Scott P Scheper, page 48
Conclusion
In this chapter we covered a nice amount of material with regards to working with an Antinet. We discussed the three states one operates in during knowledge development. We also got a glimpse into Luhmann’s work routine with his Antinet. Last, we capped off this chapter with some philosophical advice centering around making the Antinet fun. Consistency over the long term is key. In the next chapter, we’ll dive into one of the most important metaphysical aspects of the Antinet: the Antinet as a second mind. Get ready.
Niklas Luhmann, Niklas Luhmann Short Cuts (English Translation), 2002, 19.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Reprint edition (New York, New York: Avery, 2015), 251.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Reprint edition (New York, New York: Avery, 2015), 251.
Niklas Luhmann, “Communication with Noteboxes (Revised Edition),” trans. Manfred Kuehn, https://daily.scottscheper.com/zettelkasten/. “One of the most basic presuppositions of communication is that the partners can mutually surprise each other.”; Johannes Schmidt, “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: Thinking Tool, Communication Partner, Pub- lication Machine,” Forgetting Machines. Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe 53 (2016).
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Reprint edition (New York, New York: Avery, 2015), 258-9.
“ZK II: Sheet 9/8d—Niklas Luhmann Archive,” accessed March 4, 2022, https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK2NB9-8dV .
Undisciplined, Archiving Luhmann w/ Johannes Schmidt, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz2K3auPLWU, 25:40.
Clemens Luhmann, Interview by Scott P. Scheper, April 27, 2022.
Niklas Luhmann, Niklas Luhmann Short Cuts (English Translation), 2002, 19.
holgersen911, Niklas Luhmann—Beobachter Im Krähennest (Eng Sub), 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRSCKSPMuDc.
Mortimer Jerome Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, Rev. and updated ed (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 7.
Niklas Luhmann, “Communication with Noteboxes (Revised Edition),” trans. Manfred Kuehn, https://daily.scottscheper.com/zettelkasten/.
OP A. G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, trans. Mary Ryan, Reprint edition (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 11.
Niklas Luhmann, Niklas Luhmann Short Cuts (English Translation), 2002, 11.
Niklas Luhmann, Niklas Luhmann Short Cuts (English Translation), 2002, 16.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Communication With Your Second Mind
“Ghost in the box?
Spectators come. You get to see everything and nothing but that —like porn movies. And so is the disappointment.”
–Niklas Luhmann, on communicating with his Zettelkasten768
Communication with the Antinet is the most important aspect of the system. There’s a reason Luhmann titled his paper Communication with Noteboxes. It stands as the key descriptor of what it’s like to write and collaborate with an Antinet. Yet, for some reason, this phenomenon is completely omitted when reading about Zettelkasten today. When you research what a Zettelkasten is online, you’ll find every descriptor besides communication partner. Zettelkasten is described as a system of linking notes, and there are the Ahrensian terms like fleeting notes, literature notes, and permanent notes.769 Yet we find no mention of the Zettelkasten as a communication partner. You would have to do a lot of digging to discover how Luhmann actually viewed his Zettelkasten: as a second mind, a ghost in the box, or an alter ego with whom he communicated.
In this chapter, we’ll discuss this most powerful part of the Antinet, and explore the concept of communication with one’s past self—that is, communication with one’s second mind.
The Origins of Communication with a Second Mind
One interesting parallel with the origins of this idea involves the origins of the Zettelkasten itself.
According to Clemens Luhmann (the youngest child of Niklas Luhmann), the Zettelkasten originated through a communication experience with Luhmann’s best friend, Friedrich Rudolf Hohl (1916–1979), whom Luhmann and the rest of the family called Bruder (meaning brother). Bruder was Luhmann’s closest friend. They shared a love of art, philosophy and other intellectual matters. They were seen almost as if they were the same person. Clemens referred to Hohl as his father’s “alter ego.”770
The origins of the Zettelkasten came by way of letters and notecards exchanged between Hohl and Luhmann. Luhmann would write letters to Hohl about his readings and include his own notecards in the envelope. The letters would elaborate on the ideas contained in the notes. They would discuss various interpretations. Hohl would do the very same thing in his replies.
This was a communication experience between two close friends. It was a communication experience with Luhmann’s real-life alter ego.
Unfortunately, Luhmann’s best friend and “alter ego” Friedrich Rudolf Hohl passed away only two years after Luhmann’s wife Ursula. They were the only two people who ever got dedications in Luhmann’s books: Ursula and Friedrich Rudolf Hohl (in Love as Passion).
A few years later, in 1981, Luhmann published his paper Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen (“Communication with Noteboxes”), in which he talked about a second mind arising from his Zettelkasten; he described it as “an alter ego with whom we can constantly communicate.”771
There exists a parallel between the communication experience of Luhmann and his real-life alter ego, Friedrich Rudolf Hohl, and Luhmann and his metaphysical alter ego: his Antinet Zettelkasten.
Luhmann’s Theoretical View of Communication
“Humans cannot communicate; not even their brains can communicate; not even their conscious minds can communicate. Only communication can communicate.”
–Niklas Luhmann772
There are a few major concepts that at the cornerstone of Luhmann’s theoretical work. The first is general systems theory, which involves the concepts of cybernetics and self-referential systems, and autopoiesis (wherein a system recreates itself).773 The other concept that is critical to Luhmann’s theoretical work is communication. In fact, Luhmann uses a communication theory as the starting point for describing his Antinet.774
According to Luhmann, communication is an emergent reality that emanates from three different selections.775
1. The “selection of information”
2. The “selection of the message of this function”776
3. The “selective understanding or misunderstanding of the message and its interpretation”
Luhmann holds that none of these components can occur on their own. Only when they are combined together can communication occur.
Let’s break down what Luhmann means by these three concepts in relation to working with an Antinet.
First, Luhmann is referring to the process of how we select information, including choosing the sources we wish to engage with in order to ingest information. In other words: what books, articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, or other media we select information from.
The second component Luhmann is referring to is the message. This is the material within a source (such as a book) that we select and decide to interpret.
The third component is the understanding or misunderstanding of the message. Luhmann makes a good point in that we have a choice of whether to understand (or misunderstand) the message we receive. For example, we humans have a phenomenal ability to delude ourselves by way of confirmation bias. That is, we may choose to interpret information in such a way to confirm our already-held preexisting beliefs (and filter our messages which conflict with these beliefs).
All three components are required for communication.
Interestingly enough, all three components serve as critical aspects of the knowledge development process of the Antinet.
Again, communication was a core tenet of Luhmann’s theoretical work. In fact, he proposed a solution to the classic philosophical mind-body problem by converting it to a triad: mind-body-communication.777 In Luhmann’s view, communication serves as the missing link for solving this most ancient philosophical puzzle. If you want to understand what it’s like working with an Antinet, you must remind yourself that it’s a communication experience.
Communication is The Secret Ingredient for Generating Surprises
One of the key functions of the Antinet is its ability to surprise. Johannes Schmidt describes the Zettelkasten as a “surprise generator.”778 The precursor for generating surprises is communication.
As Luhmann writes, “One of the most basic presuppositions of communication is that the partners can mutually surprise each other.”779
On a more general level, communication surprises. For instance, for the past several years I’ve been working primarily by myself. However, in the process of writing this book, I’ve published and shared a lot of material on my social media channels.780 In doing so I’ve opened up many more channels of communication with people so that it’s no longer just me communicating with my Antinet. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge by communicating with others, but on top of that, I constantly receive links and ideas that surprise me and generate breakthrough ideas for my research.
Likewise, when you work with an Antinet as a communication partner, you’re having a conversation. A conversation emerges in your own mind wherein you’re trying to re-understand your own thoughts. You’re essentially having a conversation with your old self (that is, your past self).
This communication experience relates to that described in Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book, in which Adler describes the experience of reading a book as an active process that he compares to the game of baseball.781 There’s the pitcher (the author of a book), who throws a baseball (the message, material, or an idea contained within the book), and the catcher (you, the reader). The position of catcher is not passive. A catcher is not a lazy inanimate object who does nothing. The catcher is moving, shifting, and anticipating both the pitcher (author) and the pitch (message). It’s a communication experience—a very active communication experience.
This type of communication experience mirrors what it’s like working with your Antinet. It’s an active, creative, collaborative communication experience. One that generates many surprises.
This communication experience is also significantly deeper than you might realize. When you are communicating with an author through reading their book, you’re not just reading the words written by that one author. As Kate Turabian puts it, when you read a book, “you silently converse with its authors—and through them with everyone else they have read.”782 With your Antinet, you’re creating a deeply evolved and deeply linked communication partner with whom you communicate.
An Example of the Antinet Communication Experience
As previously discussed, with the Antinet, there is no full-text search. There is no safety net, and this fact underlies the entire experience of using an Antinet. When you begin searching for something, you begin a journey. You undertake an exploration of your mind. During this exploration you’re undertaking a communication process with your past self.
During the journey of finding thoughts in your Antinet, all you have is your index and cardlinks. The index sets you out on the journey, and the cardlinks swing you along across different branches and stems of thought in your tree of knowledge.
Creating cardlinks is not easy. They are created at the time you create the notecard, or shortly thereafter when you stumble upon the notecard (and have a related idea reverberating in your mind). Cardlinks are hard to create (unlike digital wikilinks). They cannot be mass-created on a whim and they require life energy to create. It’s a deliberate act that requires you to think of truly related ideas.
As a result of cardlinks being harder to create, they also require you to be more selective. Since there are fewer cardlinks in analog systems, you have more energy to follow them and you end up taking them more seriously. In contrast, when you encounter links and tags in a digital system, there may be five, ten, or fifteen links associated with a single note. Not to mention that there are backlinks that you can feasibly follow. In effect this dilutes the power of the relations because there are so many of them.
Within an analog system you’re dealing with selective relations. The entire system is relations of relations of selective relations. Whenever you come across a selective relation, you’re more motivated to take it seriously and actually follow the cardlink. If you’re on a tree with fifteen vines, it’s less likely you’ll explore all fifteen. If you’re on a tree with one vine, you’ll hop on and continue your exploration with vigor.
Let’s walk through a more practical example, an example from Luhmann’s Antinet.
Let’s say in your index, you look up the keyterm risk. When you look up risk, it links you to transformation of risk (which is at card address 21/3d18c60o9).783 You think to yourself, Hmm, this is interesting… Risk is within the branch of Systems Theory (21/3d18) and within that, the branch of Complexity (21/3d18c). Suddenly a secondary conversation takes place in your mind. A dreamlike memory emerges that takes you back to the period in your life when you wrote about complexity within systems theory. Perhaps you wrote about it that time you travelled to Paris and spent the time in a great Parisian library reading (which is what Luhmann did once, according to Clemens Luhmann).784 You are suddenly transported back to the setting of that time in the library in Paris. You remember how it was a gray November day in that Paris library. You recall reading about complexity, which led you to write about risk.
When you begin moving down the stem of risk you’re soon met with a cardlink collective (21/3d18c60o9,1):
photo credit: “ZK II: Zettel 21/3d18c60o9,1—Niklas Luhmann-Archiv,” accessed April 28, 2022, https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_21-3d18c60o9-1_V.
It lists out several concepts related to risk. The concepts are as follows:785
You think to yourself ‘Death as a risk’ what on earth does that have to do with risk? You then realize, death has everything to do with risk. It relates to Certainty/truth/science in that death is the ultimate form of uncertainty that underlies society and drives human behavior. At the core foundation of risk resides the ultimate fear: risk of death.
This illustrates the communication experience in working with the Antinet. There are several dialogues taking place concurrently. First, we have the dialogue of recalling the memory of writing and researching risk (in the Parisian library). Then, we have the dialogue of actually conversing with the Antinet: What does the concept of death have to do with risk?
This example shows how the dots begin to connect over time. When you first wrote about risk, you did not write about death. Over time, the concept of death emerged and was added to the branch collective for risk (21/3d18c60o9,1). These concepts and links needed time to synthesize and grow. Continuing the metaphor of the Antinet as a tree, photosynthesis needed to take place. This area of your tree needed sunlight to synthesize. The structure grew organically over time in a natural way. It creates an antifragile structure (compared to a dynamic digital structure with hyperactive edits and bulk edits).
This example gives you a glimpse into the communication experience that is an outcome of working with the Antinet. It shows you the internal dialogue that takes place. It also shows you how a system of both order and chaos works.
You started by looking up risk, and then are taken on a journey that brings forth concepts related to Certainty/truth/science, Uncertainty, and more. This communication experience takes you on a journey that generates breakthrough surprises, leading “to a variety of other subjects that the user initially would not have associated with the first one,” as Johannes Schmidt observes. “It also shows how potential relationships between these topics may not have come to mind in the absence of such a chain of references.”786
When you use an Antinet, you’re forced to create abstractions of ideas. You’re forced to generalize ideas and relate them to one another. “Communication,” Luhmann says, “becomes fruitful only at a high level of generalization, namely that of establishing communicative relations of relations.”787
Luhmann gives an example wherein he observes, “Why on the one hand museums are [generally] empty, while on the other hand exhibitions of paintings by Monet, Picasso, or Medici are too crowded.”788 Instead of creating the keyterms Monet, Picasso, or Medici, he instead does something else. He generalizes and abstracts the idea to get at the core essence. The reason why Monet, Picasso, and Medici exhibits are so crowded is because they’re temporally limited. That is, they are only available to be viewed at a certain place and for only a short period of time. In this instance, Luhmann created the index keyterm or branch collective card with the following concept: “preference for what is temporally limited.”789 From there he linked to the card that talks about Monet, Picasso, or Medici exhibits being overcrowded. Over time, more and more examples of preferences for temporally limited items were added to the collective.
In effect, Luhmann has created a high-level generalization. He points out that communication with the Antinet becomes more valuable when you create such generalizations (instead of merely creating a keyterm for the mention of Picasso). Yet there’s one final piece of this communication experience: the “moment of evaluation.”790
