Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Issue 303 – September 2025
I’ve recently opened a Substack account, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s almost replacing my RSS feed reader because there’s so much engaging material being shared there.
One Substack I especially recommend is by Rod Naquin, who writes thoughtfully about dialogue in education.
Most of what I post is adapted from my blook, but I’m also publishing original essays. Please take a look if you’re interested.
https://davidgurteen.substack.com/
Contents
- A New Chapter on Information
Rethinking what information means - NotebookLM Can Now Explain with Video
A new feature that transforms complex material into visual summaries - Reification: The Illusion of Things
How we mistake dynamic relationships for objects - Digital Immortality
Is it pure tosh? - The Bully Lie
Some lies are told to dominate not persuade - Help Keep My Work Alive
- Coaching
- Unsubscribe
- Gurteen Knowledge Letter
A New Chapter on Information
Rethinking what information means
I've been curious about the origin of life since I was a child. This big question recently brought me to the work of Sara Imari Walker and her fascinating Informational Theory of Life. It's still a topic of debate in many circles, but her ideas have opened up a whole new direction of thought for me.
This, in turn, led me to Robert Hazen's work on Functional Information, which took my thinking further. I began to move away from biology and ask deeper questions like "What is information, really? And how does it shape the systems we're part of?"
Along the way, I also came across John Wheeler's evocative phrase, "it from bit", the idea that physical reality arises from immaterial information.
That, in turn, led me back to Gregory Bateson and his relational and contextual view of information. Bateson didn't see information as something we store or transmit, but as something that exists only in relationship, in difference, in context.
At the same time, I've been revisiting Claude Shannon's Information Theory, which underpins much of modern computing and communications.
All of this is reshaping my perspective on information and knowledge. Since my work on Conversational Leadership has always been grounded in these domains, this shift is beginning to influence much of what I do.
Now, a new chapter is taking shape in my blook. Currently, it's simply called Information. It's still very much in development, but it's my attempt to bring these diverse threads together, from biology to philosophy, from systems thinking to communication theory, and reflect on what they mean for how we live, learn, and lead.
I'm always struck by how an interest in something seemingly unrelated to Conversational Leadership eventually comes full circle. As the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome.
If you're curious, take a look. I'll be continuing to work on it over the coming weeks and months.
NotebookLM Can Now Explain with Video
A new feature that transforms complex material into visual summaries
I've been using Google's NotebookLM again recently. If you're not familiar, it's an AI research assistant that converts documents and PDFs into different content formats. Its primary feature is Audio Overviews, which transform source materials into podcast-style discussions between AI hosts. I’ve included some examples here in my blook: NotebookLM Audio Podcast.
Google has also recently added Video Overviews, which provide visual presentations alongside the audio. I didn’t have high expectations, but I gave it material from a new chapter in my blook on Rethinking Change and it did an amazing job.
NotebookLM is a remarkably powerful research and thinking tool. If you haven’t already, it’s worth checking out.
Reification: The Illusion of Things
How we mistake dynamic relationships for objects
Reification, from the Latin res meaning “thing,” is the habit of treating what is abstract or relational as if it were a fixed object. It makes fluid processes appear solid and stable.
This habit shows up in everyday speech. We talk about “society” as though it were a single actor, or “the economy” as if it were a machine to be switched on or off. What are really shifting patterns of interaction become imagined as bounded entities.
Philosophers and social theorists caution against this mistake. By reifying, we oversimplify human life, turning what is dynamic and evolving into something that seems static.
Complexity science strengthens the warning. The world is not made up of neatly bounded “things” but of evolving systems. Patterns emerge through interaction. Learning, organizing, or collaborating are never fixed but always in motion. Yet when we talk about “the organization” or “the market” as if they were stable objects, we lose sight of the interdependence and emergence that matter most.
Reification is more than a linguistic quirk. It is a way of seeing that can subtly distort our understanding. Awareness of it helps us notice and value the living relationships that actually shape our world.
Digital Immortality
Is it pure tosh?
Questions about “digital immortality” are moving from science fiction into today’s technology marketplace, often with bold promises and troubling implications.
Can AI truly capture the essence of a person, or is this just clever marketing? Alongside this comes the very real challenge of managing our digital legacy: what happens to the data, accounts, and memories we leave online after death?
Professor Dan Remenyi explores these questions in a free webinar on 7 October 2025.
The Bully Lie
Some lies are told to dominate not persuade
On a recent Sunday morning, I was browsing YouTube for something short and thought-provoking on politics, philosophy, or science. The kind of content that often pulls me into a rabbit hole, when I come across a short video by Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge from the University of Birmingham. She’s an expert on Hannah Arendt, whose work I’ve long admired.
In the video, Stonebridge discusses Arendt’s article “Lying in Politics”, written in 1971 in response to the Pentagon Papers. Curious, I found it online and saved it for a closer read.
Along the way, I came across a striking idea: the bully lie. This is a lie told not to deceive but to show power. One example: someone steals your hat, puts it on in front of you, and insists he hasn’t seen it. It’s a blatant lie. You know it, and so does the liar. But the aim isn’t persuasion, it’s domination. If he can make you pretend not to see what’s in front of you, he wins.
It’s a form of political gaslighting. Arendt saw the danger: when lying becomes a habit rather than a tactic, the line between truth and fiction dissolves. And that, she warned, is where freedom begins to vanish.
Since then, I’ve written more about the bully lie in my blook.
Help Keep My Work Alive
Sustaining 25 Years of shared learning and conversation
For almost 25 years, I've been sharing the Gurteen Knowledge Letter each month, and many of you have been reading it for five years or more. My Knowledge Café also reached a milestone, celebrating its 20th anniversary in September 2022.
If my work has made a difference to you, I'd be grateful if you could consider supporting it. A small monthly donation or any one-off contribution would greatly help cover some of my website hosting costs.
Thank you to the 50+ patrons who have already supported me - your generosity means a great deal.
Coaching
Bringing Conversational Leadership into your daily practice
If you're curious about how a more conversational approach might shift the way you work with others, whether in leading, learning, or collaborating, I offer one-to-one coaching tailored to your context.
We explore real challenges and possibilities through dialogue, helping you develop your own way of practicing Conversational Leadership in daily work.
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The Gurteen Knowledge Letter
A monthly reflection on Conversational Leadership and Knowledge Management
The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a free monthly email newsletter designed to inspire thinking around Conversational Leadership and Knowledge Management. You can explore the archive of past issues here.
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David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom
