mateus

Minds, markets and models make the same mistake: they see patterns in noise. It is also the only way any of them ever find anything.

Most of my work is learning to tell which is which.

apophenia /ˌæpəˈfiːniə/ · noun

The tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.

Named in 1958 by the psychiatrist Klaus Conrad, who was describing the first stage of psychosis. It turned out to describe a lot more than that.

The points are random. The lines are an algorithm. The shape is you.

random points → minimum spanning tree → you noise #0000 ·

Essays I haven't written yet

Titles first, answers later. Most will turn out wrong; that's how you find the ones that aren't.

01

Why minds see faces in clouds

A brain would rather invent a pattern than miss a real one. Much of what we call intelligence is that bias, kept on a leash.
02

Care doesn't scale. Maybe that's the point.

Whatever scales gets thinner. The real question is which parts of care can afford to.
03

Value is a pattern people agree to see

Nothing about a painting changes when its price does.
04

Illegible things are underpriced

Most creative work is worth more than anyone can prove. Proving it is the work.
05

Don't automate what you don't understand yet

Do it by hand until it bores you. The boredom is the spec.
06

Every interface is a theory of mind

Each tool carries an opinion about how people think. Few of them say it out loud.
07

The interesting problems have no owner

They sit between medicine, engineering and law, where no profession is responsible yet.
08

An idea in a drawer can't be wrong

That's what's wrong with it. So these titles are public before the essays exist.

Alternamente ↗

Systems for care and clinical work, designed to increase clarity without displacing responsibility.
CARE · SYSTEMS
Apofenia ↗

Culture, intellectual property and the systems through which creative work becomes legible and valued.
CULTURE · IP · VALUE
Mateus OS

Personal infrastructure for thinking, deciding and executing with less friction.
TOOLS · DECISIONS
AI Lab

Explorations in agents, models, data and interfaces for complex human work.
AGENTS · MODELS · INTERFACES
Juris · Eng · Med

Applied research where medicine, engineering and law intersect.
APPLIED RESEARCH
Experiments

Notes, prototypes and unfinished ideas kept visible while they take form.
NOTES · PROTOTYPES