@andang76, you understand this topic in much the same way that I do. All I want to add are (what I think are) some alternative terms for the same thing:
When we need to share the "internals" of our Zettelkasten, rather than the output artifacts, emerge the questions that @daviddelven posed at start.
They are real, where to place our notes and how to write them are issues to be managed, and it is not straightforward and general.
Some good heuristics are already written.
There is need of a common ontology, surely, and it is not enough. There's need the right strategy that enables our to accept content from other and transfer content to others in a transparent way. It is not a simple problem.
I think that in this problems a good hand is learning something about enterprise KMS and Semantic web.
Back to the specific model of Discourse Graph, rather than the formalism itself, two things hit me.
About the first is what I've already written quoting Andy in previous message. It's the underlying principle of Discourse Graph, IBIS and others that works, rather than the particular implementation.
One way to describe the underlying principle is with the phrase "ontologies as knowledge organization systems". Different ontologies, and other knowledge organization systems (KOSs), organize knowledge in different ways, or in other words, direct thinking in different ways. How you organize knowledge affects what you know, and what you know affects how you organize knowledge. In scientific pursuits, we want a virtuous cycle (e.g., Neurathian bootstrap): we use knowledge organization systems to build knowledge of reality (specific scientific theories and general metaphysics), which is then used to improve knowledge organization systems.
The second, I've found in Discourse Graph something similar that I've found in the philosophy of Digital Garden Spaces (I suggest https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/, it was a revealing read).
The principle of "garage open". The idea of learning, moving and sharing knowledge with others not sharing documents, articles, finished products, but the "internals" of our knowledge labs.
With discourse graph is the same thing, I don't share with you something to read, but something you can directly use in your own internal process.
Even in this case, It's something similar to the "old" dream of semantic web, that in small places we can see realized.
Both models convey the fact that I do not take advantage of knowledge they provide by consuming products, but by directly traveling through the space that implements knowledge.
I wouldn't have been able to bring Discourse Graph and Digital Garden Space close together.
It is the power of Zettelkasten, allowed me to isolate and develop a common aspect of them, make it become an approach point. If I had studied the two themes in a classical way I would never have succeeded.
I like your summary here. Many of the mentioned knowledge organization systems are designed to facilitate "working with the garage door open": doing knowledge work in public. However, it seems that most knowledge workers (including me) still work in private, "with the garage door down", for various reasons. Their KOSs are private and personal knowledge organization systems.
If, on the other hand, "semantic web" means to replace primary documents with granular data combinable with each other from time to time, then it is a senseless and unrealistic project, because—as librarians, archivists and scholars of library, archival and documentary sciences know well—it is impossible even to imagine an overall system of production, storage, communication, acquisition and use of knowledge that leaves completely aside that fundamental element of the organization and management of information represented by the document. Only documentary structures with sufficient size, architecture, verifiability and persistence can actually guarantee systemic, organic, historical, philological, legal and authorial instances that can not be satisfied by information atoms that are too small, destructured and volatile.
Ridi conceded that "a greater granularization of digital documents" could be useful in public, but his point, in my interpretation, is that the most valuable knowledge is highly organized, systematized knowledge. If you are going to "work with the garage door open", your work will probably be most valuable to others if you have an effective knowledge organization system that others can understand.
Just another thing, I think that the "ossification effect" explained by Chan in https://oasislab.pubpub.org/pub/54t0y9mk/release/3 is a relevant issue that even people that don't do Discourse Graph, IBIS or similar processes can consider a takeaway for their own Zettelkasten.
I think that it still apply in general Zettlkasten context, so its countermeasure.
Here's a quote from Chan so readers don't have to go looking for the relevant passage:
Distinguishing between observation notes and synthesis notes helps prevent me from rushing too quickly to generalizations, and allows for careful, nuanced questioning of past claims (e.g., does X really not work?), and consideration of possible syntheses between opposing claims. Directly including context snippets also allows me to have crucial details "on hand" that are necessary for this nuanced questioning. In this way, the conceptual and process model helps mitigate the core challenge of lossy compression or premature ossification. Writing a synthesis note involves abstraction, which is a form of compression: removing details to generalize. [...] So my belief is that knowledge synthesis is severely hampered by lossy compression. This relates to Strike and Posner's (1983) observation that an effective synthesis clarifies and resolves, rather than obscures, inconsistencies and tensions between material synthesized.
@Andy said: @andang76, you understand this topic in much the same way that I do. All I want to add are (what I think are) some alternative terms for the same thing:
When we need to share the "internals" of our Zettelkasten, rather than the output artifacts, emerge the questions that @daviddelven posed at start.
They are real, where to place our notes and how to write them are issues to be managed, and it is not straightforward and general.
Some good heuristics are already written.
There is need of a common ontology, surely, and it is not enough. There's need the right strategy that enables our to accept content from other and transfer content to others in a transparent way. It is not a simple problem.
I think that in this problems a good hand is learning something about enterprise KMS and Semantic web.
Back to the specific model of Discourse Graph, rather than the formalism itself, two things hit me.
About the first is what I've already written quoting Andy in previous message. It's the underlying principle of Discourse Graph, IBIS and others that works, rather than the particular implementation.
One way to describe the underlying principle is with the phrase "ontologies as knowledge organization systems". Different ontologies, and other knowledge organization systems (KOSs), organize knowledge in different ways, or in other words, direct thinking in different ways. How you organize knowledge affects what you know, and what you know affects how you organize knowledge. In scientific pursuits, we want a virtuous cycle (e.g., Neurathian bootstrap): we use knowledge organization systems to build knowledge of reality (specific scientific theories and general metaphysics), which is then used to improve knowledge organization systems.
The second, I've found in Discourse Graph something similar that I've found in the philosophy of Digital Garden Spaces (I suggest https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/, it was a revealing read).
The principle of "garage open". The idea of learning, moving and sharing knowledge with others not sharing documents, articles, finished products, but the "internals" of our knowledge labs.
With discourse graph is the same thing, I don't share with you something to read, but something you can directly use in your own internal process.
Even in this case, It's something similar to the "old" dream of semantic web, that in small places we can see realized.
Both models convey the fact that I do not take advantage of knowledge they provide by consuming products, but by directly traveling through the space that implements knowledge.
I wouldn't have been able to bring Discourse Graph and Digital Garden Space close together.
It is the power of Zettelkasten, allowed me to isolate and develop a common aspect of them, make it become an approach point. If I had studied the two themes in a classical way I would never have succeeded.
I like your summary here. Many of the mentioned knowledge organization systems are designed to facilitate "working with the garage door open": doing knowledge work in public. However, it seems that most knowledge workers (including me) still work in private, "with the garage door down", for various reasons. Their KOSs are private and personal knowledge organization systems.
If, on the other hand, "semantic web" means to replace primary documents with granular data combinable with each other from time to time, then it is a senseless and unrealistic project, because—as librarians, archivists and scholars of library, archival and documentary sciences know well—it is impossible even to imagine an overall system of production, storage, communication, acquisition and use of knowledge that leaves completely aside that fundamental element of the organization and management of information represented by the document. Only documentary structures with sufficient size, architecture, verifiability and persistence can actually guarantee systemic, organic, historical, philological, legal and authorial instances that can not be satisfied by information atoms that are too small, destructured and volatile.
Ridi conceded that "a greater granularization of digital documents" could be useful in public, but his point, in my interpretation, is that the most valuable knowledge is highly organized, systematized knowledge. If you are going to "work with the garage door open", your work will probably be most valuable to others if you have an effective knowledge organization system that others can understand.
Just another thing, I think that the "ossification effect" explained by Chan in https://oasislab.pubpub.org/pub/54t0y9mk/release/3 is a relevant issue that even people that don't do Discourse Graph, IBIS or similar processes can consider a takeaway for their own Zettelkasten.
I think that it still apply in general Zettlkasten context, so its countermeasure.
Here's a quote from Chan so readers don't have to go looking for the relevant passage:
Distinguishing between observation notes and synthesis notes helps prevent me from rushing too quickly to generalizations, and allows for careful, nuanced questioning of past claims (e.g., does X really not work?), and consideration of possible syntheses between opposing claims. Directly including context snippets also allows me to have crucial details "on hand" that are necessary for this nuanced questioning. In this way, the conceptual and process model helps mitigate the core challenge of lossy compression or premature ossification. Writing a synthesis note involves abstraction, which is a form of compression: removing details to generalize. [...] So my belief is that knowledge synthesis is severely hampered by lossy compression. This relates to Strike and Posner's (1983) observation that an effective synthesis clarifies and resolves, rather than obscures, inconsistencies and tensions between material synthesized.
Yes, organization is much better than enterprise. In my work they are the same thing, so I've used interchangeably, they don't instead.
Yes, you did well writing the point around Ridi words .
What I've written need to have the right scope.
Our knowledge can't live only with atoms and open garages. They are models that enrich, don't replace.
Without this clarification my post sends the wrong message. Thanks for raising the point.
This is what I would write (linking to its own note, better...) in the "contextualization" section of my open garage philosophy claim note.
Without your post that section would remain empty, maybe.
@Andy , a thought that develops in my mind, now. What you've written, if I want to integrate in my zettelkasten a claim derived from it, it represents a counterargument?
I think that depends on how I write the first claim.
If I write something like "open garage philosophy is better than books..." your writing surely generates a counterargument.
If I write something like "open garage philosophy helps to...", It isn't anymore.
Here because in my notes I feel the need having a "contextualization" section, too. Many of my claim are fuzzier than others.
But is this form of writing "strong" enough to represent a claim?
@Andy , a thought that develops in my mind, now. What you've written, if I want to integrate in my zettelkasten a claim derived from it, it represents a counterargument?
I think that depends on how I write the first claim.
If I write something like "open garage philosophy is better than books..." your writing surely generates a counterargument.
If I write something like "open garage philosophy helps to...", It isn't anymore.
Here because in my notes I feel the need having a "contextualization" section, too. Many of my claim are fuzzier than others.
But is this form of writing "strong" enough to represent a claim?
This shows the rhetorical aspect of a discourse graph: changing the rhetoric of the discourse units often requires changing the structure of the graph. In other words, you're changing the internal and external informal logic of the units.
By the way, "working with the garage door open" usually has a broader meaning than having a public note system or digital garden, although it includes that. Andy Matuschak said that much of what happens on Twitch is working with the garage door open: livestreaming yourself studying or coding or doing any other kind of work.
Every time I think "ok, I've closed this work", a new thought happens. :-)
About what I've written above:
"open garage philosophy helps to..."
vs
"open garage philosophy is better than books..."
In my Zettelkasten I would have written, surely the idea in the first form, it's my default way of writing, and in this case it models better my knowledge and my beliefs too.
The first is good for represent my knowledge in my system.
But the second, today, was "better" in a paradoxically way.
It develops more knowledge.
If I had written the first form (I didn't believed to the second, but an immature and incomplete development of the idea and its representation have had the same effect), Andy might not have written his post and I wouldn't have caught the valuable truth in his post into my contents. My writings would have remained incomplete, having had a better start.
I think this further reflection might be useful for you, too.
Strong claims are poweful even when they are not true. They can be used as a challenge.
I think that I will take this as a lesson learned, I tend to "fight" claims that come from the others and to be too calm when I express my claims to my attention.
By the way, "working with the garage door open" usually has a broader meaning than having a public note system or digital garden, although it includes that. Andy Matuschak said that much of what happens on Twitch is working with the garage door open: livestreaming yourself studying or coding or doing any other kind of work.
Yes, I 'm aware of this.
I consider what I'm doing now having a garage open, too, even without sharing a single note. Exposing how I do something, rather than explaining others how they should do.
I think that reading mathuchak work has unconsciously influenced me in this attitude, it was not intentional at first.
In my Zettelkasten I would have written, surely the idea in the first form, it's my default way of writing, and in this case it models better my knowledge and my beliefs too.
The first is good for represent my knowledge in my system.
But the second, today, it was "better" in a paradoxically way.
It develops more knowledge.
Here is another way to analyze it: In both IBIS and QCE, positions/claims are responses to questions. If we ask what questions these two statements answer, we see that they answer two different types of questions. (Here I'll replace the term "open garage philosophy" with "public discourse graphs" as more understandable to me.)
The first question is open-ended, non-polar and descriptive: "What do public discourse graphs help to do?" The answer is a description of what public discourse graphs help to do. (OK, but that answer doesn't tell us, for example, what books help to do; you would have to ask yourself "What do books help to do?" to elicit a corresponding description for books.)
The second question is closed-ended, polar (yes/no), and evaluative: "Are public discourse graphs better than books?" A polar question permits the disjunctive answers: yes or no. In natural conversation, if you want to know why someone answers yes or no to a polar question, you will follow up by asking "Why?" A why-question is open-ended, non-polar and descriptive, like the first question.
The statements answering "Why are public discourse graphs better than books?" and "Why are public discourse graphs not better than books?" are two sets of descriptive statements that may be similar to the two sets of descriptive statements answering "What do public discourse graphs help to do?" and "What do books help to do?", except that the former two questions presuppose an answer to the evaluative question of which is better: public discourse graphs or books! (You can see in the previous paragraph that these two question presuppose a yes or no answer to the question "Are public discourse graphs better than books?")
Let's say that you compare the two sets of statements, and you realize that the polar question "Are public discourse graphs better than books?" is undecidable. You can replace it with a non-polar question, "When (in which situations) are public discourse graphs better than books?" (In IBIS, this does not involve deleting the old question, but instead connecting the new question to the old question with the is-replaced-by relation.)
So starting from two different kinds of questions, we can construct discourse graphs that have different rhetorical structures but similar information. I don't know if we can say that one type of statement or question is better than another type in general and in isolation from a larger knowledge structure. The important question is how well you are able to use a repertoire of different structures to create a knowledge base that is suitable for your purposes, and how well your schema or ontology is helping you to do that.
I am just a humble beginner, a novice, learning from those who have gone before me.
Thinking about how the ZKM's bottom-up approach to note-taking fits the model of IBIS's top-down approach, I arrived at this idea. This is a snippet of the first draft of my note The Creative Process of Synthesizing Ideas 202406231127.
Informal Bottom-Up Approach
Phase 1: Create observation notes from papers.
Phase 2: Articulate ideas expressed in the note.
Phase 3: Discover questions related to the note's ideas.
Again, a Top-Down approach
As I begin to accumulate observation notes, I can then begin to articulate synthesis notes: what does the literature have to say about my questions of interest? Synthesis notes get explicitly linked to the relevant question note. 1
Expressed as a Bottom-Up approach
As I process (refactor) my notes into observations, I can then begin to articulate the ideas: How can I frame questions from what my notes tell me that inspire my curiosity? Observations are linked to and inform the questions. Do questions discover in this way represent knowledge?
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
Thinking about how the ZKM's bottom-up approach to note-taking fits the model of IBIS's top-down approach, I arrived at this idea.
Both ZKM and IBIS permit a bottom-up approach. Perhaps that's implicit in the rest of your comment. As in science, you can start from observations or from research questions and hypotheses, and go from one to the other. Either way, the process is to synthesize, to figure out how it coheres, hangs together.
I tried to write this note in the vain in which it describes the synthesis model. It is large (1316 words). In 'Draft 3', I'll look at what can be atomized.
The Creative Process of Synthesizing Ideas 202406231127
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
Comments
Oh, what is the part of message that is problematic? I'll try to explain better
@andang76, you understand this topic in much the same way that I do. All I want to add are (what I think are) some alternative terms for the same thing:
@andang76 said (spelling corrected):
One way to describe the underlying principle is with the phrase "ontologies as knowledge organization systems". Different ontologies, and other knowledge organization systems (KOSs), organize knowledge in different ways, or in other words, direct thinking in different ways. How you organize knowledge affects what you know, and what you know affects how you organize knowledge. In scientific pursuits, we want a virtuous cycle (e.g., Neurathian bootstrap): we use knowledge organization systems to build knowledge of reality (specific scientific theories and general metaphysics), which is then used to improve knowledge organization systems.
I like your summary here. Many of the mentioned knowledge organization systems are designed to facilitate "working with the garage door open": doing knowledge work in public. However, it seems that most knowledge workers (including me) still work in private, "with the garage door down", for various reasons. Their KOSs are private and personal knowledge organization systems.
Your fellow Italian, Riccardo Ridi, who has written a lot about hypertext, argued for the importance of sharing finished, structured knowledge products instead of knowledge atoms:
Ridi conceded that "a greater granularization of digital documents" could be useful in public, but his point, in my interpretation, is that the most valuable knowledge is highly organized, systematized knowledge. If you are going to "work with the garage door open", your work will probably be most valuable to others if you have an effective knowledge organization system that others can understand.
Here's a quote from Chan so readers don't have to go looking for the relevant passage:
Yes, organization is much better than enterprise. In my work they are the same thing, so I've used interchangeably, they don't instead.
Yes, you did well writing the point around Ridi words .
What I've written need to have the right scope.
Our knowledge can't live only with atoms and open garages. They are models that enrich, don't replace.
Without this clarification my post sends the wrong message. Thanks for raising the point.
This is what I would write (linking to its own note, better...) in the "contextualization" section of my open garage philosophy claim note.
Without your post that section would remain empty, maybe.
@Andy , a thought that develops in my mind, now. What you've written, if I want to integrate in my zettelkasten a claim derived from it, it represents a counterargument?
I think that depends on how I write the first claim.
If I write something like "open garage philosophy is better than books..." your writing surely generates a counterargument.
If I write something like "open garage philosophy helps to...", It isn't anymore.
Here because in my notes I feel the need having a "contextualization" section, too. Many of my claim are fuzzier than others.
But is this form of writing "strong" enough to represent a claim?
@andang76 said:
This shows the rhetorical aspect of a discourse graph: changing the rhetoric of the discourse units often requires changing the structure of the graph. In other words, you're changing the internal and external informal logic of the units.
By the way, "working with the garage door open" usually has a broader meaning than having a public note system or digital garden, although it includes that. Andy Matuschak said that much of what happens on Twitch is working with the garage door open: livestreaming yourself studying or coding or doing any other kind of work.
Every time I think "ok, I've closed this work", a new thought happens. :-)
About what I've written above:
"open garage philosophy helps to..."
vs
"open garage philosophy is better than books..."
In my Zettelkasten I would have written, surely the idea in the first form, it's my default way of writing, and in this case it models better my knowledge and my beliefs too.
The first is good for represent my knowledge in my system.
But the second, today, was "better" in a paradoxically way.
It develops more knowledge.
If I had written the first form (I didn't believed to the second, but an immature and incomplete development of the idea and its representation have had the same effect), Andy might not have written his post and I wouldn't have caught the valuable truth in his post into my contents. My writings would have remained incomplete, having had a better start.
I think this further reflection might be useful for you, too.
Strong claims are poweful even when they are not true. They can be used as a challenge.
I think that I will take this as a lesson learned, I tend to "fight" claims that come from the others and to be too calm when I express my claims to my attention.
Yes, I 'm aware of this.
I consider what I'm doing now having a garage open, too, even without sharing a single note. Exposing how I do something, rather than explaining others how they should do.
I think that reading mathuchak work has unconsciously influenced me in this attitude, it was not intentional at first.
@andang76 said:
Here is another way to analyze it: In both IBIS and QCE, positions/claims are responses to questions. If we ask what questions these two statements answer, we see that they answer two different types of questions. (Here I'll replace the term "open garage philosophy" with "public discourse graphs" as more understandable to me.)
The first question is open-ended, non-polar and descriptive: "What do public discourse graphs help to do?" The answer is a description of what public discourse graphs help to do. (OK, but that answer doesn't tell us, for example, what books help to do; you would have to ask yourself "What do books help to do?" to elicit a corresponding description for books.)
The second question is closed-ended, polar (yes/no), and evaluative: "Are public discourse graphs better than books?" A polar question permits the disjunctive answers: yes or no. In natural conversation, if you want to know why someone answers yes or no to a polar question, you will follow up by asking "Why?" A why-question is open-ended, non-polar and descriptive, like the first question.
The statements answering "Why are public discourse graphs better than books?" and "Why are public discourse graphs not better than books?" are two sets of descriptive statements that may be similar to the two sets of descriptive statements answering "What do public discourse graphs help to do?" and "What do books help to do?", except that the former two questions presuppose an answer to the evaluative question of which is better: public discourse graphs or books! (You can see in the previous paragraph that these two question presuppose a yes or no answer to the question "Are public discourse graphs better than books?")
Let's say that you compare the two sets of statements, and you realize that the polar question "Are public discourse graphs better than books?" is undecidable. You can replace it with a non-polar question, "When (in which situations) are public discourse graphs better than books?" (In IBIS, this does not involve deleting the old question, but instead connecting the new question to the old question with the is-replaced-by relation.)
So starting from two different kinds of questions, we can construct discourse graphs that have different rhetorical structures but similar information. I don't know if we can say that one type of statement or question is better than another type in general and in isolation from a larger knowledge structure. The important question is how well you are able to use a repertoire of different structures to create a knowledge base that is suitable for your purposes, and how well your schema or ontology is helping you to do that.
Thanks @Andy, your posts are very valuable.
I've another truck of ideas with writings in this page :-)
I second @andang76's comment!
I'm absorbed in processing Knowledge synthesis: A conceptual model and practical guide into my archive, trying to take my time and consider how the ideas can enhance my workflow.
I am just a humble beginner, a novice, learning from those who have gone before me.
Thinking about how the ZKM's bottom-up approach to note-taking fits the model of IBIS's top-down approach, I arrived at this idea. This is a snippet of the first draft of my note The Creative Process of Synthesizing Ideas 202406231127.
Formal Top-Down Approach
Phase 1: Articulate question notes.
Phase 2: Create observation notes from papers.
Phase 3: Develop synthesis notes.
Informal Bottom-Up Approach
Phase 1: Create observation notes from papers.
Phase 2: Articulate ideas expressed in the note.
Phase 3: Discover questions related to the note's ideas.
Again, a Top-Down approach
As I process (refactor) my notes into observations, I can then begin to articulate the ideas: How can I frame questions from what my notes tell me that inspire my curiosity? Observations are linked to and inform the questions. Do questions discover in this way represent knowledge?
Knowledge synthesis: A conceptual model and practical guide ↩︎
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
@Will said:
Both ZKM and IBIS permit a bottom-up approach. Perhaps that's implicit in the rest of your comment. As in science, you can start from observations or from research questions and hypotheses, and go from one to the other. Either way, the process is to synthesize, to figure out how it coheres, hangs together.
I've finished 'Draft 2' of my factoring of Knowledge synthesis: A conceptual model and practical guide. I want to share it with you. If you're moved, share what you think or ask questions.
I tried to write this note in the vain in which it describes the synthesis model. It is large (1316 words). In 'Draft 3', I'll look at what can be atomized.
The Creative Process of Synthesizing Ideas 202406231127
Here is a link to the actual file.
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