also necessarily includes the Model of Self. I can observe this clearly by looking at my archaeology of self effort. And look! It’s a recursion: within that Model of Self is a Context Model, and so on.

Forces of the pace layering confusion2021

Limits2022This story builds on the one I wrote a while ago, and…Framing2022When encountering an infinity-problem, we may have enough wherewithal to resist the…This shift in perspective reveals the Upper Limit of Understanding. At least in this story, the inner system can never match the complexity of the system that includes and transcends it. The Context Model can never be an accurate model of the Context. The Game of Understanding is an infinite game, and the meaning of life is forever a mystery.

Learning from the nadir2023In the top quadrant, we are the happiest and perhaps even bored.…I don’t have to feel like crapDecemberI’ve been experimenting with both a self-paced slide deck style of narration…Tension in Shared Mental Model Spacelinks here, 2022On one hand, I want my organization’s SMMS to be large enough…Understandinglinks here, 2022Finally, the “incomplete model” bit earlier is a hint that understanding is…When I first arrived to this point, I felt this weird combination of joy, relief and a twinge of disappointment. Seeing the upper limit for the first time was a profound experience, a sense of connecting to something impossibly large, yet somehow familiar. I’d read how “life is a journey, not a destination” in multitudes of different ways, and in that moment, I truly felt it. And in disappointment, I saw a small part of me that still wished for the possibility of “winning” the game of life.