Life Discovery: Significant Insights Analysis

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#7 —The Curated Mind Framework

Oliver Ding

On March 15, 2022, I published an article titled

Slow Cognition: The Curated Mind⁠

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Significant Insight

On April 14, 2022, I sent a long email about the Curated Mind framework to a friend of mine.

The “Curated Mind” framework is a significant insight in the past three months.

A significant insight could connect the past of your life and the future of your life. If we use “Thematic Space” to understand the connection between the notion of “Curated Mind”, then we can see the following two “Thematic Space”:

The “Curativity” theme space

The “Mind” theme space

I have been working in the curation field for over ten years. I was the Chief Information Architect of BagTheWeb which was an early tool for content curation (We launched the site in 2010). This experience inspired me to make a long-term commitment to the Curation theme. After having 10 years of various curation-related practical work experience and theory learning, I coined a term called Curativity and developed Curativity Theory which became a book.

I wrote the book Curativity in 2019 and started applying it to the Knowledge Curation project. You can find more details in

Curativity Theory: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice⁠

and

Curativity Theory: Table of Contents and Related Articles⁠

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Photo by

David Matos⁠

Unsplash⁠

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Mr. Seldon is an ambitious serial entrepreneur with a unique educational background in psychological science. In 2015, Mr. Seldon moved to the educational field and started his third business: Andmind Group. Mr. Seldon didn’t use “Andmind Group” as a name for his business. I just use this term to refer to various activities of his enterprise.

In 2014, Andmind Group started as a social media group with about 250 members who are PhDs in psychological science or professional workers. Some members are students of leading academic researchers such as the founders of SDT(Self-determination theory).

This private group is a wonderful learning environment for me. For about two years, I learned various approaches to psychological science and cognitive sciences from the continuous conversation within the group. Finally, I found my favorite is ecological psychology.

Moreover, I didn’t want to become a researcher in psychological sciences. I wanted to expand the ecological approach to social practice studies such as knowledge curation, digital design, platform development, etc.

Then, I worked on my theoretical approach: the Ecological Practice approach. One year ago, I review the three versions of the approach and its historical development. You can find details

here⁠

In the past several months, I slowly returned to the topic of Mind. On April 14, 2022, I realized that there are three triggers for this transformation.

1) The D as Diagramming Project

In order to summarize the insights from the D as Diagramming project, I returned to a framework I developed in 2017 and used it to frame the D as Diagramming project.

2) The Life Discovery Project

In order to conduct the Life Discovery Project, I returned to the “life transition” theme and the “career development” theme.

3) The Change of “Self — Other” Relevance

In a Linkedin post, I mentioned the insights of “Collective Network of Enterprise” and “Project Network” which are driven by the change of my “Self — Other” relevance. In the past three months, many friends gave me wonderful feedback which guided the direction of my creative work.

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Eventually, I started detaching from Ecological Psychology and attaching my mind to a more broad space: the whole landscape of psychological science and cognitive science.

In other words, I returned to 2015 with the perspective of Curativity Theory.

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Method

The method for this task was developed with the following heuristic tool on

April 25, 2022⁠

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The above model is called the Relevance of Zone which considers Other as an important social context for the long-term development of thoughts. You can find more details

here⁠

Based on the model, we can generate the following questions:

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

Self: When did I capture this insight?

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

The following section will use these questions to guide our reflection.

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Analysis

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

For the development of the model of Curated Mind, I’d like to mention

Maurizio Goetz⁠

who is the Co-founder presso Italian Institute for the Future — Speculative Design Hub.

On March 15, 2022, I shared the basic model “

Curated Mind⁠

”. On March 21, 2022, I

expanded the basic model with eight operational concepts⁠

. From March 15 to March 21, I discussed the notion of Curated Mind with several friends.

Maurizio Goetz encouraged me to explore Future Studies, Imagination Design, and Anticipative Communication /Storytelling. Our discussion inspired me to expand the level of Pervasive Mind from the original two practical perspectives to four perspectives:

Representation (old version)

Significance (old version)

Imagination (new version)

Anticipation (new version)

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

The purpose behind the Curated Mind framework is to develop a framework for discussing the mind and developing tacit knowledge from the perspective of Curativity Theory.

The Curated Mind Framework is defined with the following theoretical concepts:

Curativity

Attachance

Contexts (Mind)

Proximal Mind

Pervasive Mind

Curated Mind

Proximal Contexts

Pervasive Contexts

Ecological Awareness

Symbolic Awareness

I also adopted the perspective of Attachance to understand the “Proximal Mind — Pervasive Mind” relationship. We can detach from Proximal Mind and attach to Pervasive Mind, and vice-versa.

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We also can pay attention to the following three types of Curativity:

The Curativity of Proximal Mind: Turning pieces of experiences into a meaningful whole at the loop of Proximal Mind.

The Curativity of Pervasive Mind: Turning pieces of experiences into a meaningful whole at the loop of Pervasive Mind.

The Curativity of Mind: Turning “Proximal Mind” and “Pervasive Mind” into a meaningful whole.

You can find more details about the above theoretical concepts from a previous article:

Slow Cognition: The Curated Mind⁠

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

The insight is about developing a new framework. I used the following techniques to archive this goal.

Adopting theoretical perspectives

Expanding a basic model with operational concepts

Making a framework by using a meta-diagram

I have applied these techniques for developing

Lifesystem framework⁠

in Oct 2020.

The Curated Mind Framework adopts the following three theoretical approaches as foundations:

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The Ecological Practice approach⁠

: It defines the structure of “Contexts(Mind)”.

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Curativity Theory⁠

: The term Curativity refers to turning pieces into a meaningful whole. The Curated Mind means the ideal status of the mind. If a person claims that her or his mind is a meaningful whole, then she or he can understand the world as a meaningful whole.

⁠

Anticipatory Activity System⁠

: as a system, the Curated Mind has two parts: Proximal Mind and Pervasive Mind.

After defining the basic model: Proximal Mind (Pervasive Mind), I expanded it with eight operational concepts:

The loop of Proximal Mind is represented with the following four operational concepts:

Occurrence: It refers to the original “Natural Situation” which means non-designed situations and environments.

Intervention: It refers to the original “Artificial Situation” which means designed situations and environments.

Mediation: It refers to the original “Mediating Instrument” which means material objects and other tools for human activities and social practices.

Narrative: It refers to the original “Actual Narrative” which means storytelling.

I also use the following four operational concepts for the loop of Pervasive Mind:

Significance: It refers to the original “Cultural Significance” which means the dynamic historical development of cultural signs and other symbolic cultures.

Representation: It refers to the original “Cognitive Representation” which means objects for solving cognitive tasks. For example, Diagrams, models, theory, floor plans, etc.

Imagination: It refers to imagining some novel things that could guide to dramatic experiences and creative actions.

Anticipation: It refers to predicting the future and managing the complexity of anticipation and performance.

These eight operational concepts are placed on a meta-diagram called the NEST Way. See the diagram below.

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I have used the NEST Way to develop the Lifesystem framework, you can find more details

here⁠

. I also discussed the details of the NEST Way

here⁠

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

I captured this insight in my house.

I also discussed related ideas with

Maurizio Goetz⁠

on Linkedin.

Self: When did I capture this insight?

On March 15, 2022, I published an article titled Slow Cognition: The Curated Mind and I mentioned this post:

One week ago, I wrote a short note about 'the Curated Mind' on Linkedin.

So,

the Linked post⁠

should be written between March 7 to March 13.

Also, the Linkedin post mentioned that "Last week, I realized that I should call it the Curated Mind." So, this insight was captured between Feb 28 to March 6.

What's the trigger of the insight? I think it's the "Optimal Context Canvas" because I use "Proximal Contexts" and "Pervasive Contexts" for the canvas.

⁠

⁠

On March 5, 2022, I published an article about the

Optimal Context Canvas⁠

. See the above screenshot.

This led to the structure of the Curated Mind model: "Proximal Mind" and "Pervasive Mind".

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

As mentioned above, the Curated Mind Framework adopts the following three theoretical approaches as foundations:

⁠

The Ecological Practice approach⁠

: It defines the structure of “Contexts(Mind)”.

⁠

Curativity Theory⁠

⁠

Anticipatory Activity System⁠

: as a system, the Curated Mind has two parts: Proximal Mind and Pervasive Mind.

These approaches are my primary theoretical development activities. The Curated Mind Framework can be considered as a new project.

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

I pointed two directions for the future of the Curated Mind framework on

March 21, 2022⁠

Now we have a conceptual model and a practical framework, what’s next? I think we can start from the following two things:

- Knowledge Curation

- Empirical Research

If you have more ideas, please lease your suggestions as comments.

The Knowledge Curation Direction

The above practical framework offers eight operational concepts that refer to eight practical perspectives. This is a wonderful framework for knowledge curation.

We can collect more knowledge resources around each practice perspective and build dialogues between these perspectives and resources.

The Empirical Research Direction

It’s so hard to design empirical research projects about the mind. A strategic way is developing several indirect projects such as Developing Tacit Knowledge.

We can also adapt the notion of the Curated Mind as a theoretical perspective for Life Curation, Life Discovery Activity, the Slow Cognition project, etc.

For example, I had a chat with a friend this morning and I used the three types of Curativity of Mind to discuss her career experiences.

It also encouraged me to build a new knowledge center called Curativity Center.

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