I appreciate your reflections on the session, Vaughn. We often don't reveal this inner world as gatherers and facilitators— but, as the not-knowing-navigator— sharing this insight and your thinking about it is super interesting. Looking forward to future sessions, and your behind the curtain thinking on it.
thank you! in a sort of pseudo-psychoanalytic sense, maybe we need to be comfortable with and explicit about our not-knowing to be able to deal with it for ourselves and to help others understand and deal with it too...
Yes. Totally. There's something reassuring, strangely, about someone sharing their not-knowing in a centered way that helps with normalizing and navigating through it. Perhaps so much of the shakiness in our systems comes from *not* acknowledging this uncertainty. Or covering it over with a veneer. I think people sense that. There's a balance of confidence and candor that is steadying for people. Like, not sure where this ship will go— but we're still sailing!
of course there are some recipes that are more declarative (these tend to be older and/or for professionals — so a broader base of technical, functional, and tacit knowledge could be assumed)
A bit off topic. i wonder if you can discuss how people can let go with recipe mindset and be okay with a more process strategy mindset in future sessions or newsletter issues. I suspect this is related to being comfortable with uncertainty.
I see the clinging to recipes when they clearly don't work any more or the history of the specific recipes not working, as symptomatic of the overall resistance to uncertainty.
ah cool this is a vg question. first rxn is that letting go of recipes is more likely if you understand very clearly how to know when the outcome is desirable/successful and also if you have great facility with the processes that replace the recipe.
if you see a good home cook (or machinist, or developer, or whatever) they rarely use recipes because they know how to tell if outcomes and intermediate outcomes are within the range of acceptability and they know the processes for achieving outcomes very well already.
Not-knowing and the challenges you describe that come from it, make me want to connect it to what sounds like the opposite — different ways of knowing. But I suspect the connection (if there is one), is more complex.
Have you come across that notion by John Vervaeke, known for his YouTube lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis? I try to summarize his 4 ways of knowing here: https://stefanlesser.substack.com/p/four-ways-of-knowing
definitely related — maybe a compact way to say it is that not-knowing is often thought of as an absence of knowing and a state (which it is). where i'm trying to push it is that we can actually also (ie at the same time) think of not-knowing as being an active thing.
it is possible to not-know in different ways, and the actions associated with not-knowing are often connected to ways of knowing and actions to know.
eg if you don't know what actions are possible, one action that is appropriate for this form of not-knowing is to seek new actions (e.g. what artists do when they experiment with new materials for making objects). vs if you don't know what outcomes are relatively preferable (a subjective preference), the action that is appropriate might be essentially philosophy (e.g. considering and debating the nature of a good life). these actions don't map exactly to the different ways of knowing but it isn't clear to me that there is any kind of unified theory of knowledge in this sense yet.
Thanks for your insightful response! I’m not sure I’m looking for a unified theory. It’s great to hear your thinking about possible connections. For now I’m very happy that we seem to explore a somewhat overlapping space coming from different angles with different perspectives. I’ll be eagerly following what you learn along the way and watch out for opportunities to integrate.
I appreciate your reflections on the session, Vaughn. We often don't reveal this inner world as gatherers and facilitators— but, as the not-knowing-navigator— sharing this insight and your thinking about it is super interesting. Looking forward to future sessions, and your behind the curtain thinking on it.
thank you! in a sort of pseudo-psychoanalytic sense, maybe we need to be comfortable with and explicit about our not-knowing to be able to deal with it for ourselves and to help others understand and deal with it too...
Yes. Totally. There's something reassuring, strangely, about someone sharing their not-knowing in a centered way that helps with normalizing and navigating through it. Perhaps so much of the shakiness in our systems comes from *not* acknowledging this uncertainty. Or covering it over with a veneer. I think people sense that. There's a balance of confidence and candor that is steadying for people. Like, not sure where this ship will go— but we're still sailing!
love this and hope it is true
makes me think of the eno and cage song "empty frame," from wrong way up.
Happy to hear you’re splitting into two tracks, Vaughn
First time I hear abt process strategy
I googled about it and came across a few articles I liked
I wonder if you or other readers have a way to compare and contrast against recipes?
mmm i think maybe best analogy for tech context is the diff between declarative and imperative programming
Recipe being more imperative I presume
yes def
of course there are some recipes that are more declarative (these tend to be older and/or for professionals — so a broader base of technical, functional, and tacit knowledge could be assumed)
A bit off topic. i wonder if you can discuss how people can let go with recipe mindset and be okay with a more process strategy mindset in future sessions or newsletter issues. I suspect this is related to being comfortable with uncertainty.
I see the clinging to recipes when they clearly don't work any more or the history of the specific recipes not working, as symptomatic of the overall resistance to uncertainty.
ah cool this is a vg question. first rxn is that letting go of recipes is more likely if you understand very clearly how to know when the outcome is desirable/successful and also if you have great facility with the processes that replace the recipe.
if you see a good home cook (or machinist, or developer, or whatever) they rarely use recipes because they know how to tell if outcomes and intermediate outcomes are within the range of acceptability and they know the processes for achieving outcomes very well already.
i'll think about it more!
Thanks for response and offering to think abt it
Relating back to your two tracks, where you have a track for
people who are comfortable with uncertainty but need to persuade other stakeholders (customers) to accept uncertainty
So imagine same situation but replace
Accept uncertainty with
let go of recipes / policies / habitual reactions that demand certainty
& to embrace a more process strategy attitude
Thank you
Not-knowing and the challenges you describe that come from it, make me want to connect it to what sounds like the opposite — different ways of knowing. But I suspect the connection (if there is one), is more complex.
Have you come across that notion by John Vervaeke, known for his YouTube lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis? I try to summarize his 4 ways of knowing here: https://stefanlesser.substack.com/p/four-ways-of-knowing
definitely related — maybe a compact way to say it is that not-knowing is often thought of as an absence of knowing and a state (which it is). where i'm trying to push it is that we can actually also (ie at the same time) think of not-knowing as being an active thing.
it is possible to not-know in different ways, and the actions associated with not-knowing are often connected to ways of knowing and actions to know.
eg if you don't know what actions are possible, one action that is appropriate for this form of not-knowing is to seek new actions (e.g. what artists do when they experiment with new materials for making objects). vs if you don't know what outcomes are relatively preferable (a subjective preference), the action that is appropriate might be essentially philosophy (e.g. considering and debating the nature of a good life). these actions don't map exactly to the different ways of knowing but it isn't clear to me that there is any kind of unified theory of knowledge in this sense yet.
Thanks for your insightful response! I’m not sure I’m looking for a unified theory. It’s great to hear your thinking about possible connections. For now I’m very happy that we seem to explore a somewhat overlapping space coming from different angles with different perspectives. I’ll be eagerly following what you learn along the way and watch out for opportunities to integrate.