Ambient thinking

I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given> time. That’s the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they’re> allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all> the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of> it. Which means it’s a disaster to let the wrong idea become the> top one in your mind.

via paulgraham.com

This fascinating article by Paul Graham, theorising how we think, resonates with some things I’ve been thinking about - especially his characterisation of this phenomenon as “ambient thinking”.

I’ve been exploring the idea of “ambient communication” and “ambient information” for a while now (yes, I know, too much Brian Eno as a young man…). As I’ve written before, Twitter is ambient communication - much like IRC was (is!). It’s a conversation going on that participants can choose to dip in and out of - like a pub or party conversation. You can pick and choose, or just sit and listen. It’s all cool.

Currently, ambient information looks like RSS feeds. You can read them, skim them, or jump in for more detail. I think there is huge potential around this, especially to solve information management problems. RSS isn’t quite the right tool, but it’s the closest one we’ve got right now. I’ll be thinking quite a lot about this in the context of my new job, and reporting ideas back to here. Comments are, of course, welcome.