83 - Good Judgment - Developing good [judgment] can help you better evaluate the existing evidence, which helps in choosing the right solution in problem solving.
One way to develop better judgment is through forecasting training courses. See the work of Danny Hernandez during his time at Twitch, Open Philanthropy, and OpenAI. For more information see related interview with him.
84 - Good Reasoning - Good [reasoning] skills help you form more coherent arguments and spot flaws with existing ones. This in turn helps you form a more accurate view of the world, so you can make better decisions.
Related - Critical Thinking (19b1)
19d5a - Reasoning
85 - Problem Solving is one of the key ways you can add value to the world. It is the process where all the other cognitive skills come to fruition and is the driving focus behind Creative Productivity Project. It is an important skill to have even if you aren’t directly solving problems and instead contributing to the knowledge base.
86 - Decision Making - You are constantly making decisions, so honing your decision making skills can help you make better use of your time and efforts in life. One example of this is deciding what knowledge is worth acquiring vs. ignoring.
87 - Communication and Production of Language - is the last step in the creative productivity project because it doesn’t matter how much knowledge you produce if you can’t effective communicate it to others. This is also necessary for gathering the resources (labor, knowledge, technology) needed to act on your new knowledge to the betterment of all. The better you can do this, the more effective you will be in the world.
88 - "Thinking is cognitive behavior in which ideas, images, mental representations, or other hypothetical elements of thought are experienced or manipulated." In this sense, thinking includes imagining, remembering, problem solving, daydreaming, free association, concept formation, and many other processes.
Thinking may be said to have two defining characteristics:
Source: American Psychological Association Dictionary
89 - Types of Thinking - why try to understand the different types of thinking? What are the different types of thinking?
Note to Self be careful about a lot of this not having much research behind it. Pop Psychology in a sense. Think of the lack of evidence for “power poses”, “myers-briggs tests”, and “learning styles”.
Lateral Thinking (might be BS), Cross Thinking, Analogical Thinking, Abstract Thinking, Divergent Thinking, Convergent Thinking, Concrete Thinking, Sequential Thinking, Holistic (nonlinear) Thinking, Conceptual Thinking
90 - Cross Thinking is the ability to see patterns (20e) in thinking and conceptualization (10d1). Then connecting how you can apply concepts across domains. Two examples are:
Story of applying ecological extinction patterns to business extinction patterns to come to the insight that planning the future is impossible, from Adapt: Success starts with Failure
David Kilcullen using evolution terminology and thinking in the context of adaptive behavior of terrorists and adversaries in warfare. See his 2020 book Dragon and the Snakes
Information Processing Theory emerging out of the study of Computers, whereby the mind is equated with a computer. As they both are information processing machines.
91 - Three Dimensional Thinking is is applying a latticework (20d) of mental models to a problem or situation in order to get a better picture of reality.
Find a good example of multiple mental models intersecting to solve a problem #todo
92 - Structure is the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex (Oxford Dictionary).
“Common types of structure include hierarchies (a cascade of one-to-many relationships), a networks featuring many-to-many links, or latticeworks featuring connections between components that are neighbors in space” - Wikipedia.
The key idea to understand about structure is that it allows for order, which in turn leads to repeatability. Everything is meaningless without repeatability. Mathematics is the language of patterns, which are themselves are connections that repeat.
Further Research:
93 - Layers of Structure in a Digital Zettelkasten - When you build a zettelkasten you are adding layers of structure to facilitate note retireval.
The first layer of structure is having a single storage mechanism. In this case it is plain text files using markdown syntax. The reason for this is it helps makes your notes future proof. Luhmann used his zettelkastens over a 46 year period, so you want something that lasts the test of time.
The second layer of structure for a digital zettelkasten is having a single storage location. I’ve been somewhat bad at that because I’ve been experimenting with programs. I’ve been slowly working on coalescing all my notes into one program.
Third layer of structure I use is having my notes in Dropbox. Reason for this is that it keeps a copy of my zettelkasten in multiple locations in case of disaster.
Fourth layer of structure is having a unique identifier for each note, which means giving each file a unique name. This can take the form of a unique filename, a time ID + filename, or a luhmann ID (which is what this zettelkasten uses). For my Obsidian zettelkasten, I use a combination of time IDs and time IDs + filename.
Fifth layer of structure is I try to keep to keep my note sizes between 1-3 paragraphs. This keeps you from getting confused when linking between notes and makes a note easy to comprehend. Ideally this would also mean you learn to be concise with your writing.
Sixth layer of structure is what I call note sequences #todo
Seventh layer of structure are hubs #todo
Eighth layer of structure is the index #todo
94 - Connection is “a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else as to provide access and communication.” Oxford Dictionary. When you bring together multiple connections, you build a structure (e.g. hierarchy, network).
Overlap with association, relationship, link, etc
21b - Facilitating Connections
21c - Causation
95 - Sorting is when you systematically arrange items into separate groups based on common features (Oxford Dictionary). Typically this is done to make the storage and retrieval (5c) of information easier. It can also be used in a more exploratory way to learn more about your notes.
Sorting methods have emerged from the need to add structure to large bodies of information that emerged from the [information overload] involved with [evolving mediums].
96 - Selecting is the process you used to retrieve the information you are looking for. Typically people use [finding devices] that help you by sorting the information or using a search algorithm.
To start the selection process, you need a information trigger. In memory terminology this would be known as a retrieval cue, whether it be a word on a page, something someones says, or a evocative smell.
97 - Summarizing is the process of creating a brief generalization of a body of information. It is a layer of structure that allows us to more easily process a body of information, creating a very shallow model in the process.
Summarizing is one of the ways to deal with [infoglut]. The other being the creation of structures that allow you to search the information.
98 - Effortful Processing Strategies are ways you can engage with information in order to better encode it in your memory (making it stick).
These are workflow examples of layers of structure that help you more deeply encode information.
99 - Zettelkasten Model (a.k.a Zettelkasten Principles) - Set of Rules (Model) that best facilitates the four functions within a zettelkasten.
Storing / Sorting / Selecting / Summarizing - #todo
Zettelksaten is about Knowledge Development
100 - Niklas Luhmann was a German sociologist during the 20th century who is known for his prolific writing and work towards creating a theory of society. He created two zettelkastens over his career, starting the first one as a response to the need for an effective way to organize notes for the long term (Johannes F.K. Schmidt, 2018).
The reason he is so popular among the zettelkasten community is because his zettelkasten is public, the focus of a long term university research project, was part of his prolific output, and has a book written about it.
1B1 - Prolific Output
Note box I: 7 extracts with notes from the period from approx. 1952 to 1963, a total of approx. 23,000 pieces of paper
The notes were largely written during the time when Luhmann worked as a legal trainee in Lüneburg or as a member of the government at the Ministry of Culture in Lower Saxony and document his reading of administrative, political, philosophical and increasingly also organizational-theoretical and sociological literature.
Note box II: 20 extracts with notes from the period from 1963 to the beginning of 1997, a total of approx. 67,000 pieces of paper.
The notes are characterized by a clearly sociological-conceptual, theoretically and methodologically controlled access to a large number of publications from a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In terms of theoretical history, the new beginning with the development of a theory of administration may have taken place; The programmatic formulation on the first slip of this collection is paradigmatic for a fresh start:
The overview created by the NL Archives is based on the structure of the collection with its 108 thematic departments (as well as the four register departments) specified by Luhmann and provides a further breakdown within the individual thematic departments based on Luhmann’s priorities on the respective notes.
Therefore, the number structure does not represent a hierarchical structure. The departmental overviews do not claim to be complete (thematic or numerical).
Luhmann himself has not created a detailed overview of the contents of the collection. For ZK I there is only a department overview without further internal differentiation
Summary - It looks like Luhmann did not use detailed categories but instead had a somewhat vague overview of the different departments. What keeps it from going into the realm of traditional categories is that he did not further differentiate with subcategories.
Questions I have about Luhmann’s Zettelkasten
101 - Specialized Knowledge is the extensive body of knowledge you have about a subject matter. It would be pathway A in prior knowledge. Typically this is acquired over many years of study. The acquisition of specialized knowledge follows this path:
102 - General Knowledge is about getting a sense of the universe at large and the larger context that your specialized knowledge sits within. It is also the ideas from various disciplines that you learn about in hopes that it can help spark new ideas within your current area of expertise.
Related: