The Invariant Gardener

Ideas have a life of their own. They reproduce, develop and die. Hence the possibility of a garden of ideas.

But what are ideas?

I would here suggest that ideas are just a part of action, since “the deed is everything” as Nietzsche said.

Ideas are important because they determine (and propel us into) action through perception.

If we are willing to do what has to be done (the quintessential zen attitude) we need to see what has to be seen.

Thus,  what we need to have in the first place is clear ideas concerning the world, others, and ourselves.

This garden of ideas is intended as a place were efficient ideas, i.e. enligthning ideas which gives us a feeling control over our reality will be nurtured.

This is how, in my perspective, things should be :

·        An idea of interest, whether a well structured hypothesis or a mere conjecture, will be a seed put in the hotbed (a wiki section) with some intellectual loam (wiki + blog). I will do my best to give it the best possible shape.

·        As soon the idea attracts some attention and start growing through discussion in the forum or with any other kind of contributions (blog or wiki), it is taken out of the hotbed, and planted in the open fields section of the wiki.

·        There, it may develop as much as needed in any direction.

Here, as in any kind of collective action, the very question is… responsability !

That’s precisely where lies the difference between the Wikipedia project and Google Knol project.

As the gardener, I will take full responsability for what grows in the garden. But yet, I will make every efforts (hopefully with the help of the web 2.0 tools) to keep track of even the minutest contributions of anyone.

In my perspective, anyone who has been contributing to the growth and value of any idea should gain full acknowledgement of it.

I will do my best to be a faithful and caring gardener, especially invariant regarding justice.

But I will also be adamant regarding the one rule of this garden, which is that contributions of any kind have to « cross over » garden’s ideas or themas.

No one will be allowed to expose ideas whose connection with those planted in this garden has not been made explicit.

A loose connection won’t be sufficient. Each contribution has to take a pro or con stance regarding at least one of the garden’s ideas.

What I call the Koenigsberg’s strategy is simply forbidden (I will come to that later, but let’s say for the moment that it is equivalent to the cuckoo’s strategy).

Last notice : suggestion, approval and criticism are equally welcome in this site.

Next contribution : my collection of seeds