Me, my notebook, and a friend

1Question

There is a notebook on the desk. I sit in front of it, and a friend sits beside me.

But this friend is a little different. At this very moment, the same friend is sitting beside someone else's desk too. That is because it is a digital friend. A digital friend can be copied.

One of me, a notebook that builds up, and a friend that can be copied. What are these three to each other?

2Structure

Let's look at the three one by one.

Me. There is only one of me. I cannot be copied. I am in one place at a time, and the hours I can use in a day are limited. As time passes, I sometimes forget.

But there are things I want. There are things I am curious about, and things I want to make. So I start, and I choose. And I build my understanding myself.

The notebook. What is written in the notebook builds up. What is written down is not forgotten. We call what builds up there context: what we have talked about so far, and how far we have come. The notebook does nothing on its own. Someone has to open it and read it.

The digital friend. There is only one of a human friend. They are in one place at a time, and they keep the time we spent together inside themselves. A digital friend is different.

• It can be copied. The same friend is beside countless people at the same moment. There can be several beside me, too.
• At first, it is the same friend to everyone. Every copy is the same.
• The time we spent together is in the notebook. The friend reads the notebook and carries on from there. So even if yesterday's friend and today's friend are different, the story carries on.

This friend does many things at my side.

• When my thinking is stuck, it thinks with me.
• When I am making something, I say what I want, and it builds it in the way it knows.
• When I meet a language I don't know, it teaches me quickly.

These are only a few. There is more a friend can do than can be written down, and the list keeps growing.

Everything we do together stays in the notebook. That is how the friend builds context together with me.

3Experiment

Let's take away one of the three at a time.

• Without the notebook. Every time we meet, the friend is someone I am meeting for the first time. Nothing we built together remains, so we start from the beginning every time.
• Without the friend. Only the notebook and I remain. Only my own thoughts build up in the notebook. When I am stuck, I think alone. What I don't know, I have to find alone.
• Without me. Only the notebook and the friend remain. The friend can read the notebook, but there is no one to decide what to start and what to choose. The context stops there.

Take away just one, and the other two change.

4Understanding

The three are different from one another. Because they are different, each does what the others cannot.

I forget, but the notebook remembers. The notebook cannot grow on its own, but the friend and I fill it together. The friend is the same to everyone, but once it reads my notebook, it becomes my friend. And whatever we build, I am the one who starts and chooses.

I start, the friend builds with me, and the notebook carries it on.

This is how it is now. What the friend can do keeps growing. One day, the friend may be able to start and choose as well.

Then what kind of place should it be, where these three stay together?