@Soren: I appreciate the nuanced understanding you bring to this topic. @Si: sorry if my end-of-day (i.e. tired!) response came off as dismissive. I have since read the subject article with due attention, and while i appreciate the author's perspective, i must agree w/ Soren that it is not generalisable to the level of how all human brains work. Tho i am no neuroscientist, i resonate strongly with the exceptions Soren points out, especially in his 2nd paragraph. The time dimension can be a powerful key to recall, but so can space quite independent of time (yeah, i know: space/time is one dimension, but not in the human brain -this at least IS a generalisable principle) and other factors in our sensory apparatus -all of which i would lump into the category of CONTEXT.
That's my take on one (#4) in the author's list of 4 "big ideas" for problem-solving in this domain. As to the 3, i must say: 1. "Captured ideas are better than missed ones." YES -agree strongly. 2. "Adding new ideas is better than updating old ones." NO -definitely not for me, mate. I'm with Gandhi on this one -and Soren, if i understand him right [*] 3. "Ideas that can’t be recalled are worse than useless." EXACTLY! They actually impede access to the useful ideas -which is why point 2 above is so wrong, from my POV. Note [*]: Now from a practical perspective: Does updating notes mean we must sacrifice important history? Clearly not -as various projects (Git diffs, Wikipedia history, Internet Archive, etc.) prove. Are such solutions good enough? You'll never get everyone to agree on any one as a canonical solution to the problem. For my purposes: a periodic push to Github, with a reasonably descriptive comment after every *significant* development, is good enough... But that's just me. If we're talking about "mission-critical" code, that's another matter, but not in the scope of "note-taking," i would say (tho if we're talking about lab notes that must eventually serve as evidence in a legal dispute over IP... Let's just not go there :-) Final thought: Invoking the wisdom of Soren yet again -i.e. memory updates itself over time, while retaining traces- i think what we want in a note-taking system is not to *replicate* the human brain, but rather to *Augment* our intelligence. For all the talk about AI and the existential risks attending to it, i'm going all-in on the idea that IA (Intelligence Augmentation) is the best shot we have at ensuring that the inevitable tech progression from narrow AI -> AGI -> "The Singularity" does not necessarily mean the end of humankind. It may however mean we must reconcile ourselves to the idea of our progeny being post-human (whatever that means)... But, enough said about that for now :-) /walt On Friday, July 16, 2021 at 2:43:24 PM UTC+1 Soren Bjornstad wrote: > I think the author's first principle contradicts the article: it says that > "good notes should behave like memory." But actual human memory is *not* > immutable, > not even close; memories are changed somewhat every time we recall them. So > it seems to me that a system that actually matched memory would update over > time, but also retain some traces of previous versions. > > On the topic of "time is essential to how we remember," at least for me it > depends on the *type* of information. If it is naturally > autobiographical, or there was a particularly salient moment at which I > learned the information, or it happened during a particular project or > class, sure. When the thoughts are more abstract and developing over time, > I absolutely cannot remember a thing about the time I had them or added to > them, nor is that information particularly relevant. > > As I recall, Ted Nelson talked about adding a time dimension to hypertext, > where you could easily go back and forth between different versions and see > exactly what has changed in a graphical manner. Google Docs and Git both > kind of do this, but I don't think they've figured out all the > possibilities here...you still have to go into a separate system to browse > through the different versions, and it's hard to see several at the same > time. The diff between versions is also probably not the best visualization > -- perhaps for instance a stream of different additions (as in the *inc* idea > the author mentions!) would be better for many types of notes. So overall, > this would seem like a more productive direction to me -- you can see the > latest state of the art, or you can quickly and easily look at previous > "versions", whatever makes the most sense. > > I do think TiddlyWiki's tools in this area are currently somewhat > impoverished. > > On Thursday, July 15, 2021 at 2:18:48 PM UTC-5 Si wrote: > >> I just came across this post: https://thesephist.com/posts/inc/, and it >> challenges a lot of my own views on effective note-taking practices, so I >> thought it was worth sharing here. >> >> The author advocates for a kind of chronological system, where as a rule >> notes are never updated after they are made, meaning that they retain a >> fixed position in time. It kind of reminded me of Soren's random thoughts: >> https://randomthoughts.sorenbjornstad.com/ >> >> Anyway this approach seems completely counter to my current approach to >> note-taking, where I want my notes to represent ideas that I am building >> over time with little regard to where or when they originally came from. >> >> I'm not particularly convinced, but I'm curious if anyone here has any >> thoughts? Do you see any advantages to this approach? Disadvantages? Do you >> think it could gel with the zettelkasten philosophy, or are they polar >> opposites? >> >> Just interested in hearing other peoples thoughts. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/4cadd656-a242-406e-b205-f051f12c6a83n%40googlegroups.com.
