Listen to the companion Sparks + Embers episode for this Kindling feature article below.
This article is part if our Goodpain Guide to Authentic Human Learning series which is part of our content that focuses on Contemplation & Reflection, one of our Goodpain Pillars.
Our next article will be available the week of 11 August 2025.
Thinking Made Visible: How Adler’s analog vision of mapping human thought becomes our blueprint for navigating the age of artificial intelligence
In 1943, Mortimer Adler stood before a team of 100 readers at the University of Chicago, announcing his plan to map every significant idea in Western civilization. The audacity: creating by hand what AI accomplishes in milliseconds today. His Syntopicon (a 2,428-page index connecting thoughts across centuries) represented humanity’s first attempt to visualize the web of human understanding.
Adler understood something I’ve forgotten: external representation transforms internal comprehension. When I make thinking visible, I discover connections invisible to pure contemplation. His analog project became my template for working with digital minds without losing my own.
Standing in my workshop, sketching plans that will guide months of craftsmanship, I recognize the same principle: drawing changes thinking. The lines on paper show problems the mental model missed, expose relationships between components, transform vague intention into workable reality.
This is my challenge in the AI age: developing tools for making my own thinking visible so I can evaluate, improve, and direct it while collaborating with artificial intelligence.
The Adler Principle: Why External Representation Matters
The Syntopicon Legacy
Adler’s manual mapping of human thought anticipated what AI does (and his analog approach still matters more than I realize). He wasn’t just creating an index; he was demonstrating that understanding emerges through the act of making connections visible rather than collecting information.
The Syntopicon project exposed something about how knowledge works. When Adler’s team traced concepts across authors and centuries, they discovered that the same questions repeat across cultures and time periods. The eternal human concerns (justice, beauty, truth, power) surface again and again, but only become visible when I create external maps of how different minds have approached them.
This process of externalization changed the researchers themselves. They didn’t just catalog ideas; they developed new ways of seeing relationships between concepts that had seemed unrelated. The act of making thinking visible generated understanding that pure reading could not produce.
Cognitive Externalization
The neuroscience confirms what Adler intuited: getting thoughts outside my head changes internal processing in measurable ways. When I externalize my thinking through writing, drawing, or mapping, I engage different neural networks than when I think purely internally.
Research shows that external representation offloads cognitive burden from working memory, freeing mental resources for higher-level pattern recognition and creative connection-making. The act of putting thoughts on paper or screen creates what cognitive scientists call “cognitive artifacts” (external tools that boost my internal thinking capacity).
But externalization does more than just free up mental space. The process of translating internal thoughts into external form forces clarity and precision that remain optional when thoughts stay private. The fuzzy idea that feels complete in my head shows its gaps when I attempt to draw or write it.
The Visualization Advantage
Humans who can see their thinking patterns outperform those who rely on pure mental processing across multiple domains. Visual representation shows relationships that linear thinking misses, exposes assumptions that verbal analysis overlooks, and generates understanding that emerges only through spatial arrangement of ideas.
When I sketch the joinery for a complex cabinet project, the drawing shows me problems I couldn’t see in imagination. The angle that seemed workable in my mind proves impossible when drawn to scale. The proportions that felt balanced become wrong when made visible.
This visualization advantage becomes critical when working with AI systems. If I cannot see my own thinking patterns, I cannot direct artificial intelligence toward boosting rather than replacing human understanding. External representation becomes the foundation for maintaining cognitive authority while benefiting from computational power.
Beyond Linear Logic: Mapping Web-Like Understanding
Network vs. Hierarchy
Moving from outline thinking to connection thinking requires different tools and different mental models. Traditional hierarchical organization (the classic outline with main points and sub-points) works well for linear arguments but fails to capture the web-like nature of real understanding.
Ideas connect in networks, not hierarchies. A single concept might relate to historical precedent, emotional resonance, practical application, and theoretical framework at the same time. These relationships exist in parallel rather than in ranked order, creating meaning through intersection rather than sequence.
The shift from hierarchy to network thinking changes how I approach complex topics. Instead of asking “What are the main points and sub-points?” I ask “What connects to what, and how do those connections create meaning?”
The Modularity Challenge
Different cognitive systems need different representational tools, and this modularity affects how I learn and think. My visual processing system operates according to different principles than my verbal reasoning system. My emotional intelligence follows different patterns than my analytical intelligence.
Making thinking visible honors this modularity by using different tools for different types of cognitive work. Some ideas need to be mapped spatially to show their structure. Others need to be explored temporally to understand their development. Still others require embodied interaction to access their full meaning.
The challenge lies not in finding the single best tool for thinking visualization, but in developing fluency with multiple tools and knowing when each serves my purposes best.
Diachronic Integration
Making thinking visible allows me to see patterns across time in ways that purely mental processing cannot achieve. When I externalize my thoughts over weeks and months, I can observe how my understanding evolves, which ideas persist and which fade, what connections strengthen and which prove superficial.
This temporal dimension of thinking visualization shows something about human learning: I don’t just accumulate knowledge; I integrate it across time periods in ways that create new understanding. The understanding that seemed important last month might feel obvious now, not because it lost value, but because it became integrated into my larger framework of understanding.
External representation preserves this developmental process, creating what I call “intellectual archaeology” (the ability to excavate my own thinking history and understand how current understanding emerged from previous confusion).
Four Tools for Thinking Visualization
Tool 1: Digital Mind Mapping (Obsidian)
The Personal Syntopicon
Using Obsidian to create dynamic maps of consumed ideas transforms reading from passive consumption to active synthesis. Like Adler’s team connecting concepts across the Great Books, I can connect understanding across my personal reading, creating what amounts to a personal Syntopicon that grows more valuable over time.
The process begins with creating notes for each book, article, or conversation that contains ideas worth preserving. But the real power emerges when I start linking these notes to each other, creating a web of connections that shows patterns invisible when sources remain isolated.
What distinguishes this from simple note-taking is the emphasis on connection-making. Each new note connects to existing notes through shared concepts, related questions, or contrasting perspectives. Over time, clusters of related ideas emerge that I couldn’t plan or predict.
Connection Discovery
Visual network representation shows relationships invisible in linear notes. When I can see how ideas connect through Obsidian’s graph view, patterns emerge that remain hidden in traditional folder-based organization.
I watch clusters form around particular questions or themes, even when the source materials came from different disciplines or time periods. The visual map shows me when I’m reading too narrowly within a single domain, when certain ideas have rich connections while others remain isolated, when new reading fills gaps in existing understanding.
The graph becomes a thinking partner that suggests new directions for exploration. When I see a cluster of related ideas that lacks connection to other parts of my knowledge base, I know I’ve found a potential blind spot worth investigating.
Knowledge Evolution
Watching how understanding shifts as new connections form creates a dynamic record of intellectual development. Unlike static notes that preserve ideas in their original form, Obsidian’s linking system allows ideas to evolve as new connections show previously hidden relationships.
This evolution happens through what I call “retroactive connection-making.” When I encounter a new idea that connects to something I read months ago, I can create that link and watch how the new connection changes my understanding of both ideas. The old note gains new relevance; the new idea gains deeper context.
Integration Practice
Daily workflows for capturing and connecting ideas across domains require discipline but produce compounding returns. I’ve developed habits that make this connection-making process sustainable rather than overwhelming.
Morning reading includes creating notes for any ideas worth preserving, with emphasis on immediate connection to existing notes. Evening reflection involves reviewing the day’s new connections and identifying patterns or questions that emerged. Weekly review examines clusters of related notes to identify themes that might warrant deeper exploration.
The key principle: external connection-making happens in small, consistent increments rather than large, overwhelming sessions. Like compound interest, the value emerges through sustained practice rather than heroic effort.
Tool 2: Third Things (Direct Pointing)
The Buddhist Understanding
Direct pointing beyond words and concepts through intentional engagement with ordinary objects opens pathways to understanding that language alone cannot access. Buddhist teachers have used this approach for centuries (pointing students toward direct experience rather than conceptual explanation).
The practice involves selecting simple objects (a hand plane, a piece of wood, a stone) and engaging with them as teachers rather than tools. I observe not just their physical properties but my relationship to them, what they show about attention, patience, craftsmanship, the nature of resistance and cooperation.
This isn’t mystical thinking; it’s practical engagement with the embodied dimensions of understanding that purely conceptual work misses. The hand plane teaches me about the relationship between preparation and execution. The wood teaches me about working with natural forces rather than against them. The stone teaches me about the relationship between pressure and precision.
Jung’s Active Imagination
Using tangible objects to surface unconscious connections follows Jung’s method of active imagination (allowing unconscious material to emerge through engaged attention rather than analytical thinking). Jung encouraged patients to interact with images, objects, and scenarios as if they were alive, capable of showing hidden aspects of psyche.
Applied to thinking visualization, this means treating objects as conversation partners that can show aspects of problems I couldn’t access through analysis alone. The brass fittings on an antique cabinet become teachers about the relationship between function and beauty. The grain pattern in a piece of walnut becomes a meditation on the relationship between constraint and creativity.
These interactions surface understanding that emerges through embodied engagement rather than intellectual analysis. The understanding feels different (more integrated, more complete, less susceptible to the doubt that often accompanies purely mental understanding).
Gandhi’s Experiments
How deliberate interaction with simple things shows complex truths follows Gandhi’s approach to what he called “experiments with truth.” Gandhi treated everyday activities (spinning, eating, walking) as laboratories for exploring fundamental questions about existence, relationship, and moral action.
The spinning wheel wasn’t just a tool for creating cloth; it was a way of understanding the relationship between individual action and social change, between simplicity and complexity, between means and ends. Through sustained engagement with this simple object, Gandhi developed understanding that shaped his approach to political resistance and personal development.
Applied to thinking visualization, I can use everyday objects as focal points for exploring abstract questions. How does the process of sharpening a chisel teach me about the relationship between patience and precision? What does the behavior of different woods under stress show about human resilience? How does the process of joining two pieces of wood illuminate principles of collaboration?
Workshop Application
The hand plane as teacher demonstrates how tools become thinking partners when approached with contemplative attention. When I engage with the plane not just as a means to smooth wood but as an object worthy of attention in itself, it shows principles that apply far beyond woodworking.
The plane teaches me about the relationship between preparation and performance (how careful setup determines the quality of results). It teaches me about the difference between force and effectiveness (how proper technique requires less effort than improper technique). It teaches me about attention to feedback (how the sound and feel of each stroke provides information about grain direction, blade sharpness, and body position).
These lessons transfer to other domains because they emerge through embodied understanding rather than conceptual analysis. The principle of preparation-determining-performance applies to writing, relationships, and problem-solving. The distinction between force and effectiveness illuminates approaches to conflict resolution and creative work.
Tool 3: AI as Cognitive Mirror (Prompt Engineering)
Beyond Query and Response
Using AI to show my own thinking patterns rather than outsourcing thought requires a fundamental shift in how I approach artificial intelligence. Instead of asking AI to think for me, I ask it to help me see how I think.
This means using AI as a diagnostic tool that exposes my assumptions, biases, and blind spots. When I prompt an AI system to analyze my own writing, the patterns it identifies often surprise me. I discover I repeat certain themes without realizing it, that my arguments follow predictable structures, that I avoid certain types of evidence or reasoning.
The value lies not in the AI’s analysis itself but in what that analysis shows about patterns I couldn’t see from inside my own thinking. The AI becomes a mirror that reflects cognitive habits I’ve developed without conscious awareness.
The Prompting Art
Specific techniques for directing AI toward understanding generation rather than answer generation require understanding the difference between these two modes of AI use. Answer generation asks AI to solve problems for me. Understanding generation asks AI to help me think through problems myself.
Instead of “Write a conclusion for this article,” I prompt “What themes do I repeat throughout this piece, and how do they connect to the central argument?” Instead of “Explain why this approach is effective,” I ask “What assumptions underlie this approach, and where might those assumptions be incomplete?”
These prompts direct AI toward pattern recognition that serves human thinking rather than replacing it. The goal involves seeing my own thinking more clearly rather than having AI do my thinking for me.
Bias Recognition
How AI responses expose my hidden assumptions and blind spots creates opportunities for intellectual growth that I might miss without external perspective. When AI misinterprets my prompts in particular ways, those misinterpretations often show ambiguities in my own thinking.
I’ve learned to pay attention to moments when AI responses feel wrong or unsatisfying. Often these moments indicate that my prompt contained hidden assumptions or unclear reasoning that seemed obvious to me but wasn’t explicit. The AI’s confusion becomes a signal that my thinking needs clarification.
When AI responses feel too agreeable or confirmatory, I use follow-up prompts to push back: “What evidence would contradict this conclusion? What perspectives am I not considering? Where might my reasoning be weakest?”
Collaborative Thinking
Using artificial intelligence to boost rather than replace human reasoning requires maintaining what I call “cognitive sovereignty” (final authority over intellectual development while benefiting from technological augmentation).
This collaboration works best when I approach AI as a thinking partner with particular strengths and limitations rather than as an oracle or automated assistant. AI excels at pattern recognition across large data sets but lacks the embodied understanding that comes from lived experience. I excel at contextual judgment and creative synthesis but struggle with systematic analysis of complex information.
The partnership combines these complementary strengths while maintaining human authority over direction and values. I use AI to extend my analytical capacity while retaining responsibility for creative vision and ethical judgment.
Tool 4: Analog Capture (Paper and Whiteboard)
Screen-Free Processing
Why physical media engages different cognitive networks than digital tools relates to what neuroscientists call “embodied cognition” (the idea that physical interaction with my environment shapes how I think and learn).
Writing by hand activates different neural pathways than typing. The physical act of forming letters connects to motor memory systems that strengthen retention and comprehension. Drawing relationships between ideas on paper engages spatial reasoning systems that remain dormant when working purely with text.
The tactile feedback of pen on paper, the spatial constraints of physical surfaces, the inability to undo or delete (these limitations force different types of thinking than the infinite malleability of digital tools). Sometimes I need these constraints to access understanding that emerges only through physical engagement.
Divergent Mapping
Cloud mapping and idea clustering techniques for generating unexpected connections work well in analog format because physical space allows for non-linear arrangement of ideas. Unlike digital tools that impose grid structures or hierarchical organization, paper allows ideas to be positioned according to intuitive relationships rather than logical categories.
I begin with a central question or theme in the middle of the page, then add related ideas in clusters around the edges. The physical act of drawing connections between clusters often shows relationships that weren’t apparent when the ideas existed only as list items or separate notes.
The messiness of analog mapping reflects the messiness of real thinking. Ideas overlap, contradict each other, connect in unexpected ways. Digital tools that emphasize clean organization can obscure these productive tensions that generate new understanding.
The Seasoning Process
How time and physical distance from ideas allows new patterns to emerge follows what Quakers call “seasoning” (allowing experiences and understanding to develop over time rather than forcing immediate synthesis or conclusion).
When I create analog maps and then set them aside for days or weeks, I often return to find patterns I couldn’t see during initial creation. The spatial arrangement that seemed random shows underlying themes. The connections that felt forced show their true relationships. The gaps that weren’t apparent become obvious.
This seasoning process requires patience and trust that understanding develops through time and attention rather than immediate analysis. The physical artifact serves as a temporal anchor that preserves thinking in a particular state while allowing consciousness to continue processing in the background.
Integration Rituals
Moving between analog capture and digital organization creates opportunities for synthesis that neither medium achieves alone. The process of translating hand-drawn maps into digital notes forces clarity about which connections matter and which were products of momentary enthusiasm.
I use specific rituals for this translation process: photographing analog maps before digitizing them, creating summary documents that capture themes without losing details, building bridges between analog understanding and existing digital knowledge bases.
These integration rituals honor both the generative messiness of analog thinking and the organizational power of digital tools without forcing either medium to serve purposes it’s not designed for.
Tool Integration: The Four-Tool Workflow
Sequential Processing
How to move between analog brainstorming, digital mapping, AI interrogation, and contemplative reflection requires understanding what each tool contributes to the overall thinking process.
Analog brainstorming generates raw material (ideas, connections, questions that emerge through embodied engagement with problems). Digital mapping organizes and connects this material, showing patterns and relationships that guide further exploration. AI interrogation tests these patterns against broader information and alternative perspectives. Contemplative reflection integrates understanding from all sources into actionable understanding.
The sequence isn’t linear; each tool can send me back to earlier stages with new questions or understanding. But the general flow moves from generative to organizational to analytical to integrative.
Circular Integration
When to return to earlier tools as understanding deepens requires sensitivity to the feedback each tool provides. When digital mapping shows gaps in my initial brainstorming, I return to analog capture. When AI interrogation exposes assumptions I didn’t know I held, I return to contemplative reflection with new questions.
This circular movement prevents premature closure while ensuring that each tool’s contribution gets integrated into the developing understanding. The goal involves using each tool’s strengths while remaining responsive to what the thinking process shows about its own needs.
Situation-Specific Selection
Matching tool choice to the type of thinking challenge requires understanding when each tool serves my purposes best. Complex problems with many interconnected variables benefit from analog mapping that can accommodate non-linear relationships. Technical problems with clear criteria benefit from AI analysis that can process systematic information. Personal or ethical problems benefit from contemplative reflection that honors subjective experience alongside objective analysis.
The Master Craftsperson Approach
Using multiple tools in concert rather than relying on any single method reflects how master craftspeople work (not just owning good tools but knowing when each tool serves the work best). The hand plane excels at final smoothing but fails for rough dimensioning. The table saw excels at straight cuts but fails for curves.
Each thinking tool excels in particular domains while proving inadequate in others. Mastery involves developing fluency with multiple tools and judgment about when each contributes to the work at hand.
Real-World Application
A transparent AI collaboration workflow that demonstrates these principles in practice (from analog literature review through digital synthesis to iterative refinement) provides concrete examples of how these tools work together rather than in isolation. Here’s my complete AI workflow documentation that shows how I move between analog reading, Obsidian mapping, AI collaboration, and contemplative integration in sustained projects.
This workflow evolves with experience but maintains core principles: human intelligence determines direction, AI provides capability, analog tools generate understanding, digital tools organize understanding, and contemplative practice integrates everything into wisdom that serves real-world action.
The Collaboration Enhancement Principle
Visible Thinking with Others
How external representation improves dialogue and collective reasoning extends the benefits of thinking visualization beyond individual use. When team members can see each other’s thinking patterns through shared maps, diagrams, and documented reasoning processes, collaboration becomes more productive and less prone to miscommunication.
Visible thinking eliminates the guesswork about what others propose. Instead of trying to infer someone’s reasoning from their conclusions, I can examine their thinking process. This reduces argument about misunderstood positions while increasing productive disagreement about differences in reasoning or values.
The practice requires vulnerability (I must be willing to show my thinking in its incomplete, developing state rather than presenting only polished conclusions). But this vulnerability enables the kind of collaborative thinking that produces understanding none of the participants could generate alone.
AI Interaction Quality
Using visualization tools to direct rather than follow artificial intelligence requires maintaining cognitive authority throughout the collaboration. When I can see my own thinking patterns through external representation, I can better guide AI toward boosting rather than replacing human understanding.
The visualization tools serve as bridges between human and artificial intelligence (ways of translating my internal thinking processes into forms that AI can work with while preserving what makes my thinking distinctly human).
Community Learning
How shared thinking maps accelerate group understanding demonstrates the scalability of visualization approaches. When communities develop shared vocabularies for making thinking visible, the learning process accelerates because understanding can be built upon rather than rediscovered.
The scientific community exemplifies this principle through shared methods for documenting and sharing research processes. Open-source software communities do something similar through shared approaches to documenting code development. These community practices make individual understanding available for collective building.
Research Integration
Cognitive Science of Visualization
How external representation changes neural processing and problem-solving capacity confirms what craftspeople have known through experience: making plans changes how I think about projects. Research shows that externalization activates different neural networks, offloads cognitive burden, and enables pattern recognition that remains inaccessible through purely internal processing.
Studies of architects, engineers, and designers show that external representation isn’t just a communication tool (it’s a thinking tool that generates understanding through the process of translation between internal ideas and external form).
Adler’s Methodology
Lessons from the Syntopicon project about systematic knowledge organization remain relevant for individual thinking visualization. Adler’s team discovered that the process of creating connections between ideas was more valuable than the final index itself. The systematic approach to identifying relationships across large bodies of information generated understanding that casual reading could not produce.
Network Theory
Understanding how human and artificial intelligence organize information illuminates why I need tools for making my thinking visible when collaborating with AI systems. Human intelligence organizes information through associative networks that follow emotional, spatial, and temporal relationships. AI organizes information through statistical relationships that follow training data patterns.
These different organizational approaches create opportunities for synergy when I can make my associative networks visible to AI systems while using AI’s pattern recognition to identify relationships I might miss.
Embodied Cognition
Why physical tools and analog representation access different thinking modes relates to the embodied nature of human cognition. My thinking doesn’t happen only in my brain (it emerges through my entire embodied interaction with environment).
Physical tools engage motor systems, spatial reasoning, and tactile feedback that purely digital approaches cannot access. This doesn’t make analog tools superior to digital ones, but it makes them complementary in ways that honor the full range of human cognitive capacity.
Prompt Engineering Research
Evidence-based approaches to directing AI toward understanding rather than information build on emerging research about how different prompting strategies affect AI behavior. Research shows that prompts emphasizing reasoning processes produce different outputs than prompts emphasizing final answers.
The most effective prompts for thinking partnership create what researchers call “chain of thought” reasoning (making the AI’s processing steps visible so humans can evaluate and guide the reasoning process rather than just accepting conclusions).
"The plans don't just record intention (they generate understanding). As the pencil moves across paper, solutions emerge that pure mental modeling missed. Proportions feel wrong on the page before they would fail in wood. Joint relationships clarify through visual representation."
The Craftsperson’s Plans
Like Adler’s team indexing the Great Books, the craftsperson creates drawings not as decoration but as thinking tools. Each sketch shows problems invisible to imagination, exposes the relationship between components, transforms abstract vision into buildable reality.
Standing at my workbench with plans spread across the surface, I realize these drawings represent more than construction guidance. They capture thinking in visible form, creating external artifacts that make internal processing available for examination and improvement.
The plans don’t just record intention (they generate understanding). As the pencil moves across paper, solutions emerge that pure mental modeling missed. Proportions feel wrong on the page before they would fail in wood. Joint relationships clarify through visual representation.
This external thinking becomes more important when collaborating with artificial intelligence. I need ways to see my own cognitive patterns, to direct AI toward boosting rather than replacement, to maintain creative authority while benefiting from computational power.
Like Adler’s Syntopicon connecting ideas across centuries, my personal thinking tools must connect understanding across domains, show patterns invisible to linear processing, and make the invisible architecture of understanding visible enough to evaluate and improve.
The workshop teaches a fundamental principle: mastery involves not just knowing how to use tools, but knowing when each tool serves the work best. The same principle applies to thinking tools (I need multiple approaches and wisdom about when each contributes to understanding).
But something more emerges through sustained practice with these visualization tools. I begin to see thinking itself differently (not as a purely internal process that sometimes gets expressed externally, but as a collaborative process between internal consciousness and external representation that generates understanding neither could produce alone).
Making Thinking Visible Shows Something
The ability to step outside my own thinking and observe it (what philosophers call metacognition) points toward the irreplaceable nature of human awareness. When I externalize my thinking through visualization tools, I create opportunities for self-reflection that no AI system can replicate.
This metacognitive awareness enables me to evaluate my own reasoning, identify my biases, and improve my thinking processes. I can watch myself think and choose to think differently. This capacity for self-observation and self-correction represents something uniquely human that remains essential even as AI systems become more sophisticated.
The visualization tools I’ve explored (digital mapping, contemplative engagement, AI collaboration, analog capture) serve this metacognitive function by making internal processes external and therefore available for examination. Through these tools, I develop not just better thinking but better thinking about thinking.
In my next exploration, I’ll examine what this metacognitive awareness shows about the nature of consciousness itself (how the ability to observe my own thinking points toward capacities that distinguish human awareness from even the most sophisticated information processing systems). The tools for making thinking visible become windows into what makes consciousness irreplaceable in an age of artificial intelligence.
Research References
- “A good reason not to write in books” by Richard Carter: http://richardcarter.com/sidelines/a-good-reason-not-to-write-in-books/
- “A Syntopicon – Wikipedia”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Syntopicon
- “After 54 Great Books, 102 Great Ideas, now—count them !—Three Revolutions” by Garry Wills (The New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/13/archives/the-common-sense-of-politics-by-mortimer-j-adler-265-pp-new-york.html
- “BBC Archive – #OnThisDay 1974: Mortimer J. Adler tried to flog Christopher Rainbow the new 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.”: https://archive.org/details/twitter-1085501921207627776
- “Christopher Hill · Diary: Working Methods · LRB 10 June 2010”: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary
- “The Dream of a Democratic Culture: Mortimer J. Adler and the Great Books Idea” by Tim Lacy (Amazon.com): https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Democratic-Culture-Mortimer-Intellectual/dp/0230337465
- “The Dream of a Democratic Culture: Mortimer J. Adler and the Great Books Idea” by Tim Lacy (docdrop.org PDF): https://docdrop.org/download_annotation_doc/The-Dream-of-a-Democratic-Cultu—Tim-Lacy-pvr86.pdf
- “Gatekeeping Ourselves” by Jared Henderson (substack): https://jaredhenderson.substack.com/p/gatekeeping-ourselves
- “The Great Books” by Jacques Barzun (The Atlantic, December 1952): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1952/12/the-great-books/642341/
- The Great Ideas (Center for the Study of the Great Ideas): https://www.thegreatideas.org/
- “The 102 Great Ideas: Scholars Complete a Monumental Catalog” (Life Magazine, January 26, 1948): https://books.google.com/books?id=p0gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA92&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false (also for “Great Books in Life Magazine”)
- “The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education” by Robert M. Hutchins: No direct URL provided for the book itself, but extensively referenced.
- “The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, Volume 1”: https://archive.org/details/syntopiconvolume1
- “The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, Volume 2”: https://archive.org/details/syntopiconvolume2
- “Greater Books”: https://www.greaterbooks.com/
- Grey Room | The Dialectic of the University: His Master’s Voice by Reinhold Martin: http://www.greyroom.org/issues/60/20/the-dialectic-of-the-university-his-masters-voice/
- “Heavy Reading” (The New York Times, 2008): https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/books/review/Campbell-t.html
- “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler (PDF from stevenson.ucsc.edu): https://stevenson.ucsc.edu/academics/stevenson-college-core-courses/how-to-mark-a-book-1.pdf
- “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler (PDF from docdrop.org): docdrop.org/download_annotation_doc/Adler—1940—How-to-Mark-a-Book-fehef.pdf
- “How to Read (and Understand) Hard Books” by Jared Henderson (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laXcJyx9xCc
- “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler (PDF from delong.typepad.com): https://delong.typepad.com/files/adler-read.pdf
- “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (KCET Los Angeles, 1975, 13-part series): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_rizr8bb0c
- “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (KCET Los Angeles, 1975, 13-part series playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPajsb520dyzNw9mHsZnrzi5w9N_amS7E
- “How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler – Book Summary – Wise Words”: (Inferred URL: https://wisewords.blog/how-to-read-a-book-mortimer-j-adler/)
- “How to Read a Book, Chapter 4” by Dan Allosso (substack): https://danallosso.substack.com/p/how-to-read-a-book-chapter-4
- “Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic Justification (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-intern-extern/
- “Jack Kerouac Owned Freud, Dostoyevsky, Kant, Schopenhauer, and More, 8 Books From His Estate!” (auction.universityarchives.com): https://auction.universityarchives.com/auction-lot/jack-kerouac-owned-freud-dostoyevsky-kant-scho_4584910AD6
- “Learning How to Read” by Niklas Luhmann (luhmann.surge.sh): https://luhmann.surge.sh/learning-how-to-read
- Loom | Free Screen & Video Recording Software (Maggie Delano’s notes template): https://loom.com/share/a05f636661cb41628b9cb7061bd749ae
- “Mental Imagery (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/
- “Mental Representation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/
- Mortimer J. Adler Papers (Harry Ransom Center): https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00003
- Mortimer J. Adler Papers (Smithsonian Archives of American Art): https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/surveys/chicago/university-chicago-library-special-collections-research-center/mortimer
- Mortimer J. Adler Papers (Syracuse University): https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/a/adler_mj.htm
- Mortimer J. Adler Papers (University of Chicago Library): https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.ADLERM
- Mortimer J. Adler Papers (University of Chicago Library PDF): https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ead/rlg/ICU.SPCL.ADLERM.pdf
- “Mortimer J. Adler’s slip box collection” (reddit.com/r/antinet): https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/va2s09/mortimer_j_adlers_slip_box_collection_photo_of/
- “Mortimer J. Adler’s Syntopicon: a topically arranged collaborative slipbox — Zettelkasten Forum”: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2623/mortimer-j-adlers-syntopicon-a-topically-arranged-collaborative-slipbox
- “Mortimer Adler’s Syntopicon” by Ivan Kreilkamp: https://ivankreilkamp.com/2008/11/19/mortimer-adlers-syntopicon/
- “My Adler Antinet” (occidental.substack.com): https://occidental.substack.com/p/my-adler-antinet
- “Reading Communities from Salons to Cyberspace” (chapter “Utopian Civic-Mindedness: Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and the Great Books Enterprise” by Daniel Born): https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230308848_5
- “Remarkable Legacies” by Remi Kalir: https://remikalir.com/remarkablelegacies/
- r/commonplacebook – Index cards for commonplacing? (reddit.com): https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/xzq9yj/index_cards_for_commonplacing/
- “Roger Schank Proposed Story Archive search agents” (engines4ed.org): http://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/nodes/NODE-260-pg.html
- “Self-Knowledge (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-knowledge/
- “Syntopical Reading in Roam” by Maggie Delano: https://www.maggiedelano.com/garden/syntopical-reading-in-roam
- “Syntopicon” (gdconline.org PDF): https://www.gdconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/FBC08-34.pdf
- “Syntopicon | EXPERIENCING INFORMATION” by Jim Kalbach: https://experiencinginformation.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/syntopicon/
- “Sajjad2881/NewSyntopicon” (GitHub): https://github.com/sajjad2881/NewSyntopicon
- “The AdlerNet Guide for Intelligent Readers” (occidental.substack.com): https://occidental.substack.com/p/the-adlernet-guide-for-intelligent
- “The AdlerNet Guide, Part II” (occidental.substack.com): https://occidental.substack.com/p/the-adlernet-guide-part-ii?sd=pf
- “The Contents of Perception (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-contents/
- “The Great Books” by Jacques Barzun (The Atlantic, December 1952): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1952/12/the-great-books/642341/
- “The Voroscope Guide, Part III” (thevoroscope.com): https://thevoroscope.com/2022/06/20/sum-total-human-knowledge-3/
- “Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2015: Indie Ed-Tech” (boffosocko.com): boffosocko.com/research/typewriter-collection/ (includes a comment from Richard Carter related to Mortimer Adler’s anagram)
“Underlining in Library Books” (takingnotenow.blogspot.com): https://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2013/08/underlining-in-library-books.html
Disclosure Statement
This post was produced according to the approach outline in The Art of Transparent AI Collaboration Workflow (click to review).