Scott P Scheper, page 53
“ZK II: Zettel 9/8b2—Niklas Luhmann-Archiv,” accessed March 10, 2022, https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_9-8b2_V.
Johannes Schmidt, “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: Thinking Tool, Communication Partner, Publication Machine,” Forgetting Machines. Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe 53 (2016), 299.
“ZK II: Sheet 9/8b—Niklas Luhmann Archive,” accessed March 17, 2022, https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_9-8b_V.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 103.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 103.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 103.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 103.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 103.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 103.
W. Ross Ashby, “The Place of the Brain in the Natural World,” Biosystems 1, no. 2 (May 1, 1967): 95–104, 102.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
“ZK II: Zettel 9/8b—Niklas Luhmann-Archiv,” accessed March 10, 2022, https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_9-8b_V.
“Communicating with Slip Boxes by Niklas Luhmann,” accessed May 4, 2021, https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 11.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 11.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 7, 11.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 152.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 152.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 30.
Johannes Schmidt, “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: Thinking Tool, Communication Partner, Publication Machine,” Forgetting Machines. Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe 53 (2016), 292.
“Communicating with Slip Boxes by Niklas Luhmann,” accessed May 4, 2021, https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes. “Memory does not function as the sum of point by point accesses, but rather utilizes internal relationships and becomes fruitful only at this level of the reduction of its own complexity.”
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 26.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 224.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 12.
David S. Brown, Paradise Lost: A Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Illustrated edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2017), 101.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 98.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 12.
Pigs are, let’s just say, “challenging.” Garth would get bored during the day and eat the covers off my books at home. That’s when I drew the line.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 249.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 12.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 12.
Lawrence Block, Hit Man, Reissue edition (HarperTorch, 2002), 280.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 98.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 12.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 12.
Jim Kwik, Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, Illustrated edition (Carlsbad, California: Hay House Inc., 2020); Kevin Trudeau, Kevin Trudeau’s Mega Memory (Niles, IL: Nightingale Conant Corp, 1990).
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 294.
Richard Yeo, Notebooks, Recollection, and External Memory: Some Early Modern English Ideas and Practices (Brill, 2016), 136.
Alberto Cevolini, ed., Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe, Library of the Written Word, volume 53 (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2016), 7.
Michael Jacob Kahana, Foundations of Human Memory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 31.
Alberto Cevolini, ed., Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe, Library of the Written Word, volume 53 (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2016), 129.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Evolution, Perception, Perspective And Ruminants
In this chapter we’ll be discussing the concept of long-term evolution in the Antinet. We’ll also be diving into the concepts of perception vs. perspective, and how the Antinet locks these elements into each notecard. We’ll cap this chapter off with the concept of the Antinet as a ruminant.
Evolution
In his paper Communication with Noteboxes, Niklas Luhmann talks about the “inner life” of the Antinet. He touches upon its “mental history,” which evolves through time.869 The inner life and mental history of the Antinet are brought forth by its unique structure. Specifically, it’s brought forth by the numeric-alpha addresses. Luhmann refers to the fixed positioning of order (Stellordnung), which is created through unique card addresses. This property enables the Antinet to evolve over time in such a way that it’s possible to view the mental history of your thoughts; with the numeric-alpha addresses and the tree structure, you can observe your mind’s evolution.
Viewing the evolutionary history of your thoughts proves useful for certain types of activities. Take, for instance, the activity of reading scientific literature. According to Luhmann, the key to reading scientific texts centers on long-term memory. According to Luhmann, long-term memory is more crucial than short-term memory for reading scientific texts because it is necessary to distinguish the “essential from the non-essential and the new from the merely repetitive.”870 In other words, you want a system where you can refresh your memory of your notes and evolve your current ideas with new ideas. You don’t want to waste time relearning what you already know.
The Antinet’s workflow involves noting down observations on a bibcard. Then, before actually developing a main note, you review the Antinet. You figure out where a card will be placed before dedicating the time to reformulate or reflect on the material. This is an important step as it prevents you from spending too much time on writing about the non-essential or repetitive material that you already know.
When you review this material you’re not only reducing the risk of getting bogged down on things you already know; there’s another useful feature. As Markus Krajewski observes, “The reader is not only reading his own memory, but rather also his shifting frame of reference over time.”871 In other words, when you review your Antinet, you’re seeing your shifting frame of references over time. You’re seeing your different perspectives and your different interpretations of ideas based on communication with different sources you’ve engaged with. It’s possible to view how your thoughts have developed, changed, and internally evolved over time.
Oftentimes, the most surprising finds are the links you stamp onto the cards. These shed light into what the idea reminded you of at the time and shed light on your own internal reverberation of ideas at a given time. The cards that these links point to serve as the source material of your own internal perspectives and context. When viewing Luhmann’s system, this is something Krajewski confirmed as well: “What is more surprising are the references listed.”872
This relates to something in human memory called temporal context.873 Memories and thoughts that occur around the same time are essentially linked together.874 Temporal context can be thought of as a function of time, external context, and internal context. In essence, your thoughts are a function of the period of time in which you had them. They’re shaped by your own internal dialogue at that specific time, as well as the external context in which you have the thought. As a result, you link together a unique set of other ideas at the time of creation. These unique associations of other ideas are represented in the form of cardlinks in your Antinet.
These cardlinks are way more valuable and effective than things like wikilinks in digital systems. The reason is that notecards in the Antinet are updated and changed less frequently than in digital systems. Notes in digital systems are constantly being updated, rearranged, deleted, and added onto. Within the Antinet, notecards are locked in time once they’re created. This then locks in a view of the temporal context of your ideas over time.
Compounding of Ideas
Albert Einstein considered compound interest to be the eighth wonder of the world. Warren Buffett has said his financial success is simply “a product of compound interest.”875 Simple things compound into complex things. Luhmann himself experienced this first hand with his Antinet. The little, simple, everyday commitment to building and evolving your Antinet results in genius-level thought. Over time your ideas evolve and snowball into things you never could have planned. This happens in an organic way, slowly, one notecard at a time. Thought-by-thought, branch-by-branch, stem-by-stem, link-by-link, your Antinet evolves into a complex entity, experiencing the magic of compound interest. Yet it’s not easy. You have to earn it. This is often seen as a negative aspect of the Antinet (writing things by hand is hard); yet it pays off in the end.
Markus Krajewski observes, “Whoever sets about ongoing work (or communication) with such a secondary memory can not only count on the fact that the apparatus will faithfully reproduce everything which has been shared with it, they can also trust that, with the information successively provided over time, future knowledge will be enriched.”876 In essence, the individual notes you provide to the Antinet will be enriched over time. The individual pieces of information compound and collide with one another to form rich pathways of knowledge. When it comes time to write, your cognitive energy is freed up to collaborate with this entity. You’re left with a very rich, interconnected store of knowledge with which you can creatively reinterpret that knowledge and tie it into the paper or creative work you’re actively building.
The idea of notes becoming a rich store of value is certainly not a new one. John Aubrey (1626–1697), a fellow of the Royal Society, once said that habitual notetaking creates “‘nest eggs’ for the future.”877
The bottom line is this: The entity you’re creating with the Antinet is a complex one. It’s a product of compounding the interest of your ideas. The result is something magical: it morphs into an entity that you (and only you) can truly understand.
Perception and Perspective
Perception and perspective derive from similar etymological roots. These terms are often confused with one another, even though they’re different.
Perception comes from the Latin term percipere. Let’s break this apart. Per means “fully.” Cipere means “to grasp” or “to take.” Combined, percipere means to fully grasp, understand or interpret the meaning of something.
Perspective comes from the Latin term perspecere. Per means the same thing as it does in percipere (“fully”). Specere means “to observe” or “to spectate.” Combined, perspecere means to fully observe and to see and spectate.
Think of perception as applying your own interpretation of some observations. Perception uses interpretation to help us derive meaning out of an observation. The meaning you assign to an observation shapes your thoughts, which shape your reality.
Think of perspective as your point of view. Perspective is your vantage point. It’s a function of space and time. Where you are in the world, and at what time you observe an event shapes your perspective.
When you use an Antinet your notes contain both your perspective and your perceptions of ideas. When you create reformulation notes, you’re summarizing ideas based on your perspective at the time. You’re shaping your ideas by your current point of view. When you create reflection notes, you’re adding your own interpretations of the ideas you encounter. You’re stamping your own perceptions of ideas onto your notes. These are locked in time. They are not updated, overwritten or edited (like they often are in digital tools).
It’s very important that both your perspectives and perceptions be locked in time. This provides the raw material for the communication experience that makes the Antinet so valuable. When you go back and review old notes, you’re having a communication experience. You’re viewing ideas containing your second mind’s perspectives and perceptions. You’re then comparing these with your own present-day perspectives and perceptions. This creates the valuable internal dialogue we’ve touched upon throughout this book. You begin seeing your perspectives and perceptions evolve over time. This proves to be an invaluable interaction during the creation process.
Ruminants
Ruminants are a type of mammal that acquire nutrients from eating grass. They first ferment the grass in a specialized stomach called a rumen. After the grass is fermented in the rumen, it is then digested.
The word ruminant comes from the Latin term ruminare, which means “to chew slowly.” This is where the term rumination derives from.
Here’s why I’m even talking about this: in Luhmann’s own Zettelkasten, he describes his system by calling it a ruminant.
“The Zettelkasten is like the complicated digestive system of a ruminant. All arbitrary ideas, all coincidences of reading, can be included. It is then the internal connectivity that decides.”
–Niklas Luhmann, Zettelkasten II: 9/8i878
By calling it a ruminant, Luhmann is referring to the idea that some pieces of knowledge need time to be digested. The technique of using external references (ExRefs) helps with this. Sometimes you come across interesting material; however you don’t yet know whether the idea is worth fully processing yet. In this case you create ExRefs for the material and thus enable the material to ruminate in the Antinet. If the time comes wherein the material will become useful, you can then digest the material by converting it into a main note. Or, you can digest the material by using it while writing your manuscript.
The idea of the mind as a ruminant is not a new concept. The French Catholic philosopher Antonin Sertillanges writes:
Man’s mind is a ruminant. The cow looks away into the distance, chews slowly, bites off here a tuft and there a twig, takes the whole field for her own, and the horizon as well, producing her milk from the field, feeding her dim soul on the horizon.879
What this involves is reverberation as understood in the study of human memory. I talk about the concept of reverberation throughout this text. The idea involves “just-experienced” ideas and associations reverberating in one’s mind.880 Reverberation is most often associated with short-term memory. However, with the Antinet, you can lock in reverberation over a longer period of time. Reverberation over the long term reflects the concept of rumination.
The idea of rumination doesn’t just have important implications in the Antinet. Rather the way you approach books involves rumination as well.
As Francis Bacon once pointed out, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”881 Some books are to be read only in parts; others should be skimmed, some few should be read wholly, and others should be read with deliberate attention. Mortimer Adler asserted: “Reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting it.”882
Yet without the Antinet, the knowledge one gains during analytical reading is lost. The Antinet captures the insights from deep analytical reading and stores them for the long term. In the Antinet these deep insights collide with other ideas and compound.
The point in all of this is reflected in the following suggestion: view the Antinet as a ruminant of your mind. Store all of your material there that you wish to evolve. Store both your fully developed thoughts, as well as thoughts that need more time to sprout.
Niklas Luhmann, “Communication with Noteboxes (Revised Edition),” trans. Manfred Kuehn, https://daily.scottscheper.com/zettelkasten/.
Niklas Luhmann, Short Cuts (English Translation) (Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins, 2002), 83.
Markus Krajewski, Note-Keeping: History, Theory, Practice of a Counter-Measurement against Forgetting (Brill, 2016), 331.
