[Journal and AMA] The English translation of the book has begun...

Sascha · May 6

This will be an irregular journal.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here.

dylanjr · May 7

Hi @Sascha — I'm greatly enjoying the book

I have a few questions regarding the nature of knowledge, specifically the five value-creating properties of knowledge ("wertgebende Eigenschaften von Wissen") — i.e., Truth ("Wahrheit"), Relevancy ("Relevanz"), Usefulness ("Nützlichkeit"), Beauty ("Schönheit"), and Simplicity ("Einfachheit").

How certain can we be that these 5 properties create value? Furthermore, how can we know that these are really properties of knowledge? Are there any other properties of knowledge that create value? To what extent is the choice of these 5 properties culturally-dependent or otherwise subjective?

I ask such philosophical questions only because I expect that you've already formulated valuable insights on the matter. Thank you!

KillerWhale · May 8

Do you have a rough estimate as for the release? (I. cannot. wait)

Sascha · May 9

@dylanjr said:
Hi @Sascha — I'm greatly enjoying the book

Awesome.

How certain can we be that these 5 properties create value?

Very certain. The properties are value-properties. The question if these are actual properties of knowledge is the one that is debatable.

If you make an idea more reliable (increase the likelyhood of being true), relevance, utility, beautiful and simple and somehow not increase its value, you'd break the concepts behind these terms.

Think of values like happiness, justice, freedom, and meaning. Some concepts point to values. That they point to values is analytical.

Furthermore, how can we know that these are really properties of knowledge?

By looking at the endeavours of gaining knowledge.

Scientific research seeks reliability.
Art seeks beauty (hideousness included -> based on my personal theory of beauty)
Technology seeks utility
etc.

I had a look at the various perspectives on knowledge, outside of philosophy. For example, military of risk management.

Take the problem of the unknown unknowns as an example: Why is this actually an interesting problem?

It is interesting because it provides another angle to assess the reliability of information and informants.

This approach is not an academic approach to the question of what knowledge is. Academic approaches is stuff like the knowledge analysis. Rather, I am interested in value in itself, and I am willing to call whatever is the container for that bundle of values knowledge. This is one of my conclusions of the article "Zur Inkohärenz und Irrelevanz des Wissensbegriffs : Plädoyer für eine neue Agenda in der Erkenntnistheorie " (roughly translated to: On the Incoherence and Irrelevance of the Concept of Knowledge: A Plea for a New Agenda in Epistemology)

Knowledge is more a label for a rough direction or a loose value family, not so much a concept suited for formal analysis.

Are there any other properties of knowledge that create value?

The properties are not based on a systematic understanding of knowledge, but rather on an inventory of values. So, there might be other properties. There is one candidate that I didn't think through yet.

This part of the book will be extended to its own little (or medium-sized) text on knowledge. So,

To what extent is the choice of these 5 properties culturally-dependent or otherwise subjective?

I'd like to answer with a counter-question: Why is this question actually interesting enough to ask? (I am not dodging the question)

This might be a text that is, albeit being narrowly focussed on an analytical view on knowledge, a good start on asking why knowledge is actually valuable compared to other members of this family (information, belief, knowledge, data, etc.): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value/

Sascha · May 9

@KillerWhale said:
Do you have a rough estimate as for the release? (I. cannot. wait)

Not yet. I take the opportunity to not only translate the book, but also to update it.

But I will create a way to get up-to-date insights on the content.

andang76 · May 9

@dylanjr said:
Hi @Sascha — I'm greatly enjoying the book

I have a few questions regarding the nature of knowledge, specifically the five value-creating properties of knowledge ("wertgebende Eigenschaften von Wissen") — i.e., Truth ("Wahrheit"), Relevancy ("Relevanz"), Usefulness ("Nützlichkeit"), Beauty ("Schönheit"), and Simplicity ("Einfachheit").

How certain can we be that these 5 properties create value? Furthermore, how can we know that these are really properties of knowledge? Are there any other properties of knowledge that create value? To what extent is the choice of these 5 properties culturally-dependent or otherwise subjective?

I ask such philosophical questions only because I expect that you've already formulated valuable insights on the matter. Thank you!

I haven't read the book but this is surely the flower model :-)

I think that some of its dimensions can be considered subjective.

I prefer "coherence" or "soundness" instead of "beauty", for example, and I have some kind of my own declination of truth and usefulness
Can be declined and weighted in different ways, a poet has truth pursuing needs very different from a researcher

But the general approach of having a value awareness is really a breakthrough for me.
The model of Sasha helped me to make emerge something already present in some ways, but unconscious and undefined before. Once explained and made evident the model can be applied better.

I don't remember if I ever developed my own "formal" value ontology. No, I haven't.
Anyway I can write, as they come to mind as I write now, that pursuing relevancy, usefulness, significance, resonance, framing and focusing, soundness, abstraction, decontextualization, surprise (there could be some overlap between these terms, I know...) and so on is part of my internalization of zettelkasten process.
Not always and not all everytime, of course. It is a feeling involved just in time, thought after thought, rather than a mechanical process. I don't take every note saying "see if there is truth, relevance,..." one after the other :-). Oh, I could, but very boring...

Sascha · May 10

@andang76 said:
I haven't read the book but this is surely the flower model :-)

I think that some of its dimensions can be considered subjective.

I prefer "coherence" or "soundness" instead of "beauty", for example, and I have some kind of my own declination of truth and usefulness

Coherence and soundness are both terms for reliability-related concepts:

Coherence as the source of truth according to the coherence theory of truth (link) or justification (link)
Soundness as the soundness of an argument (link)

According to my almighty bias, I have the suspicion that you skew your value creation towards reliability (truth). Did I misunderstand you?

Can be declined and weighted in different ways, a poet has truth pursuing needs very different from a researcher

I'd rather say: Poetry and education have different needs. A teacher processing or creating poetry still has to respect the material as art. To quote myself: "The individual in individualisation is the idea and not the one who is having the idea."

But the general approach of having a value awareness is really a breakthrough for me.
The model of Sasha helped me to make emerge something already present in some ways, but unconscious and undefined before. Once explained and made evident the model can be applied better.

Awesome!

I don't remember if I ever developed my own "formal" value ontology. No, I haven't.

It is not a full value ontology yet. It is still in a mere inventory. But, perhaps with more time, energy and attention, I could work on it.

andang76 · May 10

@Sascha said:

@andang76 said:
I haven't read the book but this is surely the flower model :-)

I think that some of its dimensions can be considered subjective.

I prefer "coherence" or "soundness" instead of "beauty", for example, and I have some kind of my own declination of truth and usefulness

Coherence and soundness are both terms for reliability-related concepts:

Coherence as the source of truth according to the coherence theory of truth (link) or justification (link)

Soundness as the soundness of an argument (link)

Yes, in many cases of mine wanting some "shape properties" hides the real goal of improve the truth or completeness, so I directly think about these.
For example wanting to reach simmetry, balancing, adherence to a predefined shape or pattern, repeating regularity in a cluster of ideas.
One of my thoughts, for example, is that a principle without evidences is less true in terms of true, and "with a bad shape" too: it is "unbalanced" and it doesn't reflect the shape model I have in my mind.
In other cases, when I have two opposite ideas about a thing, correct shaping goal induce me to develop them in terms of simmetry between each other, developing a dualism.
In other case, when I have a cluster of ideas that form a guideline, I can reasonably be confident that it is enough complete if all those ideas have developed the same recurrent shape. If any are not, it may have gaps to fill.

Other times shape value impact to simplicity. Trying to develop a "slimmer" shape get more concise, conceptualized, focused ideas.

Sascha · May 10

@andang76 said:
Yes, in many cases of mine wanting some "shape properties" hides the real goal of improve the truth or completeness, so I directly think about these.
For example wanting to reach simmetry, balancing, adherence to a predefined shape or pattern, repeating regularity in a cluster of ideas.
One of my thoughts, for example, is that a principle without evidences is less true in terms of true, and "with a bad shape" too: it is "unbalanced" and it doesn't reflect the shape model I have in my mind.
In other cases, when I have two opposite ideas about a thing, correct shaping goal induce me to develop them in terms of simmetry between each other, developing a dualism.
In other case, when I have a cluster of ideas that form a guideline, I can reasonably be confident that it is enough complete if all those ideas have developed the same recurrent shape. If any are not, it may have gaps to fill.

Other times shape value impact to simplicity. Trying to develop a "slimmer" shape get more concise, conceptualized, focused ideas.

What type of ideas are you applying this to?

Update: 8/27 parts of the manuscript are now in the draft-stage. Keep in mind that I will add and improve on the German version, since this is another chance of Kaizen.

andang76 · May 10

@Sascha said:

@andang76 said:
Yes, in many cases of mine wanting some "shape properties" hides the real goal of improve the truth or completeness, so I directly think about these.
For example wanting to reach simmetry, balancing, adherence to a predefined shape or pattern, repeating regularity in a cluster of ideas.
One of my thoughts, for example, is that a principle without evidences is less true in terms of true, and "with a bad shape" too: it is "unbalanced" and it doesn't reflect the shape model I have in my mind.
In other cases, when I have two opposite ideas about a thing, correct shaping goal induce me to develop them in terms of simmetry between each other, developing a dualism.
In other case, when I have a cluster of ideas that form a guideline, I can reasonably be confident that it is enough complete if all those ideas have developed the same recurrent shape. If any are not, it may have gaps to fill.

Other times shape value impact to simplicity. Trying to develop a "slimmer" shape get more concise, conceptualized, focused ideas.

What type of ideas are you applying this to?

Update: 8/27 parts of the manuscript are now in the draft-stage. Keep in mind that I will add and improve on the German version, since this is another chance of Kaizen.

Guideline ideas, mainly. Principles, directives, recommendations, rules, advices when I develop knowledge to apply for something.

What/When/How to eat for running, in the last period, for example.

For this kind of idea, for example, I have a mental model that says try to shape the principle you have identified according to the pattern that includes:

the "why" I should behave according to the principle
the "support": evidence, examples, anecdotes, my experience that supports the principle
contextualization: its scope, if it is universally accepted and applicable or rather specific, if it depends on something, if there are things to consider carefully, contraindications.
correlations with other principles. If there are similars, opposites; if they form dualities with other; if can be considered an instance of a more general principle

This kind of ideas need to be developed pursuing in "the right way" developing the aspects I've highlighted, in my opinion, and I very often see, pursuing the adherence to that scheme, development of regularity and simmetry.

Sascha · May 13

Update:

Stage	Number
Total	27
ToDo	8
Outline	4
Draft	13
German	2
Edit 1
Edit 2

Sascha · May 14

Update:

Stage	Number
Total	38
ToDo	9
Outline	4
Draft	25
Edit 1
Edit 2

The complete books content is now in available in English.
Next will be a) breaking apart the bigger files to make it easier to re-arrange them and b) create the sections marked by "ToDo" and "Outline" (I think I will outline the ToDos first)
After that, I will move some subsections to another place in the book.

KillerWhale · May 14

Hell that's fast! Thanks for the update.

Sascha · May 16

@KillerWhale said:
Hell that's fast! Thanks for the update.

Yap. Improvement in many processes on my side make it possible.

Update:

Stage	Number	Change from last Update
Total	39	+1
ToDo	5	-4
Outline	7	+3
Draft	27	+2
Edit 1
Edit 2

Sascha · May 19

Update:

Stage	Number	Change from last Update
Total	36	-3
ToDo	0	-5
Outline	8	+1
Draft	28	+1
Edit 1
Edit 2

Sascha · June 13

Stage	Number	Change from last Update
Total	46	?
ToDo	6	+6
Outline	4	-4
Draft	36	+8
Edit 1
Edit 2

Comment: Good progress. I am adding quite some content, yet the end of having the full draft is nigh.

Sascha · June 14

Stage	Number	Change from last Update
Total	44	?
ToDo	5	-1
Outline	1	-3
Draft	38	+2
Edit 1
Edit 2

EDIT: Forgot to edit the total...

Sascha · June 15

Update:

Most likely, the 4/5 ToDos will be collapsed and repurposed for articles or bonus content for the member's area. So, realistically, there is one outline to flesh out and one ToDo (-> Create an outline -> flesh out to draft)
I will then pull in the notes that are already accumulated for the 3rd edition. So, the English translation is more a third edition. I set up the 2nd edition to be more flexible and more maliable, so this is not much more work as you can see, by my ability to write ~25k new words for this edition.
In the project, there are 37 items (some are just headlines for sections of tasks). This is not much.

If I don't have to do too much other work, the first draft will be finished in a couple of weeks.

Sascha · June 18

Finally. For some reasons, my browser didn't load the forum. And for other, opaque reasons, it does.

The first draft merely needs a subsection on the basic workflow in the section "Getting Started". Then it is finished.

Then I'll work on already known issues.

After that, it is up to editing.

Sascha · June 20

First draft is done.

Sascha · June 30

There are 23 items left in the project before I will proofread and edit the draft. Last week, there were over 45 as far as I remember.

So, I am making good progress.

Abdulmajeed · July 1

I can't wait 👍

Sascha · July 3

Though, I am writing about a topic that I am dealing with for 1.5 decades, the increased depth I gain trough this translation is remarkable to me.

Being forced to go back and forth between German and English is a blessing in disguise.

@Abdulmajeed said:
I can't wait 👍

Sascha · July 7

I finished upgrading the section on knowledge atoms (or building blocks).

It grew from a rather descriptional section into a reasonably detailed How-To.

Sascha · July 9

I am entering the next stage:

I wrote all the new sections and incorporated all bigger improvements planned.
Now, I group all the individual files into chapters. So, the focus now is to reach fully edited chapters.
I added a full section of sample notes in the appendix to relieve some pressure on the chapters. For some examples, you have to go to the back of the book. The upside is that I can provide more examples.
There are 2 items the todo list, before I will proof-read and edit on the chapter level.

Sascha · July 10

Current word count: 77620

Sascha · July 12

Sascha · July 15

Current wordcount: 83.900.

I am still in an adding phase it seems. I am working in suggestions other others and my own ideas.

But the order of the sections are pretty fixed.

Sascha · July 16

I keep my calculation and time-line confidential, since I was never right and don't want to provide unreliable numbers. However, I am 3 weeks early compared to my estimate. So, good news.

This week I will start a first deeper editing round for the entire manuscript to clean everything up. Round 2 will be just polishing. After polishing, the beta phase will start.

Sascha · July 16

Should I play the academic's charade of blowing up my reference section by citing myself? For quite some ideas, I am the "inventor". Meaning, I never read anything about a concept within the Zettelkasten space before, wrote an article about that and observed the ideas slowly dripping into the space of note-taking, PKM, Zettelkasten etc.

It is just a rhetorical question to myself. I think it would be goofy to reference my own blog posts, instead of just using the text.

I think this question arises from a tini tiny bit of resentment. I, for example, never quoted Krajewskis "Zettelwirtschaft", since I never found anything of practical use. It is nice to have read this book, but I don't think I found something of use. Mostly dead knowledge of "oh, this person did this". I am not an aficionado and don't indulge in the history of the method. I review all the sources that I am encountering and if nothing is of use, I let them go. I am just interested in the practicality of the topic.

But the footnote f*ck fest (not my term...) creates an impression. Hence, the academic's charade.

I think the right place for this idea is here so it can sink into the forum's history and will be forgotten. Expressing it is enough to give its due.

iylock · July 16

@Sascha said:
Should I play the academic's charade of blowing up my reference section by citing myself?

That's a comedy.

Zettelkasten Forum

[Journal and AMA] The English translation of the book has begun...

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Categories

In this Discussion