The value in ideas and knowledge come from understanding how they fit together.
Ideas start out as fragile and fleeting. They need to be nurtured and connected to other ideas to truly thrive.
The value and insights of ideas come from their connection: the relationship between them. Bridging seemingly disparate ideas and seeing a connection that wasn’t previously seen is where insights and creativity come from.
It’s the difference between knowing something and understanding something.
The idea compass is a useful thought framework for connecting ideas.
This is very similar to human relationships where the value comes from the connection. Applied to your most important relationship (the relationship to yourself), it’s the difference between knowing that something “bothers” you and how and being able to move past it.
Neurons (artificial and natural) also produce value not from themselves, but in the way they are connected to other neurons.
Computers become far more useful when they are networked together.
The fundamental idea of art is taking existing things and combining them in new and creative ways where the sum is greater than its parts.
🗞️ Zettelkasten Method: How To Take Smart Notes For Knowledge Management
…if there’s meaning in links, they’re implicit at best. That applies well into the series of links. For them to be useful in the long run, you have to capture the meaning of these thought trails as soon as possible. (i.e. make them explicit — just like how you turn fleeting notes into zettels)
The point of note-taking is to think better. Capturing is a means to it; retention is merely a side effect.