#7

I really appreciate you sharing these hard-learned lessons so those of us just starting out don’t have to go through the same pains. But I think there is something to be added about joy vs. number of notes by others.

Maybe it’s my lack of experience speaking, but I think the power of linking and organizing actually makes working with external notes a lot more rewarding. Even if all my notes were copied from somewhere else and I never wrote a single word, the process of breaking them down, putting them together, comparing and linking, is joyful by itself.

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#8

Do you think the overwhelm that you - and almost all of us experience with Evernote - will also happen with Roam and Obsidian? While linking is another way to connect notes, with thousands of notes, you will easily get overwhelmed when you want to link using [[ etc. Is overwhelm not part of the process? Network diagrams can only go so far.

And is it not all about integration which happens in our (first) brain? I could imagine that the next generation Note/thought processor with AI would make it easy to connect notes automatically based on context analysis and could present you at the start or end of a day with a screen saying - “we found a new synthesis for you.” That would be the next generation I think? When? 2030?

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#9

@Haberjr: that’s when things like MOCs/Structure Notes/Hub Notes come in handy, they allow you keep your notes in perspective and facilitate navigation.

Nick may well have a different take on it.

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#10

I think it’ll be a long time before we see something like this. It is relatively easy for computers to use deductive logic to predictively “fill in” missing features in a set of data, and to use inductive logic to generalize patterns from a set of data.

The kind of synthesis you’re referring to depends on a third kind of logic, though: the logic of abduction. With abduction, we generate (from context, experience, knowledge, and creativity) a guess that could explain what we’re looking at and then test the validity or usefulness of that guess. (If you want to think about this more, this table explains it fairly well, from this blog post). It is tough to get an algorithm to generate a creative guess, and even tougher to algorithmically test the utility or validity of that guess…

Not that it’ll never happen, but I think the human elements of this process are underrated and hard to emulate with an algorithm!

(Be careful when looking for resources on abductive logic—there’s a lot of bad explanations out there! It originated with an outcast philosopher named Charles Sanders Peirce, who was thinking about the logics of science. But images like the feature image on this post or this post—both found high up in google search results—make limited sense…)

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#11

I agree that structured note taking with map of contents etc. is helpful. But this too will become overwhelming. Have you ever seen a 1,000 page book with contents, index for words, graphics/illustrations? Map of contents also introduces friction, it is an extra step and over time you will need to review it and change it, simply because the nature of the contents evolves. So, yes, it certainly is an intermediate solution. But contextual analysis with synthesis features would be great because it can happen without me being involved and will help me with sense-making of the whole rather than just the (bigger) parts.

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#12

Thank you so much for your reply. I am aware of abductive logic, and your links and your cautionary remarks are helpful. I do agree that we humans are underrated in this world where we think we will get all answers from AI. I much appreciate your reply. Thank you!

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#14

@nickmilo you have a gift for communication. I signed up. Look forward to hearing, seeing, and learning more about LYT. I could see that joy in your videos. Well done! :+1:

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#15

@masebinity Thanks. I saw your registration, I’ll be in touch today-ish.

@RobOK The Storytelling MOC was a lot of fun. The story notes are entangled with stuff I can’t share (the entertainment industry is notoriously a tight-lipped club of sorts) you Who did what on what show, but down the road I’ll try to make a cleaned up version of just the storytelling elements for sharing.

@cobalt Yes, I think you’re right in that even if you only created a personal wiki for yourself, full of external notes, it would still be more fun than normal to make the connections between the notes.

@Haberjr While I’m wary of AI-aided solutions—because my take is that our learning comes from doing the work—the solution you presented of being presented with possible new syntheses is a farily elegant one. The good news is that MOC-styled notes can scale well with substantially large note collections, so perhaps that’s a good stop gap for the next XX number of years. We’re at the edge of speculation so hard to say more.

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#16

@Mike Thanks Mike, that means a lot coming from you. I’m really excited to share some of these things.

#17

@Klaas Ha, your commentary on Evernote is dead accurate.

It’s funny how many of us have had similar paths of migrating our notes across an uneven landscape from lock-in to free-ness.

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#18

Watched the videos posted on youtube by Mr. Milo.
They are very good.

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#19

Brother. I know that we like to see ourselves, but don’t put your self on each thumbnail. Make some cool simple obsidian thumbnail related to content of the video. You told us you are working in movie industry right? :wink:

Anyway I like your videos, your plain explanation, passionate, but calm. And your patient manners when you are explaining things. Please continue! You have found your area of expertise and source of help for many people!

Thank you a lot!

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#20

Enjoy the graphs and similar story with different technologies. Moving back and forth to paper and notes.

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#21

Maybe not joyful, but definitely beneficial. I have yet to reach that zen-like experience in my new note taking method. There is still so much friction. Maybe I’ll get there one day, obsidian gives me hope.

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#22

Paper will always have a place in my world :slight_smile:

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#23

The resources you post here in the forums on a regular basis are a true gold mine.
Do you have an index of some sort you would be willing to share?
Else I guess I will have to scan your posts here to collect what’s available.

In any case, keep it up and thanks!

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#24

I saved his website under “Resource” category in todoist, it may be useful for you.

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#25

Awesome, thanks!

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#26

Updated Nov 14, 2019

:sweat: gotta work on that publishing habit

Thanks for the appreciations, though, folks!

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#27

Wow. Thank you so much for this - it is extremely helpful for me. Not a term I’ve come across before.

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