The result of working with this technique for a long time is a kind of second memory, an alter ego with which you can always communicate. It has, similar to our own memory, no pre-planned comprehensive order, no hierarchy, and surely no linear structure like a book. And by that very fact, it is alive independently of its author. The entire note collection can only be described as a mess, but at least it is a mess with a non-arbitrary internal structure.

The term "stigmergy" was introduced by French biologist Pierre-Paul Grassé in 1959 to refer to termite behavior. He defined it as: "Stimulation of workers by the performance they have achieved." It is derived from the Greek words στίγμα stigma "mark, sign" and ἔργον ergon "work, action", and captures the notion that an agent’s actions leave signs in the environment, signs that it and other agents sense and that determine and incite their subsequent actions.[4][5]