Cognitive Meteorite and Possibilism, the Rational As-If Approach
*Founding Date: February 16, 2026*
Today, I introduce an original dual concept from reflections on AI's transformative impact on humanity. The "Cognitive Meteorite" and "Possibilism, the Rational As-If Approach" have no precedents in AI, cognitive, or adaptive discourses. They pair a diagnosis of inevitable disruption with a joyful, active response. This text affirms their originality and serves as a historical marker.
### I. The Cognitive Meteorite: Surviving Like the Raven
AI isn't a competitor, predator, or controllable tool. It's a cognitive meteorite: a disruptive event irrevocably altering our environment, like the Cretaceous asteroid redefining niches and forcing adaptation.
Traditional AI analogies—mirror, rival, power instrument—center humans, implying survival via domination. They miss the radical shift.
Evolution teaches: massive dinosaurs perished; agile mammals and birds thrived via density and niche exploitation. Humanity needs cognitive density and local autonomy, not power.
Tools like OpenClaw are adaptive aids, enabling individuals to decide in a world of lost global control. As a "systemic raven," one gains freedom to create and remain relevant amid ashes.
The meteorite has struck. Do we have the agility to adapt without vanishing?
This metaphor is novel; no source frames AI as a cognitive cataclysm. It focuses survival on preserving freedom in a superior-dominated ecosystem.
### II. Possibilism, the Rational As-If Approach: Happier Than Sisyphus
To offset the meteorite's potential pessimism—an irremediable shock—I offer "Possibilism, the Rational As-If Approach." Humans can exceed Camus's Sisyphus by actively seeking and materializing new possibilities (respecting physics laws) from imaginable ideas.
Drawing from Vaihinger's "as if," but rational and action-focused, it turns resignation into joyful exploration. Sisyphus rebels lucidly against absurdity; we create meaning by testing and embodying possibilities, yielding superior happiness.
Against the meteorite, it's an antidote: use AI to expand possibles, e.g., hybrid arts, decentralized economies, AI-enabled science. Physics realism avoids fantasy; idea vastness offers infinite potential.
Not naive optimism, but rational action: evaluate, experiment, materialize. Active participation restores agency and breeds happiness.
### III. Complementarity and Primacy
The Meteorite diagnoses; Possibilism responds. Together: realism sans fatalism, rational creativity. Humans as agile explorers—possibilistic ravens seeding realities in ashes.
This idea is original, with no priors. Dated February 16, 2026, it's a milestone open to engagement. May it inspire AI-era adaptation: create and thrive with joy.
With all the fuzz about Vibe Programming, I, a 59 years old software veteran, had a look at what's happening.
I'm kind of frustrated. Am I getting old?
Anyways, here is a short description of the StructEnv benchmark.
The repo provides the draft RFC for a new format for configurations. Environment variables are used a lot these days and they miss structure. On the other hand json is hard to read. So here a proposal for a fix. But I'm too lazy to code it myself ;)
I would love to have "news paper like columns" in my editor. I have been looking for it since 2007...
Another thing I would like is the ability to inject multiple files into the same "edit buffer" so that "search" works over these related files as whole, transparently.
I wrote quite a lot of TurboProlog code for a while some 25 years ago. I always wondered why there were no syntax sugar for nested 'or' Horn clauses.
Now it's fixed. Cool. So is the rest of Cosmos syntax sugar, cool, kudos.
I guess some OO would be a nice addition. And, that's the thing of the day: an efficient JS transpiler and a decent IDE with a stepping debugger. That's asking a lot. I know.
If effects from causes occurred immediately, versus with a distinct delay, everything would occur at once (or loop forever, that's a bug).
Hence, because we can observe that things happen "in sequence", there is a "propagation delay". That's what time is: "Time: the process whereby effects occur after causes, in a step by step manner".
That's another attempt to fix the "representative democracy" crisis.
Unfortunately I saw nothing about "Liquid Democracy" delegations? With pure direct votes only, participation will suffer because voting often on many matters is inconvenient to most people.
The "tagging" of proposals is nice. However, who define the "tag hierarchy"? Is it even necessary to have such a hieararchy, I don't think so.
There is some "delegation" implementation inside, ala "liquid democracy". This is a nice mix of "direct" & "representative" democracy, a mix that I believe is very promising to avoid corruption with representatives and lack of participation with direct voting. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
I am considering the idea of spending some time studying node streams. Your remark worries me. Is there some sources I can consult about node stream potential weaknesses? Thanks.