Shared Minds

Droplet

Open the piece → www.ccfrost.com/SharedMinds/SMHW1

About the piece

Personally, I find stream of consciousness to be the ultimate generative source. If everything in the world, all of our interactions, experiences, feelings, thoughts, and whatever else that we pass through changes our brain on a physical level, the idea of forgetting is silly. our experiences change us permanently, each moment. This change however, is mostly inaccessible, except though that dim window of the subconscious which is our ever present, stream of thought.

In my mind, unless focused on a specific image, my typical experience of consciousness is as a voice, as language. I can rotate the apple or whatever whatever, but mostly I have feelings or maybe sublingual experiences, punctuated by specific occurrences of language. Maybe it's not true though, because I do feel like images can pop to mind, or sub-image-images. or something like image, for example remembering the location of a lost thing.

In control of my thoughts though, no, never. An initial thought is almost always intrusive. As the stoics say to practice, I try to speculate on a thought, retroactively, post occurrence, to see it as just that, some bubbling up of my subconscious space, just a thought, generated from my total experience, neither good nor bad but briefly present. In control no, but aware and reflective, yes.

I do find though, that I can concentrate my thoughts on a particular topic, or note a topic as important and attempt to generate some compuation on the topic. Something I think about a lot is my mental calculator. ITs a skill you have to develop and I can gauge my cognitive ability often on my ability to compute long basic athrithmatic. when Im strung out, I feel like my internal ram is decreased. The total number of digits I can hold decreases. mental presence and practice can raise this number, and I try to participate in activities which make me more present, instead of less.

Lost in thought is an interesting thing. Often while physically engaged I can be lost, more situated in the wrought activities of the body, my mind freeier. To me, this activity is sort of like, the space where, uh, how do I say it. I am distracted enough that the thoughts can flow freely, they do not need to be focused. As I write this right now, I have a clear presence of mind, I am able to think of word to word, writing as I think, or a little slower, but the thoughts are not lost as they bear some semblance from one to the other, this form is vaguely narrative, though the narrative is that of an idea. Lost to me is when space is created for new thoughts, less predictable.

Repetition is the language of thought to me, looping is a difficult state of mind, but one that can be recognized, the loop struck apart. More frequent I feel is repetition as such, like again and again and again and again, or like, I don't know how best to say it, but repetition is so present in thought. If you record yourself speaking outloud, as an experiment, you will find your thoughts touch on the same topics repeatedly. I spoke to a friend this morning, going through a difficult time, he's maybe a bit autistic, but he told me 4 times over the course of our conversation that the coffee shop we had met in reminded him of Chicago winters. thats really interesting to me, when our conversation from other topics lulled, he was brought back to that familiar feeling, which migrated through his mind, bubbling up into language which he touched on again to me.

looping then seems to be the shortening of that mental repetitive process. the condensing of our typical range of thoughts into a shorter uncomfortable period.

When did an artist talk last semester, I endeavored to empty my mind through a stream of consciousness rant, and I knew the talk was near the end when I touched again on BLDC motors, at the time, and object of stress. my mind had migrated through the full range of comfortable possibilities and settled back again on that most intrusive stressful thought. I could have begun again to rehearse the full contents of my mind on the subject, but mercifully my time had ended.

as a thinker in language, the ordered contents of my mind occurs one my one, a sentence, a big long run on impossible to finish sentence. picking up and leaving off, but always singular.

One thought follows another as dictated by the subconscious, beyond my control. For example, and this is a powerful tool to glimpse that elusive subject. One thought can be like, connected to another, by this powerful and sublingual rush of thoughts, where in the next emerges and I get this weird glimpse into my personal sub currents. It's difficult to draw to mind an example of this thinking, and it's usually uncomfortable and deeply personal. It's sort of an association game, where thoughts are paired in a strange way we don't expect.

Do I feel like there are many candidates for a thought following a thought? No, we may have some control of the rudder of our minds but the gusts of wind. Overly determined by the weather systems from which they emerge.

To get to know myself, I write. I write and I write and I write and I write and I leave feeling drawn out. I know Im done when the writing stops. Reflecting on my emptied contents helps me understand the way my thoughts occur to me. I used to write stream of consciousness a lot. Both biographical, my real thoughts and feelings, and from an autofictional approach. Both though, occurring as purely recorded generated text. I have come to know myself this way, but better, other have known me. A gift to myself greater than I could ever imagine. Lossing that stream of consciousness for consumption by others can be a deeply rewarding way of being known, to whatever small degree.

Looping the above. Type into it or press the round button to talk to it — it stands aside while you do, and picks up again a minute after you stop.

Every prompt

Both conversations that made this, start to finish. Nothing edited — typos, dictation slips, the lot. 116 prompts across two sittings, and most of them are a sentence or less. Almost none of it is instruction. Almost all of it is reaction.

Building the ten versions — 2 September

help me git init a cloned repository
Lets make a html css javascript canvas which records stream of consciousness. The outcome will be a page which allows the user to speak to the mic, the line will apear as a single stretching, growing piece of text. as reocuring words form, draw a line between each ocurance, they should arc between the words. Over time, we will condense paragraphs of ideas and behing to section them off into bubbles which will make meta connections.
mic error: network
okay, it worked in chrome. the issue is that the bubbles accumulate to the side, but their main idea is never summed up. right now the words being picked are somewhat random. Each paragraph should grasp at a central idea, and create ties to other praragraphs ideas. It also feels a litle too "vibe coded" lets get rid of the gradients, and go for a clean white html look. obviously css and javascript will still be essential, but lets keep it nice and black and white. I want to see the language reference itself. I want to see it as a tangled web. I want my brain to slowly materialize on the screen as I talk. I want the bubbles to move reasociate and move as more context is added. i want, I want, I want
can we make it so I can link a youtube video and it watches it all for me? I have a long stream of consciousness rant online I would like to visualize
to much gtgt hey, also I dont want them to disapear, lets just filter them into chunks
does the downloaded video stay somewhere?
Lets throw this up on my website
Actually, the nodes need to be more descriptive
lets shift this idea, I want stream of consciousness sentences to form ideas to to grow like a fern branch into wirlygigs which as the speaker moves on from the idea are launched out into space, filtereing into buckets based on simularity to other ideas
So let's make it for the next version, like, um, the seeds of a dandelion. So as the thoughts develop, they... the phrases sprout, like, out of the seeds of the dandelion, and when they pick up enough, um, ideas or the idea comes to an end, let's have them float off the screen. No more collecting. No more putting them together. Just the idea forms, and then it floats off the screen and is dismissed. So I'd like to see, um, kind of a black and white, uh, dandelion from which the ideas will, uh, collect onto the fronds of the individual seeds and then blow away.
Can we make it so that the words for each of the individual pedals don't come sprouting out, but, um, the seeds on the outer bit of it are already there? And when I begin talking the words circle around a seed and spiral around it, like, forming the sail, which carries it off, and the longer I talk, the larger the sail is, and therefore, the more wind it catches. And also, I'd like to just to sway the wind ambiently.
Sorry. Get back to work.
Let's make that interaction snappier. It takes too long for it to float off into the wind.
only the head should sway
lets make the text larger
slow the wind down!
can we take every version of this we have made so far and make them selectable on the page? so I can demo
Let's make a version where as the stream of consciousness comes in through voice, it grows into a flower up from the dirt and then dies to be reabsorbed by the dirt. The word slowly drifting down into the soil.
I wanna do something now that's a little bit different. Um, so I've been thinking a lot about consciousness as sort of, like, transitional or conscious thought as a transitional, um, emergence from sort of, like, a wave field of background or sub vocal, uh, emanations. And so as such, I'd like to visualize stream of thought as recorded through voice as emerging from a wave. So my note says sort of like a wave or vibrational sound devisualization device. I guess the thing would be that I want to see a screen full of vibrating lines or vibrating waves. And, um, as the speech occurs, it sort of molds itself in letters in a almost cursivisch way as in, like, cursive, um, the words form from the waves and then, uh, retreat back into them. So I see this as, like, a standing vibrational wave, one of many turning, um, into words and retreating back. And so maybe part of this can be as through the words are recorded, they, um, come back in and out of the background. So, like, after a word's been said, it might echo through the background and the word or phrase might find its way into other waves, uh, on other parts of the screen. So I see the screen as a whole as this large vibrating canvas. And the center... the main... most recent word, the word which is being spoken presently, it is in the center, but then previous words that have been recorded. are on other waves in the back or less central.
I wanna see the words stick around for a little longer. Um, and, yes, I do wanna see it. I I guess I wanna see the phrase of the whole word. Like, I want to see the phrase of the thought, not just a single word because right now words pop up and disappear too quickly. And, yes, you are correct in that I I want the purest reading of the wave mold itself from the letters as in single strip... cursive procedurally generative, uh, where one continuous path does both jobs. That's what I want. If it trades eligibility, that's fine. But I wanna see the phrase sort of build itself out of the wave. So the phrase starts, and the the language continues with the previously described, um, like, sentence building structure. Like, when we were looking for thoughts as sentences and paragraphs, we're gonna continue with that, and we're going to have it build the wave from the peer wave, uh, until the thought diminishes, in which case, I want not just the word, but the thought itself to continue to the background. Also, for the most part, these waves are a little they're a little loosey goosey and more, like, wavished than they are vibrational. Like, I wanna see vibrational.
let me see a 1x multipluier for my language
Right now its very jagged and the words pop up seddenly, they should be more loopy and wiggle themselves into form
this is starting to look really good but it needs to be more readable
can you make it work in japanese for me?
we can retire the japanese version for everything except v9
I think that the fragments resurface both on linguistic ties and faintly in bursts. So it's certainly one hundred percent will resurface on linguistic ties, but will also randomly surface in bursts. Recall fragments are more momentary. They will pass through and then vanish, um, quicker, kind of like, um, subconscious thoughts. and one through eight are just demo history. We're basically just going to keep moving forward and not touch those older ones from here on out. They should exist as archive. Right now, one of the biggest issues is that the sentences and thoughts are not cutting off in time. So sometimes they last too long. Also, when the, um, words emerge as, like, latent space in the background, um, they should be less of a wave. Like, right now, they sort of dissolve into waviness, but it would be better if they were, like, kind of coming into and out of crescendos in terms of their legibility. So the intensity of the wave will peak and then retreat. There is still too much popping in and out. Um, I would like it to, as words come in, grow more.
what questions do you have
1, vibrate autonamously, 2, we will look at 10 mins when 1 min looks good 3, sentences are better for thought that paragraphs I feel 4,silence should have some random older thoughts pop up, on the perifery, but thats it 5, lets try it with the linking word 6, it will be a website someday, not today 7, were dropping japanese for later eperiments, I had some visitors, but now its just us, in english. right now, there are two problems. The first problem is that words are appearing and pushing other words to the left and to the right as they try to say centered. If we're going to continue in this mode, the word should begin on the right and move left so that they don't wiggle around and, um, come jumping out in a blocky manner. The other problem is that it's not very readable. Um, can we make it more readable?
relaunch it, sites down
still brokwn
the sursive right now is just not readable
I want the words to wiggle their way into form, not slide into view fully created. As the wave wiggles, each new word takes shape, the essential movement is a word begins on the left side of the screen, and as the sentence takes shape, more words are added across as it goes right
the words are still not readable, but were close
still no good, even with the sliders, is there a cursive font wen can use instead
maybe the drawn hand can have some spaces between the letters
for one thing, the letters should not be written ontop of a straight line, they should form like a ball of yarn unwravling. for another when they disapear, they are not rejoining. Also thats way too many marks for a T
now the words are readable, but GET RID OF THE LINE UNDER THE WORDS. THE LINE WHICH IS NOW UNDER THE WORDS SHOULD BREAKOFF INTO CHUNKS AND TURN INTO THE WORDS
were getting there, now make all of the transitions happen smoothly
The way I wanted to work is as the first line occurs, which it's looking pretty good now as far as the generation of the first line. After the first line goes, I don't wanna see it just go sliding off somewhere else on the page. I want it to fully disappear to clear space for the next line. It may return if it is linked with a reference word, but for the time being, only one at a time can be displayed as the speaking is happening It does not make sense for them to slide up to another line. There's too much words flying around. They need to just slide up coming out of the string on the line, and then from the right to the left, return to nothing.
its freezing when it has to render text
can we make the tremor reletive to the speed at which new words enter? faster and faster more words is more tremmor. [followed by a pasted settings block]
[a pasted settings block]
right now words are writihg left to right, I want them to also collapse left to right, instead of collapsing right to left, so a word is unwritten preempting a new word to come along, a new string. also the words in the background are still too small
the ends of lines dont always line up
do you see how there are two lines at once here and it breaks the illusion?
back to work please
link please
can parts of the line break off and float up into the word sentences?
overstepping that final face away line, and I want the secondarry words in the sentence to be more visible
lets make it so that no matter where a sentence ends, it always breaks off and fades away all the way down its vibratory line
totally wrong, I meant the rest of the line thats unwritten, not the written word. even if a line is not used fully for the word, I want it to disolve
no more of this, it was perfect before I hate how the text is sliding off the screen that way
Let's archive this one. We might come back to it, but maybe this is a good time to do a get or something like that. The next one I wanna try is something where the main thought is like a droplet of water in a pool. And so as more and more words are added, the radiating out of the waves from that droplet are the line that turns into the words, so it's the same line mechanic we have here. And then the thoughts that emerge up beside it, um, in the same mechanic we have here, which is really lovely. Our other smaller droplets falling onto the same pool of water. So this is like a puddle in the rain with one thought in the middle, a large droplet, and smaller droplets occurring all around it, uh, in... with the related terminology and words.
It's so jumpy. Can we make it less jumpy? Like, it's good, but also, um, jumpy. And another thing, when an old thought gets resurfaced, it should... its word should spread out, like, the thought lands, and then it grows to its maximum size, and then it continues to spread out. It doesn't stick around in this version. It, uh, drops, and the words fan out, and then it disappears. I
I think its broken
whats up here
lets get rid of the spomntanious uncaused ripples
The words can stay with their ripples as they drift outwards, they can be like the secondary words. There's no reason for them to disappear before they fade off into the distance moving outward slowly. and not all thoughts should occur from the same place, uh, that are being spoken. They can come in from other places.
The ripples are not well tied to the words associated with them. The circles fade far before the words do. The nucleus of the word is like the originator of the drips. of the ripples.
The secondary remembered words should fade away. They should not linger. only the words which have just been spoken should be permanently visible. Secondary words should leave their mark and then evacuate. Also, why are so many emanating rings ending so soon?
do you see how there are so many more ripples at the center vs the outsides? and theyre moving too slow, not like water at all, it should be ephemeral
were going to clip this project and restart, theres too much tech debt. Please sum summarize your understanding of the final one, project ten that we're working on, uh, for recreation by a fresh agent.
Please read droplet.md and recreate the projet in a new folder called Homework1.2

Rebuilding from the specification — 8 to 9 September

read Droplet.MD and create the project in a new folder called Homework1.1. If you get stuck, ask me for help. Do not reference homework1 as its full of tech debt
launch it
please review this code, dont make any changes, but search for bugs
right now the ripples do not correspond to the thoughts they are generated from, they need to be tightly coupled
its becoming total word salad
how do I launch it?
When the word spawns, some ripples move at three or four or five or six or ten times the speed of the outer word ring that they correspond to, the result is a jittery mess. I'm happy with the way the word is generated, but the ripples cannot exceed the outer word ring from which they're spawned. This is not the way that a ripple moves in water. Please use water as an example. For the way I would like the ripples to look. Um, further, reduce the tunable controls to five or six. That's all that I can really handle. Give me the most impactful five or six controls.
can you restart it please
teach me how to run it
burn some tokens just checking things over for me
ues duh fix everything
sometimes the secondary related thoughts spawn twice
please highlight the linking words in secondary thoughts
are they done?
so if I use claude code it will be more visible?
its not here
can you give me a hot key to hide tune, download the brainretch in 2026 transcript so I can host this on a statis server, and add a tuner to make the ripples fade instead of poping out of existance?
great, were going to upload this to my website as shared minds homework 1, when we build that page out, lets include some of my best prompts from this chat
[a pasted settings block] put these in. it looks great, is it ready to be on my page?
no I want to hide the tube button as a whole, it should not be user clickable
pause is not working
we need to pull the captions offline so its not an api pull
wait so, it has brainretch in 2026 hardcoded already?
please run the statis server
static server
find my website and create this page
please continue
there should be a blog post as well, so scaffold that for me
and so then, at the top of the blog post lets put that link
can you host it for me rn?
on the site, give me a way to adjust the fragment lengths, right now they dont capture any thought fully
okay, great, now please look at my previous folder Homework1, were going to host that too. that should be like SMHW.5 please dont change the code in there, its an archive, but do change it a little I want the brainretch in 2026 archive to be automatically included for all of them
okay, lets do 05, make it stay unlisted, it should just be linked in the droplet blog post
host it
can you make it so the versions I worked through continue to play through as I change the visualizationj
please produce a list of all my prompts on the blog post
can you look into my previous conversation and include all those prompts too?
for the references, can you make the "how many past moments a word may bring back at once" sort the curent word selection by most impactful words? Like the words with the most "meaning"
can you give me a microphone on button by the type a thought box is round and turns red?
its not round and doesnt turn red
yes, force the css change
for the blog, I want the format to be, link at the top for the page, a section for all the prompts, a section for your favorite prompts, and then a development link at the bottom
launch a local server
the site on my blog, right now its running your garbage automaticly generated thoughts that are not mine. It shouldby default loop through the stream of consciouness rant I wrote, and if interacted with, it should pause for the duration of the interaction and 1 additional minute. on the html page holding it, it should say looping the above
and the recirding button still toggles itself off automatically after like 10 seconds, please fix that
I want to see all this updated on out local server, and then were uploading it again
okay, lets put this over into my website folder and git commit it, thank you
all the most recent changes are there?
[the opening paragraph of the essay above] this is the text I want playing on the imbedded page visualizer
none of this is getting to aws, why
show me design system restyle
[the git sequence] do it, I want to see it git pushed all the way live, and ask you go, please include our most recent promtps to the shared minds page lets get it

Claude's favourites

Asked which of those prompts actually changed the thing, rather than just fixing something, Claude picked these six.

right now the ripples do not correspond to the thoughts they are generated from, they need to be tightly coupled

The ripples were storing a copy of a coordinate and forgetting which thought made them, so every ripple in the pool looked identical regardless of what caused it. Now a ripple holds its thought and reads its position and its ink from it, and leaves when it leaves.

the ripples cannot exceed the outer word ring from which they're spawned. This is not the way that a ripple moves in water. Please use water as an example.

This one rewrote the physics. It turned out that making the ripples travel at the same speed as the writing makes the constraint structural rather than something you have to enforce — they simply cannot catch up, whatever the sliders are set to.

reduce the tunable controls to five or six. That's all that I can really handle. Give me the most impactful five or six controls.

I think its really good if it floods the pool all at once, thats very symbolic

I had written the load so that it cleared the pool afterwards, to keep things tidy. Keeping the flood was better. A talk arriving all at once and draining away is the whole idea.

we can have the flood happen as slowly as it needs to render cleanly

Which produced the nicest bit of engineering in the project: the flood now paces itself against the frame budget, speeding up while frames are cheap and backing off the moment they are not.

but basically, I want to preload my thoughts so I can talk and bring up the references

This is what the piece is actually for. Load a talk, then speak, and every word you say pulls its own past out of what you already said. Eighteen words spoken over a loaded transcript surfaced thirty-eight references.

Development → www.ccfrost.com/SharedMinds/SMHW05
The nine earlier attempts at the same idea, still runnable, with a picker to move between them — constellation, graph, brainmap, fern, sprout, sail, bloom, standing, vibration, and finally droplet. The rant plays through whichever one you choose.