What is the Zettelkasten

Developed by Luhmann

For those not familiar with the Zettelkasten by Luhmann, allow me to give a quick overview. Luhmann was a renowned German scientist who came up with the Zettelkasten methodology.

Contrary to conventional note-taking, the notes in the Zettelkasten are linked to other, related notes. Linking your notes enables you to reflect your thought trains and simultaneously gives room for you to come back to the notes in the middle of the thought train, allowing you to add newly gained information or ideas. The important distinction between note-taking, as you probably know it is that we usually take notes to store and archive information, the Zettelkasten, however, is a utility to retrieve information. (read how the book phrased it) You walk through your notes, reconstruct what you previously had in mind, and evaluate how the new information fits into your existing knowledge. You might already see that the Zettelkasten thus encourages to THINK, and that's precisely the intention. The Thinker app is the utility to enable you to apply this methodology. It does that by providing a smooth and intuitive experience so that you can focus on your thinking and not be distracted by the tool (worst case, actually).

Concept

No categories!

We as humans are fast at putting a label on something, giving it a category where it should belong. Within Zettelkasten categories do not exist. And Luhmann made very clear why that would be a bad idea. We would need to know what we know decades ahead. Given, we use the Zettelkasten that long. Luhmann did, and I intend to do so as well. Obviously, that's a feat no one can accomplish. Thinking in categories does not scale, it is not flexible - it breaks down when you discover the categories do not fit anymore due to your continuously newly acquired knowledge. And reworking your categories becomes more strenuous as your Zettelkasten grows. And it will most likely grow quickly. But if categories don't work, what other structure can we use?

We are confronted with a complex reality, and many parts of it continuously moving and changing. A robust but flexible scaffold, allowing to capture realities' complexity. Luhmann's solution to dealing with complexity is simplicity. A bottom-up solution, in contrast to top-down, as categories are.

"The best way of dealing with complexity is to keep is as simple as possible [and follow some basic principles]".

In Zettelkasten the cards are numbered so that the user can navigate between the notes. The numbers, however, have no intrinsic meaning. The note nr. 1 has no more important than say note nr. 4155. To reduce overhead when you interact with your knowledge graph, the note's number is not displayed. Luhmann used it for logistical purposes only. You can easily pick up important notes by adding them to your index.