Zettelkasten

He was a philosopher who worked on systems theory among other topics.

https://gyazo.com/262ea90b8794c73dfe888859f3d09eb8

One part of the structure of Luhmann's personal Zettelkasten

The way he made a Zettelkasten with paper, pen, and boxes was genius in its simplicity:

Every new idea gets a card with a new number.

The content of ideas can be completely varied from one card to the next.

Each card can reference any number of other cards simply by adding a number at the end of the line (or as a superscript on a specific word?).

He cautions against structure based on idea hierarchy:

A system based on content, (like the outline of a book) would mean that we make a decision that would bind us to a certain order for decades in advance!

This necessarily leads very quickly to problems of placement, if we consider the system of communication and ourselves as capable of development.

Often the context in which we are working suggests a multiplicity of links to other notes. This is especially the case when the card index is already voluminous.

In such cases it is important to capture the connections radially, as it were, but at the same time also by right away recording back links in the slips that are being linked to. In this working procedure, the content that we take note of is usually also enriched

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...this technique guarantees that its order which is merely formal does not become a hindrance but adapts to the conceptual development.

Every note is only an element which receives its quality only from the network of links and back-links within the system.

A note that is not connected to this network will get lost in the card file and ill be forgotten by it. Its rediscovery depends on accidents and on the vagary that this rediscovery means something at the time it is found.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZHuWLA09M