> Though in the factory of thinking > It’s like a weaver’s masterpiece: > One kick and a thousand threads awake, > The shuttles shoot to and fro, > The threads invisibly flow, > Thousandfold interlinking at a stroke – > – Goethe, *Faust* This Digital Garden is created from my personal Zettelkasten. Zettelkasten is a scary-sounding German word, but it literally means a box to hold index cards. It refers to a note-taking system used by Niklas Luhmann, a 20th-century German sociologist. It might seem odd to make a big deal out of a note-taking system, but it is indeed a big deal. The revolutionary aspect of the Zettelkasten approach to note-taking is that it is the closest thing to how our brains actually work. The power of our brains comes from the connections between individual neurons ([[Reference Notes/Humanual#^043649]]). The Zettelkasten approach mirrors this by emphasizing the links between notes. Even though Luhmann worked with analog technology, he mastered a system of organically linking his notes in a non-hierarchical way. Instead of organizing them by category or within a hierarchical tree structure (much as a library would categorize books in its collection), he allowed himself considerable freedom in linking or associating them. The structure of a Zettelkasten represents knowledge as a field, rather than a tree. Notes are not organized into folders, but are linked to each other in a web. Each note was kept short, often containing a single idea. He gave each note a unique identifier. He might have started to number his notes 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Later, if he wanted to insert a note between notes 1 and 2, he might call it 1a. By using a sequence of alternating numbers and alphabets, he could have an unlimited number of unique identifiers - eg a note sequence might be 3c1a, 3c1b, 3c1c, etc. He could then point to another note from within a note using these unique identifiers. This is very similar to how wiki-links work in the digital medium. He made it a point not to write isolated notes, and would always try to link a new note to his existing network of notes. Comparing a Zettelkasten to a wiki only scratches the surface of the approach. It goes much deeper. There are several more nuances to this note-taking philosophy that make it different. For instance, when creating a note about something he read, Luhmann would always paraphrase, rather than quote. This forced him to clarify what the essence of the idea was. > Zettelkasten is to a wiki what GTD is to a todo list. Both are different ways of thinking about a rather flexible (potentially misused?) underlying tool.^[https://clerestory.netlify.app/zk] The true power of this note-taking approach was revealed when it came to note discovery. Luhmann found that he could have a conversation with his notes, almost as if they were a second brain, and that he could discover a lot of unexpected connections in the process of reviewing his notes. The denser the connections became, the easier it became to discover new ones in the future. His notes took on a life of their own. Regarding the unique structure of a Zettelkasten, the writer Eva Deverell notes: > A RHIZOME is a type of plant root like that of ginger or potato. Deleuze and Guattari used it as an analogy for a way of thinking that, similar to a map, could have multiple entries, and multiple paths, but without reference to a unifying “whole” or centrality.^[https://www.eadeverell.com/zettelkasten/] Today, there is a thriving community of Zettelkasten practitioners. Here’s the website that first turned me on to the idea. A nod to Christian Tietze and Sascha Fast for their ongoing explication of the Zettelkasten method: https://zettelkasten.de/ A good book to read for inspiration is "How to Take Smart Notes", by Sönke Ahren. It is a deep excursion into the philosophy behind this approach to note-taking. Here is the website for the book: https://takesmartnotes.com/ Tiago Forte wrote a good summary of the book: https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/ Zettelkastens are a great way to explore [[Ideas can procreate like rabbits]]