Thanks for the thoughtful replies everyone! I'm definitely in agreement with all that has been said.
>>> sorry if my end-of-day (i.e. tired!) response came off as dismissive. @walt Not at all! >>> i think what we want in a note-taking system is not to *replicate* the human brain, but rather to *Augment* our intelligence. Yes I often think about this. Many tools claim to 'mimic the way humans think' or something, but its not obvious to me that this is necessarily. We should seek to understand how we think of course, but so that we can build tools that *interact* with our minds, not imitate them. For example, we didn't improve our ability to travel quickly over long distances by mimicking bipedalism. On Friday, 16 July 2021 at 16:00:26 UTC+1 ludwa6 wrote: > @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. 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