smsn

ute their input can potentially convey more than a format that locks you into reading a single author. Alas, the potential for noise is higher too -- but still, this is why Wikipedia has been so wildly successful. One might ask, "We've already got Wikipedia; what possible improvement on that do you see?" The thing about Wikipedia is it presents what the author(s) consider(s) settled knowledge. It is a place for record, not a place for debate. A good shared knowledge base would by contrast also resemble Twitter -- but more organized, more navigable. In practice the personal knowledge bases I've seen look much more like silos. I once frolicked for an afternoon through Andy Matuschak's[4], which was quite enjoyable. But it was mostly about ... can you guess? ... how to build a knowledge base. If someone finds a scheme that scales, I believe it could be much more powerful than what we currently call AI. [1] https://github.com/JeffreyBenjaminBrown/hode [2] https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/ [3] https://twitter.com/brandontoner [4] https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Knowledge_work_should_accret...

, insights log, unanswered questions, problems go here Modules are dedicated pages around a specific topic. I usually dedicate two pages at a time. - separate modules When researching a specific topic, doing a course, reading a physical book etc. - These modules go right in whichever month It is. So e.g I may have a few days of March, then start a new module in between. - Index with page numbers goes in the front of the journal with start of each month and various topics. Once an item is listed on index any additional pages get listed next to original page. Example Index : Idea log - p14, P23 February 2018 - p18, p34 System theory - p27 March 2018 - p43 - The journal is purely functional. No fancy drawing etc. Try to keep it as minimal and functional as possible. Others use the bullet journal format for creative outlet. - Every 3 months or so, take pictures of the pages that are important and they go into Evernote. - Each “module” goes into a separate note. They are tagged by year, and topic - When the Journal is finished, an image of the index goes into Evernote - Evertnote will OCR the text. It is quite accurate and I am able to search based on words in my written notes - It takes about 30-45 mins to do an entire notebook (leaving out the emphereal notes) 2. Reading - Books - kindle: - Highlight important passages - at times make kindle notes - Export the highlights&notes into evernote 3. Reading - Books - physical: - Module in journal 4. Reading - Research Papers: - used Mendely but stopped using it. Found out they do not store highlights or notes with actual pdf. Their support is also terrible and was unable to access my notes with out resorting to poking around their data files for several months. Currently looking for something to highlight, make notes and manage references - have tested papers, readcube, zotero, highlights and have still not found the right solution - ideally it should be able to export to Evernote as well. Think highlights is the only app that supports this. 5. Workshops/Brain Storming sessions: For post-its: - Pictures with the post-it plus app. Import into evernote - Whiteboards etc. Picture into evernote 6. Understanding Concepts/knowledge graph - Use CMAP tools to do concept mapping. https://cmap.ihmc.us - right now the concept maps are saved on Dropbox - Will investigate a script to export the concept map structure and propositions to Evernote as well - Heard that SMSn is quite good as well. Have not had the time to investigate. https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki

nd most views load in the blink of an eye. A sister project, Digraphs with Text[2], offers a more flexible system of expression: It generalizes the graph, allowing relationships to involve more than two members, and allowing relationships to be members of other relationships. It also offers a search facility very much like natural language: To search, for instance, for reasons neurons need vitamin B, you would use a query like "(neurons #need vitamin B) #because /it". (The # mark indicates a joint between members of a relationship.) [1] https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki/ [2] https://github.com/JeffreyBenjaminBrown/digraphs-with-text

ds work nonlinearly, but when it comes to written media, we process text linearly. That is slow, wasteful -- if someone writes a book full of gems of wisdom, but scatters redundant illustrations, obvious examples, or unnecessary motivating passages between them, you've got to wade through that chaff in order to find the gems. Knowledge graphs let us write and read nonlinearly -- faster, better targeted, hence able to cover more information, more kinds of information. It's like tables of contents all the way down. Writing is great because it allows a reader to build on the work of earlier writers. Knowledge graphs, in addition to that, let readers build on the work of other readers. If I mark a passage as "obvious" or "critical" or "beautiful", that metadata can guide another reader. Online systems already use this idea to some extent -- facebook likes, reddit and HN votes, etc. can help inform reader choices. But knowledge graphs in principle allow for arbitrarily general metadata -- for instance, "show me every statement [group] has written about [topic] which has been marked useful for [goal] by at least [number] readers". Publishing even a small body of useful, organized information can be extremely valuable. Craigslist, for instance. Although there was an obvious economic argument for publishing the information on Craigslist. In fact, economics might be making us stupid. Non-monetizable information is of enormous importance. Globally, we are experiencing an epistemic crisis. Huge swaths of the public mistrust science, journalism, history. We appear to be at least nearly as susceptible to fascism as we were in the thirties. The arguments for freedom of speech, or civil rights, or being kind to strangers, ought to be as obvious to us as which job pays how much money. Camus talked about something he called "philosophical suicide", wherein someone stops trying to think high thoughts. They fall into an economic routine, the specialize, their awareness narrows. They might excel at what they do. But a world full of such narrow thinking is a dangerous place. I had heart surgery, almost died, and for years after, knowledge-gardened furiously. I wrote, reviewed, organized, categorized. I pondered long passages and reduced them to a few words, which became easier to process. What is pleasure? What are the elements of consciousness? Where is my boundary of certainty in ethics? Can I enumerate the state space of a conversation? It was a transformative experience -- I changed from an awkward, selfish, angry young man to a warm, gregarious, relaxed middle-aged man. It was also slow, because I was working alone, and I used trees, which are less expressive than graphs. I can only dream of how transformative it would be to process those ideas in a group, nonlinearly, using a knowledge graph.