Thread by @cortexfutura

When we look at note-taking apps as a tool for collective sense-making, an additional consideration to make is what I'll call Multiple-Mind Friction.

https://twitter.com/cortexfutura/status/1420392656350371840

When I use @RoamResearch individually, it molds itself around my personal preferences and style of thinking. It becomes a second brain insofar as it becomes a reflection of *my* brain and thought patterns, externalized into text. (Goes for any note-taking app you use, of course)

But when I use Roam or something else with others, we face the same friction as when joining a verbal discussion: we need to find common ground in terms of communication patterns.

But because in Roam or other apps it's text, this friction becomes visible – we feel out verbal discussion culture much quicker and more intuitively than we do with written words.

In addition, "full" access to my personal Roam graph with half-formed thoughts etc. can be disorienting – you need to make sense of what's going on first. Peeking into another persons brain is entering a different world.

(Sidenote: this is why I'm sceptical/curious how NeuraLink etc. are going to solve Brain-to-brain comms beyond "talking". To go from brainwaves to text seems super realistic, but shared *understanding*? Not sure how that would be possible)

And thus even if we figure out efficient systems for sharing atomic pieces of information and keeping them updated for everyone: the friction between aligning thought/communication patterns, Multiple-Mind Friction, will remain.

We'll either converge on broad standards, a new form of "thought grammar" if you will. Or we'll continue dealing with the friction of interpreting the representation of other's thoughts, just instead of verbally we'll do it with text.