What’s Cognitive Resonance?

Cognition: “the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience,or the senses”

Resonance: “amplifying effect when two systems interact in harmony”

Let’s start from the opposite of cognitive resonance: SkyNet. Tasked with protecting the planet, Skynet became self-aware and concluded the only way to save the planet was to kill the humans. While this is an absolutely logical conclusion, it’s way too futuristic to be useful. Why? Modern day’s specialized AI is far more likely to destroy humans (and the planet) long before general purpose AI comes into existence. Take weaponized AI for instance, it could rapidly produce the opposite of a neutron bomb — destroying a nation’s infrastructure while leaving the humans intact.

But that topic’s best left for a longer discussions around a type of cognitive version of the Dark Mountain Project.

This publication will explore machine learning, AI, natural intelligence (animal…and plants?), VR, astrobiology, plain old programming, and more. Weaving through all this is the fact that “What we design, designs us back”. Cognitive systems designed today will alter who we become and what we build tomorrow.