Keeping Own Ideas in Zettelkasten?

Edmund

Reading a first book (e.g. "How to take smart notes" from Sönke Ahrens ) is easy. With a set of key terms (e.g. Permanent Notes) and some basic rules you can start your Zettelkasten.

Reading a second book is more difficult. An example: In "How to Make Notes and Write" Dan Allosso writes,

“As you write a new note, which I call a Point Note, the focus shifts from the source material to your own thoughts. This is where you begin taking real ownership of the idea, using the source as support for a thought you’re pursuing; a point you want to make.”

I applied this concept to my own Zettelkasten. Surprisingly, I couldn't find many ideas from my own. Most of my Permanent Notes came from capturing ideas from others. They are other people's ideas written down in my own words. Allosso call them Source Notes. Point Notes now are my own ideas connected to the ideas of others.

Now I have started to re-read Ahrens' book to look for hidden sentences that I may have missed. How does Luhmann's Zettelkasten look like? Can we find a difference between his own ideas and the ideas from others?

GeoEng51

@Edmund Are any ideas truly our own? Or just thoughts we have heard previously and are remembering in the context of new readings or discussions?

Sascha

The separation of own and other peoples ideas is pretty artificial and rather theory-driven. In practice, there is no other difference than the reference that you place for other people's ideas.

A simple thought experiment: I thought that I am super smart because I had a super awesome idea. Then I discovered that I learned the idea from a book a year ago. I place the reference afterwards.

Now: How does my behavior change when I work with the idea? (Expand it, create reliability through studies etc)

Answer: It doesn't or at least it shouldn't.

Edmund

My own example:

Two Source Notes:
1. Zettelkasten as a system for note-taking (from Luhmann)
2. Maturity Model to improve processes (from Software Development)

My Point Note:

• Zettelkasten Maturity (apply the concept of "2." to the concept of "1.")

The titles are short and not very descriptive in this example. But they should show two independent ideas leading to a new one.

Edmund

@GeoEng51 said:
@Edmund Are any ideas truly our own? Or just thoughts we have heard previously and are remembering in the context of new readings or discussions?

What about an invention? We create new ideas on the basis of existing ones.

andang76

In my interpretation, "my own thoughts" doesn't necessary mean "thoughts that my mind has created itself alone".

If I remember correctly Dan itself in his book clarify about originality of ideas, too.
Dan itself says that there are very few "really original" ideas.

An idea that

• I select from a source because it hits me
• I extract and I decontextualize from a source and I recontextualize and distill into my personal world
• and/or that I interpret and reframe giving my personal point of view, my personal relevance, giving values according to my context
• I connect to other thoughts thinking and choosing the relevant relationships for me

is perfectly "owned" by me, perhaps with more or less different degrees but owned

Even simply selecting an idea from the outside, choosing it from dozens of others and bringing it into my personal sphere, connecting to other ideas can is a relevant ownership.

I didn't invent the zettelkasten but the continuous processing of sources and concepts about zettelkasten found around led me to generate an enormous amount of reframed ideas, thoughts and reflections about a zettelkasten that became "absolutely mine".
Almost none of them are completely original, but overall the work is absolutely original.
This happened because my purpose was not writing a book describing exactly the zettelkasten of luhmans or ahrens, but the purpose was "understand" the zettelkasten and building "my" zettelkasten. if I had had the first purpose I would have reframed the ideas in a different way, maybe.

I always like to make the analogy of taking photos. The good photographer does not "invent" the reality before his eyes, but by making the appropriate choices on framing, light, lenses, exposure parameters, choice of subject and details and many other parameters,
and above all with his intention, he can very easily obtain "his own" photo from a scene that doesn't really possess. We can think of the infinite number of possible photos that can be taken of the same landscape. I can take a descriptive photo from a scientific magazine, or a completely artistic one choosing subjects and lights. The landscape (the external idea) remains the same, but the author's production (the reframed idea) changes completely.
Just a simple example working with only one of the infinite choices:
https://www.northwoodsphotos.com/landscape-photography-same-location-different-time-of-day/.
So, I can have "my" thought from one external idea in the same way I can obtain my landscape photo from an external landscape. I don't need to invent the concepts of trees, sky and so on...

Ydkd

@Edmund
Recently I got and idea based on incremental reading and concept of connections which relates to your point note:
You have huge amount of unconnected ideas, they sit in inbox or some special place. Then you gradually go through them and attach your connections between them or between them and your knowledge. Process is automatic - one item shows up, and you can write just "it reminds me of..." or more strong connection.
Than creates huge amount of point notes, or "bridge" notes. After a while notes gain weight by growing amount of connections or by connecting to high-weight notes. After note gains enough weight, it can be turned into durable note, or zettel, or evergreen. Or attached to main body of information.
That greately enhances combinational creativity

I also found this workflow usable on mobile: you can grow connections in as small increments as you want, while on the go, while waiting somewhere etc. Plus movement and changing environment may contribute to creativity too.
The problem is in the lack of good apps, almost nothing supports this without custom extensions.

@Sascha said:

Now: How does my behavior change when I work with the idea? (Expand it, create reliability through studies etc)

What if it brings opportunity for paradigm shift?

GeoEng51

@Edmund said:

@GeoEng51 said:
@Edmund Are any ideas truly our own? Or just thoughts we have heard previously and are remembering in the context of new readings or discussions?

What about an invention? We create new ideas on the basis of existing ones.

Yes, science seems replete with stories of small, incremental increases in knowledge, where someone (like Archimedes with density or Newton with gravity) grasps the next step in some overall concept. How often does the "normal" person have these intuitive breakthroughs? I would argue that the truly unique insights are quite rare. Hence it doesn't seem like the right basis on which to hang a definition of a point note. But I'd be quite happy to relax the definition

Will

@andang76 said:

In my interpretation, "my own thoughts" doesn't necessary mean "thoughts that my mind has created itself alone"... [it] is perfectly "owned" by me, perhaps with more or less different degrees but owned.

Even simply selecting an idea from the outside, choosing it from dozens of others, and bringing it into my personal sphere, connecting to other ideas, can be a relevant form of ownership.

Importantly, I want to test what I consider my ideas against the ideas of others who are more expert than myself to see how my ideas stand up. If they stand up to scrutiny, they have a chance to grow into something special. While this is a "relevant form of ownership," it is also a form of validation.

Sascha

@Ydkd said:
@Sascha said:

Now: How does my behavior change when I work with the idea? (Expand it, create reliability through studies etc)

What if it brings opportunity for paradigm shift?

Both your own ideas and other people's ideas can invoke a paradigm shift.

Edmund

Thank you for all your amazing comments and valuable views on this subject of Point Notes. For me it's a great input for learning. Here's an update of my insights:

A Point Note is used:

• when I want to make a point (Dan Allosso)
• because I want to test what I consider my ideas ("own ideas") against the ideas of others (Will Simpson)

An example Point Note:

• "Point Notes indicate the active part of my ideas in my Zettelkasten."
  It's the place of active learning. It requires to think hard and to practice using new knowledge and skills in order to develop log-term recall and a deeper understanding.

Re-reading all your comments leads me to believe that we often use the term "idea" by having a particular aspect in mind (see synonyms):

GeoEng51

@Edmund Thanks for starting the thread - I agree that was a helpful discussion.

Edmund

@GeoEng51 said:
@Edmund Thanks for starting the thread - I agree that was a helpful discussion.

You’re welcome. 🙂

DanAllosso

This was super interesting! Thanks for calling it to my attention, Edmund! Yes, I agree that there's not a whole lot of originality in the world; but I still think there's a process whereby we work with the ideas of others and make them "our own" by reframing them and recontextualizing them. Always with appropriate credit given, of course.

Edmund

@DanAllosso Happy to have you here. And let me ask you a first question: What was your intention to create new key terms? Now I have two extra types of notes (Source Notes and Point Notes) within my Permanent Notes from Ahrens.

Ydkd

Forgot to post nice example from https://nesslabs.com/combinational-creativity:

For example, the “Juicy Salif” product below was designed by Philippe Starck by combining the idea of a lemon squeezer and a dish of squids he ordered at a waterfront restaurant. Seemingly random and unique, but still an example of combinational creativity.

Edmund

@ydk Thank you for sharing your visual example of combinational creativity. It‘s exactly what I mean with „own idea“.

I do not talk about „taking a photo“ as a photographer, the other nice visual metaphor from @andang76