T4T

"Tools for Thinking" is an umbrella category for a wide variety of software that helps store, represent, analyze and present the things we think about. 

Some apps, like Roam, look like outliners on steroids; others, like Obsidian, present as word processors, but have linky superpowers and thriving developer communities creating a wild profusion of extensions. The many hundreds of mind-mapping apps that have existed have sub-categories, such as the system-mapping prowess of Kumu or Insight Maker. 

Microsoft, Google and others are embedding Generative AI in familiar apps such as word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software. This should prove very helpful. 

Generating texts, spreadsheets and presentations all clearly involve thinking, but there's a level beyond those basic office tools that is quite powerful. 

Jerry's favorite Tool for Thinking is TheBrain, mind-mapping software that he saw because he was the first stop on the company's very first press tour, back in the dark ages of December, 1997. 

There are many other mind-mapping tools, but more broadly, there are many other categories of Tools for Thinking, from outliners with sophisticated backlinks, to zoomable whiteboards and system diagramming tools. 

Here is Jerry's map of the Tools for Thinking he has heard about, in all the subcategories he's discovered. The subcategories are squishy: many of these tools overlap into several categories. 

If this embedded display is a bit tight, click here to open this Brain in a new tab.

What do Tools for Thinking have to do with Cyborgs and AI?, you might reasonably ask.

Plenty. While GenAI is the hot human superpower of the moment, it is far from the only tool that greatly enhances Cyborgs' capabilities.