Collecting Thought Experiments, Koans, Etc.
The Phy-d’eau wiki is resurrected as the Idea Toy Wiki. A wiki devoted to creating, collecting, publishing, taxonomizing, and discussing thinking organisms as well as their relatives: thought experiments, koans, tantalizing paradoxes, unsolvable logic mechanisms, etc. The goal is to develop a collection of work written just to provoke thinking without a defined end, thinking for the sake of thinking, insight, and awareness.
Why did I do this? Because these things fascinate me. I came up with a notion for “thinking organisms” in 1995, writing my first experiment in the medium, Idea Toy: A Game for Evolving. Based on that name and the general idea of what a thinking organism is, I thought it would be interesting to collect things of a similar nature (thought experiments, koans, etc. as listed above) and organize them in a wiki so that other people could contribute and discuss. Besides, the old Phy-d’eau creative works wiki seemed to have reached the end of its life.
Thinking organisms are, as the name implies, organisms that one creates purely as thinking. The term does not refer to organisms that think, rather “thinking” is used as a gerund. Thinking organisms remain within one’s mind where they grow and evolve as an organism might were it physical.
The purpose of a thinking organism is to engage the thinker, in ongoing thinking. A successful thinking organism continues to evolve as though on its own even while the thinker is not consciously engaged in thinking on it. When the thinker returns his or her focus to it, it seems to have changed or evolved so that now the thinker has a different insight on it or greater awareness of something in reality because of it.
A thinking organism should be apprehended in a basic form by the thinker, and then grow and evolve as the thinker spends time with it. Like a koan, thinking organisms are not intended to be solved. Thinking organisms are simply “presencing”.
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James
March 4th, 2007 at 6:02
Hello there,
i just dived into ideatoy.org because from your post here it sounded very interesting! but then, to be honest, I was a bit dissaponted, the navigation was difficult and some of the links in teh front page dont contains much info ( Thought Experiments, Koans, Musings)
However, clicking my way thought the site I have found some very interesting things, specifically the “Scheme 5 - Alien Discovery” from the “Some Example Schemes - A Starting Point” page
I will reference it here:
“Scheme 5 - Alien Discovery
Create a concept that is alien. For this concept to be alien it must be void of all relations and similarities to the known. The concept can not be adaptable to human-known utility. The concept must bear no mark identifiable to human senses.”
I have found it very interested, and Im going to gice it a shot, just give me a few days.
Finally, I come here looking for Koans, but I could find any after much clicking around. If you have a Koans page please le me know as I am very interested on those. I have just recently started to build a Zen Koans Database, and would like to expand it.
In case anyone is interested, it is at:
http://www.cincinato.org/koans/
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Joshua Chalifour
March 4th, 2007 at 7:11
James, I appreciate you taking the time to comment constructively. You’re right, there isn’t much there yet. All I’ve done is set up the space to get started. Since it’s a wiki, my hope is that people, like yourself, will take an interest and collaborate with me in collecting/writing these things.
I’ll take a look at your koans database, thanks for posting the link!
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Inti
March 4th, 2007 at 20:47
Josh, would it be like the creation of a constantly changing paradigm where the observer and the object are changing through the relation they have?
Can one have many thinking organisms according to the thoughts you want to drive?
Can they have many uses then?
Can one thinking organism have periods of stability? Up and downs?
I am just trying to draw my organism.
Can they be like mantras?
Too many questions!!!
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Joshua Chalifour
March 4th, 2007 at 22:48
Interesting–I’m not sure that I’d considered it as a paradigm that is changing in terms of the relation between observer and object. I do like that notion, though I’m a little uncomfortable with the terms observer and object because I’d like to emphasize that it must be done as an activity. Whereas with observer and object, I feel like the observer may be passive and the object may be static. Maybe it could be looked at as a changing relationship between thinking and “thinking constructs” being created to facilitate their own further thinking. H’m, what I just said might be gibberish too. I’ll have to reflect on that a bit more. :-)
Stability? Ups and downs? I bet they could. We’ll have to come up with some and see. That’s a good challenge.
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