Communicating with Slip Boxes by Niklas Luhmann

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2. Possibility of linking ⤴️

Since all papers have fixed numbers, you can add as many references to them as you may want. Central concepts can have many links which show on which other contexts we can find materials relevant for them. ⤴️

Given this technique, it is less important where we place a new note. If there are several possibilities, we can solve the problem as we wish and just record the connection by a link [or reference]. ⤴️

we must give up the idea in preparing a card index that there should be privileged places or slips that have a special quality of guaranteeing knowledge. ⤴️

The slip box needs a number of years in order to reach critical mass. Until then, it functions as a mere container from which we can retrieve what we put in. ⤴️

Every new entry can of course become isolated, like with the key word “Picasso” for the Picasso exhibition. If, however, we seek communication with the slip box, we must seek internal possibilities for linkings which result in the unexpected (i.e. information). ⤴️

Usually it is more fruitful to look for formulations of problems that relate heterogeneous things with each other. ⤴️

Niklas Luhmann ⤴️

It is impossible to think without writing; ⤴️

Somehow we must mark differences, and capture distinctions which are either implicitly or explicitly contained in concepts. ⤴️

we can choose the route of an open organization. ⤴️

We should only write on one side of these papers so that in searching through them, we do not have to take out a paper in order to read it. ⤴️

it is most important that we decide against the systematic ordering in accordance with topics and sub-topics and choose instead a firm fixed place ⤴️

A system based on content, like the outline of a book) would mean that we make a decision that would bind us to a certain order for decades in advance! ⤴️

In order to counteract this tendency, I recommend taking normal paper and not card stock. ⤴️

This decision about structure is that reduction of the complexity of possible arrangements, which makes possible the creation of high complexity in the card file and thus makes possible its ability to communicate in the first place. ⤴️

A slip with number 57/12 can then be continued with 57/13, etc. At the same time it can be supplemented at a certain word or thought by 57/12a or 57/12b, etc. ⤴️

Fixed numbers, abstracted from any content-based order relying on the entire structure ⤴️

The disadvantage is that the originally continuous text is often broken up by hundreds of intermediate slips. But if we systematically number the papers, we can find the original textual whole easily. ⤴️

1. The possibility of arbitrary internal branching. ⤴️

Often the context in which we are working suggests a multiplicity of links to other notes. This is especially the case when the card index is already voluminous. In such cases it is important to capture the connections radially, as it were, but at the same time also by right away recording back links in the slips that are being linked to. ⤴️

Therefore we need a register of keywords that we constantly update. The [fixed] numbers of the particular slips is also indispensable for the register. ⤴️

3. Register. Considering the absence of a systematic order, we must regulate the process of rediscovery of notes, for we cannot rely on our memory of numbers. ⤴️

It proves to be similar to our own memory in that it does not have a thoroughly constructed order of its entirety, not hierarchy, and most certainly no linear structure like a book. Just because of this, it gets its own life, independent of its author. ⤴️

As a result of extensive work with this technique a kind of secondary memory will arise, an alter ego with who we can constantly communicate. ⤴️

Some things will get lost (versickern), some notes we will never see again. On the other hand, there will be preferred centers, formation of lumps and regions with which we will work more often than with others. There will be complexes of ideas that are conceived at large, but which will never be completed; there will be incidental ideas which started as links from secondary passages and which are continuously enriched and expand so that they will tend increasingly to dominate system. ⤴️

Every note is only an element which receives its quality only from the network of links and back-links within the system. ⤴️

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. ⤴️

The slip box provides combinatorial possibilities which were never planned, never preconceived, or conceived in this way. ⤴️

Theoretical publications do therefore not result from simply copying what can already be found in the slip box. The communication with the slip box becomes fruitful only at a high level of generalization, namely that of establishing communicative relations of relations. ⤴️

GPT (2023-07-15)

  1. 메모 상자를 검토하고, 기존 아이디어와 새로운 아이디어를 비교하여 연관성을 찾습니다. 이 과정에서 메모 상자 내의 아이디어들이 계속 진화하고 성장할 수 있게 됩니다. (메모 상자 검토하면서 연관성 찾기)
  2. 메모 상자의 아이디어와 자신의 현재 생각을 비교하여, 새로운 관점이나 인사이트를 발견합니다. 이를 통해 자신만의 독창적인 생각을 얻을 수 있습니다. (아이디어 비교 통해 새로운 관점이나 인사이트 발견)
  3. 메모 상자에 쌓인 아이디어들을 자주 회고하면서, 자신의 생각과 경험을 다시 한번 되돌아 볼 수 있습니다. 이를 통해 지식이 더 깊게 체화되고, 새로운 연결 관계를 발견할 수 있습니다. (자신의 경험과 지식을 자주 보면서 체화 시키고, 새로운 연결 관계 발견 가능)

결국, 슬립 박스와 대화하는 것은 메모 상자에 저장된 아이디어들을 적극 활용하고, 그것들과 자신의 생각을 지속적으로 연결시켜 나가는 과정으로 이해할 수 있습니다. 이를 통해 지식과 아이디어의 성장을 촉진하고, 창의적인 사고를 끌어낼 수 있습니다.