
Ask HN: How do you synthesize what you learn? - devchris10
Smart people frequently mention having mental models or a &quot;tree&quot; of knowledge to which they add new information.<p>There seems to be alot of apps that encourage note-taking or information storage&#x2F;sharing but few that truly encourage critical thinking or synthesis.<p>An exception?:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;roamresearch.com&#x2F;
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ColinWright
A lot of people rely on note-taking apps that allow you quickly and easily to
insert information, ready to be retrieved with a simple search.

An information repository is not knowledge.

Luhmann's "Zettelkasten" is often imagined to be an early form of a wiki. Each
card is a wiki page, and cross-references are on each card. But that doesn't
then help us to understand what Luhmann meant when he said he would "have a
conversation with his Zettelkasten".

When, and how?

I have my own theories about this, and am adapting my existing systems of
note-taking to try to see if it results in a "conversation" that can
"occasionally surprise me", as Luhmann claimed would sometimes happen.

I think the system being developed by Roam Research does more than simply
note-taking and cross-connection, but still doesn't achieve what Luhmann
described.

Time will tell. Meanwhile, I continue my efforts to see how they compare.

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NathanTinker
Aha, I wrote vim script to achieve that function, not difficult at all.

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ColinWright
I'd love to see a more detailed description of what you've done.

