Note taking apps can make us smarter when note taking apps allow people to cooperate.
It can already happen on Twitter that people complete each other's thoughts but the Twitter timeline is not the medium to publish half-finished thoughts that could tarnish one's reputation.
Still, there is some joined thinking. HN shows that it's fun to pool notes on poplar topics. The difficulty lies in managing the attention on notes. Popularity voting doesn't work to navigate note collections.
The headline is about our smartness, but it doesn't mean us as a group. There is no joined thinking in his note-taking apps.
He is right when he talks about his isolated thinking:
>But the original promise of Roam — that it would improve my thinking by helping me to build a knowledge base and discover new ideas — fizzled completely
Where should new ideas arise in old notes when nobody sees them? Old notes just remind us that something is important. Revisiting them later, with new connections from new memories, it's possible to have new insights.
There is an easier way to access new memories: When notes are published, other brains, with many more, and different memories, can find solutions or advancements.
Historically, scientists only publish polished results, apart from exceptions like Hilbert's problems. Even those were remarkable problems. Who would dare to publish their minor nuisances or shallow observations (unless they come with a nice picture)?
The author hopes that AI can find answers. Why should we wait for AI when there are already intelligent humans? The problem lies in managing access to our thoughts. We don't want to allow everybody to see each of our notes.
>One interpretation of these events is that the software failed: that journaling and souped-up links simply don’t have the power some of us once hoped they did.
>In short: it is probably a mistake, in the end, to ask software to improve our thinking.
Software could improve our joined thinking. We need an acceptable format to publish our notes.
It can already happen on Twitter that people complete each other's thoughts but the Twitter timeline is not the medium to publish half-finished thoughts that could tarnish one's reputation.
Still, there is some joined thinking. HN shows that it's fun to pool notes on poplar topics. The difficulty lies in managing the attention on notes. Popularity voting doesn't work to navigate note collections.
The headline is about our smartness, but it doesn't mean us as a group. There is no joined thinking in his note-taking apps.
He is right when he talks about his isolated thinking:
>But the original promise of Roam — that it would improve my thinking by helping me to build a knowledge base and discover new ideas — fizzled completely
Where should new ideas arise in old notes when nobody sees them? Old notes just remind us that something is important. Revisiting them later, with new connections from new memories, it's possible to have new insights.
There is an easier way to access new memories: When notes are published, other brains, with many more, and different memories, can find solutions or advancements.
Historically, scientists only publish polished results, apart from exceptions like Hilbert's problems. Even those were remarkable problems. Who would dare to publish their minor nuisances or shallow observations (unless they come with a nice picture)?
The author hopes that AI can find answers. Why should we wait for AI when there are already intelligent humans? The problem lies in managing access to our thoughts. We don't want to allow everybody to see each of our notes.
>One interpretation of these events is that the software failed: that journaling and souped-up links simply don’t have the power some of us once hoped they did.
>In short: it is probably a mistake, in the end, to ask software to improve our thinking.
Software could improve our joined thinking. We need an acceptable format to publish our notes.