One note per-concept, or one note per-claim?
Given this claim:
"Human Behavior is driven by Mental Models, which are expressed in Sense Memories"
Do you create notes like this:
- Human Behavior is driven by Mental Models
- Mental Models are expressed in Sense Memories
Or like this:
- Human Behavior
- Mental Models
- Sense Memories
...Or some other combination?
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Comments
Great question. I'd like to know the same. If you really take the Principle of Atomicity to heart, once could conceivably make a zettel out of every sentence or paragraph, since there is usually at least one main proposition.
W.r.t your quote, I would probably do it in sentence form with specific propositions, like you have in the first example.
Your second example is what I would make for structure notes or overview notes as I call them.
In your archive, you will likely have many ground-level zettels that pertain to those topics. Thus, these overview notes would collect and structure the individual zettels around each idea (e.g. human behavior, mental models, etc.).
In your individual zettels (e.g. Human Behavior is driven by Mental Models), you might even do it so that you link to the overview note. So:
2018120201 [[Human behavior]] is driven by 2018120202 [[Mental models]]. That's actually how I would do it. That way you've made the links at the outset.
@Sascha and @ctietze may have better suggestions, but this is how I would do it. As @Sascha has discussed, I see my zettelkasten in layers, with notes having different layers of granularity and building on each other. I think the examples you provide are two different layers, both of which add value and serve different roles.
I would do it in a similar way. At first, though, if the claim is all I had, I probably wouldn't even bother to split in in two. But I see the point of this contrived example (I can tell it's contrived because e.g. the source of the claim is missing from the quote
), so: what @achamess said!
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
In my archive, it would look like this:
So, there'd be four notes.
I am a Zettler
What would be contained within the individual notes? Definitions of the terms?
It would depend on the level of processing already done. I generally don't link to definitions because I expect me to know all the definitions. The links can go to
I am a Zettler
On a related question, I quite frequently come up with classification schemes, where several individual concepts are connected in a very strong way.
For example, Taleb’s framework of Fragile, Resilient, Antifragile. The terms themselves, in these cases, often derive their meaning more from the framework than from any individual definition. In a similar way, I've recently classified religious traditions as revolving around Leadership, Liturgy, or Literature. These aren't standalone concepts, but are useful models for comparing / contrasting within a framework.
It gets quite tricky when trying to unpack or compare different aspects of these classification schemes. For example, what are the prerequisites for Fragile, Resilient, and Antifragile systems? Or what are the behavioral characteristics vs the failure modes of religious traditions that center around Leadership, Liturgy, or Literature?
Do these comparisons exist in a separate high-level notes, such as:
Or do the individual items get broken out, such as:
Or is there some better way to approach this?
I do solve this problem like that:
I am a Zettler
Juicy stuff @micahredding . Not sure if this is helpful, but I've found it a fun and useful exercise to apply some ancient rhetorically categories to help unpack what I'm trying to categorize:
Ways to Unpack a Thought or Thing
For whatever reason, in whatever circumstance, something has entered your mind and you're trying to figure it out, or unearth its hidden power (maybe its cadence or syntax), or suck the marrow out of its multiple meanings—all of this so you can fully grok it—and you're grasping for the right tools to help you take that Thought or Thing and express it with surgical precision.
Unpacking through Relationships
What is it like?
Same as : Opposite of
Genus : Species
Whole : Parts
Either this : Or that
Similar to : Different from
More than : Less than
How does it relate?
Before : After
As that : So this
Possible : Impossible
Encourages : Discourages
Unpacking through Function
What does it do?
Transforms a thing
Transform itself
Grow
Influence
Shrink
Multiply
Improve
Harm
Unpacking through Circumstances
What is the context surrounding it?
Circumstances
Circumstances of People
Circumstances of Things
This is how I would personally do this, on the specific example of Nassim Taleb:
[3] Antifragility <[5]
** [3a] Examples of Antifragility in... <[3]
[4] Resilency <[5]
[] means the note title; > forelinks (loosely, Folgezettel), < backlinks; v Higher Level. & would be "see also", etc.
Meaning will arise from the back/forelinks, and 1,2,3,4,5,6 can be written (time or source) independant of each other. When I import Nassim Taleb's antifragility in one setting, it would be:
[5] Taleb: Reactions of a system to change >[5-1, 5-2, 5-3]
** [5-1] Fraglity v[5]
*** [5-1a] Antifragilty and network effects <[5-1]; <[7]
** [5-2] Antifragility v[5]
** [5-3] Resilency v[5]
[7] Network effects in systems &[5-1a]
One and the same note can be a part of many different structures, which isn't a problem. I try to connect discussions that span tow or more different hierarchies on as low as a level as possible, connecting individual notes instead of structure notes.
And structure ("taxonomy of knowledge") isn't as important as combining Zettels accross topic boundaries ("combining knowledge atoms into molecules/thought strings").
Often, sources will suggest the structure of a subject - often in dedicated graphics or in the table of content of books. I will often use the initial source to make my taxonomy and note alternate structures in dedicated notes.
My own approach (and I'm new to this) is somewhere in between:
Parent: Classification Scheme
Pretty neat! What was the inspiration for this framework?
This is a strategic point in my method.
I use both claim form and descriptive form.
My notes in claim form have a ✱ symbol as the end of the title, so they are immediately recognized when linked into other notes.
I frequently use claim notes to compose the body or the skeleton of concept notes.
For example, I've a Zettelkasten note in which I describe shortly it, and its principles are claims notes links.
(translated badly from italian :-))
Zettelkasten is as atomic oriented model
In Zettelkasten ... is relevant the concept of [[Atomic Notes]] ...
In every claim note I detail the concept represented in the title
Claim notes are very poweful for me. Here other claims that come in my mind now :-) :
[[Claim notes invite me to take their idea seriously ✱]]
[[Making a good claim note is an intense thought training activity ✱]]
[[Claim notes acts as idea catalysts ✱]]
[[Claim notes enable developing personal orientation of ideas ✱]]
Writing the body of latest four notes in my space, come in my mind the analogy with the gravitational effect that I find really effective.
Thinking our thought process as a space travel, traveling in neutral, descriptive information is like thinking in a perfectly plane space. There are no pushes toward directions.
A claim can be viewed as a gravital disturbance made by a heavy body, that influcence our travel:
The analogy maybe makes it clear that too strong disturbance can create damages, too. Whan can we say about a black hole effect in the field of knowledge?
How about one focus per note?
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.
In English, I like this better. I normally translate "Gedanke" to "idea", but does not feel accurate. With "Gedanke" I mean more something like an aim. So, even a structure note is in a sense atomic, since it is governed by one "Gedanke" (e.g. providing an entry point or a complex idea).
I am a Zettler