The cafe as a guidance system

Figure 17.5 illustrates the activity at the end of each chapter (the pause times between the generations of an ongoing evolutionary process). The chapter content is sent to each table in the cafe. Each person at a table responds to the content by posting comments and opinions to all others at their table. Often these responses will trigger a discussion with several people joining in.

An author, using this system to write a book, will effectively be sitting at each table and receiving a copy of all posts. This intelligence will be divided into two categories: feedback and feed forward with the feed forward directing the new direction of the book in the next chapter. This can be compared directly with the guided missile metaphor described at the beginning of this chapter - see figure 17.1 - with the intelligence received being used to discriminate between different goals and avoiding decoys (dead-ends and red herrings). It is this intelligence that is guiding the author as the book progresses towards a conclusion.

In effect, the cafe´ acts like the compass and the celestial observations of the traveller trying to make a journey through a rain forest. It acts like the target selection software of the guided missile. The difference being that the cafe´ guidance system is not an algorithmic set of rules - it is an organic system that can be made to evolve.