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Zettelkasten work - literature-driven and problem-driven

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  • In the past, scientists have developed a number of impressive theories. In the case of Luhmann, we have a detailed picture of one of the crucial tools he used, this tool has been made very explicit to a degree that anyone can use it, and this tool is largely uncoupled from the individual knowledge and the cognitive skills of its users. For other scientific breakthroughs, some of them perhaps even more impressive than Luhmann's theories, we seem to know little about what methods led to these breakthroughs.
  • I wonder what we could develop from this perspective - what, if any, explicit, transferable methods and tools can we extract from the works of physicists, philosophers or mathematicians? How can we combine these tools with practices from the ZK universe?
  • As far as I know, most breakthrough ideas in science and elsewhere were made without the use of a ZK - so people have used other ways to create great ideas, and it would be foolish to narrow our view on ZK-based work only.
  • To me, in most of the forum discussions we have a dominant focus on "literature-driven" ZK work - people read, write zettels, enrich them with their own thoughts and link them to other zettels. On the other hand I suspect that a huge part of people's crucial relevant work in life is "problem-driven". I'm convinced that many writers in this forum use their ZKs for this purpose, but postings about how to start thinking about a topic, how to formulate problems, how to ask questions, how to generate ideas, how to discard approaches in the ZK framework seem to me underrepresented, given their importance for creative work.
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Comments

  • GeoEng51GeoEng51

    @thomasteepe

    Good point, Thomas. Most of the great breakthroughs in science and other fields have come after years of study, research, thinking, etc. So, employing a ZK along the way, as a useful tool, cannot but help. But you are on to something - how do we make our ZK actually "work" for us, and if it is going to be a tool to do work, can we change our practices so that it does so. Some good questions; I hope it generates discussion here.

  • WillWill

    I'm guilty as charged! My bent is more "literature-driven".

    @thomasteepe said:
    For other scientific breakthroughs, some of them perhaps even more impressive than Luhmann's theories, we seem to know little about what methods led to these breakthroughs.

    "Literature-driven" methods and practitioners of this method seem less "corporate" than people versed in the "problem-driven." This may account for some of the disparity among the practitioners of these methods.

    I wonder what we could develop from this perspective - what, if any, explicit, transferable methods and tools can we extract from the works of physicists, philosophers or mathematicians? How can we combine these tools with practices from the ZK universe?

    I reading and onboarding Poincaré, Henri. “MATHEMATICAL CREATION.” The Monist, vol. 20, July 1910, pp. 321–35. This article tells of a mathematician's creative process. And it doesn't include a zettelkasten but there is a lot to glean from Henri's paper.

    To me, in most of the forum discussions we have a dominant focus on "literature-driven" ZK work - people read, write zettels, enrich them with their own thoughts and link them to other zettels. On the other hand I suspect that a huge part of people's crucial relevant work in life is "problem-driven". I'm convinced that many writers in this forum use their ZKs for this purpose, but postings about how to start thinking about a topic, how to formulate problems, how to ask questions, how to generate ideas, how to discard approaches in the ZK framework seem to me underrepresented, given their importance for creative work.

    Congratulations! You started.

    1. how to start thinking about a topic
    2. how to formulate problems
    3. how to ask questions
    4. how to generate ideas
    5. how to discard approaches

    These are keystone questions that are so hard to talk about but are critical. Education has to include these skills, and we pick up these skills usually through imitating the implicit actions of others. If we surround ourselves with people who have these skills, we might slowly absorb them into our creative work. But this is a slow and chancy process without any certainty. Finding ways to talk about these is a noble goal.

    • Kirsh, David. “The Intelligent Use of Space.” Artificial Intelligence, vol. 73, no. 1, 1995, pp. 31–68, doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0004-3702(94)00017-U.
    • Bakewell, Sarah. How to Live--or--a Life of Montaigne: In One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. Other Press ed, Other Press, 2010.

    Will Simpson
    My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    @Will wrote:

    These are keystone questions that are so hard to talk about but are critical. Education has to include these skills, and we pick up these skills usually through imitating the implicit actions of others. If we surround ourselves with people who have these skills, we might slowly absorb them into our creative work. But this is a slow and chancy process without any certainty.

    I would like to add a number of complementary aspects to this passage.

    • "so hard to talk about"
      Given the importance of problem solving processes in our lives, it's not surprising that there is a large body of literature about them. I see no reasons why communication about problem solving and thinking processes should be especially hard - people have written volumes about how society works.

    • "we pick up these skills usually through imitating the implicit actions of others"
      There is a massive body of work that tries to make thinking tools and their application explicit - here are just three examples:
      We could perhaps start in 1305 with Ramon Llull's "Ars Magna", proceed with George Polya's "How to Solve It" from 1945, which has a scope far beyond its immediate domain in mathematics, and not stop at thinking routines from the Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education from the 2010s.
      These are very explicit, actionable, adaptable tools for thinking.

    • "this is a slow and chancy process"
      We teach students essay writing, partial integration and perspective drawing. I see few reasons to view problem solving as something inaccessible.
      One of the charming aspects of combining writing processes and thinking tools in the way outlined here is that thinking becomes much more visible and explicit - and therefore becomes something that is easier to imitate and adapt and that can be talked about.

    For my tinkerings with my own thinking, I find this "tool-based" approach, combined with ZK-based notes, by far the most promising approach.
    Here are some ideas.

    • I have a collection of thinking tools and stimuli at my desk - small modules on sticky notes that I can see with one glance. Currently, it's a collection of about 30 notes, most of them with 10 - 20 entries, and a central "thinking engine" that guides my problem-driven ZK work at the top level. The tools and stimuli cover a range from a simple "so?!" or "what's puzzling here?" to a list of different graphic representations to the set of 40 TRIZ principles to a set of reflection tools.
      For me, the most useful tools are those about reflection, and the most effective stimuli are those that probe the resonance of my current domain with some generic principle like "timelines" or "extremes". When it's helpful, these notes show how a tool can be used in a special zettel layout.

    • Thinking tools could be a possible topic for literature-driven ZK work.

    • You can write "heuristic" tool zettels and juxtapose them with your regular "epistemic" zettels to see how they interact, possibly backed by a spaced repetition system in the spirit of Matuschak's Evergreen Notes.
    • "The Art and Craft of Problem Solving" is the name of a nice book on maths problem solving, and the phrase captures my view on the tool approach - this approach covers the craft aspect, and sometimes it can pave the way to things that cannot be put into an explicit, transferable heuristic method.
  • WillWill

    You have presented a compelling rebuttal to my post, removing any doubt as to my confusion. It is so nice of you to call these "complementary aspects to this passage" instead of calling them corrections to my ignorance. Thank you.

    ~confession~

    I come from an intellectually impoverished background. I see now that everyone in the environment I grew up in was trying to survive and didn't that the time to explore or teach me or anyone else these ideas. I think one has to reach a certain level of survivability, of comfort in one's skin, to relax and look at the positive strategies for problem-solving or "literature-driven" methods. Not that these strategies wouldn't have helped my teachers and me, but when you're treading water to keep from drowning, the intricate details of scuba diving are a distraction.

    I described my journey when discussing how I absorbed skills implicitly by watching other people rather than through book learning. Now, it is the opposite. I love books and can't be bothered watching other people.

    I think all this lies on a spectrum, from total impoverishment to total intellectual emersion. I don't think either of us is at either extreme. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do think there are more of us on the impoverished side.

    ~end-confession~

    Framing "Zettelkasten work - literature-driven and problem-driven" as you eloquently have, I'd agree there is a vast literature on problem-solving. Exposure to it is not well distributed. It's better now with the internets and this forum. I would have turned out differently if I'd been exposed to positive strategies for problem-solving earlier in life. Now, to try and make up for the lost time.

    Here are some ideas.

    • I have a collection of thinking tools and stimuli at my desk - small modules on sticky notes that I can see with one glance. Currently, it's a collection of about 30 notes, most of them with 10 - 20 entries, and a central "thinking engine" that guides my problem-driven ZK work at the top level. The tools and stimuli cover a range from a simple "so?!" or "what's puzzling here?" to a list of different graphic representations to the set of 40 TRIZ principles to a set of reflection tools.
      For me, the most useful tools are those about reflection, and the most effective stimuli are those that probe the resonance of my current domain with some generic principle like "timelines" or "extremes". When it's helpful, these notes show how a tool can be used in a special zettel layout.

    • Thinking tools could be a possible topic for literature-driven ZK work.

    • You can write "heuristic" tool zettels and juxtapose them with your regular "epistemic" zettels to see how they interact, possibly backed by a spaced repetition system in the spirit of Matuschak's Evergreen Notes.
    • "The Art and Craft of Problem Solving" is the name of a nice book on maths problem solving, and the phrase captures my view on the tool approach - this approach covers the craft aspect, and sometimes it can pave the way to things that cannot be put into an explicit, transferable heuristic method.

    Thanks for sharing these ideas. Especially the notion of a "thinking engine." Developing a "thinking engine" is what is being developed through ZK work's art and craft. Mostly, I feel we have been talking more about the craft than the art.

    You bring up, "The Art and Craft of Problem Solving" is the name of a nice book on maths problem-solving." I'm reading and can recommend:

    Will Simpson
    My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • SaschaSascha
    • I framed this line of thought as "indirect vs direct work".
    • I personally work more directional than my impression of the average user. I think it is partially because I use my Zettelkasten as a tool to think and developed tools to tackle specific problems (e.g. How to organise training with a whide variety of modalities; How to invest; etc.)
    • My post on [Investing with the Zettelkasten Method](Investing with the Zettelkasten Method) is a perfect example of a post that is a) geared towards a tool to solve a specific problem and b) a post that got relatively little attention (compared to others on this blog). To me, zettelkasten.de is more commercially motivated than my other project on self-development. There, no ducks are given on what people might want. Here, I have the feeling that the general community (not this forum but the entirety of people interested in the Zettelkasten Method) is still figuring out more basic steps and get their Zettelkasten working in the first place. So, I tend to write posts more on the literatur-driven side.
    • I don't think those are two modes of working, technically speaking. Processing literature is a tool in the toolbox to solve problems.

    (Dang, I like lists)

    I am a Zettler

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    Here's a thought experiment:

    Anna and Barbara each work with their personal zettelkasten.

    • Anna's ZK work is largely literature-driven (or indirectional) in the above sense.
    • Barbara uses her ZK, and in addition (basically as a part of it) an explicit, written-down collection of thinking tools that are designed to support her problem-driven / purpose-driven / directional ZK work. One of the tools makes a crucial suggestion like "spend a reasonable amount of time per week thinking about improvements to this collection", and Barbara does her "tool-driven" ZK work in this environment.

    (In my view, this is not an overblown academic fantasy, but an outline of hands-on practices that can be set up in minutes and then be further developed. - Anna and Barbara are designed here as distant poles on a spectrum, and real people are obviously a blend.)

    Here are two ideas I like:

    • First, I like the idea of a co-growth of a person and their thinking environment. How will Anna and her ZK co-grow, and how Barbara and her combination of a ZK and a tool collection? (The concept of co-growth should capture how persons grow in knowledge and skills, then adapt and improve their ZKs, and these improved ZKs facilitate in turn further growth in knowledge and skills.) - Obviously, I have hopes and guesses about answers, but no evidence.
    • Second, I like the idea of "communities of practice". I imagine that learning from each other about tool-driven work could be a valuable addition to literature-driven work - insofar tool-driven work (including an emphasis on improving the tool collection) stimulates new practices of productive thinking that are less likely to emerge from literature-driven work alone.
  • SaschaSascha

    I think proper work with the ZK is mostly problem-driven by nature. Even if you process just one book you are on a path to understand a particular problem deeply.

    At the moment, I process The Winner Effect. The Neuroscience of Success and Failure. But it is not about processing a book and re-constructing what I find in it. I use it as a guide to think about how Success and Failure shape the brain and its neurotransmitters.

    The brain does not focus well on things that are not pressing problems or solutions for relevant problems. So, if you have a rather passive approach and trying to capture or re-construct you use less of your brain power.

    I am a Zettler

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    @Sascha said:
    Processing literature is a tool in the toolbox to solve problems.

    I am so interested in hearing about the other tools. And how the toolbox is designed. And how its contents may change with time. And if the tools from generation N are used to build the tools for generation N+1.

    Here is yet another thought experiment to focus on the potential of ZKs that are not driven by literature processing:
    Imagine you are stranded on a desolate island, together with 5000 sheets of A4 paper unharmed by water, an A4 index card box to organize sheets in, a lifetime supply of pencils and not a single piece of literature. What would you do with the material? How might a ZK develop under these conditions of isolation? (And yes, arranging 1000 sheets as an SOS sign on the beach is certainly a possible approach.)

  • ZettelDistractionZettelDistraction

    At the tremendous risk of conflating "literature-driven" approaches to ZK with artistic uses of ZK, and "problem-driven" approaches to ZK, which emphasize ZK as a tool for academic research as opposed to artistic production, I offer this Zettel as an illustration of confusing the unrelated, of failing to police the boundaries, and of the potential for ZK to connect the disconnected.

    20210613191420 Artist or academic: pick one

    Exhibit A

    People go [to graduate school] on a whim, or to get a promotion. Again and again the decision is invoked in terms of escape … It’s the last resort for the person who is ‘generally artistic and literary,’ but not a writer or an artist.

    — Jacob Mikanowski, The Secret Scandal of Grad School, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 27, 2014.

    What artist or writer would want to be considered "'generally artistic or literary' but not a writer or an artist"? The suggestion is that "either artist or academic" is not a false dichotomy. Perhaps there is enough truth in this to be genuinely irritating.

    Exhibit B

    Against the reasonable objection that one might be an academic at one time, and an artist at another, consider the canonical Western literature.

    And a third kind of possession and madness comes from the Muses. This takes hold upon a gentle and pure soul, arouses it and inspires it to songs and other poetry, and thus by adorning countless deeds of the ancients educates later generations. But he who without the divine madness comes to the doors of the Muses, confident that he will be a good poet by art, meets with no success, and the poetry of the sane man vanishes into nothingness before that of the inspired madmen.

    – Plato, Phaedrus [245a].

    Exhibit C

    [Kay Ryan] studied at UCLA, and briefly pursued a Ph.D. in literary criticism until, she says, she became appalled by the idea of being “a doctor of something I couldn’t fix.”

    --Kay Ryan interviewed by Sarah Fay, The Art of Poetry No. 94, Paris Review, Issue 187, Winter 2008.

    I first heard of Kay Ryan's poetry on the Poetry Foundation's Audio Poem of the Day podcast. All You Did, an allegory about a mountain climber stuck on the vertical face of a cliff, stood apart from the other poems. Artist or academic: pick one.

    GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.

  • ZettelDistractionZettelDistraction
    edited June 2021

    Another intervention on Zettelkasten.

    Luhmann treated his Zettelkasten as a conversation partner. This is probably the right attitude to set out with. It's certainly nutty enough to be exactly, precisely right, all the more since Ahrens prefers not to emphasize it. In Ahrens, the phrase "conversation partner" refers only to Luhmann:

    Luhmann almost never read a text twice (Hagen 1997) and was still regarded as an impressive conversation partner who seemed to have all information ready to hand.

    --Sonke Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes, p90.

    If the Zettelkasten is a conversation partner, one might as well aim for an intellectual lodestar or two.*

    Consider:

    I set out to write books, to be surrounded by generous, brilliant people, and to have great adventures.

    Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions

    Those luminaries must have been generous all right.

    Not being so completely surrounded and sought after, I am left to develop my Zettelkasten into a conversation partner, ideally on the order of the GOLEM XIV, the superluminal supercomputer of Stanislaw Lem's Imaginary Magnitude, only programmed with sufficient generosity to explain things to me.

    Post edited by ZettelDistraction on

    GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.

  • ZettelDistractionZettelDistraction
    edited June 2021

    Correction: Ahrens refers to a "communication partner" once in his book.

    The slip-box is like a well-informed but down-to-earth communication partner who keeps us grounded. If we try to feed it some lofty ideas, it will force us to check first: What is the reference? How does that connect to the facts and the ideas you already have?

    -- Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers (p. 115).

    "Communication partner" is a better term than "conversation partner," and is the term Luhmann himself used. Significantly, Luhmann asserts that his slip-box is a partner of communication, whereas Ahrens allows that the slip-box is like a communication partner. I'm inclined to take Luhmann at his word: if anything, Luhmann's attitude is more imaginative and motivating--especially in the long run-- than the academic caution of Ahrens.

    Post edited by ZettelDistraction on

    GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.

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    @ZettelDistraction

    • What are your reasons for linking literature-driven work closer to artistic uses and problem-driven work closer to acadamic research uses?

    • "Either artist or academic" - am I overlooking reasons for discussing this seriously? We could find countless people, even famous ones, that are neither of the two, exactly one of the two, or both. What is the point you want to make here?
      (I hate to sound pompous, but I'm turning 50 this year and I would like to spend my time on this forum halfway responsibly. I'm perfectly fine if you operate with a different time budget and follow another approach. If the user name you've chosen is a hint - I can take it.)

    • For the communication partner issue - I wonder about the potential of actually constructing different types of reactions from the ZK as communication partner - the ZK could "react" to your request in a supportive or provocative or challenging or guiding way, hinting at things you might have overlooked or which you could try. Obviously, there is a connection between this "mentoring" and "coaching" aspects of a ZK and the tool ideas mentioned above. I guess these limited but sometimes helpful reactions from the ZK are not the kind of communication Luhmann had in mind - communication in his understanding was arguably based on links between notes. - Closely connected, I wonder about the potential of chatbot communication partners that are specifically designed to support your ZK work, or more generally your thinking.

  • ZettelDistractionZettelDistraction
    edited June 2021

    @thomasteepe said:
    @ZettelDistraction

    • What are your reasons for linking literature-driven work closer to artistic uses and problem-driven work closer to acadamic research uses?

    On reflection I am unable to find a clear demarcation between them. Will suggested that literature-driven ZK approaches are less corporate than problem-driven approaches, but unless "literature-driven" means open-ended and following ideas whenever they may lead, and "problem-driven" means constrained by an external end, then perhaps I do not understand the distinction.

    • "Either artist or academic" - am I overlooking reasons for discussing this seriously?

    No.

    • For the communication partner issue - I wonder about the potential of actually constructing different types of reactions from the ZK as communication partner - the ZK could "react" to your request in a supportive or provocative or challenging or guiding way, hinting at things you might have overlooked or which you could try. Obviously, there is a connection between this "mentoring" and "coaching" aspects of a ZK and the tool ideas mentioned above. I guess these limited but sometimes helpful reactions from the ZK are not the kind of communication Luhmann had in mind - communication in his understanding was arguably based on links between notes. -

    Luhmann writes as if the slip-box is a communication partner, an alter-ego. The open-ended implementation with links is supposed to facilitate enough of an element of surprise (through combinatorial possibilities that are too large to be computed and explored in advance) to make communication fruitful for both partners.

    It isn't that much of a leap to imagine a digital Zettelkasten with additional software capabilities that enable it to engage in conversation with its author (or curator) over time.

    I have a question that I hope reveals more about my ignorance than anything else. I took a look at the thinking routines from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I was unable to locate a single thinking routine that wasn't somehow obvious or elementary. The intended audience for these routines does not seem to include the mature researcher. What am I missing? Is the purpose to offer educators a typology and a common language for discussing directed inquiry in a classroom setting?

    Post edited by ZettelDistraction on

    GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    @ZettelDistraction said:

    I took a look at the thinking routines from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I was unable to locate a single thinking routine that wasn't somehow obvious or elementary. The intended audience for these routines does not seem to include the mature researcher. What am I missing? Is the purpose to offer educators a typology and a common language for discussing directed inquiry in a classroom setting?

    • In my comment above, I wanted to give several examples of well-established, explicit thinking tool collections - I did not aim for advanced collections. (In this respect, the Tricki started by Timothy Gowers would have been a better example, and there are other collections on mathoverflow.net etc.)
    • I think the Project Zero thinking routines try to reach students at an early age, and they are phrased accordingly.
    • I suspect that even simple routines that are without doubt somehow obvious or elementary can be very useful over a broad range of problem solving expertise - tools like "make a drawing of the situation" or "make a list of questions you find puzzling". Similar examples from the PZ page are "Question Starts" or "Think, Puzzle, Explore".
    • I wonder if the questions "How might beauty reveal truth? How might beauty conceal truth?" from the PZ tool "Beauty and Truth" are really that obvious or elementary.
    • From a structural point of view, I find it unsatisfying that the PZ toolbox does not direct some attention to the improvement of the tools itself - but the minds behind PZ presumably know what works and what doesn't for their core audience.
  • ZettelDistractionZettelDistraction
    edited June 2021

    In my comment above, I wanted to give several examples of well-established, explicit thinking tool collections - I did not aim for advanced collections. (In this respect, the Tricki started by Timothy Gowers would have been a better example, and there are other collections on mathoverflow.net etc.)

    Ok. Since the original post raised the ambitious question of importing methods for asking the right questions from the great mathematicians, scientists and philosophers into Zettelkasten, perhaps my expectations were different. These areas have become so professionalized that it's difficult to imagine what heuristics and ZK would bring to the table in the absence of a specialized education.

    Thanks for bringing my attention to the Tricki.org site. I'm familiar with mathoverflow, which I would visit more if it didn't invariably remind me that my own mathematical ability and knowledge couldn't withstand the slightest comparison with the regular posters there.

    I have nothing against heuristics, aide-mémoire, and so on.

    Quite a few forum posts concern where to start, what belongs in a ZK, what kinds of Zettels there are, whether there is a payoff, and not least of all, the educator's enthusiasm for "the theory of the theory."

    This strikes me, at least partly, as psychological, which is why I mentioned Luhmann's attitude toward the Zettelkasten as a communication partner. Taking this literally has enabled me to produce some of the junk I have deposited in this forum--to say nothing of what festers in my own ZK. But it has short-circuited some second-guessing and discursive methodological digression.

    Post edited by ZettelDistraction on

    GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego: Erel Dogg (not the first). CC BY-SA 4.0.

  • SaschaSascha

    @thomasteepe said:

    @Sascha said:
    Processing literature is a tool in the toolbox to solve problems.

    I am so interested in hearing about the other tools. And how the toolbox is designed. And how its contents may change with time. And if the tools from generation N are used to build the tools for generation N+1.

    Here is yet another thought experiment to focus on the potential of ZKs that are not driven by literature processing:
    Imagine you are stranded on a desolate island, together with 5000 sheets of A4 paper unharmed by water, an A4 index card box to organize sheets in, a lifetime supply of pencils and not a single piece of literature. What would you do with the material? How might a ZK develop under these conditions of isolation? (And yes, arranging 1000 sheets as an SOS sign on the beach is certainly a possible approach.)

    I'm not sure at what level we are talking about tools. The article Investing with the Zettelkasten Method is, for example, a presentation of one of my tools. Or, are we talking about tools to develop such tools?

    I am a Zettler

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    @Sascha

    • In the case of the article on investing - how did you construct the structure note? I guess you started with the wish to engage in investing, and then looked for ways to do it in a clever way, and then started reading and processing relevant literature, and then decided to focus on the knockout approach, and then compiled the table with a number of possible criteria? (Btw, in the first row of the table, would a PEG ratio of 1.2 qualify as super and dumb?)
    • Did explicit "thinking tools" play a relevant role in this construction, or was it more implicit or even intuitive?

    My questions above were very short - I will try to give more context here.

    • "hearing about the other tools": A good starting point may be "What tools do people use to generate ideas?" With respect to designing productive "work surfaces" (background is at the end of this comment) - I suppose there will be a stage of making a collection of ideas, perhaps some from processing literature, some from modifying ideas from literature, perhaps some from direct brainstorming, and perhaps some from using more specific methods of generating ideas - but what are these methods? And perhaps people will argue that doing literature-driven-work alone is certainly not the only possible way, but simply the most efficient use of their time. - Similar questions for setting goals, identifying problems, making plans for the next steps in a solution process etc.
    • "how is the toolbox designed": One could have a large tool container with no direct ordering principle. Or a kind of "tag cloud" where tools with a broad range of applications appear large and others small. Or one could use a problem solving model with different stages and have a collection of tools for each stage. Or one could have more refined structures like decision trees - what is the problem solving situation I'm faced with? What can I do? Or a toolbox that mimicks interactions with a mentor.
    • "how its contents may change with time": If Al is a novice problem solver and Bert an expert problem solver in a domain, it seems highly unlikely that Al could immediately jump to the level of Bert just by using Bert's toolbox. I think it's more important to find mechanisms that help Al to develop his own expertise quickly, and taking inspiration from Bert could play a central role.
  • manouchkmanouchk

    Well, in my case, I do both literature-driven" ZK and problem-driven ZK. At least, I try! I think there isn't an opposition between the two focus. One can have a literature-driven" ZK work that I would say is based on their own interest that may evolve with time and at some point, when the acquired knowledge has grown, a problem-driven focus may emerge. I think that an (the?) interesting concept here is emergence. Mário Bunge wrote quite a bit on this concept that have been overlooked by many philosopher of science (most of them?). IN this case, it just means that from some readings, something new emerged. A problem is found, or a paradox and who encounter it fill that it needs to be solved and it make him work on that...

    We can comment on that subject, the famous quote of Bernard De Chartres: 'We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.'

    I think that when we understand literature, we have a point of view and there are some aleatory aspects that make our mind evolve in certain ways whereas other researcher of our area don't make this steps. In other words, there is variation inside the population of researcher in the area. It does not mean that we assume a relativist perspective, that is to say that one created a new concept but that could be something totally different. No. It means that the comprehension that occurred to one researcher led him to have a sequence of mental activities activities which led him to correct and new ideas.

    They are many things that can make a researcher do something. For example, he can encounter internal incoherence. For example, Galileo found internal incoherence in Aristotle idea about free fall. He found that by increasing the mass and applying Aristotle framework led to a decreased velocity which was obviously highly problematic! No need to be a great experimentalist to understand the problem raised by him. It was based on a thought experiment that don't need empirical work. They are of course a lot of important details in Galileo's work that cannot be detailed here.

    We can also encounter problems of discrepancy between theoretical ideas and reality. This a very common in science, but this does not lead easily to ideias or concepts that allows a new comprehension of reality (as a contrary to what empiricist usually thinks). It is just motivational. For example, today, the problem of dark mass. is well know. This has driven many experimental studies but also theoretical ones that frequently are linked with experiments. Though no answer have yet been found! We don´t know yet if the correct thing is keeping actual theory of gravitation and find new particles or a purely new theory without new particles or a mix of new particles and a new theory of gravitation (or something else!). The path to new knowledge is mostly conceptual. The problem here would to understand what a concept is! DIfficult question!

    Let's look again at Galileo, which in kinematics, "switched" from the Aristotelian perspective that was based on categories for types of motion to a mathematical conception of motion. This is a huge ontology change and this changed drastically the conceptions about motions. Before him, Benedetti already wrote about parabolic motion but, if I'm not mistaken, it was much less conceptual work than what Galileo did ( I really have to check this statement!). Galileo unified two types of motions (up and down natural motions) in one (down motion) thanks to him relating up motion with buoyancy.

    I would say that this idea emerged because he knew very well Aristotelian ideas on motion, Arquimedes ideas on hydrostatics and made real experiments to confront his conceptual ideas. From this knowledge Galileo had the idea that "falling bodies somehow become weightless. (...) On that basis he went on to design and carry out experiments with pendula to test the principle that bodies of all types of matter fall at the same speed in the void." (Palmieri 2005:345) As we can see even in factual science, (conceptual) ideas (or model of reality constructed from new conceptual ideas) leads to experiments (indirect tests of ideas) and not the contrary (experiment->concepts). With the pendulum he found that the motion is symmetric during falling and raising moments. This made him doubt the idea of two natural motion (up and down). Why would up and down motion could be identical?

    New conceptualization was needed and Galileo based it on arquimedian hydrostatic he could understand that natural motion was falling motion. With the notion of circular inertia, it was "easy" to deduce the parabolic motion for a professor of mathematics.

    They are of course many other aspects in Galileo. He seems to have inherited from his father the hability to refuse argument of authority and to write dialogues (dialogical approach). His father refuted pytagorician knowledge about tuning cord and did so using discussing with another scientist, and by then doing experiments with cords, frets and weight.

    Galileo wrote his two famous dialogues in a similar way to his father's most famous book. It includes an old thinker, a thinker with new ideas and a thinker with the ability to understand new ideas and to not stay stucked to old ideas. An historian of science wrote that the thinker with the ability to understand new ideas is representative of young Galileo.

    I think the dialogue approach may have been an important part of Galileo thinking process. This just an hypothesis that I'm raising now as I wrote this comment. It is (only) fresh idea. We don't always make long clear demonstration such as the one Galileo did but when we have new ideas, we have to convince other scientists in order to make them understand why our new ideas are better than the old ones. That's why I think that dialogue is important during thinking because it allows you to have sound arguments that may convince scientific community in your area.

  • zhanzh3ngzhanzh3ng

    I have the opposite problem. In my ZK as in life, I ask too many questions or too wide a variety. I must often wait for the flood of questions to appear, run its course, stop and only then can I have clear enough mind to capture the most salient ones.

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    In this comment, @tchen links to an English translation of a Czech article by Jiri Benedict with this recipe:

    How to begin?
    1. Select a tool [a digital tool / app for your ZK work, TT]
    [...]
    2. Choose 12 of your favorite problems
    [...]

    And then he cites this passage from Feynman:

    You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius! ”

    I felt this should appear in a discussion about what could drive ZK work.

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    @manouchk wrote:
    I think the dialogue approach may have been an important part of Galileo thinking process. This just an hypothesis that I'm raising now as I wrote this comment. It is (only) fresh idea. We don't always make long clear demonstration such as the one Galileo did but when we have new ideas, we have to convince other scientists in order to make them understand why our new ideas are better than the old ones. That's why I think that dialogue is important during thinking because it allows you to have sound arguments that may convince scientific community in your area.

    (Removal of emphasis and re-emphasis is mine, TT.)

    My understanding of this passage is that you see dialogue as a tool in the problem solving process, not just in the presentation of its results. If I'm not mistaken, you see this as a practice that was relevant for Galileo, but that you do not have personal experience with - please correct me where necessary.
    I find this view on dialogue-based thinking for problem solving plausible to a certain degree, both in theory and from my own experiences.
    Here are some questions and ideas about several details:

    • Do you have views on "the practices of dialogue"? Is it written down as a dialogue?
    • What are the options of embedding this form of dialogue-based thinking into the ZK framework, or is it "pre-ZK work" outside the ZK, and only its relevant results make their way into the ZK?
    • If I remember correctly, German psychologist Dietrich Dörner mentions in one of his works on problem solving the concept that people try to avoid "violations of economy principles" - the fact that people try to avoid mental operations that are "too costly" in terms of time required for doing the work, or in terms of mental effort. I wonder if dialogue-thinking requires such extra efforts for constructing dialogues properly, while these efforts bring little benefit - with the result that other, more direct forms of thinking about a topic seem more efficient.
  • WillWill

    @thomasteepe said:
    ...people try to avoid mental operations that are "too costly" in terms of time required for doing the work, or in terms of mental effort.

    This is closely related to opportunity cost bias. Giving the short-term costs more weight than the long-term opportunities. Things that add short-term costs place the opportunities farther and farther away, making the whole project less attractive. How do we lessen the influence short term costs have in preventing the reaching big goals.

    @thomasteepe said:
    ..."What tools do people use to generate ideas?" ... I suppose there will be a stage of making a collection of ideas, perhaps some from processing literature, some from modifying ideas from literature, perhaps some from direct brainstorming, and perhaps some from using more specific methods of generating ideas - but what are these methods?

    I must confess, most of my idea generation is the result of reading or working with notes taken for reading. It seems like more reading equals more idea generation. I think what you are asking about is the generation of ideas from other than reading. Your example of mindmapping is but one.

    A productive "work surface" for me is walking. Walking is also part of "time for letting the unconscious work" as in "STEP 3: UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSING". Might there be a way to direct this process? This is a less efficient use of my time as ideas strike without regularity. But it is a tool I'm working with and refining. Carrying a poket journal and pen. Stopping when ever and where ever to capture ideas as they arrive not depending on notoriusly fallable memory. These magical ideas are all mine. They feel like gifts from the universe. If I admit honestly, they are likely primed from the reading I'm doing but feel as though I originate them.

    • "how is the toolbox designed"... a kind of "tag cloud" where tools with a broad range of applications appear large and others small. ... a toolbox that mimics interactions with a mentor.

    A ""tag cloud" where tools with a broad range of applications appear large and others small."
    A few I came up with. Walking mostly aimlessly is my goto tool.

    1. sticky notes
    2. 3X5 cards which can be laid out and manuovered on a table top.
    3. drawings - simple sketches.
    4. a list of questions
    5. my minimalist journal
    6. conversation
    7. writing in this forum - particularly threads like this!
    8. walking

    If Al is a novice problem solver and Bert an expert problem solver in a domain, it seems highly unlikely that Al could immediately jump to the level of Bert just by using Bert's toolbox. I think it's more important to find mechanisms that help Al to develop his own expertise quickly, and taking inspiration from Bert could play a central role.

    Al taking inspiration from Bert is pivotable. Bert playing his cards right could provide the gravitational slingshot swing-by to push Al to new rights. Having the student surpassing teacher is every good teacher's goal.

    Will Simpson
    My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • SaschaSascha

    @thomasteepe said:
    @Sascha

    • In the case of the article on investing - how did you construct the structure note? I guess you started with the wish to engage in investing, and then looked for ways to do it in a clever way, and then started reading and processing relevant literature, and then decided to focus on the knockout approach, and then compiled the table with a number of possible criteria? (Btw, in the first row of the table, would a PEG ratio of 1.2 qualify as super and dumb?)

    I think the historical events came down like this:

    1. I read about investing in stock and began to process my readings. Then I greated general structure notes on investing and stocks which were the mental models on what investing and stocks are.
    2. Then I learned about the saying "not losing money is the most important thing". I thought about that and figured: If you loose 50%, you need to gain 100% back to get back to zero.
    3. I then decided that avoiding bad decision and accumulating knowledge on what a bad decision is was what I needed. And metric posed an individual decision on each stock.
    4. The endresult was basically a list of yes/no-criteria for each stock. Each stock just needed one "no" to be knocked out.
    5. Then I gave myself a bit more differentiation to decide between stocks if I needed to decide.

    (Dang. I screwed up the table.. Thanks for the hint. <1 is dumb, >1,2 is super)

    • Did explicit "thinking tools" play a relevant role in this construction, or was it more implicit or even intuitive?

    I think both. For each step, there are some formalisable thinking tools mentionable. I think both the via negative (Nassim Taleb) and the chain of necessary conditions are the most relevant that I applied consciously.

    But I think the way conscious decision and intuition work together is quite similar for both knowledge work and any craft. A wood carver does not need the tools to inspire him for many steps. The tools are natural extension of his hands. He basically just carves wood and the tools go in and out of his hands intuitively. But sometimes, a problem needs to be tackled the other way around. Then as a craftman you have a problem and look at your toolbox if there is any tool appropriate. Intution then is not the way to go but a rather stumbly process of back and forth, trial and error.

    The more I teach the method the more I realise that the problem of many people is that they don't practice the basics. The bottle neck is not the knowledge but the skill.

    My questions above were very short - I will try to give more context here.

    • "hearing about the other tools": A good starting point may be "What tools do people use to generate ideas?" With respect to designing productive "work surfaces" (background is at the end of this comment) - I suppose there will be a stage of making a collection of ideas, perhaps some from processing literature, some from modifying ideas from literature, perhaps some from direct brainstorming, and perhaps some from using more specific methods of generating ideas - but what are these methods? And perhaps people will argue that doing literature-driven-work alone is certainly not the only possible way, but simply the most efficient use of their time. - Similar questions for setting goals, identifying problems, making plans for the next steps in a solution process etc.

    I think the issue here is as I stated above: Conscious development of the skills is very rare. The Ben Franklin Method of learning how to write seems to be kind of bizarre to many people. But I think, this kind of practices are necessary to gain even just becoming conscious about the skill component.

    It is kind of similar in mathematics. You don't understand your multiplication tables, you just drill them. You shouldn't think about what 6x6 is. It should just happen. And in the didactics of mathematics there is a point to be made that we need a lot of more drills then we currently are using. So, if you are looking at a paragraph and try to figure out what argument structure there is you need more drills because you don't want to caught up in decoding the basics of a text. If you are occupied on this level of analysis you don't enough mental space to actually do something with what you learned.

    So, on key to improve ones ability is to understand each mental tool as a technique, a skill that you need to hone. Only then, you have the ability to actually use them. Which leads me to the next point:

    • "how is the toolbox designed": One could have a large tool container with no direct ordering principle. Or a kind of "tag cloud" where tools with a broad range of applications appear large and others small. Or one could use a problem solving model with different stages and have a collection of tools for each stage. Or one could have more refined structures like decision trees - what is the problem solving situation I'm faced with? What can I do? Or a toolbox that mimicks interactions with a mentor.

    How is my own tool box designed? I mean, my actual tool box with my hammer, saw, screw driver etc.? The answer is: Just in a way that I can access my tools easily.

    My tool box is still scattered in my Zettelkasten. At some point, I might collect all of the specific and general tools. But at this point in time, I don't think it will be valuable to me personally. I will most likely do it to share them.

    • "how its contents may change with time": If Al is a novice problem solver and Bert an expert problem solver in a domain, it seems highly unlikely that Al could immediately jump to the level of Bert just by using Bert's toolbox. I think it's more important to find mechanisms that help Al to develop his own expertise quickly, and taking inspiration from Bert could play a central role.

    My opinion, at this point in time, is that the difference is not in the tool box but in the level of practice and talent. As a wood carver is way more proficient with his tool box than me Bert is more proficient with the same tools. But the tools are the same.

    So, the answer to that question would be quite simple: Practice a lot. :)

    (However, as I am developing basic exercises myself, I think there might be a good way to design a curriculum)

    I am a Zettler

  • empsemps

    I would like to elaborate on what @Sascha wrote.

    How is my own tool box designed? I mean, my actual tool box with my hammer, saw, screw driver etc.? The answer is: Just in a way that I can access my tools easily.

    Slavic wooden houses were constructed using a single tool - an axe.
    Mudbrick houses were constructed, basically, out of shit and sticks, the only tools used in their construction were hands and an occasional pointed stone. Some of them are almost 10 millenia old.

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    Ideas seem to have a higher mortality in their early development.
    With the following thoughts I am perhaps a bit overprotective about the concept of combining thinking tools and ZK methods. I ask for your patience.

    1. Generally speaking, the use of tools has had a unique impact in history, human and pre-human. More recent breakthroughs like AlphaZero or CRISPR can be seen from a perspective of tools being developed and used.
    2. I'm deeply skeptical of what I see as a premature dismissal of one of the most successful traditions in, well, human culture - making and using tools. A lot can be achieved with axes and hands and shit and sticks, but perhaps we can do better than that.
    3. @Sascha wrote: "My opinion, at this point in time, is that the difference is not in the tool box but in the level of practice and talent. As a wood carver is way more proficient with his tool box than me Bert is more proficient with the same tools. But the tools are the same." - I wonder how relevant the level of practice and talent really is when we think about tools like microscopes or telescopes - a non-specialist can use them and see things the best trained specialist without the tool can not.
    4. If I want to draw a perfect circle, I can "Practice a lot. :) " - or I can ask a figure from Greek mythology for help and he would come up with a pair of compasses (and later regret it). My point here: Practicing a lot with stronger tools eclipses practicing a lot with weaker tools.
    5. And I wonder if in reality novices and experts in a problem solving domain actually use the same tools and differ only in skill. I suspect they sometimes use very different tools. Here's an example: When you look at an introductory text on solving problems from mathematical competitions, you will see a number of tools you've probably never heard of before - like "use colourings", "use the box principle" or "look at invariants". A very gifted student will re-invent some of these tools, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to advance knowledge and skills.
    6. There are certainly pros and cons of (a) using a very large collection of tools with higher costs for building, maintaining and selecting, or of (b) using a very small Swiss Army Knife set of basic versatile tools. I guess that for advanced work you need advanced tools.

    Having said all this, the crucial question is: What are candidates for relevant thinking tools? Are there really meaningful equivalents to microscopes and pairs of compasses?
    As stated before, there are shelf metres of books on problem solving, and combining tools from these books with specific ideas on how to combine them with methods of "writing for insights" may give them a new spin.

  • empsemps

    @thomasteepe ,
    I find simple things useful:

    • reverse reasoning and backward reasoning;
    • "five whys" (don't need to be exactly five);
    • out of context alanogs ("where have I seen the similar thing?" I can't formulate it specifically, but e.g. I've recently found an insight about military organization in WW2 period in a book about programming. The management principles are kinda similar everywhere.);
    • checklists for repetitive and unobvious tasks.
      Very rarely do I consult TRIZ or something similar if I'm stuck completely. I don't know, maybe I don't need techniques like those because my problems are not that esoteric and depend on looking for contradictions and commonalities first and foremost.
    1. And I wonder if in reality novices and experts in a problem solving domain actually use the same tools and differ only in skill. I suspect they sometimes use very different tools.

    I'm pretty sure that complex tools are often too hard for novices to use properly. I work with financial and economic data often, and, in my experience, my top colleagues often use the same analytical tools as everyone else. The difference is, they are able to filter garbage and focus on the most relevant details more efficiently.
    Same happened with me - I've prepared several complex economic models for others to use, made all computations available and prepared extensive manuals. But others simply failed at using them for some unfathomable reason - turned out my models were too large for others to grasp.

    Currently, it's a collection of about 30 notes, most of them with 10 - 20 entries, and a central "thinking engine" that guides my problem-driven ZK work at the top level.

    Care to share?

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    @emps - "Care to share?" - Now it's squirming time for me.
    Luhmann lived in blissful wedlock with his ZK, I have a dysfunctional relationship with my tool collection. To quote a younger generation: It's complicated. Perhaps precisely because it isn't as complex as I would like it to be.

    Here are some glimpses into my tool collection. Many things are still experimental.

    1. At present, I use sticky notes of 7.5cm x 7.5cm size. Many of the notes are divided into 4x4 or 4x8 very small boxes with a tool name of one or two words in it. Other notes are small diagrams or mind maps, or they show sheet layouts I found useful.
    2. The frequencies of tool use vary wildly - some rarely used tool items went into the tool collection as part of a bundle of similar tools.

    Next, here are some tool bundles - for this posting, I choose those tools that I have found most useful.

    1. Basics: The tools I use most often are simple things like the following: Describe the situation / describe the problems / describe goals / make a list of questions.
    2. The Feynman technique: I imagine the A4 sheet and its boxes as a deck of slides, where I try to explain things to a skeptical audience.
    3. Focus on difficulties: What are the problems? / Where are conflicts? / Where are gaps? / Where could this fail?
    4. Concatenation tools: These tools help me to develop thoughts from one box to the next to the next. Examples: What is crucial here? / Probe deeper. / What are the problems here? / What are my options now? - These tools can have a compound effect when used in iterations - in one single step, their benefit is small, but used over ten or twenty steps, they can actually make a dent.
    5. Focus on progress: MIMX = make it more X = make it more powerful / larger / faster / simpler / more complex / ... / What would the founders of Microsoft do? / Make a model with many building blocks and parameters and play around.
    6. Representations: Describe your topic and your ideas as a concept map / a mind map / a diagram / in ordinary text / in a proto-math notation.
    7. Diagram types: timelines / transitions between states / input-output diagrams / graphs / trees / boxes / tables.
    8. TRIZ principles: It's a selection from the 40 canonical items - I found the more physics-based principles less useful, so I left them out.
    9. SCAMPER: Substitute / combine / adapt / maximize or minimize / put to other uses / eliminate / rearrange.
    10. Creativity tools: Brainstorming / formulate negations and opposites to the ideas you've tried so far / po! = provocative operation, by Edward de Bono / transfer key concepts from a similar domain.
    11. Stimuli for ideas from inventions: This is largely a personal list of inventions I find impressive.
    12. Stimuli for ideas from geometrical concepts: I find concepts useful like points / lines / curves / circles / spirals / ...
    13. Lists of prefixes for concepts and ideas: anti- / proto- / pseudo- / a- / counter- / co- / cluster- / super- / trans- / ...
    14. Provocations and challenges: You are wrong. / You have the wrong focus. / What would the opposite look like? / What would John von Neumann say? / ...

    I use most of the tools for idea generation in the 4 column or the 4x4 sheet layout, with one stimulus in each box, where I can jump between boxes with ease. Typically, many stimuli do not yield remarkable germinal ideas, but on a good evening, some do.

  • empsemps
    edited August 2021

    @thomasteepe, thank you. It was interesting. I'm definitely going to read about some of those.

    I have two conceptual questions regarding your toolset.

    1. Why won't you be better if you collapse some of those tools? Don't you think that some of them overlap?
      For example, SCAMPER looks like a subset of TRIZ. 15 looks like it intersects with at least 12 and 16 ("anti-" vs "negations" vs "What would the opposite look like?", etc.). 4 is maybe a part of 8 and is similar to 15.

    2. For what reason do you need so many tools to "extract meaning"?
      Your toolset implies that your approach is completely opposite from the approach of ZK.
      To me ZK primarily looks like a way to organize a limitless flow of data. Your tools look like a way to extract additional meaning from a limited pool of data points.
      My impression might be skewed by my experience - I usually find myself overflowing with data to process and my note backlog grows constantly, unless I mercilessly cull it.

  • Removed202201121Removed202201121

    @emps - thank you for the feedback.
    Here are some thoughts about the points you've mentioned.

    • I agree that there is a considerable overlap, but I see this as the benefit of having multiple points of access to important tools. If something like "look at negations" appears in several bundles, this could indicate that it is an important versatile tool that can be used over a broad range of situations.
    • From the hardware side of the tool collection, I feel no pressure to avoid redundancy - there is enough space on the notes, and the cognitive effort of navigating a large tool collection has not yet become a major issue for me. - This is a personal view, and if people want to avoid such overlaps in their tool collections, I'm fine - this is the kind of discussion about thinking tools I was hoping for.
    • The number of tools in my list that are stimuli for idea generation is perhaps imbalanced in comparison with the first tool bundles that are more "analytical" and directed towards convergent thinking - I didn't notice this when writing the comment.
    • I always saw my focus on "how to generate relevant ideas, how to invent useful methods and concepts" - the perspective on "how to extract meaning from data" is new to me.
    • As I have done in several comments and in this discussion - I would really like to challenge what "the approach of ZK" is. As mentioned elsewhere, I'm deeply inspired by the exhibition title "Zettelkästen. Machines of imagination". - When I look at the ZK literature and ZK discussions on the internet, I see a massive emphasis on (a) how to "process literature", while I see surprisingly few discussions on (b) how to create ideas using ZK methods. I'm much more motivated to contribute to (b), while I do not want to dispraise (a).
  • WillWill

    @thomasteepe said:
    When looking at the literature and ZK discussions on the internet, I see a massive emphasis on (a) how to process literature and surprisingly few methods on (b) how to create ideas. I am much more motivated to contribute to (b), while I do not want to dispraise (a). As I have written elsewhere, I am deeply inspired by the exhibition title "Zettelkästen. Machines of imagination".

    How to process literature is easy to write about. There are copious amounts of history and examples to draw on. This is academia's focus. Creating ideas and nurturing the skill of ideation in others is orders of magnitude harder and has orders of magnitude more value than literature processing. But we all have to start somewhere.

    Informally, I use refactoring as a tool for idea generation. Processing literature is about focusing on the work of literature—the ideas we encounter become seedlings for novel ideas. But most of these ideas are centered around the work of literature. It's not until an idea is refactored into the whole "machine of imagination," the whole zettelkasten, that the true power of the idea is expressed.

    What refactoring means.

    1. A review of atomization. When literature is processed, it is easy to concatenate a couple of ideas in a note. Separating the ideas frees them to connect broadly and deeply.
    2. Review connection with any structure note. Be sure there is at least one structure note connected in the ideas map. If a note is connected or can be connected to two or more structure notes, then it is an "Edge Note." Where the edge of to ideas maps collide. An auspicious note that begs nurture.
    3. Use Boolean search with terms and phrases from the notes to explore zettelkasten. This is work, hard work that takes concentration. The work of making connections can't be pushed off onto an algorithm.
    4. When it is time to refactor, you will have 'proofed' enough to take the expressed ideas, rephrase them, and use these alternative phrasings to search the zettelkasten. This surfaces new and novel connections.
    5. "Rinse and repeat."

    I don't know. @thomasteepe, does this sound like "how to process literature" or "how to create ideas?"

    Will Simpson
    My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I don’t want to waste my time tinkering with my ZK; I’d rather dive into the work itself. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

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