How to Become a Neo-Cartesian Cyborg

In September of 2019 I went through the Building a Second Brain course And took illustrated notes that you can take a look at here – an enormously popular online guide to improving your “Personal Knowledge Management” system. Or PKM as it’s commonly known, is a novel name for an old concept. The art of filtering, curating, and cultivating what you read and encounter. And then being able to turn it into “useful output” of some variety. The course did wonders for my information streams and note taking organisation, but the core ethos left me with questions.

What does it mean to build a “second brain,” and why do we think that’s a Good and Valuable thing to do?

What strange historical and cultural paths led us to this cerebral cyborgian dream?

Many of these questions and themes align with concepts I explored in Tracking Humanity

Tracking Humanity

The introduction to my thesis on the Quantified Self movement and the culture of self-tracking - my anthropology thesis on the Quantified Self movement.

Luckily I have a small community of fellow BASB enthusiasts here in London to explore these questions with.
At our March 2020 meetup I put together a lightning talk exploring how Second Braining relates to our notions of cyborgs, our embodied experiences, and the historical legacies that landed us here.