#21: Non-Linear Thinking
Rebuilding Knowledge And Creation Systems In An AI World
Welcome to Recalibrating! My name is Callum (@_wanderloots)
Join me each week as I learn to better life in every way possible, reflecting and recalibrating along the way to keep from getting too lost.
Thanks for sharing the journey with me ✨
This week we are going to talk about what it means to move beyond the deficiency needs of Maslow's Hierarchy, building upon our experiences to grow into our humanity.
You can read this entry online here.
Recap
Last week, we touched on the Transtheoretical (Stages of Change) model and what it takes to go from thinking about change to actually changing. How to build on our past experiences to grow our knowledge on our path towards self-actualization.
This week, we are going to continue with our journey by discussing Maslow's Expanded Hierarchy of Needs: Growth Needs.
Human Motivation And Growth
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is designed to provide a rough guide on how an individual can self-actualize - become the best version of themselves.
Self-actualization was the original growth need in the hierarchy, at the top of the pyramid.
Self-actualization is, in essence, learning from our experiences and building on them to grow into our full potential. A self-actualized person can convert experiences into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom, acting on that wisdom as they continue exploring their own path.
This original growth need is built on the four base layers. These layers are referred to as deficiency needs because if they are not met, a person is unable to self-actualize.
We can think of these needs as survival needs. It makes sense - it's hard to focus on developing our mind into being the best version of ourselves if we are still trying to survive.
Unfortunately, many people are stuck in the deficiency needs. They think they have moved on, self-actualizing, when really they continue to let their survival needs control the vast majority of their behaviour.
Remember, 95% of people think they are self-aware, while only 15% actually are. How can you be self-actualized if you are not aware of your self in the first place?
Self-actualization is not a place you end up at, a permanent destination of changing into a "self-actualized person". Instead, it is a state of mind, a way to approach life. Your own personal philosophy.
Once reaching self-actualization, we will continue growing this sense of self for the rest of our lives. It is not the end, but the beginning.
But what happens when our sense of self-worth is based on external validators? How do people with externally anchored esteem operate in a world that is changing more rapidly than ever before?
How can we recalibrate our self in the age of artificial intelligence?
To answer that question, we must look at what it means to be truly human.
Growth Needs Expanded
Before we begin touching on a world run by inhuman operators (corporations and artificial intelligence), I think it is beneficial to look at how Maslow's Hierarchy was expanded.
In 1970, Maslow expanded the hierarchy to include three more levels of growth needs. As with the original growth need of self-actualization, these newer needs are psychological and relate to growing the self into its full potential (and beyond).
Maslow recognized that the path to self-actualization included a few more steps, needs that were met through intellectual and creative pursuits.
Growth needs are different from deficiency needs because they arise from the desire to change as a person, to grow into the self-actualized self, rather than to overcome a lack of something.
Cognitive needs are those related to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, what we traditionally think of as more logical pursuits. The human desire to understand life's complexity and what it means to be human.
Aesthetic needs are those related to the pursuit of beauty, both external and internal, what we often think of as creative. The human desire to be satisfied with our experience with life, including our connection to others and the world at large.
Cognitive and aesthetic needs are a blend of intellectual and creative pursuits, though in my opinion, we have ignorantly bifurcated (split) them into their own separate categories. More on that below.
We have talked about self-actualization quite a bit in previous entries, so I'll just provide a short summary here: the realization of your full potential in the pursuit of flow states and peak experiences.
The final growth need, transcendence needs, was placed above self-actualization on the hierarchy. This need can be considered as the pursuit of something greater than the self. It goes beyond self-actualization to collective actualization.
I view transcendence needs as a deep understanding of what it means to have empathy not just for other people, but all life on our planet.
Unfortunately, I believe our society has developed to limit the growth needs of individuals, preventing them from self-actualizing in favour of mechanistic development.
I think this limitation arises from the societal valuation of logic over creativity. To understand the development of this limitation, let's take a look at our recent history.
Society Values Cognitive > Aesthetic
Over the last ~60 years, our corporate-run society has continued to foster the development of intellectual pursuits related to logic tasks. There has been a trend of prioritizing cognitive skills over aesthetic ones, since cognitive skills pay the bills.
While this may have been effective from a pure efficiency standpoint, efficiency is not the be all end all.
By putting aesthetic blinders on its workers, our corporate society often limits the development of creative skills, teaching people (either explicitly or implicitly) that creative pursuits are less valuable than cognitive pursuits.
Effectively, society has been treating workers like machines, which is ironic since we build machines to replace workers.
How will this trend of valuing logic over creativity change when we introduce one of the most (if not the most) disruptive technologies of the 21st century: artificial intelligence.
To understand where humanity is going, it helps to look at where we've come from.
In the 1960, when the Information Age was still in its infancy, we were on the cusp of a transformation from traditional manual workers into what would come to dominate every aspect of modern working society: the knowledge worker.
Knowledge workers are those that think for a living instead of performing physical tasks. A new form of white-collar worker.
Note: everything you are about to read has application to both knowledge workers and creators. They are both "content creators" in the sense that content is created from your mind to produce value in exchange for money. Creation requires knowledge and knowledge requires creation.
But what does it actually mean to be a knowledge worker? If you recall this graphic from Entry # 7 (Building a Sustainable Creation System), knowledge is the third tier on the data value chain:
Fast forward to today, the year 2023: we are experiencing a trend away from traditional knowledge work.
During the pandemic, many knowledge workers were dissatisfied with the levels of information they were receiving and with the data management systems available.
Many corporations were (and still are) operating with a pre-digital mindset. They do not understand data and information and how essential these are to the development of knowledge.
Additionally, the people in management often do not understand the technologies needed to allow their employees to effectively operate as knowledge workers.
If employees don't have access to information and their data is confusing, how are people supposed to generate value as knowledge workers?
Value Misalignment
This misalignment in the data value chain results in people feeling frustrated with a lack of resources and a limitation on their ability to think in accordance with their role as a knowledge worker.
They feel as though they cannot do their jobs or that they are not valued properly. A misalignment of values is one of the main causes of burnout. We want to feel accepted and valued by our community, which includes our coworkers and employers.
I believe that part of this reason is that companies (and generally the capitalistic world) overvalue logic and conformity. They prefer straight, clean lines, to messy, spiral ones.
"Knowledge workers" are described by cookie cutter role titles so that they can fit in with the rest of the company. The same salaries are applied for the same roles so that people are treated fairly (at least in theory).
While this is good in theory, the result is that unique individuals, with unique experiences, skills, and knowledge, are put into a box to operate like everyone else. Conformity.
These systems teach people they are valued because of how they fit into the overall production system of the knowledge economy. They are trained to overvalue extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation.
Aesthetics, finding the beauty in the world in a creatively individualistic way, is left behind or lost entirely.
We didn't evolve for thousands of years to be put into a cubicle, day in and day out. Forcing people into set working hours, environments, and repetitive work product outputs is not effective in the long run.
This focus on logic and efficiency causes an imbalance between our growth cognitive and aesthetic needs. Over time, this straight-line emphasis becomes mundane, burning people out as they seek to hold onto their humanity, wanting to feel valued as an employee in a system that wants them to operate like a machine.
Logic and efficiency are not the only operations humans are meant for. We are creative thinkers that operate with intuition and insight.
Valuing logic and efficiency is why we invented machines, so why do we apply the same standard to humans?
If this wasn't bad enough, by overvaluing logical, straight-line operating systems and workflows, society has been building a logical system that can feed right into a "new" system designed solely for that purpose.
The world is being woken up to one of the most disruptive systems ever created: artificial intelligence.
Redefining Value In An AI World
Our knowledge production systems have been developed for logic-based input, for computers, but that is what AI thrives on. We have been crafting a value system for developing human knowledge workers in the exact way that can be plugged into artificial intelligence systems.
It makes sense; artificial intelligence is designed based on the human brain and what society values as usefully automated tasks.
While not all knowledge worker jobs will be lost to artificial intelligence, I expect that they will all be impacted by it. The more logical your job is, the more likely it is to be automated, since logic paves the way for automation.
Many people I have talked to about this shift in knowledge working systems are in denial that AI is going to impact them. "Oh I can see how AI will change that person's job, but it will never be able to do what I can do".
While that may be true, is it really worth maintaining that denial through ignorance? Is this bet going to protect your future self?
Classic moral panic. Society in its pre-contemplation phase of change instead of preparing for the inevitable change that is always present in life.
Instead of denying the change that is happening now, we need to redefine what it means to generate value in a human way. To look ahead, we need to look back to our growth needs to identify what makes us a uniquely valuable human individual.
This emphasis on humanity through individual and collective actualization is the reason I began this newsletter with an analysis of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
To build a world with artificial intelligence, we need to remember and understand what it means to be human in the first place.
Balancing The Cognitive With The Aesthetic
Cognitive and aesthetic needs are what lead to growth, to self-actualization. The balance between the two is going to be unique for each individual, so it is essential that you start understanding what your unique operating framework is going to be as soon as possible.
I know what many people are going to say:
"I'm not artistic"
"I am not creative".
"I'll never survive my job in an AI world"
"I don't have any useful skills that can't be replaced by AI"
False.
You have merely been desensitized to your own creativity by the societal overvaluation of logical life paths. From a young age our education systems place greater emphasis on career paths that fall within the logic-based knowledge categories.
Creativity is harder to put into a box, to compare between employees, so it has been pushed to the wayside in favour of more easily understandable pursuits. It is harder to value, but that does not mean it is valueless.
We all have creativity, whether you choose to accept it or not.
Our brains have two sides to them. In an oversimplified explanation, one side is logic-based and one is creative-based. Linear thinking and non-linear thinking. In reality, both sides work together.
There is harmony between the logic and the creative, the cognitive and the aesthetic.
That said, people have predicted for years that the future of work would be creative-based. They saw the future of AI and how it would, with relative ease, replace the logic-based knowledge workers.
They thought creativity would save the economic day, but take a look at generative AI. Look at what Adobe Firefly, Dalle 3, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and any other in the long list of generative art applications are able to produce. In less than one year 🤯
Note: some of these AI generators are currently in lawsuits over the copyright of their training data. Adobe Firefly has trained its images on copyright free or licensed images, which is why I use it for my art generation.
Look at the quality of the AI art I produced for the first entry of recalibrating compared to the last:
Clearly both the cognitive and the aesthetic aspects of traditional employment are being taken over by AI.
So what does that leave us with?
Non-Linear Knowledge Systems
We need to develop new systems that take into account the nuance and intuition of what it means to be human. Non-linear thinking models and data structures that enable us to go with the flow with our thinking, instead of trying to contain it.
A creatively personalized knowledge system.
Surface level knowledge won’t cut it anymore. Just ask ChatGPT, a model trained on the generalization of humanity. Basic creativity will get you somewhere, but not far enough to outpace AI development.
We need to go deeper, grow higher. We need to take a look back to the times before digital technology and identify what it means to be human in the first place.
Only then should we leverage digital technology to augment our humanness, instead of continuing to perpetuate the corporate machine filled with cookie-cutter knowledge worker roles.
We can develop our own creatively personalized knowledge management systems that take the strongest aspects of our cognitive abilities and the deepest reflections of our creative skills and find harmony between the two.
We can leverage the increasing array of data, information, and knowledge management tools alongside non-linear creative software to help us teeter back and forth between our cognitive and our creative, taking the best parts of both as we build upwards. Synergy.
It is time that we stop overvaluing logic. Logic is what computers were built to do. AI is going to do it even better.
How You Can Prepare
So what is the solution? How can we outpace the development of artificial intelligence and retain value that we can exchange with society?
To be honest, I don't know. Anyone that says they do is just guessing. We have no real idea of what the world is going to be like in two months, let alone 10 years.
That said, I have been researching AI for years. I quit my job in the summer and have been intensely researching the development of AI and what it means for society every day. I have been collecting articles on artificial intelligence on Flipboard for years to have a historical understanding of its development.
I don't see it as a question of outpacing AI, but rather one of intelligently, creatively, and ethically embracing it.
Here are a few of my thoughts on how to future-proof yourself as the world develops in a wildly new and augmented way.
Find Flow + Peak Performance
There are parts of life that we cannot explain. We have peak experiences, moments that shake us to our core of who we are, leaving us forever changed.
We enter flow states, moments where time loses meaning as we become one with our own experience, getting more done in an hour than we did in a week.
These experiences are often triggered by autotelic exploration. Find what brings you joy, awe, wonder, happiness. Make note of it, and repeat as often as possible.
Consider what you used to love doing as a child. When was the last time you did it?
Explore your intuition ✨
The Metacognitive Lottery
Most people are not aware of the causes of these optimal moments of psychological engagement with life.
They do not pay attention to the patterns in their own experience.
Through tools like mindfulness, self-awareness, writing, and metacognition, you can begin to improve your understanding of your self.
The sooner you become aware of what you like and what you don't like, the sooner you can increase the frequency of what you like and decrease the frequency of what you don't like.
You can train your intuition so that you find flow states more regularly. Every time you pay attention to what causes you to achieve flow, it is like increasing your odds of winning the flow-lottery the next time you sit down to experience life.
You can use tools to increase this likelihood of finding flow and developing your original self through both cognitive and creative pursuits.
Some tools are mind mapping (logic + creativity), building a second brain (perfect recall and linking ideas), and cultivating a mind garden (growth of the self).
I am talk about these topics in greater depth with my paid subscribers and will be opening a subscribers-only chat.
I am also developing a series of resources that will help people interested in building their own creatively personalized knowledge system to prepare for the AI shift that is underway.
If you are interested in learning more about how to build your own second brain, how to cultivate knowledge in your mind garden, and how to prepare yourself for the AI revolution, please consider subscribing. Your support helps me continue to fund my exploration into more sustainable creation and knowledge working systems ✨
Future-Proofing & Looking Ahead
As one last bonus, I want to tell you what I predict for the future of knowledge work and the creator economy.
We are going to each have our own personalized, customized AI systems that have been trained on our existing knowledge and creation bases.
Tools like a second brain and mind garden provide the training data and, more importantly, the structure for fine-tuning the AI system so that the quality of the output of the AI is in-line with your standards. A playground for your own mind to develop value for the new world. A place to develop your own intellectual property and identify what YOU value.
That is one of the main reasons I have spent 4 months researching the development of AI tools and 8 years exploring intellectual property and the development of original ideas.
There is so much more coming. Are you ready?
Next week
I hope this gave you an overview on the importance of looking ahead at our changing world. Change, while initially scary, does not have to be. We can leverage our existing knowledge and tools and rebuild the way we operate to work with AI instead of fearing it.
Next week, I'll continue exploring the cognitive and aesthetic needs of the hierarchy.
Stay tuned ✨
P.S. If you are interested in learning how I build my second brain to help me process information and identify patterns to solve my problems, please consider upgrading your subscription to paid. Your support means more than you know 😌 ✨
If you are not interested in a paid subscription but would like to show your support, please consider buying me a coffee to help keep my energy levels up as I write more ☕️ 📝