Provisional Mind

The first, rough version of a shared mind — a distributed memory that many can write to and read from, standing in until something better is grown.

The canon's sense is concrete rather than philosophical. A shared mind has to start somewhere, and what it started as is a basic shared distributed memory: a wiki. Plain pages, held in common, edited by many hands — the least impressive possible implementation of a collective intelligence, and a working one (The Record · Knowledge as commons · MindWeaving · Mind).

The word doing the work is provisional. It is not a modest disclaimer; it is a status, and it is the same status everything else here carries. The thing exists, is depended on, and is expected to be replaced by something better — so it may be used fully without anyone confusing it for the destination (Current Best Understanding · Everything Is Current Best Understanding · Provisional Backbone · Prototype · LIØNSBERG Is A Prototype, Not The Eternal Essence).

That naming does two things at once. It permits building now with what is at hand rather than waiting for the right instrument (Do the Work · Learning By Doing · The Floor And The Ceiling Of The Kit). And it keeps the successor thinkable — a thing called provisional cannot quietly become permanent by nobody noticing (Drift · Institutional Idolatry).

What a shared mind is for is the part worth holding onto while the instrument changes. Every mind is finite, and what no single vantage can see becomes visible only when many honest renderings are woven together; the memory is only the medium that makes the weaving possible across time and distance (MindWeaving · Perception · Sensemaking · Navigating Towards Truth · Dialogos).

And it is held provisional in a second sense that the canon means everywhere: the contents of the shared mind are provisional too. A shared memory that could not be corrected would be worse than none, because it would be believed (Weave, don't delete · The Wiki Reflects the Present · Second reader · We Do Not Know).

Also called: the provisional shared mind Stands on: Mind · MindWeaving · The Record · Current Best Understanding Opens onto: Provisional Backbone · Knowledge as commons · The Living Library · The LIØNSBERG Intelligence System · Prototype · Wiki Is Primary And Standalone · Sensemaking · Pillar IV — Sacred Learning and Mastery In play: the library — the place a body's shared memory actually lives while something better is grown Sources: Provisional Mind (root page, stub — names the shared distributed memory as the beginning of a shared mind) · Mind (root page, canon-grade, which names this among its neighbours) · lionsberg.wiki: Provisional Mind Open: The canon's page is about a shared mind taking provisional form; the sweep that proposed this row read it as the epistemic posture of holding one's own mind provisionally. Both senses are reasonable and the second is not what the page says — this page follows the page and notes the divergence. · The page names a Super Mind and nothing else in the canon uses that term. · Inbound links were not counted.