This week I learned about the concept of "opportunistic assimilation."

· Bits and Bobs 5/12/25
  • This week I learned about the concept of "opportunistic assimilation."
    • Your brain's background processes chewing on your tasks and making connections even without you being consciously aware.
    • Your system 2 is connecting ideas even when you aren't paying attention.
      • Steven King describes this phenomenon as the "boys in the basement".
      • This is why you often have deep insights when out on a walk.
    • What if we could have an offboard System 2 to chew on these insights for us?
    • Today to make a computer do what you want it to, the user has to be managing the context and orchestrating--which takes a huge amount of mental effort and focus.
    • What if you had an omnipresent little container that you could just speak or drop something into and it filed it away and made the connections for you--whether it was a deep insight, a tactical reminder for a few minutes from now, a gift idea for your spouse, etc.
    • A coactive tool for thought.
    • Extends our neocortex: an exocortex.

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