What do you think - "Writing as a tool for though is overrated"?
Rethink Writing: Think Visually, Your Brain is Not Linear
Do you use such visuals in your ZK or other system?
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you can't properly express your idea using text without visuals?
What do you think overall about message in the video?
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Comments
Yes, frequently. I treat visualisation as another language or medium that I can use to map an idea.
Many of my ideas are mapped by complementing text and visuals.
I wouldn't say that I couldn't express an idea, but the visual representation lead to yet another layer of depth of processing. This is a slide for the ZK101 that should be telling a lot:
Too strong stated, I think. However, it might be because he submitted a bit too much to the medium (YouTube) which nudges towards overly strong positions. So, it might be just an issue of presentation.
However, I wouldn't put one above the other, because each have their benefit for different phases and different materials.
But I highly agree that the visual approach is underutilised or at least underrepresented.
I am a Zettler
Apologies if this is off topic. Visual understanding is interesting stuff.
I struggle with math, for example, and my best understanding comes from math as geometry.
For instance, the algebra to show that (a+b)^2-4ab=(a-b)^2 is easy enough, but it gets falling-off-a-log simple if you draw that as Pythagorean twisted squares.
@Sascha
Are they in your ZK notes as attached images or how do you implement those?
They are embedded like his:
I am a Zettler
Just today Paul Graham posted this, somewhat related to the title (and Zettelkasten for that matter).
Wrties and Write-Nots.
Not for me.
I think that visual representations are effective in some cases, but less effective in others.
Sometimes you really benefit following the natural linear flow of text and its explicitness.
Zsolt (a youtuber that I follow and I appreciate) cites UML diagrams, for example, but I don't feel comfortable creating and reading some of them :-)
I also think that some of the benefits of visual representations can be obtained using appropriate structures (titles, headings, sections, bullet lists) and distribution of spaces in the text, instead of using huge pages of uniform text.
Bad written, structured and formatted texts can be hard to read, but we can do much to improve them.
(I can cite Information Mapping by Horn, even if there is almost nothing available on the internet about it, just the basic principle).
Needs to be a lot of contextualization and case-by-case analysis, it is not a field of absolute truths. So, it's a good idea think of having both available, rather than necessarily choosing just one.
These fell out of fashion, too, in the past decades. Their original promises never delivered. So it's not just you
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
Remember Rational Rose? I don't.
As for writing, I agree with Leslie Lamport: "If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking."
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.
@andang76
Is it this? - IMI History and Results.pdf, informationmapping.com methodolgy
I can cite> @Ydkd said:
yes.
I haven't found much stuff online, but the core principle is easy to grasp. It's all in the "before-after" image of your second link.
Everyone can build their own model inspired by that image, in the end, without a lot of overthinking.
A couple of issues to manage, anyway, in my opinion. A too strict and complex model of this kind can reduce creative thinking (a very strict structure can set too many limits to our thinking) and it can degrade into a very boring process. So, there's need a personal balance between benefits of structuring and benefits of freedom.
Absolutely great video, thank you for providing. I know the idea but I'm using it too less. I like mind maps and using Graphviz and Mermaid. However drawing pictures is something I'm not very good in.
I agree fully with Luhmann's point of view:
"Ohne zu schreiben, kann man nicht denken; jedenfalls nicht in
anspruchsvoller, anschlußfähiger Weise."
Luhmann, Niklas: Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen, Ein Erfahrungsbericht, in: Kieserling, Andre (Hg.), Universität als Milieu, Kleine Schriften, Bielefeld, 1992, p.58This translation of the mentioned essay is a bit too much interpretative I guess. It says:
"Without writing, you cannot think; at least not in a sophisticated and scientific way."
The original "anschlußfähig" there is translated as "scientific". Hm. English is not my mother tongue, but I guess it has to be "connectable ". Luhmann's original points much more broadly to the relation of thinking-writing. So, I'd translate as follows:
"Without writing, you cannot think; at least not in a sophisticated, connectable way."
@ChrisJoh
The direct translation of "anschlussfähig" is indeed "connectable". However, anschlussfähig is a specific term in Luhmanns work and connects to his concept of communication and systems theory. Since, he is writing specifically for the audience in institutionalised science, he means connectable to the system of science. (Wissenschaft als Kommunikationssystem)
So, the translation to "scientific" was to make sure to capture this without going crazy with big explaining footnotes on his concept of communication.
"Scientific" is what makes communication connectable within the context of institutionalised science.
I am a Zettler
@Sascha
Apart from the fact that one can certainly discuss whether Luhmann here means connectivity (Anschlussfaehigkeit) as self-referentiality (within the system) or as reference (referential to other systems), I consider it more appropriate to keep the translation less interpretative and closer to the text.
Just to say
EDIT:
From the Niklas Luhmann Archive this link to this engl. translation.
That translation is interesting and offers an elegant possibility:
Take idioms for example. "Zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen." means "Hit two birds with one stone". "Hitting two flys with one Fly flap" is not a good translation even though, it is "closer to the text".
Here, Anschlussfähigkeit is a term, specific to his theory and means that an instance of communication makes other communication possible. Communication is a within-system phenomenon. So, most likely the reference to other system is not meant.
One of the major problems of reading and understanding Luhmann is to get his specific concepts. Much like idioms lost their literal meaning, as I don't literally hit flies if I eat my lunch outside with my dog (to safe time by combining two activities), Anschlussfähigkeit is no longer the general term, when it is used by Luhmann.
So, "connectivity" isn't closer to the text because the author of the text used different concepts.
I am a Zettler
@Sascha
An interlinear translation of idioms is not useful, no doubt about that. Your example doesn't consider the question, how to translate Luhmanns term 'anschlussfaehig' in the case of an essay published in 1981 for an anthology not within the context of Luhmann's theoretical work.
I still think the translation to 'scientific' is an over the top interpretation. Luhmann could easily have used the german term 'wissenschaftlich' for the said essay knowing that the audience of the anthology may differ from the audience of one of his own works. "Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen. Ein Erfahrungsbericht." is not a theoretical work of Luhmann's sociology.
The anthology:
H. Baier / H.M. Kepplinger / K. Reumann (Hrsg.), Öffentliche Meinung und sozialer Wandel. Für Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. Opladen, 1981.
Doesn't Wissenschaft refer to disciplines having a recognized scholarly methodology? The term is more general than "science."
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.
Haha! This discussion reminds me a bit of my Brazilian friend who keeps trying to tell me how to speak or write in English. Her English proficiency is pretty good, but I speak only English and I've been at it (in a studied and scholarly way) for over 70 years. She looks up words in an English dictionary to tell me what they mean, which is occasionally (but rarely) helpful. I've been looking up words in the Oxford English dictionary since I was ten years old, read voraciously (both fiction and non-fiction) and still regularly consult dictionaries and thesauri. She's got a hundred years of reading to catch up on her English vocabulary, word usage and grammar.
It also brings to mind David Dunning's book and discussion on We are all confident idiots
No offense meant to anyone who has commented here, by the way - I'm just enjoying one of those humourous "ahah" moments.
If Leiter Reports hadn't commended the term Wissenschaft to the attention of its readers, I wouldn't be such a confident idiot about it.
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.
Yes. Wissen translates to knowledge, while -schaft etymologically corresponds most closely to -ship (Freundschaft = friendship), but semantically and pragmatically I think it more broadly corresponds to -ness. Obviously, knowledgeness isn't a word, but I think this nonce word translates the idea better than science, which has a much narrower meaning in English, as you've mentioned.
I would say that Wissenschaft, and its adjective wissenschaftlich, refers to any domain of knowledge where a rigorous, systematic approach to research is the norm. The English term science can also be used this way, but it doesn't occur nearly as often. In that light, I think translating wissenschaftlich as scientific is not really all that wrong-headed. On the other hand, translating anschlussfähig as scientific does not seem quite right.
@ChrisJoh and @Sascha, and anyone else who is interested: Even in normal usage Anschluss contains shades of both connection and continuation—the former being obvious, and the latter being apparent in the phrase im Anschluss. It is likely that this dual meaning is precisely the reason that "Anschlussfähigkeit" became one of a core concept of Luhmann's theory—this concept, as I understand it, specifically refers to a state of connection AND continuation (or reproduction).
I'm a stickler for nuance, so I tend to favor translations that do one of two things in the face of any "untranslatable" or otherwise difficult-to-translate words:
To compare, here's the original again:
Translation is tricky, especially as the vocabulary becomes more specialized. I'm interested to hear what others think.
@vvirr
Completely agree - a footnote here indeed can be helpful.
The translation of "anspruchsvoll" to "rigorous": I guess "sophisticated" in Manfred Kuehn's translation fits better. "Rigorous" seems too narrow and - how to say - a bit rigorous
This is my attempt, which translates "anschlußfähig" as "any."
In my case, it is impossible to think without writing, revising, typing on screen, comparing pen and paper notes with the digital format, getting completely lost, crossing out the mistakes and starting over again.
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.
@ChrisJoh
Fair enough. Still, I think it might be more a matter of taste, since anspruchsvoll could really go either way. My main argument in favor of rigorous is this: A rigorous thinker is more clearly interested in revealing truth. A sophisticated thinker might be that too—but they might also be content with the mere appearance of it.