Critical Paths and Cognitive Widgets
What's coming up for 2025
In his book Critical Path, Buckminster Fuller described the sequence of crucial tasks that humanity must follow to ensure prosperity on earth. I am sure that 2025 will be a critical path year, either tilting toward vitality and renewed life on earth, or nudging us toward an irrevocable point of collapse toward conflict and destruction.
Along with the myriad paths society will follow, I believe the choices we make here in this “pop-up” community will also matter … Let’s walk this critical path together.
Dear Friends of the POP-UP School,
I’d like to draw your attention to the new navigation bar for 2025.
The sections titled “The Oracle” and “Birds on a Wire” are carried over from previous years.
The Oracle features long-form content around meta-topics and future-thinking. Look for more information on AI, machine agency, governance, and biological intelligence coming in 2025.
Birds on a Wire continues to be the place where I cross-post videos from interviews, panel discussions, presentations, and the like that are hosted on other channels.
This year I have added a section called the Cognitive Widgets Show. “Cognitive Widgets” is a phrase I coined to refer to heuristics and models that enable us to more clearly engage complex thought. I will present drawings, illustrations, tables and animations — like the ones I use to teach other online courses — but focused on smaller chunks of understanding. These will be presented as videos of me illustrating the ideas on my drawing pad, accompanied by an AI generated transcript and summary, along with screenshots of the key illustrations
I’m going to kick off the Cognitive Widgets Show with a series on Consciousness. You’ll see me preparing (in real time) for what I will say at this years UTOK Conference, where I will be participating on a panel discussion on Consciousness with Michael Levin, and Matt Segal - hosted by Gregg Henriques. You won’t want to miss that! Book the date, April 26th — I’ll link the information to the conference when it’s released.
Going forward, I will feature presentations on the top topics that you pick from monthly suggestion threads. This way what we talk about will be what is most on your minds.
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As you know, I have reduced the monthly fee for this publication from $ 40 to $ 8. This is an extremely rare move in these days of run-away inflation- so on this end it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep this work alive.
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Thanks for reading.
Bonnie
Hi Bonnie. If you’re taking suggestions for content to dive more deeply into, the session on values and identity formation has been on my mind, specifically regarding wants and needs. Sandra brought up one of your formulas for power (Power = skills + resources ÷ needs + wants). I would love greater clarification on the distinction between needs and wants, what they are and where they come from. In your Origins of the Self series, you also talked about Will, what I like to sometimes call Divine Will. How is Divine Will distinct from needs and wants? Do they have different biomarkers and origins/positions within the Up Hierarchy or gradient array?
I’ve been contemplating your power equation and the concept of needs. If I sit with it for long enough, I come to this realization that I actually don’t have any true needs. This summer I did a 20 day fast and realized how my body doesn’t need food as much as I think it does (it certainly wants it though!). And if I sit with that for long enough, then I realize that I don’t really need to live either. I have a very strong will and want to live, but it’s not a true need. So I come to this place deep in my core that doesn’t have any needs, and in this place of needless love, what I want is what others want for themselves. I have made myself very unhappy over the years trying to change people to get them to want and do what I want. As an example, for years I wanted my mom to stop drinking, but then I realized it’s what she wants for herself because that’s what she does. When I stopped trying to “fix” her to abide by my wants, I just wanted what she wanted for herself. And if she comes to me for advice or my opinion (which she rarely does), I know that I can maintain my integrity and tell her with heart and conviction what I see. There’s no need to lie to her or myself. So in this equation, only when I am very still and clear, what remains are no true needs and wanting only what is/others just as they are. It’s a rare state for me and also not impossible.
That’s what has been on my mind: needs, wants, and will; and the possibility of a collective inquiry on these topics.