Zettelkasten spreads one's mind across time

[[ 2021-03-26 ]] #zettelkasten #cognition

Just like spreading ones thinking spatially on a board, paper, desktop, computer screen, etc. Zettelkasten enables one to spread their thinking out over time, coherently. Time becomes a partner, rather than an obstacle.

In a metaphorical sense, zettelkasten spreads ones mind out over time.

At a deeper psychological and physiological level, it also likely alters the way one thinks. When one is confident that their ideas will accrue in value over time ( [[ PKM gives me intellectual peace-of-mind and reduces achievement urgency ]]), and that their internal dialogues can continue over large periods of time, it changes the way one works with their thoughts, because note-taking is a form of thinking.

Philosophically, how does such a thinking methodology shape identity? Meaning, when someone reads my writing, who are they listening to? who is the voice? It is a version of me stretched over time, ideas that I have been working with and growing in this web for months/years. It is a very different voice than one not developed using the zettelkasten method.

This also enables the development of exceptional ideas:

But most importantly, without a permanent reservoir of ideas, you will not be able to develop any major ideas over a longer period of time because you are restricting yourself either to the length of a single project or the capacity of your memory. Exceptional ideas need much more than that. (637-639) [@ahrensHowTakeSmart2017]

A nice visual to think of this is like the Tesseract scene in Interstellar. Especially when thinking of [[ computers as state time machines ]], we can lay out our thoughts across time, allowing for us to see them from a higher dimension. Sifting through them with the assistance of algorithms ( [[ the sheer scale of information accessible on the internet necessitates algorithmically assisted cognition ]]).