Thread by @beauhaan

[[Project @threadapalooza]]

Can a Zettelkasten]] in @RoamResearch solve the problems of just collecting?

DISCLAIMER:
This entire thread was created on the fly, without actually writing a single word.

I live-streamed the entire process here→

1.
#Zettelkasten Dialogue with the Zettelkasten is akin to the unexpected and serendipitous connections that a conversation often provides.

2.
The end goal isn't to have a collection of notes.

3.
It is meant to an apparatus in which we think.

4.
"It's meant to confront our own thinking"

5.
The dialogue that one has with the Zettelkasten is akin to the rich details that a conversation can bring to the surface in unexpected and serendipitous ways.

6.
The [[Zettelkasten]] is a way of orchestrating that pursuit, choosing a lifetime of learning over the short-term goals of merely writing a book.

7.
[[Niklas Luhmann]] did not want to write a book.

He wanted to write for a lifetime.

8.
How can we solve this problem? When we ask a different question we get a different answer.

That is where discovery comes from and I think that's what's powerful.

9.
The striving in life that happens is predicated on the judge/ideal that is placed into our purview, and the decision to choose between the paths determines the destiny of the hero.

10.
To be a hero is nested in layers, and in accordance to which filter is viewed—determines the destiny in which that heroism is derived.

11.
And it's almost like when you have the slats pulled out from underneath you.

12.
Those closest to us have the capacity to shine the light into the darkest places of uncertainty in our life, and even though the pain is sharp, the response is natural.

13.
It's a function of the brain that we have to categorize what happens.

When we are up against someone or something that defies, denies, illuminates, or shines a light—we categorize that something.

14.
The least vulnerable way of approaching conflict is akin to how electrons settle at the lowest energy levels, isn't it?

15.
This idea of uncertainty and foreignness, it's so ingrained in everything.

It's such a deep thing.

16.
Even with conflict, what's real is the least vulnerable way to confront conflict.

That is inherent because of our ancestry, our tribes, and if we didn't we were dead, evolutionarily speaking.

17.
It's so interesting.

It's like we're terrified, yet we're so engaged.

Why do we seek out so many new answers all the time?

18.
[[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] was shot with blanks on the firing line and that experience was akin to a religious moment of absolute insight.

19.
It resembles the blinding light that Alcoholics experience.

20.
But, pure malevolence can literally destroy someone.

21.
It's never to convince people that it's not as dangerous as it truly is, but to expose them to the malevolence in order to make them braver.

We just might be stronger, braver, and tougher than we even think.

22.
Gratitude for the ability to take action can overcome the rudimentary character defects we all face.

23.
If I can help solve those rudimentary problems.

That's what it's all about.

24.
I know that the power of what a Zettelkasten is capable of is fascinating and I'm truly empowered by that.

25.
The entire process of building this autonomous conversation partner mimics the learning patterns that human have always exhibited, by adding and building upon what is known with continued exploration into the unknown.

26.
And if thinking is related to writing, then the more we can write in a frictionless way, the better we can think.

27.
Abstractions of what someone else has said, or what the author has said, or someone's ideas.

28.
It's by taking what another person has thoroughly thought-through and bringing that into our understanding— effectively interpreting their words into our own.

29.
This is where the practice of summarization falls short, because there is no real retention.

30.
The highlights are never resurfaced are they?

31.
The author is inviting you to interpret.

32.
If you have this dialogue partner that does the thinking, it's not that the thinking is done by this computer.

It's autonomous because it's reflecting our thoughts, it's connecting our thoughts, and it's building our thoughts—seeing how that all fits together.

33.
Leaning into what life begets me, not only provides instantaneous courage, but the light that shine forth from that faith is what brings others to the source.

34.
It's about giving, and giving, and giving...

35.
Because that's what we need more of—we need more donations.

36.
With the vulnerability that comes from the creation of a #Zettelkasten, the trust that is needed goes beyond the networking of thoughts in @RoamResearch, but rather an incision into beholden note-taking ways.

37.
Being beholden to our way of note-taking and to break that has to be a transformative thing.

38.
The point of a #Zettelkasten is to have your thoughts, written out in your own words, connected in context.

39.
That's what networked thought is.

40.
It's so fascinating to realize that #Zettelkasten in the digital realm just didn't work until @RoamResearch arrived—because it needed that technology.

41.
Strength—truly displays it's power when you can see the emergent technology that will provide the solutions to the world's problems long after your own death.

42.
A way of structuring notes that allows for the technology to converge and carry that work forward.

43.
How are you going to notate without thinking, thinking is writing.

44.
All of the notes that accumulated over [[Niklas Luhmann]]'s life were in essence his intellectual autobiography.

45.
Even though [[Niklas Luhmann]] creatively mitigated the limitations of a physical slip box, the hinderance from juggling such things in this analog form, is comparably weak to the efficiency of an implementation in the digital realm.

46.
The main difficulty with a physical slip box is the actual index cards, while even using the thinnest cards possible, the juggling of such materials is obsolete within the digital realm.

47.
That's why he used paper as thin as possible instead of regular index cards, and then he would actually hand cut these sheets of paper to size them.

48.
Remember [[Niklas Luhmann]] was not around for the invention of the hashtag, he wasn't around for the invention of @RoamResearch.

49.
He had 3,000 to 3,500 handwritten cards in each slip-box.

If you think about a physical slip box, that is a lot of cards to juggle.

50.
And these physical things COULD be a laptop.

And if you let it sit there without touching it for five years—then it's trash.

51.
We never actually see an object until it stops working, and when it ceases to be an object, it is defined best as uncertainty.

When that laptop ceases to be a laptop, then it becomes a bag of snakes, in essence the definition of uncertainty.

52.
I think of Marlon Brando and his use of props.

He was able to take these props and make it real, because he was constantly manipulating... it was so alive because it brought out the conversation.

53.
How being in this world is interpreted can lead to the understanding that when chaos breaks through the foundational elements of order, what arises is the wisdom that the original chaos of the beginning of time is tied into the present moment.

54.
The sense of confusion that ensues when the chaos pulls one asunder is when the certainty of life is cracked and destroyed, laying to waste the order in which life is built upon.

55.
This type of analysis is more than a metaphor, it's the actualization of how we perceive the world.

56.
When our understanding of "being" in the world is pulled out from underneath, what's left is this journey—from chaos into the order of certainty that we are not dead.

57.
To have the slats pulled out from underneath is what we are dealing with we are butting up against people's understanding of knowledge building.

We're looking for the gentle answer to this problem, because it truly is akin to having the slats pulled from underneath them.

58.
When you pull the slats from underneath them, then they are invested to see where they are able to find the order within that chaos.

And that's the hero's journey!

59.
The stories that do that are the ones that are able to lift from the time that they were instantiated and propelled into history as a pivotal point of transformation.

60.
Any possible equation has a solution.

61.
[[Imaginary Numbers]] are a very real thing.

Since you can solve ALL equations.

62.
The novel note-taking method that [[Niklas Luhmann]] developed was aided by his ability to pull from different avenues of knowledge, and embarking on such a quest must have been motivated by an incredibly moving purpose.

63.
It takes a radical vision to develop new and novel ways of tackling the problems that asking those questions produce, which is what gave [[Niklas Luhmann]] the capacity to overcome the challenge of such a varied area of focus—society at large.

64.
Having powerful and emotionally charged reasons why to embark on a quest is crucial.

65.
[[Niklas Luhmann]] wanted a comprehensive theory of society—a large, powerful outcome.

66.
The reasons why he wanted that outcome, I'm sure were incredibly powerful, in order to even embark on that sort of quest.

67.
There has to be that why because that's what creates the habitualized process of doing this, day after day.

His outcome or his result that he was after was large—a comprehensive theory of society.

That is a goal.

68.
It's something worth dedicating one's life to.

What he was orienting himself towards was of great importance.

69.
And then the HOW of creating this Zettelkasten system makes sense.

70.
For a true autonomous conversation partner, the Zettelkasten must always provide the position, orientation, and vision within the conversation—which is represented by the nesting, indexing, and overview.

71.
The purpose of having an autonomous conversation parter is to keep the complexity of all of the ideas from devolving into a graveyard of thoughts.

72.
It has to be able to live on its own and how you do that is by structuring the notes in a way that contextually gives it a simple manner of organization, reducing the complexity.

You want to keep it as simple as possible, because the complexity will arise on its own.

73.
Even with a powerful vision of implementing a new way of structuring ideas, [[Niklas Luhmann]] still exhibited a traditional way of organization with his first attempt at a slip box.

74.
It wasn't until his second slip box did the interests lead as top-level blocks, allowing for the growth to mimic the way children learn into adulthood.

75.
The limitations of a top-down structure is akin to chipping away at knowledge, when the power of bottom-up structure mimics the learning patterns exhibited by a child into adulthood.

76.
He began, not with a table of contents style of organizing, but it came from his interests.

It was less about organizing and more about being able to follow these threads of thought that provided interest.

77.
In the analog slip-box the index is meant to provide scope into what is within the branches, yet in a digital slip-box the index can now provide scope into what is within the note itself, since the nesting is clearly visible down each branch.

78.
The index gives a sense of connectedness that is more akin to continuing a conversation.

79.
So in the digital implementation the index can be at the note level, which in turn allows for that same power but magnified, since the nested sequence can be easily seen, and the index baked-in gives a new and even more profound way of viewing what's inside.

80.
Not at the branch level, but on the NOTE level.

81.
How the nested sequence, connects thematically with the previous note is what provides another link akin to a conversation.

82.
Developing a simple solution, integrating the technology that @RoamResearch was the first to offer is what has led to a massive shift in accommodating the most powerful tool for thought—the [[Zettelkasten]].

83.
The index provides a view of what's ahead around the bend.

84.
Baking-in the index into the permanent note itself and the fact that it's all inside of a block that's referenceable, bi-directionally, provides the technological advancements in order to facilitate that sort of later query in a fashion that has never been done before.

85.
This is why it only works inside of @RoamResearch.

86.
And this is why the convergence of [[Zettelkasten]] and [[Roam]] is so mind blowing.

87.
The tool finally met the technology to support it.

It's akin to the highway system that levied and caused the automobile boom.

The tool of the car, finally had the inroads that it needed to really spread throughout the country.

88.
The printing press?
Long-form content?
Block level referenceability?

89.
The index was pivotal for being able to see behind the bend, but the physical limitations of the actual slip-box required this step, and even in the early 50's and 60's the ideas of a computer may have been apparent.

90.
Yet even with the imaginations of that generation being felt decades later, the actual leaps that have been made in computer technology, were mere twinkles in the abyss.

91.
Facts are succeeded by newer discoveries akin to how Newtonian physics sit inside of Einstein's ideas.

92.
The physics developed by Newton, nest inside of the physics developed by Einstein, which gives a powerful analogy of how the nesting can be thought about inside of a [[Zettelkasten]].

93.
Creating relationships from the bottom-up requires a different approach and essentially that form of connection provides the room for insightful discoveries that happen from the inside-out.

94.
The overarching system is no longer predicated on a folder, a box, or a constraint.

Through the inward search of determining where the thematic connection is creates a vitally different approach, which produces vitally different results.

95.
To be a hero is nested in layers, and in accordance to which filter is viewed primarily—determines the destiny in which that heroism is derived.

96.
If consciousness is like a pencil; the lead, the wood, the eraser, the form, the shape is the embodiment of all that you are.

Where the pencil makes contact with the paper, and the expression of what is created, is what consciousness is.

That's what you do.

97.
It takes time to get underneath a problem, and it is only after all resources have been exhausted, that it is ready to be presented to the world.

98.
Humility isn't about being right, it's about discovering and learning something.

99.
The [[Cosmological Constant]] was initially introduced by [[Albert Einstein]] and yet he considered it his greatest blunder.

He missed what was right underneath his nose.

100.
Only after doing your best to get underneath a problem do you present it to the world, and then you allow the world to attempt to get underneath that.

The pressure of diving into the unknown creates innovation.

Thanks to @visakanv for hosting an awesome @threadapalooza !!!

It's fascinating what a gentle nudge can do~ 🙌🏼