Not really? Although I use interconnections, I focus a fair amount on the tree-structure part. I would say there’s a somewhat curious phenomenon where I am able to go “deeper” in analysis than I would previously (in notebooks or workflowy), but the “shallow” part of the analysis isn’t questioned as much as it could be (it becomes the context in which things happen). In a notebook, I might end up re-stating “early” parts of my overall argument more, and therefore refining them more.
I have definitely had the experience of reaching a conclusion fairly strongly in Zettelkasten and then having trouble articulating it to other people. My understanding of the situation is that I’ve built up a lot of context of which questions are worth asking, how to ask them, which examples are most interesting, etc. So there’s a longer inferential distance. BUT, it’s also a bad sign for the conclusion. The context I’ve built up is more probably shaky if I can’t articulate it very well.
I am just after my first experiments with the method. The bias is what worries me as well. The experience is good, almost ecstatic but that suggests a higher concentration of dopamine in the brain. A higher level of dopamine is known for easier pattern recognition. We start to recognize patterns where there are none, we are getting prone to all kinds of staff like astrology, chiromancy, (or growth mindset). But maybe that’s not so bad, it can produce a lot of trash and from time to time some genuine insight—in the end that’s how science is working.
The euphoria drops off after some initial excitement.
I do have the sense that some ideas “naturally come out” better with zettelkasten-like notes, while others “naturally come out” better in other ways (eg more linear notes, or just scribbling math on scrap paper, or writing essays for public consumption). This may be something intrinsic to the ideas, or it may be based on my mood/etc.
Not sure exactly what you mean about growth mindset, but I would remind you that even in SSC’s original article where he made a comment about it maybe-possibly being up next for the replication-crisis chopping-block, Scott Alexander pointed out how well-supported the theory seemed in experimental results so far. The proofoflogic post on growth mindset reviews some of this, including the causal model of how growth mindset works, which Carol Dweck validated piece-by-piece and which is a priori extremely plausible based on other known psychological phenomena including self-handicapping and learned helplessness.
They find either no effects or the effects are rather weak.
If you add to it that the growth mindset fits very well with social expectations and political correctness some dose of skepticism seems to be natural.
Not really? Although I use interconnections, I focus a fair amount on the tree-structure part. I would say there’s a somewhat curious phenomenon where I am able to go “deeper” in analysis than I would previously (in notebooks or workflowy), but the “shallow” part of the analysis isn’t questioned as much as it could be (it becomes the context in which things happen). In a notebook, I might end up re-stating “early” parts of my overall argument more, and therefore refining them more.
I have definitely had the experience of reaching a conclusion fairly strongly in Zettelkasten and then having trouble articulating it to other people. My understanding of the situation is that I’ve built up a lot of context of which questions are worth asking, how to ask them, which examples are most interesting, etc. So there’s a longer inferential distance. BUT, it’s also a bad sign for the conclusion. The context I’ve built up is more probably shaky if I can’t articulate it very well.
I am just after my first experiments with the method. The bias is what worries me as well. The experience is good, almost ecstatic but that suggests a higher concentration of dopamine in the brain. A higher level of dopamine is known for easier pattern recognition. We start to recognize patterns where there are none, we are getting prone to all kinds of staff like astrology, chiromancy, (or growth mindset).
But maybe that’s not so bad, it can produce a lot of trash and from time to time some genuine insight—in the end that’s how science is working.
To respond to the thrust of the comment:
The euphoria drops off after some initial excitement.
I do have the sense that some ideas “naturally come out” better with zettelkasten-like notes, while others “naturally come out” better in other ways (eg more linear notes, or just scribbling math on scrap paper, or writing essays for public consumption). This may be something intrinsic to the ideas, or it may be based on my mood/etc.
Not sure exactly what you mean about growth mindset, but I would remind you that even in SSC’s original article where he made a comment about it maybe-possibly being up next for the replication-crisis chopping-block, Scott Alexander pointed out how well-supported the theory seemed in experimental results so far. The proofoflogic post on growth mindset reviews some of this, including the causal model of how growth mindset works, which Carol Dweck validated piece-by-piece and which is a priori extremely plausible based on other known psychological phenomena including self-handicapping and learned helplessness.
Actually, my comment was not about the growth mindset, but if you want to know the reason why I think it is at least over-hyped… In short, the researches are not consistent and most of the confirming ones were conducted by Dweck’s team. See for example big study from 2019
https://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Changing%20Mindsets_0.pdf
or metanalysis
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323565554_To_What_Extent_and_Under_Which_Circumstances_Are_Growth_Mind-Sets_Important_to_Academic_Achievement_Two_Meta-Analyses
They find either no effects or the effects are rather weak.
If you add to it that the growth mindset fits very well with social expectations and political correctness some dose of skepticism seems to be natural.
Yeah, sorry for focusing on that rather than the thrust of your comment.