The week-by-week climb. Each module gives you four things at once — a reading, a thinker, a debate, and the concepts to master — and asks one thing back: that you reflect, and defend it.
Read the chapter, meet the thinker, witness the debate, master the Field Guide concepts, reflect with the twin, defend it live with Edo. Then take the next flight of stairs.
| Wk | Module | Thinker lesson | Debate lesson | Field Guide concepts | Reflect & defend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Floor 1 · The Ground — what happened | |||||
| 1 | The Ground MovedForeword + Ch. 1–3 | Alan Turing Can machines think? | Bender vs Hinton — do machines understand? | the amplifier · the fishbowl · large language models | Meet your twin; write your first answer to "are you worth amplifying?" |
| 2 | The AmplifierCh. 4–5 | Douglas Engelbart Augmenting intellect | Haraway vs Kurzweil — augment or transcend? | augmentation · courage to be amplified | Reflection: what signal do you feed the amplifier? |
| Floor 2 · The Nature of Intelligence | |||||
| 3 | Information Is Free. You Are Not.The Deal + formation | Paulo Freire Education as freedom | Iñiguez, Muñiz & Sidhu — the future of the university | formation vs information · the forge · future of mastery | Essay I — Floor 1 (the ground that moved) |
| 4 | The River & the BeaverCh. 6–8 | Norbert Wiener Cybernetics & the river | Marx vs Hayek — who controls the flow? | river of intelligence · the software death cross · the beaver's dam | Twin viva: the death cross, named and disarmed |
| 5 | The CandleCh. 9–10 | Ada Lovelace The engine originates nothing | Lovelace vs Boden — can a machine create? | genuine novelty · the candle · originality | Reflection: what can only you originate? |
| Floor 3 · The Critic | |||||
| 6 | The QuestionCh. 11–12 | Ludwig Wittgenstein Meaning as use | Wittgenstein vs Fodor — what is meaning? | the culture of judgment · language games | Essay II — Floor 2 (intelligence) |
| 7 | Attention & the SmoothCh. 13–14 | Byung-Chul Han The burnout society | Bentham vs Zuboff — surveillance & attention | attentional ecology · the silent middle · the smooth | Twin viva: steelman the critic |
| Floor 4 · The Answer | |||||
| 8 | Care Is the One Thing It Can't FakeCh. 15–16 | Joseph Weizenbaum What computers shouldn't do | Arendt vs Rus — labor, action & the human condition | care as the source of quality · the AI mirror | Essay III — Floor 3 (the critic) |
| 9 | The Luddites & the PatternCh. 17 | Karl Marx Who bears the cost | McCorduck vs Gebru — progress & its price | displacement vs disruption · the apprenticeship problem · the pattern | Reflection: who bears the cost of this transition? |
| 10 | What Am I For?Ch. 18 | Viktor Frankl Meaning & the last freedom | Nietzsche vs Pearl — values & the machine | meaning · the vocation of the builder | Essay IV — Floor 4 (the answer) |
| Floor 5 · The Roof | |||||
| 11 | The ForgeCh. 19 | Aristotle Virtue made by practice | Le Guin vs Crawford — craft, attention & the made thing | the mastery cycle · flow · formation on purpose | Twin viva: how is a person actually made? |
| 12 | The Sunrise + CapstoneCh. 20 + close | Your synthesis The answerable life | Jonas vs Tegmark — responsibility for the future | worthiness · the horizon · the answerable life | Capstone — "what am I for," defended live with Edo |
No exam to cram, no app to demo. The weight sits where the learning is — on whether you can think clearly and defend your reasoning out loud.
The first five steps you take on your own time with the twin. The sixth is live, with Edo and your cohort.
Small cohorts. The author, his twin, and a certification that proves you understood.
Begin the climb →