41–50 of 54 posts
After trying out a bunch of digital zettelkasten tools, I just went back to paper. This take may be a bit hot, but I actually think paper and pen is already the optimal maxima for thinking —not for retrieval, mind you, but for helping us produce new thoughts . Zettelkasten (at least the way Luhmann used it) is meant for this purpose—it is not a system for storing information and retrieving it but rather for supportin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would think so, but the micro-interruptions of switching modes, selecting documents, selecting tools, etc make a huge difference in terms of flow. It sounds small, but "taking a second to select a new brushstroke from a list of options" is exactly what OP is talking about in terms of raw creation vs synthesis.
I guess so, but those are also all optional right? IF you would only write freehand with a ballpoint in real life then you wont use any of those menu options on-device either? IIRC the native notes app on iPad will dynamically create bullet lists, rule lines etc from your freehand typing without needing to select things.
There are definitely advantages to digital, but there's no denying that, by adding a middleman between yourself and the world, you lose raw experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Author here. Glad I'm not the only one with this problem! What I'm experimenting with is building a graph out of "entities", which I'm calling people, places and things found in each card. The point I guess is to allow the LLMs to make connections between cards, but this won't be replacing user made connections. This lets me pick up all cards that reference something like, I don't know, "factories" as a concept, whic…
I have a thesis that RDF is good for this sort of work (I gave a talk on it at Clojure Conj last year, https://youtu.be/OxzUjpihIH4 if you're interested.) It's good for bridging the gaps between LLMs, ontologies, traditional structured data, and logic programming.
After trying out a bunch of digital zettelkasten tools, I just went back to paper. This take may be a bit hot, but I actually think paper and pen is already the optimal maxima for thinking —not for retrieval, mind you, but for helping us produce new thoughts . Zettelkasten (at least the way Luhmann used it) is meant for this purpose—it is not a system for storing information and retrieving it but rather for supportin…
After trying out a bunch of digital zettelkasten tools, I just went back to paper. This take may be a bit hot, but I actually think paper and pen is already the optimal maxima for thinking —not for retrieval, mind you, but for helping us produce new thoughts . Zettelkasten (at least the way Luhmann used it) is meant for this purpose—it is not a system for storing information and retrieving it but rather for supportin…
After playing with this stuff it hit me why these systems are simultaneously so attractive and also not amazing.
Human brains are still way better at the very cool linking thing. We make those connections better than the bots.
Which is why I dream of, and tried to start work on one that was basically "cards."
I'd love to see one with "the card" as the main atom/unit -- but that had a zillion different visual "arrangement" methods. Give me alphabetical, give me semantic, give me random etc etc.
After trying out a bunch of digital zettelkasten tools, I just went back to paper. This take may be a bit hot, but I actually think paper and pen is already the optimal maxima for thinking —not for retrieval, mind you, but for helping us produce new thoughts . Zettelkasten (at least the way Luhmann used it) is meant for this purpose—it is not a system for storing information and retrieving it but rather for supportin…
This article touches on a tension I've been feeling too with the rise of LLMs. I feel that analogies can be drawn to time management and systems of productivity, like GTD. Like in a GTD system, you almost need the various projects, tasks, next steps, deadlines, commitments, etc. to live in your head so you can make intuitive decisions about what you should be working on at the moment; something that AI almost by defi…
I've been sensing this too: people seem to forget about the principal and beneficial internal effect on the mind that results from mental exertion. I raised a similar point in another HN post today and someone downvoted me because they interpreted my statement as being too anti-LLM! We're reliving Socrates's lament about writing.
After trying out a bunch of digital zettelkasten tools, I just went back to paper. This take may be a bit hot, but I actually think paper and pen is already the optimal maxima for thinking —not for retrieval, mind you, but for helping us produce new thoughts . Zettelkasten (at least the way Luhmann used it) is meant for this purpose—it is not a system for storing information and retrieving it but rather for supportin…
The Livescribe pen goes well with this philosophy.
After trying out a bunch of digital zettelkasten tools, I just went back to paper. This take may be a bit hot, but I actually think paper and pen is already the optimal maxima for thinking —not for retrieval, mind you, but for helping us produce new thoughts . Zettelkasten (at least the way Luhmann used it) is meant for this purpose—it is not a system for storing information and retrieving it but rather for supportin…
The only digital exception I’ve found is OneNote. It’s 20 years old but nothing else comes as close as to reproducing the experience of pen and paper. In fact, I found it superior and I regretfully gave up my fountain pens and paper long ago. Recent research has shown that tablets with a digital are equivalent to pen and paper for comprehension, both of which beat typing:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8222525/
The advantages of OneNote over paper are practical: digital notebooks are more portable, can be automatically synced to other devices, converted to text if desired, searched, and has the superior feature of being able to easily insert images and screenshots.
My only regret with OneNote is that it is closed source and syncing requires a MS account. Using it on iOS also requires an account. It’s high time someone came up with an open source alternative that can be set up locally.