Comments

• harr

  8:36PM edited 8:50PM

  I also had positive experiences with diagram-as-code tools like GraphViz, PlantUML and Mermaid. They nicely complement a digital Zettelkasten because one can quickly visualize relationships. They nicely complement Markdown because they are text first.

  In Obsidian I use built-in Mermaid for that effect. This is how the post's example could be implemented in Mermaid:

  flowchart TD
      Will -->|+| Deterrents
      Will -->|+| Incentives
      Will -->|+| Action{"Action"}
  
      Deterrents -.->|-| Action
      Deterrents -.->|-| TN["Threshold for<br/>negentropy perception"]
  
      Incentives -->|+| Action
      Incentives -->|+| ID["Incentive density"]
  
      ID -->|+| TN
  
      Action -.->|-| Energy
      Energy -->|+| Action
  
      Action -->|+| Reward
      Reward -->|+| Conditioning
      Conditioning -->|+| HabitAccount
  
      Action -->|+| HabitAccount
      HabitAccount -->|+| Action
      HabitAccount -->|+| DP["Desensitization<br/>to pain"]
      DP -->|+| SE["Self-esteem"]
  

  It looks like this:

  

  Personally, I prefer words to +/- symbols. I learned from Novak's concept maps that a lot of insight can be gained by verbalizing the relationship. The quality of the relationship is still indicated by the stroke. For example like this:

  

  Diagram-as-code tools are useful. However, they can't handle too much complexity. At some point one needs to draw a chart manually for a more refined layout.