Possibility sparks → analogies → alternate futures → infinite possibilities
Level 1 — Immediate Possibility Sparks
- Form: Quick connections in the environment, noticing what could be done.
- Example: “This empty lot could be turned into a skate park.”
- Grounding: Real-world, sensory triggers leading to options.
Level 2 — Tangential Associations
- Form: Jumping between related ideas through resemblance or analogy.
- Example: “This café feels like a stage set… actually, all cities are like giant theatres.”
- Grounding: Loose but still concrete associations.
Level 3 — Brainstorming Web
- Form: Generating multiple possibilities rapidly without needing evidence.
- Example: “If we redesigned this product, it could work as a subscription service, a game, or even an educational tool.”
- Grounding: Practical but unfocused idea generation.
Level 4 — Hypothetical Scenarios
- Form: Spinning out “what if” situations to test reality.
- Example: “What if governments gave every citizen a basic income — how would people’s motivation shift?”
- Grounding: Still tied to social or economic structures, but speculative.
Level 5 — Cross-Domain Analogy
- Form: Linking very different fields into surprising comparisons.
- Example: “Social media is like a medieval marketplace — loud, chaotic, and full of wandering performers.”
- Grounding: Abstract, but accessible through metaphor.
Level 6 — Ideational Constellations
- Form: Holding multiple, seemingly unrelated concepts at once as a creative pattern.
- Example: “Music, mathematics, and architecture are all about rhythm and proportion — they’re different dialects of the same language.”
- Grounding: Clusters of possibility, not singular paths.
Level 7 — Parallel Worlds Thinking
- Form: Running multiple alternate realities side by side.
- Example: “There are at least four ways civilization could go from here: eco-tech harmony, corporate feudalism, fragmented city-states, or AI-run governance.”
- Grounding: Diverging futures instead of one trajectory.
Level 8 — Infinite Generativity
- Form: Endless unfolding of possibilities, unconstrained by reality.
- Example: “Every idea contains a seed of ten more ideas — the universe itself is a branching story.”
- Grounding: Not grounded — pure proliferation of options.
Level 9 — Chaos-as-Creation (Highest Abstraction)
- Form: Seeing possibility itself as the primal creative force, the root of being.
- Example: “Existence is possibility. Reality is just one pathway among infinite unmanifested worlds.”
- Grounding: Absolute abstraction — pure multiplicity as truth.
In short:
- Low levels (1–3): playful options, idea sparks.
- Middle levels (4–6): metaphors, cross-domain bridges, speculative worlds.
- High levels (7–9): multiverse-level, infinite proliferation, possibility-as-cosmic principle.
***