On the search for the ghost in the box
Hello! :-)
The promise of the Zettelkasten method is that it will allow you to create an artificial writing partner that will surprise you with new ideas and help you write high-quality texts.
However, the typical situation for inexperienced spectators is to be disappointed when they visit someone else's Zettelkasten; they cannot see how a Zettelkasten lives up to its promise, and they cannot see the ghost in the box.
The underlying problem is that if you don't understand the true nature of a Zettelkasten, you won't be able to see the ghost in the box.
So, what is the true nature of a Zettelkasten? A Zettelkasten is a thinking environment. The ghost does not hide inside the box; it hides in the private mental process of a user interacting with his Zettelkasten.
How do you find the ghost in the box? What has worked for me is:
- Using my Zettelkasten as my default environment for thinking.
- Increasing the intensity (time and concentration) of my sessions with my Zettelkasten to correctly follow the Zettelkasten method.
- Understanding why a Zettelkasten enhances your thinking and vice versa (why your thinking enhances your Zettelkasten).
I have written an article where I explain these reflections in more detail: "The Zettelkasten Method: The search for the ghost in the box"
My primary sources of knowledge to write this article have been:
- "Philosophy of Zettelkasten: What is the Ghost in the Box?"
- "A Beettle and a Ghost in the Box"
- "The Zettelkasten Method 101 LIVE Workshop"
Finally, I think the main contribution of my article is the parallel I have found between the search for enlightenment in meditation and the search for the ghost in the box in the Zettelkasten method:
"It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner."
---Joshu Washes the Bowl, The Gateless Gate
I hope this parallelism can be of help to unlock the intuition needed to see the ghost in the box and, above all, enjoy the wonders of this method :-)
I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on how you experience the box in the ghost phenomenon and if you know of any other sources of knowledge on this subject!
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” —Isaac Newton
eljardindegestalt.com
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
I'll read your article, your introduction here is very promising.
I think you already hit some very important points here.
One of my thoughts is that the Zettelkasten of another guy is not "a zettelkasten for me". It represents a source.
I've already written some of my thoughts about in this topic
https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2868/kommunikationspartner
I consider my change of mind about this theme an instance of the apparition of the ghost on itself. These kind of revelations are the soul, the vital essence of using zettelkasten for many weeks, months and years for me.
Thanks @andang76, I just read the full discussion in the link you passed. I will process it later :-)
I also believe that a Zettelkasten is individual. It might be interesting to see what happens if I include notes from someone else's Zettelkasten in my Zettelkasten, but I think it would be somewhat equivalent to feeding my Zettelkasten with raw books or articles.
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” —Isaac Newton
eljardindegestalt.com
Can you say more about what you mean by another guy's [or gal's] zettelkasten being a source?
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. 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
Oh Yes.
My Zettelkasten has many properties and much of its meaning for me beause I've built it on myself and for myself.
If you read one of my notes, it doesn't express the same relevance and power for you. Its framing is tailored by my point of view, it has relationships with other notes according to my mind, it has an evolution over time according to my experiences. It is a creature born from my personal experience and has meanings and relevance in my personal sphere. For you it's probably just a text to read, if you want to reach the same experience as me you have to reread the texts, reinterpret them, internalize everything within your sphere again, as if it were an external source. You need to rebuild your own Zettelkasten meaning from the same written notes, this meaning for your is not directly expressed from the text I've written. You need to redo for your own much of the work I've already done, work thanks to which the note is born, but the note considered alone it is only a support, a byproduct.
Written notes are only the tip of the icebeberg. The submerged part is my process over time, my hours spent writing, my mental work used to write them, and these are not transferable into the notes, the notes are just the final result of the process. Much of the value of zettelkasten continues to reside in my head after I've written my notes, not into the notes. For another one is "just" something to read and process from the very beginning.
N.B This is my personal experience of the Zettelkasten, of course, and it's based on How I write my notes and I consider and read notes of others.
N.B This doesn't mean that your Zettelkasten can't be important and useful for me, if I read it. Reading it is a different process. For example, I've obtained precious and strategic learnings reading Matushack notes, they are among the most important things read to develop my model, even more important than some of my ideas, but If I possess a slip box of all of his notes I don't consider it this set "my zettelkasten". It doesn't express my mind, my thoughts, my world, it continues to express the world of Matushack. I can build my zettelkasten reading and processing Matushack Zettelkasten as a reading, I can't have a Zettelkasten copying the Matushack Zettelkasten. If I had Luhman's entire set of physical notes at home, I still wouldn't consider it my Zettelkasten. The zettelkasten is not possession of texts, nor even simple reading. I have to reread them, work on them, think about them again from the beginning
Fernando metaphor in his article is very effective, and I totally agree.
"A game of chess is not its pieces and its board".
Text notes are only the positions of pieces into a board. The game played before those positions remains in our minds. From the same board another player need to develop his game, not the same game.
I agree with one idea read in Antinet Zettelkasten. If my Zettelkasten is totally destroyed by an unfortunate event, I don't lose everything, and I don't even lose the most important thing. The most important thing is how the process has filled my mind during its use and the other values the notes don't diretly express into their texts.
I can lose all my notes that talk about how to make a zettelkasten, but my ability to make a zettelkasten, born from having written those notes, remains
This same post of mine, I wrote it without even opening my notes, it is the fruit of my mind thanks to the experience of my zettelkasten. It is Zettelkasten value not expressed by notes, and a value that another one can't catch directly reading my notes.
(After this discussion, anyway, I will write these concepts as a note).
To give proper credit, I found the metaphor in a comment of @autonomygaps on the forum
I resonate a lot with this idea. I think that situation---where a Zettelkasten helps you write, even without opening its notes---is part of the ghost in the box phenomenon: it is one of the ways in which the Zettelkasten method fulfills its promise.
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” —Isaac Newton
eljardindegestalt.com
I always thought that the chess metaphor belonged to Ludwig Wittgenstein
@FernandoNobel
Thank you for your article. Very interesting! There is something heuristically valuable behind this "Geist im Kasten" and the idea of an interlocutor.
I have been playing with these concepts recently, mixing them with metaphors of Pygmalion and Homunculus.
There are two essays of mine on this subject. They are in Russian, but with modern technologies (aka Chat GPT) this should not be an obstacle.
So, if it will be helpful in developing this discourse, here are Pygmalion and Homunculus
🗄 My blog on substack
This has been a great thread!
One book I really liked when I read it decades ago is from WIlliam Zinsser. Not his "On writing well" but his "Writing to learn" which is all about how knowledge and intuition are created in the act of writing. So too with the Zettelkasten: the act of creating those notes has value even if the notes later get destroyed.
A few months ago someone tweeted about how they can get ChatGPT to create a mindmap. An epic response from another user's retweet: "Who is going to tell him?". Making the mindmap is 90% of the value, not having the mindmap thereafter.
@andang76
I’ve been reflecting on how my notes are not exclusively significant only to me. Maybe I’m a braggart, but I strive to make them express knowledge that anybody can comprehend. Especially after I refactor them, my notes may no longer hold the same meaning they did for the original author; the meaning my notes have now becomes mine, and I try to write my ideas with the intention of them being shareable, at least with the future me.
Every note I create is like a creature that springs forth from my interactions with the world around me. It weaves a web of connections, showcasing how I engage with outside ideas and influences. Rereading them refreshes that interaction and often stimulates me to refactor them again, breathing new and novel life into the ideas.
Writing notes is just the first step in a chain of creation. I've come to realize that ideas gain value when written down. My mind isn't the most reliable tool for storing knowledge, which is why I use the Zettelkasten method. It helps me capture, organize, and develop my ideas more effectively.
ps
This is my idea based on my progress in zettelkasting. In the private versus public debate, I side with a ZK being public. I’m striving to live up to this.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. 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
A significant part of the ghost in the box phenomenon stems from observing your own handwriting. Cards from twenty years ago (which I still have) take me back to the place and time in which I wrote the thought.
Scott P. Scheper
Website | Twitter | Reddit | YouTube
That's it, it will be a foreign source. You could take my own Zettelkasten without seeing anything but my hand writting (yeah, breaking news : I got back to my analog one some weeks ago and I am very happy with it) and scraps of paper. For me, it is full of informations. As @scottscheper wrote, I would remember when and how I wrote it, but also my state of mind. But, most of all, like @andang76 wrote, all of my reflections and cognitive process specificaly are here, written on paper, deploying into space and time with an other scrap of paper, linked to something else, to this structure note etc.
It would be like looking sport on the tv vs praticing that sport. You can watch and learn, but it will not be the same than having the sensations of your own body.
Of course. But the futur you will have far more memories and similarity with yourself than a foreigner. Furthemore, for someone else than your futurself, watching and learning will be instructive too. Someone visiting a foreign city always learn something and always "impress" their own mind with new, strange, powerfull and mixed sensations. But think about how much you know your own city, your own house, how easily you visit some place that you didn't visit since years, but always remembered.
It is like the day I went back to my family hometown. I saw myself running in this pathway with my baby boy. I saw my own ghost living there, years ago, while I re-discovered that streets I know too well. Imagine your were there, with me, that sunny day. I could explain my feelings it to you. Even if you could relate to me with your own experiences, the vision of this ghost would still be stronger for me.
I think that your notes can't directly form my zettelkasten, but they can be very useful for me if I read them, anyway. They form another kind of source for me. The different purpose doesn't impact on relevance.
I can read and use your notes , luhman notes, matushack notes for improve my knowledge and having inspirations, but I can't consider them "my" zettels, zettels like mine. My zettels have a very different background and process behind their back, process that is not expressed by the text of notes. Notes are much more than the text they contains, part of their power remain in the mind of the author. I can read your notes, but I have not access to the context they don't express, their not represented history, your mind, how you have written them during time, why you have written them. As good as I am at writing everything in my notes, I can't represent everything that involves a note. Something remains unexpressed, it remains in my mind, so this something can't be transferred to you. If you want this expression, you need to rebuild your own intepretation on yourself. Reading and processing the note just like another source.
In this sense my best zettel can't be like one of your zettels for you, and vice versa.
The same text is a support for my mind for me, and it is something to read for you. It has very different roles and impacts for both.
I can't say "I have a Zettelkasten" simply copying all of your notes into my pc.
I haven't copied your mind into my mind, all the mental background that you have built during time and that has produced your notes during time, all the hours spent reading, thinking and writing your notes. This is part of the Zettelkasten, this can't be copied or transferred, and this is a valuable part of Zettelkasten for me.
This applies to me, at least. I see my Zettelkasten mainly as a thinking system, rather than a writing system. Maybe this (apparently) subtle difference can create a misunderstanding due to two different purposes.
Your writing can be very valuable for me, like this your answer in this topic is. I surely improve my knowledge reading your writings, so reading your notes and ideas. I could consider your answer "a note" from you, and reading this note make me think and develop further my ideas about this topic, this is a real value. My knowledge develops thanks to thousands of these moments.
But after this experience I need to take "my zettel" about the experience. It is not enough having your post and considering it "my zettel" of the experience. it doesn't express all.
At the same time, I think that you don't simply embed my answer into your zettelkasten simply considering it "as is". You develop and store into your zettelkasten your thinking and reactions developed reading my post, taken as a source.
We are beyond the idea of copying any text and thinking it is right in our ZK or even changing the surface of any text and calling it good enough. We have to think and interact deeply with ideas, making them our own and integrating them deeply into our thinking. We must treat our ideas and notes with the respect they call for.
Ideas come from experiences or reading—anything. What is the difference between writing a book and writing a series of notes? From your perspective, the integration of the ideas should be done with the same intensity. There is no difference or special attribute between movies, TED talks, podcasts, audiobooks, public ZK, and academic papers.
Of course, but this is no different from any other outside written source. One outside source is no different than another. A book can be full of nonsense, just like a podcast or someone's notes. Some notes can be filled with ideas, just like a movie or TED talk. How we capture the ideas is up to us and our integrity. If we ignore or under-privilege an idea because of its source, we miss the opportunities.
Yes, you don't have access to the writer's thinking. But you don't have access to any writer's thinking or anybody else's for that matter. I'd go so far as to claim we don't even have a full understanding of our own thinking. As the author Joan Didion wrote, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”
Yes, in the sense that we write our ideas clearly and approach them with maturity as practitioners of the Art of Zettelkasting.
This is obvious. But it is no different from how we should work with other ideas.
Please say more about what you think the difference between a thinking and writing system is. I see writing as the way thinking is made physical and shareable. Otherwise, it is intangible, private, and fleeting, unable to be cross-examined in reality.
I, too, am enjoying the sharing and development of this idea thread. It is of such quality that I'm slowly changing my mind from my earlier position. This is only the case in a few conversations with books or forum threads. Thank you. This is first-class.
We are beyond the idea of simply copying and thinking we have everything captured. Beyond this point, there is no difference between sources. We are compelled to practice the whole Art of Zettelkasting and take no shortcuts.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. 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