A second idiot brain

For some reason, people are surprised that I have a database of my bedding.

Leaving aside pillows, towels and games for guests, also inventoried, the census showed the result of three duvet covers of 1.60, two fitted sheets of 1.60 and one of 1.50, and a countertop of 1.40.

Taking into account that my bed is 1.50 and I do not use a countertop, I was able to conclude that the trousseau is not completely optimized and take action in this regard.

I set up the database in Notion, a total personal and professional organization program that works like a Wikipedia, creating and relating pages to each other.

As has become clear, I use it for everything: projects, bills, doctor's appointments,

podcasts

or pending books or movies.

I previously tried Obsidian, another complex tag and hyperlink-based application where I tried to create a corpus of reading, writing and work notes, and which I never update.

Both programs are examples of “second brain”, a beautiful term popularized by author Tiago Forte

(Create your second brain

, Reverte).

“By downloading our thinking into a second brain, we free our biological brain to imagine, create and simply be present,” he promises, and it sounds heavenly for those of us who live

infoxicated.

I guess we started solving everyday issues with complex methods when we became overwhelmed with access to all the information in the world.

And that is why now, when that volume is about to multiply again with artificial intelligence, we revive concepts such as mémex (an electromechanical personal archive devised in 1945), token systems - in German,

Zettelkasten

-;

modern PKMS (personal knowledge management systems);

the “digital gardens” that try to bring our inner worlds to the web;

or the diaries and notebooks that always accompanied the artists.

They all try to resolve the paradox that innovation arises more by association or chance than by order.

Storing is not thinking.

Soon it will not be necessary to sit at the computer to classify notes.

If we let them, physical AI devices, like the company's Humane lapel pin, will record and document our lives.

The same technology that will bury us in data also offers to rescue us.

For example, Mem, another trending program, creates a chatbot with whom you can chat about your own material.

It won't be that easy: if AI smothers us with ideas, warned journalist Ezra Klein, we will waste time verifying and selecting them.

It is possible that creating a bedding database is just a sophisticated distraction, a technological solutionism more typical of a company sick with complexity than of sensible individuals.

I admit, I mean, maybe it's a stupid thing that I could have solved with paper and pencil.

The debate over whether storage devices external to the human body improve or worsen intelligence is as old as Socrates, who distrusted writing.

Plato puts it in his mouth in

Phaedrus:

“I have discovered a remedy against the difficulty of learning and retaining” (...) —You have not found a means of cultivating memory, but of awakening reminiscences.”

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_