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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Randomness, Surprises And Accidents
As we’ve learned, one of the more overlooked benefits of the Antinet is its ability to foster randomness, thanks to its tree structure. This structure generates invaluable surprises and accidents, allowing users to encounter ideas they would otherwise not have reviewed had they been using digital systems. When you work with an analog system, you’re exploring and sifting through your previous thoughts. This ignites a reverberation of ideas that circulate in your mind, causing a crucial “collision” of ideas in your mind during the writing process.
Randomness
Here, randomness is a feature, not a bug. A key property of a living, evolving, anti-fragile system is its unorthodox structure. The perfectly normalized structures we find in digital notetaking systems are synthetic. They’re fragile. They’re overly malleable and they rarely retain a unique character. As one scholar points out, “Evolution always occurs through the selection of accidental differences without a design.”883
It doesn’t seem intuitive, but here’s the reality: randomness doesn’t come from chaos alone. Randomness actually relies on order. As Luhmann states, “even the creation of random suggestions requires organization.”884
When I first began using notecards to store my thoughts in 2006, I would simply take notes about a book on 3 x 5 inch cards. Each card contained one idea. These notes were primarily reformulation notes. They summarized individual concepts I learned while reading the book. By the time I finished reading the book, I would have about twenty or thirty new 3 x 5 inch cards. I would then wrap a rubber band around them and throw them in a shoebox. From time to time I would then review the notecards.
However, this isn’t the most ordered structure. It’s seemingly random. The Antinet, on the other hand, introduces an ordered structure (numeric-alpha addresses and the tree-like branching architecture). As a paradoxical result, the structure induces more useful random features.
Surprises
The tree structure of the Antinet encourages the asking of unique questions that are less commonly asked when one uses digital systems, since those systems are fully indexed with full text search. Upon encountering a new idea while using an Antinet, you ask yourself questions like What is the name of that concept. You’re then prompted to ask what other terms live near that concept if you can’t find its location. It requires finding alternative ways to think about the concept and to essentially re-imprint the pathways that led you to the idea. This practice is a fun way to approach knowledge. Embarking upon an associative-thinking process brings about fascinating surprises along the way. Your current mind (with its own active memory) has a dialogue with your past self (your second mind), and this dialogue often results in amazing surprises. If nothing else, the core output of the Antinet is one thing: it’s a “surprise generator.”885
As one scholar observes of Luhmann’s system: “a true communication process is triggered that exploits the machine’s ability to surprise, i.e., to produce information.”886
The same scholar observes how a true secondary memory arises when the questions one asks triggers a network of associative references and links. These links then give birth to “collaborative” reasoning that was not intentionally designed.887 The network of associative references refers both to the concept of forward associations and to remote associations. Here we see that the tree structure, with the continuous flow of cards as well as the remote cardlinks, helps create a collaborative communication relationship with the second mind. It also serves as the core component for creating surprises (realizations that are a result that had not been intentionally designed).
Again, the network structure of the Antinet is similar to associationism.888 The association of nodes in the network is based on contiguity. The continuous flow of notes (containing thoughts) is augmented by insertions of similar material later on. Thoughts grow contiguously from previous branches and are grouped together with similar thoughts over time. These two components (contiguity and similarity) are the very components which govern thought in general, and that is used to the Antinet’s advantage.
The Nature of Surprises
Isaac Asimov once observed that great ideas and breakthroughs begin not with Eureka! but with Hmm, that’s funny.889 While using the Antinet, you’ll come across many instances where you think to yourself Hmm, that’s funny! Take note of these instances and create links between them.
Keep in mind, though, that in the spirit of good science, you should not let your guard down. When you say to yourself, that’s funny, that doesn’t mean the idea is true. It could merely mean that the idea is interesting. Ideas have a tendency to survive not necessarily because they’re true, but because they’re interesting.890 In the name of good science, you ought to search for surprises that excavate truth. Your goal should not center on excavating stuff that’s merely interesting—that’s pop science gibberish.
In some ways, the Antinet helps mitigate against getting carried away by interesting but unfounded insights. It does this by collecting contradictions. Surrounding the leaves and stems of cards that generate surprises it’s likely that one will find thoughts that contradict the surprise. This is only possible thanks to the principle of not erasing anything in your Antinet. The fact that contradictory ideas remain for you to find helps you filter out ideas which are merely interesting in order to find insights that are both interesting and true.
In addition to this anti-self-deception mechanism, the fact that you’re neuroimprinting ideas enables you to call to mind the contradictory ideas by attending to the reverberation achieved through writing by hand and sifting through your notes. In brief, you’re less likely to deceive yourself when working with the Antinet. Why? Because you can think of examples that contradict insights you might otherwise be charmed by.
The Antinet is Built for Surprises
Thanks to the Antinet’s structure, surprises are achieved by giving the Antinet “autonomy.”891 This autonomy is created by the commitment to never change card addresses. Unlike digital files with their dynamically updating links, the Antinet’s card addresses never change. Likewise, aside from editing marks or additions made directly on a card (that leave a trace of the change in thinking), any future changes made to the information on a card can only occur by adding related, child-like nodes underneath it.
The commitment to never change card addresses is pretty easy and doesn’t require willpower (unlike the temptation to change card addresses in a digital system). Thanks to the analog nature of the Antinet, it’s just completely impractical to change the addresses of many cards!
This is a good thing. If constant changing, deleting, or updating of the system were possible, it would rip out the unique personality of that system. Because of this, complementary and contradictory thoughts are gathered in an essentially “locked” system that then generates surprise com- binations.
An Example of a Surprise
Something interesting happened a few months into building out my Antinet. I was going through the process of installing my legacy notecards when I came upon a card pertaining to something called cluster analysis. In machine learning, cluster analysis involves using algorithms to classify data patterns into groups or clusters. The clusters are then analyzed to determine which features and properties make the groups alike.
When I went to create a keyterm for cluster analysis I was surprised by the fact that I already had a keyterm for the term cluster! What I found was that the keyterm linked to something in the cognitive biases branch of my Antinet (address 2431/18). When I traveled to that card, I found a concept outlining something called clustering illusion. Suddenly I recalled this concept that refers to a cognitive fallacy by which humans see patterns in data—even if the data is completely random. This tendency usually happens when the data is composed of a small random sample.
As a result of this, in my section for cluster analysis, I included a disclaimer for my future self: Before beginning any significant time investment in cluster analysis, be wary of falling into the trap of clustering illusion (See ‘2431/18’). In brief, I’ve created a link across two branches of knowledge that have very important implications for each other.
These types of surprises occur frequently in the Antinet because the keyterms and links are created deliberately. When you see a surprising occurrence (like the shared term cluster which points to concepts which may contradict each other), you pay closer attention to them. You appreciate the surprise more and you use the surprise by creating relevant links between the two ideas.
If I were using a digital system, I believe it would have been less likely that I’d have realized the same relationship between the two ideas. If I had searched the term cluster, I’d likely have found myself bombarded with dozens, if not hundreds, of notes containing the term cluster. My state of mind would have been one of I want to find the file I’m looking for as quickly as possible, which is not an explorer mindset exhibiting curiosity and pattern-seeking). I would have quickly passed over the commonality of these two concepts because they would have been crowded out by too much information.
Heterogenous Relations
Luhmann points out that the most fruitful types of surprises within the Antinet happen by way of relating “heterogeneous things with each other.” He holds that it’s more valuable to associate patterns between ideas that otherwise would not be associated with one another.892
One interesting way to facilitate these heterogenous relations is to group ideas around certain polarizing keyterms.
For instance, in my index I’ve created the keyterm Most, and some interesting concepts have grown around it.
For example, there’s the idea stemming from life philosophy: Most Important Variable for Success in Life. This keyterm entry points me to card 2460/2/0, which contains an idea from the book How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis. The idea centers on the concept that self-belief is the most important variable for success in life and suggests that we lack self-belief because we do not yet have confidence. One way to develop this confidence is to retrain your mind through the use of self-affirmations, a (positive) form of self-deception.
Now, when I navigate to another keyterm relating to Most, I find the following entry: Most Important Variable for Success in Science. Cardlink 2431/1/1 points out that avoiding self-deception is the key to success in science. Richard Feynman points out that, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you’re the easiest person to fool.”
It seems we have an interesting paradox here. The key to success in life is self-belief, which may involve self-deception. Yet the key to success in science is avoiding self-deception. This creates an opportunity to explore this conflict in greater detail to determine how one can cultivate healthy self-belief, without falling prey to the downsides of self-deception.
This is just one example of how heterogenous relations can emerge around certain keyterms in an Antinet.
Heterogenous Relations by Way of Proximity
Another example of heterogenous relations happens naturally thanks to the tree structure of the Antinet.
As you’ve learned, associations are a fundamental building block of human memory. Yet, rather than liken associations to simply links between related items, associations have an additional function: they create new entities altogether. Some types of associations collide and create new ideas. In human memory studies this is called a holistic association.893 For example, take the following sequence of items: horse and house. When one thinks of those items together, they may think of a new entity altogether: a barn. Essentially the proximity of those two items creates a new holistic entity.
Luhmann would regard these associations as fruitful instances of surprise and accident. They are the result of seemingly heterogenous ideas forming around a certain area that, when viewed together as a whole, create a new entity altogether. Ultimately, these heterogenous relations create a new form of understanding that otherwise would not have existed.
Bisociation
Recall that Luhmann devised the Antinet because, in his words, he “wanted to accumulate knowledge and open up a combination of possibilities.”894 Thus, using heterogenous relations to effect bisociation—which refers to the simultaneous mental association of an idea or object across two fields that are not normally regarded as related—Luhmann did in fact create combinations of possibilities.895 Furthermore, he did this by first reducing the complexity of books he read by extracting irresistible material. He then added back complexity by way of bisociating the material using links. “In a way,” Luhmann said, “the [Antinet Zettelkasten] is a reduction to build complexity.”896
In brief the Antinet is one big network which enables one to create bisociations by way of linking ideas across different branches of knowledge. As you’ve seen, this is something that can happen in several ways using an Antinet, at the core of which is randomness, surprise, and accidents.
Accidents
Like randomness, accidents are a feature, not a bug. Accidents play a most crucial part in advancing the evolution of organisms. Likewise, they play a most crucial part in advancing thinking. Luhmann understood this as well. “The role of accidents,” he wrote, “in the theory of science is not disputed. If you employ evolutionary models, accidents assume a most important role.”897
How does one unleash the power of accidents? First, you must understand what is meant by the term accident. We’re not trying to create needless accidents. We’re trying to create useful accidents. Useful accidents are those which are usually surprising in nature. In the section on surprises we explored the types of accidents that are useful. Accidents that involve interesting heterogenous relations and fascinating bisociations are the accidents we’re aiming for with the Antinet.
One way the Antinet generates the accidents we’re looking for comes from its analog nature: when surfing through the Antinet and shuffling through cards, one increases the probability of useful accidents.
Some of the best advice from scholars and researchers focuses on this act. While doing online research is faster, it misses out on the serendipity of physical exploration. An excellent library encompasses such features. It possesses journals, books, and librarians who are shockingly helpful and more knowledgeable than we give them credit for. Accidents emerge from “prowling the stacks” of books related to the field you’re interested in.898
The power of prowling the stacks of books also applies to notecards. The power of sifting through notecards, and in turn, yielding fruitful accidents, is something scholars have known for quite some time. This powerful feature of card indexes first became recognized by scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars noted that Antinet systems, with their structural decoupling of knowledge into individual notecards, ends up producing “a substantial number of combinations and insights that otherwise might not have existed.”899
Movement over Meditation
“I do not believe in coincidence. I believe that if you keep moving, you expose yourself to a better chance of accidents happening, some good and some bad.”
–Travis McGee, in A Purple Place for Dying900
Accidents don’t come solely from the unique tree structure of the Antinet, however. One other thing is required: movement.
One of my mentors, Sir Gary Halbert, preached movement over meditation. In essence, the more you move, the more success you have. The more you create and learn from mistakes, the luckier you’ll get. Luhmann himself was tirelessly curious. He kept moving, kept reading, and kept uncovering useful accidents.
This flies in the face of the conventional and popular wisdom today. The advice we hear centers on meditating and sitting under a tree. The advice we hear is that stillness is key. Yet on the other end of the spectrum (literally) we have people moving constantly. They’re the ones who are going to put the human race on Mars.
Of course, it’s a balancing act (like everything). However, if you want to create useful accidents with your Antinet, you need to keep moving. You need to keep creating and learning.
Even if the knowledge you create isn’t useful immediately, there’s a good chance it will be useful later on. During the writing of this book, I’ve used material and notecards written from many years ago. I had no idea they would be used for a project when I created them. It’s something you’ll experience as well.
