Visualizing Luhmann's Folgezettel in Logseq
This is a contribution to The Great Folgezettel Debate. What exactly are those "Folgezettels", that Daniel and Sascha debate? And why do they matter? I think that we need better visualizations of Luhmann's actual zettels to answer those questions.
I suggest an experiment. Explore the online edition of Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten. Search for zettels you find interesting. Download those zettels. Print them out and lay them out on a table. Or use a software tool to lay them out digitally. Or use transcriptions of Luhmann's zettels and arrange those.
In this showcase I use Logseq (with some custom CSS) to create an interactive digital version of Luhmann's Zettelkasten.
The first screenshot shows the top level view. Luhmann had two Zettelkästen. The older Zettelkasten I and the newer Zettelkasten II. (The green dot indicates in Logseq, that the note contains nested notes.)
The next screenshot shows ZK II. At the top level there are 12 index cards. (Zettel 1 exists twice. I wrote both zettels in the same node, so that the navigation in Logseq works better.)
Note that the cards contain a lot of text. ("Xxxxx" stands for text that hasn't been transcribed yet. Bold stands for underlined text.)
The next screenshot starts with note 1. Note how the text on most zettels ends mid sentence. The symbol (↘️) indicates that the text continues in a separate note sequence. Red numbers are represented with markers in the text (🔻, "Anschlußstelle" in Luhmann's words) and in the corresponding footnotes (🔺). "R" points to the reverse side of the index card. (I added the reverse side to the same card in Logseq for easier navigation.)
The next screenshot starts with note 1/1. Note that there are two different numbering schemes 1/1,1 to 1/1,4 and 1/1a to 1/1b. The first one (marked with a red border in the screenshots) are more like footnotes. The other is the default "Zettelfolge" (with the typical alternating pattern of letters and numbers).
Zettel 1/1,1 contains footnote 1 (🔺). Zettel 1/1,2 continues the text of the previous zettel (⬇️⬆️).
Zettel 1/1a continues text of zettel 1/1, Zettel 1/1,2a continues text of zettel 1/1,2. Both also branch off a new Zettelfolge (↘️↖️).
The next screenshot starts with note 1/2. Zettels 1/2,1 and 1/2,2 are footnotes. 1/2a continues 1/2 and branches off a new Zettelfolge. 1/2b adds a new argument.
The next screenshot starts with note 9. Again most zettels contain a lot of text.
The next screenshot starts with note 9/8. Luhmann used these zettels to prepare the famous article Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen. Some zettels might look familiar. Again two numbering schemes 9/8,1 to 9/8,3 and 9/8a to 9/8j.
The next screenshot starts with note 9/8a. Topic of this note sequence is the relation between the Zettelkasten and its user.
The next screenshot starts with note 9/8b. Topic is the relation between notes in the Zettelkasten.
So what exactly are Folgezettel or Zettelfolgen or note sequences or "strings of thought" (Ahrens 2022)?
Luhmann describes them in Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen as "running text" ("laufenden Text", "fortlaufend"). As you can see in the screenshots, the zettels can be read like continuous text. Several zettel continue text from other zettels. Some make a verbal reference to the previous zettel, eg 9/8b1.
Luhmann also talks about connecting or adding notes to branches ("ergänzt", "angeschlossen"). Most connections are made implicitly by adding a new level to the ID. In the screenshots some connection points are marked with symbols (↘️↖️⬇️⬆️🔻🔺). They continue text from a previous note or are similar to footnotes. Whereas links are just IDs in the text. For example note 1/2b contains a link to 532/4b6a.
I think that Luhmann's zettels and the numbering scheme make much more sense, when you look at the original zettels (or their transcripts) and lay them out as note sequences. It becomes easier to see, how each zettel has a meaningful connection to the previous zettel in the note sequence. This the principle of Folgezettel.
This principle is valuable, because it is not atomic. It's an alternative to atomicity.
In Luhmann's Zettelkasten anything goes, as long as it can be connected. There are zettels with multiple short thoughts. There are long thoughts spanning multiple zettels. There are zettels mixing own thoughts, bibliographies and quotes. Luhmann's system is flexible and scalable. The IDs efficiently create a complex and meaningful structure with index cards. Luhmann added mechanisms like red numbers for connections that go beyond Folgezettel.
TL;DR
Luhmann didn't strive for "atomicity". He didn't use timestamps as IDs.
Luhmann's technique creates strings of thought. It uses a particular numbering scheme to place zettels permanently in a meaningful context.
Logseq is an excellent tool to build a digital version of Luhmann's original Zettelkasten. It helps visualize how Luhmann worked. It helps appreciate the power of Luhmann's numbering scheme, that encodes so much structural information in such a short ID.
Speaking metaphorically, if you only examine individual vertebrae, it's difficult to understand the concept of a backbone. If you only look at individual zettels, it's difficult to see the zettel sequence. With a good visualization you can see the parts and the whole.
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
Very nice effort. But keep in mind that German speakers are in the absolute minority in this forum.
I am a Zettler
Just out of curiosity, has anyone researched on the maximum number of zettels Luhmann ever connected in one string of thoughts? What I mean is the longest path in a directed (and acyclic) way. This has some implication on Folgezettel in Luhmann's style vs. Bob Doto's style.
Interesting question. I don't know of such an analysis. Some of the longest zettel sequences I found so far:
21/3d8c16c1 to 21/3d8c29
21/3d18a1 to 21/3d18a60
An example of the deepest level I could find is 21/3d5b11w19z6a.
Bob Doto's recommendation is compatible with Luhmann's technique. Doto writes in his 2024 book:
Luhmann seems to prefer counting up within one long sequence (see examples above), whereas Doto tends to branch off new shorter sequences.
In practice, you will amass quite a lot of loose association and not so many trains of thought. Luhmann's ZK is a very good showcase for that.
I am a Zettler
Thank you for the summary. It looks like Luhmann did have fairly long sequence of notes at times. A string of 100 notes seems like a fairly big trunk of thoughts. Unfortunately I cannot read German so don't know the nature of long sequences.
Luhmann's Folgezettel (X in the figure) handles long sequences better, whereas Doto's (Y in the figure) handles branching better:
In fact, I don't think Luhmann's can handle more than two follow-up zettels from a common parent. (I wonder how this was done, as it seems such a common thing to do.) Doto's can have as many follow-up zettels as desired, but supporting a very long string of follow-up zettels would be awkward, since their Folgezettel IDs keep growing in their lengths (and likely with lots of 1's and a's...).
For my personal experiment, I went with Doto's since currently I have a wide-and-shallow zettelkasten for which branches are much more common than long strings of follow-up zettels. But if I were more adept in stringing together related notes, I'd see the merit of Luhmann's Folgezettel.
Doto's numbering scheme is identical with Luhmann's basic numbering scheme. Doto removed exceptions (like the red numbers) and kept the basic principle (alternate numbers and letters). If you understand Doto's numbering scheme, you understand Luhmann's numbering scheme.
The trick is that zettels don't have a simple parent-child-relationship. There are two different kinds of links:
You don't go directly from 1.1a2 to 1.1a2c. You go from 1.1a2 to 1.1a2a by branching off a new sequence. Then you add 1.1a2b as a second note in that sequence. Then you add 1.1a2c as the third.
I made some changes to your Y chart. I x-ed non-existing parent-child links and added the important follow links. ("Folgezettel" literally means "zettel that follows".) The overlaid boxes indicate zettel sequences:
The number of levels remains the same. The chart is still "wide-and-shallow".
Maybe the zettel sequences in Logseq are easier to recognize, when the chart is rotated:
Same chart, same levels, different vertical alignment:
The same structure in Logseq. All zettels:
This is, by the way, the filing order in Luhmann's box.
Logseq make it easy to look only at zettel sequence 1.1a1 to 1.1a2:
Or at zettel sequence 1.1a2a to 1.1a2c:
This is still the same numbering scheme that you use. It's just a different visualization.
You can interpret Doto's Folgezettel IDs that way (they are both alternating alphanumeric sequence, after all), but that's not exactly how Bob explain his usage, though.
From "5 Using Alphanumeric IDs to Identify Your Notes" of A System for Writing, he writes:
Since the notes are directly connected, the "follow-up" note is given a new alphanumeric digit. (Luhmann would increment the least-significant digit here.)
Here, the existing place in digits is incremented for an idea related but not directly connected. Such a note isn't a follow-up note.
Here, for an entirely new topic, the most-significant digit is incremented. (This part is the same for both Luhmann's and Doto's.)
So, I think the ways that IDs grow based on the follow-up behavior are different. And this is the difference I was writing about.
May I point out similarities? Doto writes:
Adding a new level is called branching off.
Consecutive numbers and branching off are different things. (That's the point in my previous post.)
Here's Doto's example rendered in Logseq:
Doto writes:
You connect the note to the branch, where it fits. (However you might determine the fit.)
Connection is a technical thing. 1.4 is connected to 1.3 simply because it is the next number in the sequence. Branching off also creates a connection. 1.2a is connected to 1.2 because it's branched off.
The reason why you choose to connect where is highly subjective. Doto says so himself:
Where do you get the idea from, that Luhmann would do it differently than Doto? Do you have an example or a literary reference?
Just for fun, some other examples from Doto's book. I think the main difference to Luhmann is not the numbering, but the addition of titles and a more "atomic" writing style.