18,247 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2023
    1. Jacob took the stone (ʼben) and “set it up as a pillar (massebah) and poured oil on the top of it” (Genesis 28:18). This standing stone was dedicated to Yahweh, therefore the use of a stone as a massebah was not forbidden.

      Jacob's use of a stone as a massebah wasn't forbidden because it was dedicated to Yahweh.

    2. There are several occasions where the massebah is not associated with pagan worship. When the massebah is associated with the worship of Yahweh, the massebah is accepted as a valid expression of commitment to Yahweh.

      Massebah for pagan worship: - Exodus 23:24 (https://hypothes.is/a/r3m5QmyDEe6SC8eLYcJE1Q) - Hosea 10:1 (https://hypothes.is/a/4PK2GGyDEe6wZg_r2YpVCA ) - 2 Kings 18:4 - 2 Kings 23:14

      Massebah for worship of Yahweh: - Genesis 28:18 Jacob's pillow (https://hypothes.is/a/NF5p8Gx6Ee65Rg_J4tfaMQ)<br /> - Genesis 31:44-45 Jacob and Laban's covenant - Exodus 24:4 - Joshua 24:25-27

    3. in violation of the demands of the covenant, the people of Israel erected sacred stones dedicated to other gods (Hosea 10:1). In their religious reforms, both Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4) and Josiah (2 Kings 23:14) destroyed the sacred pillars which the people of Israel had dedicated to the worship of Baal.
    4. During the establishment of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel, the people were commanded to destroy the sacred stones of the Canaanites, “You must demolish them and break their sacred stones (masseboth) to pieces” (Exodus 23:24).

      In neighboring cultures in which both have oral practices relating to massebah, one is not just destroying "sacred stones" to stamp out their religion, but it's also destroying their culture and cultural memory as well as likely their laws and other valuable memories for the function of their society.

      View this in light also of the people of Israel keeping their own sacred stones (Hosea 10:1) as well as the destruction of pillars dedicated to Baal in 2 Kings 18:4 and 2 Kings 23:14.

      (Link and) Compare this to the British fencing off the land in Australia and thereby destroying Songlines and access to them and the impact this had on Indigenous Australians.

      It's also somewhat similar to the colonialization activity of stamping out of Indigenous Americans and First Nations' language in North America, though the decimation of their language wasn't viewed in as reciprocal way as it might be viewed now. (Did colonizers of the time know about the tremendous damage of language destruction, or was it just a power over function?)

    5. Absalom set up a massebah for himself as a memorial for he said, “‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’; he called the massebah by his own name” (2 Samuel 18:18).

      Use of massebah for remembrance of a name...

      Potentially used for other factors? translation? context?

      See also: https://hypothes.is/a/oqgH4mx9Ee68_dMgihgD0A (Rachel's massebah in Genesis 35:19-20)

    6. When Rachel died, Jacob set up a massebah at her grave; “it is the massebah of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day” (Genesis 35:19–20).

      Use of a standing stone or massebah (pillar) to mark a grave in Genesis 35:19-20.

      Certainly could have been other than to simply mark a location and may have been used to mark and remember the knowledge of Rachel as well as the family's experiences with Rachel, a practice which is still commonplace when visiting burial locations.

    7. Israel was forbidden to set up sacred stones, pillars: “you shall not set up a pillar (massebah), which the LORD your God hates” (Deuteronomy 16:22).

      Relationship to the first two commandments against worshiping other gods and the use of idols?

      How does this relate to the standing stone found in the room at Khirbet Qeiyafa from the time of David?

      Dates of this text with respect to Khirbet Keiyafa?

    8. In the Hebrew Bible, the massebah is generally associated with Canaanite religion.
    9. The only place in the Hebrew Bible where nasab is translated as a pillar is the case of Lot’s wife: “Lot’s wife looked back, and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). The Hebrew word nasab indicates that Lot’s wife was standing in place like a pillar.
    10. The pillars or sacred stones were stones set apart for religious use. The word massebah comes from the Hebrew word nasab, a word which means “to stand.”
    11. (Joshua 4:20).

      connect this to:

      The helps whereof by this art memorative, they would prove to be as effectual, by these conceived fictions in the eye of the mind,12 as those we remember by the visible eye of the body, for example whereof say they, concerning the latter we read in the holy Scriptures of 12 stones, that were erected in the river Jordan in memory of the wonderful transpassage of the Israelites, Josh. 24.27.—The Memory Arts in Renaissance England by William E. Engel, Rory Loughnane, and Grant Williams

    12. A special use of the word “stone” = ʼben was to designate a name of the God of Israel: Yahweh is “The Stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24).
    13. When the people of Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua commanded the people to set up twelve stones which were taken from the Jordan River as a memorial celebrating that defining moment in the life of Israel, the entrance of the people into the land God had promised to their ancestors (Joshua 4:20). The purpose of those memorial stones was to remind future generations of how the people “crossed the Jordan River on dry ground” (Joshua 4:22).

      Description of the arrangement? Circle? Further or suggested usage?

      Link to Genesis 28:18: https://hypothes.is/a/NF5p8Gx6Ee65Rg_J4tfaMQ

    14. When Jacob had a vision of God, he used a stone as a pillow, but after he woke up from his sleep, “he took the stone (ʼben) that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar (massebah) and poured oil on the top of it” (Genesis 28:18). That stone became a memorial of Jacob’s encounter with God.
    15. “If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it” (Exodus 20:25).
    16. When the ark of the covenant was returned to Israel, the people of Beth-shemesh set up a large stone upon which they offered burnt offerings and presented sacrifices to Yahweh (1 Samuel 6:14–15).
    17. Saul used a large stone to build an altar to Yahweh (1 Samuel 14:35).
    18. People used stones to carry out the death penalty against people who had violated laws forbidding adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, profanation of the Sabbath, child sacrifice, witchcraft, and soothsaying.
    19. Jacob rolled the stone off the opening of a well to water Rachel’s sheep (Genesis 29:10).
    20. There are two words in Hebrew that are associated with standing stones: the word ʼben and the word massebah.
    21. Mariottini, Claude. “Standing Stones in the Old Testament.” Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament (blog), September 20, 2021. https://claudemariottini.com/2021/09/20/standing-stones-in-the-old-testament/.

      Commonplaces: standing stones in the Old Testament!

    1. A quote to further @amandamull's excellent research on groupings of three and beverages at work that I saw on the Atlantic archive today: "One [martini] is all right, two is too many, three is not enough."—James Thurber via https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,939759,00.html

      https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/the-correct-number-of-desk-beverages/595927/

      Syndication link: https://twitter.com/ChrisAldrich/status/1714054816715153757

    2. Mull, Amanda. “Always Have Three Beverages.” The Atlantic, August 12, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/the-correct-number-of-desk-beverages/595927/.

    3. It probably isn’t a coincidence that three is my personal sweet spot, according to Kurt Carlson, a marketing researcher at the College of William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business. As far as I can tell, he’s the only person who has done significant research into why and how human brains sort things into groupings of three. “People believe they’re observing something special when they see the third instance of it happen,” he explains.
    1. The Chicago Sun-Times' wandering Newshen Glenna Syse spent 39 minutes with Author James Thurber, left with the conviction that he is "the funniest man alive." In an epigrammatic mood, Thurber ranged free and easy over—by count—39 subjects. Glenna's sampling included a Thurberism on age: "I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were 15 months in every year, I'd only be 48.* That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40." On the forthcoming election: "It's accusation time in Normalcy. And in spite of the nominations, my mother is voting for Lindbergh." On martinis: "One is all right, two is too many, three is not enough."

      Syse, Glenna. “People, Aug. 15, 1960.” Time, August 15, 1960. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,939759,00.html.

    1. So I am taking notes on functional groups in organic chemistry. Would each functional group be its own note, ie. 47~Alkenes, or would each functional group fall under my parent note "35~Functional groups", and be 35a~Alkenes for example.I think the latter makes more sense, but I am also no zettel expert

      reply to u/6_squids at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/178nr6j/simple_problem/

      Functional groups are certainly a top down categorization of these structures that some have found useful over time. But what if you wrote about them in other ways from a bottom up perspective? Perhaps you might discover other useful and intriguing ways of categorizing them? While your textbook is trying to present an organized method, you might find some interesting insight by looking at them in other ways. Be willing to play around and experiment—not coincidentally, this is what a good organic chemist should be trained to do.

    1. https://udenver.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuceuspzkuE9VomnEaGva1HH1ra_iS4Eua?ref=jessestommel.com#/registration

      Some related ideas that are suggesting some sort of thesis for improving the idea of ungrading: - We measure the things we care about. - In Education, we care about learning and understanding, but measuring these outside of testing and evaluation is difficult at best (therefor ungrading). - No one cares about your GPA six months after you graduate. - Somehow we've tied up evaluations and grades into the toxic capitalism and competition within US culture. Some of this is tied into educational movements related to Frederick Winslow Taylor and Harvards Eliot. - Hierarchies instituted by the Great Chain of Being have confounded our educational process.

    1. A good college, ifit does nothing else, ought to produce competent syntopicalreaders.

      Adler and Van Doren's minimal bar of a college education is that it produce competent syntopical readers.

    2. Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement andinformation that surround us in our daily lives are also artificialprops. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from outside.But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going islimited. They are like drugs. We grow used to them, and wecontinuously need more and more of them. Eventually, theyhave little or no effect. Then, if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually.And when we cease to grow, we begin to die.

      One could argue that Adler and Van Doren would lump social media into the sources of amusement category.

    3. The special quality that a syntopical analysis tries to achievecan, indeed, be summarized in the two words "dialecticalobjectivity."The syntopical reader, in short, tries to look at aU sidesand to take no sides. Of course, he will fail in this exactingideal. Absolute objectivity is not humanly possible. He maysucceed in taking no sides, presenting the issues without prejudice to any partisan point of view, and treating opposing viewsimpartially. But it is easier to take no sides than to look at allsides. In this latter respect, the syntopical reader will undoubtedly fail. All possible sides of an issue cannot be exhaustively enumerated. Nevertheless, he must try.

      compare with historical objectivity, scientific objectivity, other definitions of objectivity in general.

    4. Aunity can be variously stated

      Every book, while holding the same words, will be different based on the context and needs of the individual reader.

    5. "This," says Aristotle, "is the essence of the plot; the rest isepisode."

      Aristotle on the unity of a work.


      source?

    6. You have not graspeda complex unity if all you know about it is how it is one. Youmust also know how it is many, not a many that consists of alot of separate things, but an organized many. If the partswere not organically related, the whole that they composedwould not be one. Strictly speaking, there would be no wholeat all but merely a collection.

      This is also an art of putting notes together to make an article or book.

    7. If it requires too many words, you have not seen theunity but a multiplicity.

      How are they defining "multiplicity" here? There seems to be a tacit definition with respect to being in opposition to "unity" (of a work), but not an explicit one. It also seems to be a shaded meaning with respect to the more common one.

      unity: essence, core, coherence, oneness

      They use the word "multiplicity" in the usual sense of large number or multitude on p55: "The multiplicity of the rules indicates the complexity of the one habit to be formed, not a plurality of distinct habits."

      They also revisit it in the upcoming section: "Mastering the Multiplicity: The Art of Outlining a Book" on p88

      Perhaps its just me but there's a linguistic "softness" of the uses of unity and multiplicity here with respect to 2023. Though these two opposites fit the dictionary definitions of their words, is it possible that this softness is the result of a sort of historical linguistic shift I'm feeling in these words? I can't quite put my finger on it, but perhaps it's the relationship of unity to religion? Neither seem to be frequently used these days.

      The Ngram Viewer shows peaks for the use of unity in 1660 and 1960 of almost 75% higher usage compared to a broader historical average. It is generally waning since. Multiplicity has about 1/4 the use of unity and has remained flat over time. What caused the peaks in the use of "unity" during these periods? This 1972 use was on the downslope of the 1960s peak. Was it used in the 1940 version?

      The 20th century increase in the use of unity begins around 1914 and may have been related to political shades of meaning going into WWI with another marked rise in the lead up to WW2.

    8. Youmust apprehend the unity with definiteness. There is only oneway to know that you have succeeded. You must be able totell yourself or anybody else what the unity is, and in a fewwords. ( If it requires too many words, you have not seen theunity but a multiplicity. ) Do not be satisfied with "feeling theunity" that you cannot express. The reader who says, "I knowwhat it is, but I just can't say it," probably does not even foolhimself.

      Adler/Van Doren use the statement of unity of a work as an example of testing one's understanding of a work and its contents.

      (Again, did this exist in the 1940 edition?)

      Who do McDaniel and Donnelly 1996 cite in their work as predecessors of their idea as certainly it existed?


      Examples in the literature of this same idea/method after this: - https://hypothes.is/a/TclhyMfqEeyTkQdZl43ZyA (Feynman Technique in ZK; relationship to Ahrens) - explain it to me like I'm a 5th grader - https://hypothes.is/a/BKhfvuIyEeyZj_v7eMiYcg ("People talk" in Algebra Project) - https://hypothes.is/a/m0KQSDlZEeyYFLulG9z0vw (Intellectual Life version) - https://hypothes.is/a/OyAAflm5Ee6GStMjUMCKbw (earlier version of statement in this same work) - https://hypothes.is/a/iV5MwjivEe23zyebtBagfw (Ahrens' version of elaboration citing McDaniel and Donnelly 1996, this uses both restatement and application to a situation as a means of testing understanding) - https://hypothes.is/a/B3sDhlm5Ee6wF0fRYO0OQg (Adler's version for testing understanding from his video) - https://hypothes.is/a/rh1M5vdEEeut4pOOF7OYNA (Manfred Kuenh and Luhmann's reformulating writing)

    9. RULE 2. STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK

      The first several rules of reading a book analytically follow the same process of writing a book as suggested in the snowflake method.

    10. just as there is a difference in the art of teaching indifferent fields, so there is a reciprocal difference in the art ofbeing taught.

      Analogy of reading (and learning) to teaching.

    11. They are all complex unities.

      Outlines will show similarities to fractals because of their building block simplicity which can grow to show emergent complexity.

    12. RuLE 3. SETFORTH THE MAJOR PARTS OF THE BOOK, AND SHOW HOW THESEARE ORGANIZED INTO A WHOLE, BY BEING ORDERED TO ONE .(\NOTHER AND TO THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE,
    13. RULE 2. STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK IN A

      SINGLE SENTENCE, OR AT MOST A FEW SENTENCES ( A SHORT PARAGRAPH )

      p. 75-76

    14. Analytical reading is preeminently for thesake of understanding.
    15. The rules of such learningconstitute the art of unaided discovery.

      There always seems to be a duality of "rules" and "art" I see in almost every representation of the idea of art.

      Thesis: To practice an art, there are always rules which one is following. Often the rules may be unwritten or hidden, but they are being followed on some level.

      Is there art which doesn't have any rules?

    16. The unity of a novel is not the sameas the unity of a treatise on politics; nor are the parts of thesame sort, or ordered in the same way. But every book without exception that is worth reading at all has a unity and anorganization of parts.

      first appearance of "unity" in the book (outside of community and opportunity).

    17. the philosopher by pointing to experiences that are common to all.

      This definition common "to all" presupposes an audience here, thus different cultures with different viewpoints are very likely to have radically different philosophies.

    18. The distinction proposed here is popularly recognizedwhen we say that science is experimental or depends uponelaborate observational researches, whereas philosophy ismerely armchair thinking
    19. James' Principles of Psychology is both a scientific and a philosophical work, although it is primarily scientific.
    20. Natural Philosophy

      early phrase for "science"

    21. Since titles and subject-matter names are not likely to helpus determine whether a book is philosophical or scientific, howcan we tell? There is one criterion that we think always works,although you may have to read a certain amount of the bookbefore you can apply it. If a theoretical book emphasizesthings that lie outside the scope of your normal, routine, dailyexperience, it is a scientific work. If not, it is philosophical.
    22. than

      that

    23. story is chronotopic. Chronos is the Greek word fortime, topos the Greek word for place.
    1. In Re: to folgezettel or not? in an unlogged chat:

      Zettelkasten (slips) or not (commonplaces, notebooks, paper, files, other), you're going to have a variety of related ideas which you'll juxtapose, especially if you're regularly writing. Those who practice folgezettel are putting in some of the work/heavy lifting from the start versus those who don't and are leaving the work until some later point closer to composition. Folgezettel also helps to encourage the emergence of ideas, but requires work to do so. This doesn't mean that this emergence or new ideas may not arrive without Folgezettel and/or Zettelkasten, but one needs to have some process or affordances which help to foster them. Victor Margolin's process put more of his work on the back end in comparison to Luhmann, but his version obviously works all the same. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxyy0THLfuI

    1. Nein. Ich habe den Zettelkasten aus der simplen Überlegung her-aus angefangen, daß ich ein schlechtes Gedächtnis habe. Zunächsteinmal hatte ich Zettel in Bücher gelegt, auf die ich mir Notizenmachte, auf diese Weise gingen die Einbände der Bücher kaputt.Dann habe ich mir mit Mappen geholfen, als die jedoch dickerwurden, fand ich nichts mehr in ihnen. Ab 1952 oder 1953 begannich dann mit meinem Zettelkasten, weil mir klar wurde, daß ich fürein Leben planen müsse und nicht für ein Buch.

      Machine translation:

      No. I started the Zettelkasten out of the simple thought that I have a bad memory. First of all, I put pieces of paper in books on which I wrote notes, so the covers of the books got ruined. Then I helped myself with folders, but when they got thicker I couldn't find anything in them. In 1952 or 1953, I started my Zettelkasten because I realized that I had to plan for a life and not for a book.

      There's some missing interstitial space here about how precisely he came to it outside of the general motivation for the thing in general.

      52/53 would have been after law school and in his administrative days and before his trip to Harvard in 61.

    2. — Ich muß Ihnen sagen, daß ich nie etwas erzwinge, ich tueimmer nur das, was mir leichtfällt. Ich schreibe nur dann, wenn ich

      sofort weiß, wie es geht. Wenn ich einen Moment stocke, lege ich die Sache beiseite und mache etwas anderes.

      Was machen Sie dann'?

      Na, andere Bücher schreiben. Ich arbeite immer gleichzeitig an mehreren verschiedenen Texten. Mit dieser Methode, immer an mehreren Dingen zu arbeiten, habe ich nie Blockierungen.

      Rough translation:

      — I have to tell you: I never force anything, I only do what comes easy to me. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. If I falter for a moment, I put the matter aside and do something else.

      (Interviewer): What do you do then?

      Well, write other books. I always work on several different texts at the same time. With this method of always working on multiple things, I never have any blockages.

    3. Wenn Sie nun einen Aufsatz zu schreiben beginnen, wie setzen Siedann Ihren Zettelkasten in Funktion?Da mache ich mir zunächst einen Plan für das, was ich schreibenwill, und hole dann aus dem Zettelkasten das heraus, was ich ge-brauchen kann.Im Gegensatz zu einem Baumeister, der ausschließlich vorgefer-tigte Teile zusammenmontiert, muß ein Wissenschaftler doch auchneue Ideen haben, die nicht bereits in den einzelnen Teilen enthal-ten sind. Solche Ideen kommen ja nicht aus einem Zettelkasten?Doch. Ich habe zum Beispiel eine große Menge von Zetteln zumBegriff "funktionale Differenzierung", ich habe ebenfalls eine Reihevon Notizen über "selbstreferentielle Systeme", und ich habe einengroßen Komplex von Notizen über "Binarität". Im Augenblick sitzeich an einem Vortrag über ökologische Probleme in modernenGesellschaften, und meine Arbeit besteht darin, Zettel aus den skiz-zierten drei begrifflichen Bereichen zu sichten und so zu kombinie-ren, daß ich etwas Substantielles zu diesem Thema sagen kann. Dieneuen Ideen ergeben sich dann aus den verschiedenen Kombina-tionsmöglichkeiten der Zettel zu den einzelnen Begriffen. Ohne dieZettel, also allein durch Nachdenken, würde ich auf solche Ideennicht kommen. Natürlich ist mein Kopf erforderlich, um die Einfällezu notieren, aber er kann nicht allein dafür verantwortlich gemachtwerden. Insofern arbeite ich wie ein Computer, der ja auch in demSinne kreativ sein kann, daß er durch die Kombination eingegebe-ner Daten neue Ergebnisse produziert, die so nicht voraussehbar

      waren. Diese Technik, so glaube ich, erklärt auch, warum ich überhaupt nicht linear denke und beim Bücherschreiben Mühe habe, die richtige Kapitelfolge zu finden, weil eigentlich ja jedes Kapitel in jedem anderen Kapitel wieder vorkommen müßte

      Niklas Luhmann's process for writing from his box

      Machine translation:

      Q: When you start writing an essay, how do you put your note box to work?

      I first make a plan for what I want to write and then take out what I can use from the note box.

      Q: In contrast to a builder who only assembles prefabricated parts, a scientist must also have new ideas that are not already contained in the individual parts. Ideas like these don't come from a note box?

      But. For example, I have a large set of notes on the term "functional differentiation", I also have a set of notes on "self-referential systems", and I have a large set of notes on "binarity". At the moment I am giving a lecture on ecological problems in modern societies, and my work consists of sifting through pieces of paper from the three conceptual areas outlined and combining them so that I can say something substantive on this topic. The new ideas then arise from the different possible combinations of the pieces of paper for the individual terms. Without the notes, just by thinking about it, I wouldn't come up with ideas like that. Of course my mind is required to record the ideas, but it cannot be held solely responsible for them. In this respect, I work like a computer, which can also be creative in the sense that by combining input data it produces new results that could not have been predicted. I think this technique also explains why I don't think linearly at all and why I have trouble finding the right sequence of chapters when writing books, because every chapter should actually appear in every other chapter.

    4. Sie verschwenden, wenn wir das richtig verstanden haben, nie einenGedanken; alles was Ihnen durch den Kopf gegangen ist, geht so-fort in den Zettelkasten?Ja, wenngleich nicht alles, was ich in dem Zettelkasten gesammelthabe, später dann auch verwendet wird.

      An interviewer asked Luhmann if every thought that went through his head was saved into his zettelkasten, and Luhmann replied yes. This is obviously a level of conversational hyperbole.

    5. Im wesentlichen eigene Gedanken, manchmal auch Zitate, aber dasgeschieht ganz selten

      Luhmann indicates that most of his zettelkasten notes are his own thoughts, but some are quotes, which he uses rarely.

    6. Warum sind Sie für die Selbstverwaltung an den Universitäten un-tauglich?Ich finde, daß man es in diesem Zusammenhang ausschließlich mitBagatellen zu tun hat, die ihre Bedeutung nur dadurch gewinnen,daß andere sich darüber aufregen. Man kann Entscheidungen nichtdelegieren. Eine Ausschußsitzung entsteht aus der anderen, undniemand glaubt einem, wenn man sagt, daß alles viel einfacher zuerledigen wäre.

      Ha! Even university committee meetings in the late XX C were apparently as bad as they still are today.

    7. das Jurastudium, in dem man eine Reihe von Organisations-Trickslernte und zugleich eine Art Augenmaß,

      In this interview, Lumnann indicates that he learned a number of organizational tricks while studying law.

      What specifically were these? Relation to his ZK?


      Any relation to Bruno First's memory work which grew out of his legal studies in the early 1900s?

    8. Viel gelesen und vor allen Dingen begonnen, mit einem Zettelka-sten zu arbeiten, also Zettel vollgeschrieben. In den Zetteln habeich die Literatur, mit der ich mich vorwiegend beschäftigte, verar-beitet, also Soziologie und Philosophie. Damals habe ich vor allemDescartes und Husserl gelesen. In der soziologischen Theorie hatmich der frühe Funktionalismus beschäftigt, die Theorien von Mali-nowski und Radcliffe-Brown; dies schloß ein, daß ich mich auchsehr stark mit Kulturanthropologie und Ethnologie befaßte

      With heavy early interest in anthropology, sociology and philosophy including Malinowski, it's more likely that Luhmann would have been trained in historical methods which included the traditions of note taking using card indices of that time.

    9. Zunächst war ich ein Jahr am Oberverwaltungsgericht Lüneburg zurOrganisation eines Referenz-Systems für Verwaltungsgerichtsent-scheidungen; das Gericht sollte sehen können, was an obergerichtli-chen Entscheidungen jeweils vorlag

      In the early 1950s, Luhmann spent a year at the Lüneburg Higher Administrative Court organizing a reference system for the administrative court decisions to enable researchers to see what decisions had been made in the higher courts.

      Though he had begun his zettelkasten during his studies, this referencing system may have influenced the structure of his own note taking system.


      Can we pin the dates on these practices down more closely?

    10. "Biographie, Attitüden, Zettelkasten" ist unter dem Titel "Der Zettelkasten kostet michmehr Zeit als das Bücherschreiben" in der Frankfurter Rundschau am Samxtag, den27. April 1985, S. ZB 3 gekürzt erschienen.

      "Biography, Attitudes, Zettelkasten" was published under the title "The Zettelkasten costs me more time than writing books" in the Frankfurter Rundschau on Saturday, April 27, 1985, p. ZB 3, abridged.

    11. Der Zeitaufwand besteht für mich im wesentlichen darin, ein Ma-nuskript zu tippen. Wenn ich es einmal geschrieben habe, dannnehme ich in der Regel keine Revision mehr vor, mit Ausnahmeübrigens an dem letzten Buch,

      To some extent, Luhmann felt that his books wrote themselves. He spent an inordinate amount of time writing out notes and filing them into his zettelkasten. The writing portion consisted primarily of typing out the manuscript and after writing it, he usually didn't revise it.

      Link to https://hypothes.is/a/LG--lGpmEe6yvy8lp7nfPw

    12. DerZettelkasten kostet mich mehr Zeit als das Bücherschreiben.

      Luhmann felt that he spent more time working with his zettelkasten than the amount of time it took him to write his papers or books.

    13. Meine Produktivität ist im wesentlichen aus demZettelkasten-System zu erklären

      Luhmann attributed his productivity to the use of his zettelkasten.

    14. Mit dem Zettelkastenhabe ich bereits während des Studiums, Anfang der fünfziger Jahre,

      During his studies Niklas Luhmann began using his zettelkasten in the early 1950s.

    15. Luhmann, Niklas. Archimedes und wir: Interviews. Berlin: Merve Verlag, 1987.

    1. Bump, Philip. “Analysis | The Terrorizing Style in American Politics.” Washington Post, September 14, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/14/romney-political-violence-republicans/.

    2. In 2022, PRRI asked Americans their views on the utility of violence as a political tactic. Three in 10 Republicans said they agreed that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” That was about three times the percentage of Democrats agreeing with the same sentiment.
    3. Analysis from the Anti-Defamation League published this year found that, in the past five years, there have been more than 170 deaths linked to right-wing extremism. Three have been linked to extremism on the left.
    4. There was former Ohio congressman Anthony Gonzalez (R) — a former professional football player — who deemed the hostility he faced after opposing Trump too much of a risk for his family. Former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney (R) described similar fears from other legislators, as did former Michigan representative Peter Meijer (R). That these three are all former legislators is not a coincidence: They resigned or were beaten in primaries largely because they saw how the party had turned against them. See also: Romney, Mitt.

      The threat of physical violence is silencing those in power even on the right. We're already at war except for the bullets.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/204498240406

      Offered for $1,200 on 2023-10-13 for local pick up from Scranton, PA. A Barrister/stackable card index/filing cabinet with a two drawer card index section, a letter filing section and a cabinet section with a lower section with legs.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/385498338372

      30 drawer card catalog in 2 parts with two writing drawers in the middle and a matching table stand. In mediocre shape and has two replaced drawers (metal and/or plastic, not wood). Drawers are maed in all wood

      Listed at $1,5000 for over 3 months. $50 per drawer.

      2023-10-12: Still listed for sale. Local pick up only from Brentwood, CA

      cost per drawer: $50

    1. Listed in late summer/early fall 2023.

      Art Metal Company card catalog (drawer sizes maybe 6x9" index cards? with 32 3/4 W x 38 3/4" H x 18 1/2" D). Possibly sectional with top and short leg sections, two sections of 3x2 drawers and a storage section with two doors. Nice patina.

      Listed originally at $1,200 and put on sale in early October 2023 for $960. Local pick up in Savannah, GA.

      Cost per drawer: $85.71 ($68.57 on sale)

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/325827924222

      18 drawer library card catalog listed for sale at $1,800 and local pick up in Cabot, AR. Fairly standard looking early century mounted onto a small stand that looks like a repurposed table carriage with legs. (Wood on the two parts is different. Missing 7 drawer pulls, no card catalog rods.

      Cost per drawer: $100

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/186111284362

      I love this old two drawer card index which has a custom label set into the top that reads, "Index to Plans". The label is done in large lettering across the top, almost the way old school stores would do gold lettering with a nice thick black drop shadow.

    1. Careful attention to Shank’s explanation of the value and role of stories is recognition that it is not the stories alone that are important, but the combination of indices and stories. The combination is important, but in addition, it is personalized through the imposition of an indexing approach that creates this productive system. Perhaps thinking about experiences searching for understanding can be translated as indexing.
    2. Thinking involves indexing. Shank proposed that a useful memory combines specific experiences and indices or labels. The more indices the better. Shank spent a great deal of effort identifying what indices people used proposing that locations, attitudes, challenges, decisions, conclusions, and other labels are used as indices.

      Mark Grabe's synopsis of Roger Shank on storytelling.

    3. He proposes that an expert is an individual who has a great number of stories relevant to a given area and has these stories indexed so that he/she can tell a useful story at the right time.

      Roger Shank's definition of an expert

    1. If you look at George Ellis’s Google Scholar, it’s clear that he has gone down the deep end a while ago. What is it with these cosmologists? (Ahem, Penrose). Suddenly they discover quantum physics and it’s the solution to consciousness. Or gravity makes wavefunctions collapse.

      quote from Christoph Adami at https://twitter.com/ChristophAdami/status/1711583362647814485

      Re: George Ellis https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03061-y

      Physicists and quantum mechanics as solution to consciousness.

      See also: Physics in Mind: A Quantum View of the Brain by Werner R. Loewenstein

    1. Should I use zettelkasten? .t3_172ujnk._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } questionI am a student in college in the UK studying A levels (Advanced levels), this includes mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics. I dont really take notes for mathematics so I wont be using any type of note taking system for that but for the sciences IDK what to do.

      reply to u/Wooden-School-4091 at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/172ujnk/should_i_use_zettelkasten/

      This comes up fairly frequently. See https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27zettelkasten+for+studying%27 and related links for other variations and advice on this theme.

    1. Are links still better than search in the age of semantic search? .t3_175a6tr._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } questionHi, I am a beginner Zettelkasten practitioner and also a software engineer, and I just read "Why You Should Set Links Manually and Not Rely on Search Alone" https://zettelkasten.de/posts/search-alone-is-not-enough/.Search capabilities have improved drastically since 2015 though. We can use text embeddings to find the most relevant other Zettels for any particular Zettel (see https://www.deepset.ai/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-text-embeddings)For example, even if you don't use the same keywords in your writing today as you did a year ago, you'll still find the relevant notes with semantic search, because semantic search handles synonyms with a breeze.Does this mean that with modern search tools, we can spend less time building "infrastructure" links, and rely more on (improved) search?Or am I wrong in my analysis here, does the advance in technology not matter?

      reply to u/dotinvoke at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/175a6tr/are_links_still_better_than_search_in_the_age_of/

      The value in the process is making a ratchet of ideas which is highly customized to building your own lines of thought or "associative trails" if you prefer Vannevar Bush's framing.

      If your idea worked, then one could "simply" rely on Google's database and a variety of associated tools to act as your zettelkasten—Bob's your uncle and you're done! In practice, you'll find that this doesn't work well. You can experiment, but I think you'll find that your own limited choices of links will work far better than the infinite number of adjacent possible links that a digital system may create on your behalf. If you're already fighting information overload, you don't want to add link overload to your list of problems.

      Put in a different light, it can be interesting to randomly flip a coin and go left on heads and right on tails to see where you might end up, particularly if you're unsure. But if you actively make your own choices, you're more likely to be happier with what you see along the way and where you end up.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/235238777043

      Uncommon Shaw-Walker 4 drawer card cabinet/side table in a 2x2 configuration with leg-based stand. Listed around 2023-10-04 for $1,375.00.

      Possibly modular and made of 3-4 individual stackable pieces.

      Free pick up or shipment from DeKalb, IL

      cost per drawer: 343.75

      (This may be one of the most expensive per drawer I've ever seen.)

      2023-10-11 The seller made me an offer to purchase for $950.00 bring down the per drawer cost to $237.50.

    1. Father emptied a card le for Margot and me and lled it withindex cards that are blank on one side. This is to become ourreading le, in which Margot and I are supposed to note down thebooks we’ve read, the author and the date.

      Excerpt of the original Dutch:

      Vader heeft voor Margot en mij een kartotheekdoos leeggemaakt en er kaarjtes in gedaan. Dit wort de boekenkartotheek, we schrijven namelikj alle twee op welke boeken we gelezen hebben, ...

    2. card le

      In the original Dutch Anne Frank uses the word "kartotheekdoos" which the translator then uses "card file".

    3. Father emptied a card le for Margot and me and lled it withindex cards that are blank on one side. This is to become ourreading le, in which Margot and I are supposed to note down thebooks we’ve read, the author and the date. I’ve learned two newwords: “brothel” and “coquette.” I’ve bought a separate notebookfor new words.

      —Anne Frank (1929-1945), diary entry dated Saturday, February 27, 1943 (age 13)

      Anne Frank was given an empty card file by her father who filled it with index cards that were blank on one side. They were intended to use it as a "reading file" in which she and Margot were "supposed to note down the books we've read, the author and the date."


      In the same entry she mentioned that she'd bought a separate notebook for writing down new words she encountered. Recent words she mentions encountering were "brothel" and "coquette".

    4. Father emptied a card le for Margot and me and lled it withindex cards that are blank on one side. This is to become ourreading le, in which Margot and I are supposed to note down thebooks we’ve read, the author and the date.

      Anne Frank (June 12, 1929-1945)<br /> Niklas Luhmann (December 8, 1927-1998)

      Niklas Luhmann was a year and a half older than Anne Frank who received her first card index file in February 1943 (likely between the 27th, the date of her diary entry mentioning it and the prior diary entry on February 5th), from her father at the age of 13. She was intended to use it as a "reading file" to note down the books she'd read along with the author and the date.

      One can only wonder at how many entries she would have made over the span of her life had it not come to such an abrupt end.

    5. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942Dear Kitty,Bep stayed with us Friday evening. It was fun, but she didn’t sleepvery well because she’d drunk some wine. For the rest, there’snothing special to report. I had an awful headache yesterday andwent to bed early. Margot’s being exasperating again.This morning I began sorting out an index card le from theoce, because it’d fallen over and gotten all mixed up. Before long Iwas going nuts. I asked Margot and Peter to help, but they were toolazy, so I put it away. I’m not crazy enough to do it all by myself!Anne Frank

      In a diary entry dated Monday, November 2, 1942, Anne Frank in an entry in which she includes a post script about the "important news that [she's] probably going to get [her] period soon." she mentions spending some time sorting out an index card file. Presumably it had been used for business purposes as she mentions that she got it from the office. Given that it had "fallen over and gotten all mixed up", it presumably didn't use a card rod to hold the cards in. It must have been a fairly big task as she asked for help from two people and not getting it, she abandoned the task because, as she wrote: "I'm not crazy enough to do it all by myself!"

    6. Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler. Translated by Susan Massotty. 1947. Reprint, New York: Bantam, 1997.

    1. Boroditsky, Lera. How Language Shapes the Way We Think. Streaming Video. TED | TEDWomen 2017, 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think.

      See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k

    2. Kuuk Thaayorre language (Australia) orients everything with respect to cardinal directions or is mapped onto their terrain/land. Even their perception of time (chronology) is mapped onto the land with respect to their bodies.

    3. Perception of events can differ dramatically in different languages based on their constructions and what those constructions dictate.

      Example: Accidents in different languages are seen differently. In English, focus is on the actor who receives blame while in Spanish, there is more focus on the action and intention rather than what English would view as "perpetrator". Spanish eyewitness are less likely to remember the actor for testimony versus in English.

    4. Do languages change the way we think?

    5. To have a second language is to have a second soul. —Charlemagne

      Original source? Original language?

    1. Envisioning the next wave of emergent AI

      Are we stretching too far by saying that AI are currently emergent? Isn't this like saying that card indexes of the early 20th century are computers. In reality they were data storage and the "computing" took place when humans did the actual data processing/thinking to come up with new results.

      Emergence would seem to actually be the point which comes about when the AI takes its own output and continues processing (successfully) on it.

    1. Kirsch, Adam. “The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived: A Novelist Transforms the Physicist John von Neumann into a Scientific Demon.” The Atlantic, October 3, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/maniac-book-benjamin-labatut-john-von-neumann/675443/.

    2. He depicts some of the most important figures in 20th-century science as haunted men, driven to madness by their pursuit of total knowledge.
    3. The narrative technique owes a good deal to W. G. Sebald, who loved to ruminate on strange and troubling episodes from history, blurring the boundary between fact and fiction.

      Benjamín Labatut also falls into this genre.

    4. Hans Bethe, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967, remarked: “I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann’s does not indicate a species superior to that of man.”
    1. Posted byu/IamOkei8 hours agoWhy are people paying thousand of dollars on Zettelkasten courses? It’s freaking stupid! .t3_1728f1n._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } questionThese course creators have no real life achievements other than being a sophist…..And you are paying them so that they can brag that they are super rich and don’t need to work

      Someone complaining of Scott Scheper's teaching/pedagogy/"system".

      One needs to read a bit between the lines with only the initial context, but they circled around later to say:

      I am talking about that A**net guy

    2. Zettelkasten courses and teachers

      Having someone who is experienced, cares, and knows the entirety of their space can be invaluable to speed you on your way to having at least an idea of the space in general and then give you pointers on your particular practice and needs. There is tremendous amount of ink spilled on the idea of zettelkasten, some of it good, some of it remarkably bad, and most of it painfully generic and useless.

      Most of those I know who have serious practices have spent an inordinate amount of time reading and refining to come to where they are. They, and I, would all probably think that a good teacher and class on the subject could have saved them hundreds (thousands?) of hours of time and in exchange for a couple of hundred dollars. How much is your time worth in the balance? Can you read a cheap book or two on the topic? A few blog posts? Certainly, and many have, yet there are still lots of very basic questions which pop up here and elsewhere. Buying a book isn't the end-all either as you've still got to spend the time reading and distilling what's in it. A good instructor can boil down Ahrens' work into twenty minutes and get you up and working a lot more quickly, not to mention distilling down even a fraction of all the other potentially relevant sources.

      Most of the questions in this sub-reddit are people asking for pointers either about where to start or examples of specific things they're having trouble with. Of course in the majority of the cases they could simply search this or one or two other sources to find almost exactly what they need, yet here they are posting one of the same 10 questions over and over. (I also generally get the impression that they're only thinking about the system in a theoretical fashion and aren't actually practicing it for themselves.) It's nice to have pointers like the one that u/WM2D2 provides, but how is someone new to the space supposed to find this or other specific sources without the prior knowledge? Simple search is unlikely to uncover the best sources. In my experience, a lot of the best material on zettelkasten practice doesn't even contain the word "zettelkasten" to allow one to find it via search. And what to do if or when it doesn't answer all their questions? Instructors are usually good at distilling down the particulars into a more coherent whole. This is what you're paying for.

      Of those who are well-practiced, even fewer have expanded on their own individual practice to look at how others have practiced for a variety of very disparate use cases. Where is this experience to be found? Having looked at and read many sources over the years, it's definitely hard won knowledge. And what about taking the theory and turning it into actual practice? This is where a good teacher will come in handy to help you actually do the work to become better much more rapidly than any book ever could. The rules are easy, it's the practice to turn those rules into a practicable art that is the tougher road.

      This being said, there is definitely a spectrum of experience and teaching ability. There are certainly only one or two people I can imagine recommending as a teacher in this specific area. Because this may be some of the most hard won knowledge to come across, I'll mention that u/taurusnoises is one of those I would recommend if you're looking to save your time and come to a useful practice for yourself without spending lots of time floundering around.

      written in response to u/IamOkei at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1728f1n/why_are_people_paying_thousand_of_dollars_on/

    1. I like paper with "weird" rulings. What's your favorite notebook/company that produces unique/niche paper organization rulings?

      reply to u/Seaborn63 at https://www.reddit.com/r/notebooks/comments/170iiax/i_like_paper_with_weird_rulings_whats_your/

      Japanese notebooks can have some interesting grids in addition to the Kokyuo notebooks mentioned by others. There are a variety of grid sizes for practicing kana and kanji. You can find many by searching for Genkouyoushi as well as some with alternate gridding which is used for furigana. Some of the more sophisticated adult versions have horizontal lines which also have small hash marks for creating a sort of vertical grid for those who wish it. These are intended for those who write on the page from top to bottom rather than horizontally, but this doesn't mean they couldn't be used in other ways.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/155811111944

      2023-10-05 72 drawer library card catalog listed for sale at $850.00 with local pick up only from Mechanicsville, VA. No brand name listed. Plastic drawers with wooden fronts. Two sections of 6x6 drawers separated by a section with three writing drawers. Appears to be a solid piece with a solid base. In generally good condition.

      cost per drawer: $11.80

      Not a bad deal here, esp. if you're local.

    1. Thurman, Judith. “How Emily Wilson Made Homer Modern.” The New Yorker, September 11, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/18/emily-wilson-profile.

      The story of the Wilson family set against the backdrop of The Iliad.

    2. concupiscence
    3. Penelope’s is opaque. (Her name means “veil over the face.”)
    4. Wilson’s translations are the first in English to jettison slurs or euphemisms that mask the abjection of women in a society where a goal of war, according to the Iliad, was to rob men of their women, and where female captives of every rank were trafficked for sex and domestic labor.
    5. The Wilsons lived in poisonous silence, beneath a veneer of civility. (“We had a fatal gift for politeness,” as Andrew put it.)

      love this description

    6. Stallings said, “Does Emily’s clarity betray that element of the epic register that Matthew Arnold calls ‘nobility’? Some critics think a certain grandeur is missing. But every translation is a compromise, even a great one.”

      esp. the last portion

      every translation is a compromise, even a great one.

    7. her younger sister Bee Wilson, the noted British food writer

      Classicist Emily Wilson is the older sister of Bee Wilson, a British food writer.

    8. And with that puerile quarrel between stubborn warlords over the right to own and to rape a girl, Western literature begins.

      A stark statement that lays bare the original sin of Western thought.

    9. Homer introduces him with the adjective polytropos—literally, “of many turns.” Previous translators have called him “shifty,” “cunning,” and a hundred other things. After grappling with the alternatives, Wilson chose “complicated,” hoping also to convey the sense of “problematic.” Her first sentence—“Tell me about a complicated man”—instantly makes him our familiar: that charismatic prince who’s too impossible to live with and too desirable to live without.
    10. The opening of Robert Fagles’s widely admired Odyssey, she points out, uses two English words for every Greek one.
    1. How to Read a Book, Chapter 4 by Dan Allosso<br /> https://danallosso.substack.com/p/how-to-read-a-book-chapter-4

    2. I'm not so much saying Adler and Van Doren were trying to prevent readers from coming to grips with the unresolved issues of American history illustrated in this example. But I am suggesting that the idea that there's a "message" in these foundational texts and they know what it is and our job is to find out, is flawed. Too deterministic, too hierarchical, too supportive of a master narrative that needs to be challenged so truth can be appreciated in its complexity.

      Amen!

    1. How to Read a Book, Chapter 3 by Dan Allosso https://danallosso.substack.com/p/how-to-read-a-book-chapter-3

    2. They then spent a couple of pages on the history of elementary education, followed by a discussion of the stages of instruction, beginning with "reading readiness" and continuing through "sight words" and "context clues", to mature skills that allow the reader to compare the views of different writers.

      The broad idea of "reading readiness" stemmed from Jean Piaget's work, much of which was debunked by Peter Bryant during the 1970s. Yet we're still apparently discussing it and attempting to figure out how to do all this better: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/us/reading-teaching-curriculum-phonics.html

      They didn't tackle the lowest level very thoroughly, but I was a bit surprised that with their discussion of speed reading they didn't give at least a passing mention to phonics which had a big rise in the 1960s before declining in the 70s and 80s only to see another big uptick in the 90s.

    1. Wood, Graeme. “The Iliad We’ve Lost: What Emily Wilson’s ‘Iliad’ Misses.” The Atlantic, October 2, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/emily-wilson-iliad-translation-homer/675444/.

    2. Fagles opts for midriff, which once meant “diaphragm” in English but today makes it sound like Sarpedon was speared somewhere between his low-rise jean shorts and his crop top.

      phrenes - a word connected in ancient Greece to the idea of respiration and of the soul

    3. When she is given a chance to coin a new and unusual phrase and free into English a word hitherto trapped in the amber of Greek, she unfailingly chooses the ordinary and imperfect English word.
    4. The critic Guy Davenport, in a pan of Lattimore, wrote that translation is a game of two languages, and that “the translator is in constant danger of inventing a third that lies between.”
    1. Presenter says that Coppola divided the book into 50 scenes. Source for this?

      Link to Frank Daniel's advice for 70 scenes.

      What is the average number of scenes in a film? (Measured by slug lines.) Average over time? (5 year or 10 year increments?)

    2. There is an interesting theme of staying true to a center or core of a story which is broadly similar to David Lynch's staying true to the original idea. The difference may be that Lynch is staying true to his own original idea which started the process whereas Coppola is distilling out a core from an original source and then focusing on that rather than having Puzo's own original core.

      Which core is the "true" one?

    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fskc7vBWcbw

      Another video about Coppola's prompt book for The Godfather. Nothing new here.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/166354962733

      Library Bureau library card catalog with what looks like two 5x5, and two 5x6 sections, one section of five pull out writing desks, and a top making up 110 drawers.

      In rough but serviceable shape, has a few fittings issues and some of the finish is in tough shape along with some wood pieces gouged out. Looks to be all oak (including internals of drawers aside from usual drawer pulls and rods, almost all of which are present.

      Listed on 2023-09-30 for $3,000 for free local pick up from Merced, CA.

      Cost per drawer: $27.27

      2023-10-03: Seller made me an offer to purchase for $2,500.

    1. Lynch, David. Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. New York, NY: Tarcher Perigee, 2006.

      annotation URL: urn:x-pdf:7d3165882b27dc69918cc2de97baab96

    2. I just try to catch ideas—andsometimes I fall in love with one and then I know what I want to do. Ithas nothing to do with money; just with translating that idea.
    3. But you’re also expandingthe container of that knowledge.

      David Lynch uses meditation to expand his container of knowledge.

    4. Softer than the flower where kindness is concerned,Stronger than the thunder where principles are at stake.VEDIC DESCRIPTION OF THE ENLIGHTENED
    5. Just bychanging something, the desire often gets fulfilled.
    6. You become familiar with the process of catching an idea andtranslating that idea. You understand the tools and the lighting. Youunderstand the whole process—you’ve been through it before.

      He's talking about movie making, but it applies to almost anything.

    7. It’s interesting to seehow these unrelated things live together. And it gets your mindworking. How do these things relate when they seem so far apart? Itconjures up a third thing that almost unifies those first two. It’s astruggle to see how this unity in the midst of diversity could go towork.The ocean is the unity and these things float on it.
    8. If you don’t have a setup, there are many times when you get theinspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put ittogether. And the idea just sits there and festers. Over time, it will goaway. You didn’t fulfill it—and that’s just a heartache.
    9. It’s crucial to have a setup, so that, at any givenmoment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools tomake it happen.
    10. You get in close and the textures are wonderful.
    11. THE BOX AND THE KEYI don’t have a clue what those are.
    12. Now, you don’t use meditation to catch ideas. You’re expandingthe container, and you come out very refreshed, filled with energy,and raring to go out and catch ideas afterward.
    13. And we found this greatpsychology term—“psychogenic fugue”—describing an event wherethe mind tricks itself to escape some horror. So, in a way, LostHighway is about that. And also the fact that nothing can stay hiddenforever.
    14. Because these religions are old, though, and they’vebeen fiddled with, possibly, I feel some of the original keys from themasters have been lost.
    15. You’ve got to be able to catch ideas.
    16. New ideas can come along during the process, too. And a film isn’tfinished until it’s finished, so you’re always on guard. Sometimesthose happy accidents occur. They may even be the last pieces ofthe puzzle that allow it all to come together. And you feel so thankful:How in the world did this happen?
    17. The idea is the whole thing. If you stay true to the idea, it tells youeverything you need to know, really. You just keep working to make itlook like that idea looked, feel like it felt, sound like it sounded, andbe the way it was. And it’s weird, because when you veer off, yousort of know it. You know when you’re doing something that is notcorrect because it feels incorrect. It says, “No, no; this isn’t like theidea said it was.” And when you’re getting into it the correct way, itfeels correct. It’s an intuition: You feel-think your way through. Youstart one place, and as you go, it gets more and more finely tuned.But all along it’s the idea talking. At some point, it feels correct toyou. And you hope that it feels somewhat correct to others.
    18. When we were shooting the pilot for Twin Peaks, we had a setdresser named Frank Silva. Frank was never destined to be in TwinPeaks, never in a million years.

      Because Frank Silva was a proverbial slip in David Lynch's living zettelkasten process, he ended up appearing in Twin Peaks by way of the serendipity of Lynch's method of combinatorial creativity.

    19. But I’m always trying to gather what I call“firewood.” So I have piles of things I can go to and see if they’llwork.

      Similar to Eminem's "stacking ammo" or Gerald Weinberg's "fieldstone method", David Lynch gathers piles of "firewood" from which he can draw to fire his creativity.

      In various places in the book, Lynch uses the idea of drawing on piles of ideas and using his feedback to draw out creativity: his collaboration on music with Angelo Badalamenti in which he draws out ideas through conversation and having the prop man bring in various props with similar feedback. The music and props here are both forms of creative "firewood".

    20. David Lynch's films are a personally structured output of his zettelkasten of ideas comprised of words, sounds, images, music, sound, people, and moods.

    21. But it wasn’t always that way. When I made Dune, I didn’t havefinal cut. It was a huge, huge sadness, because I felt I had sold out,and on top of that, the film was a failure at the box office. If you dowhat you believe in and have a failure, that’s one thing: you can stilllive with yourself. But if you don’t, it’s like dying twice. It’s very, verypainful.

      Being an author is having the final cut on a string of ideas placed in a particular order.

    22. The entirety of David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish (2006) is a series of topically arranged chapters each with just a handful of either simple sentences or very short paragraphs very loosely strung together.

      It's almost as if Lynch has taken his zettelkasten of ideas, potentially written on napkins from Bob's Big Boy, and dumped them out into the loose form of a book.

    23. There’s a safety in thinking in a diner. You can have your coffee oryour milk shake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, andalways come back to the safety of the diner.
    24. You can catch ideas at a deeper level. And creativity really flows. Itmakes life more like a fantastic game.
    25. Desire for an idea is like bait.When you’re fishing, you have to havepatience. You bait your hook, and then you wait.The desire is thebait that pulls those fish in—those ideas.The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love,even if it’s a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw inother fish, and they’ll hook onto it.Then you’re on your way. Soonthere are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thingemerges. But it starts with desire.
    26. An idea is a thought. It’s a thought that holds more than you think itdoes when you receive it. But in that first moment there is a spark. Ina comic strip, if someone gets an idea, a lightbulb goes on. Ithappens in an instant, just as in life.It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes,for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone. It’sthe piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It’s a hopeful puzzlepiece.
    27. You fall in love with the first idea, that little tiny piece. And onceyou’ve got it, the rest will come in time.
    28. You have to be able to catch ideas.
    29. Ideas are like fish.If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water.But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure.They’rehuge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.I look for a certain kind of fish that is important to me, one that cantranslate to cinema. But there are all kinds of fish swimming downthere. There are fish for business, fish for sports.There are fish foreverything.
    1. I'll write more in depth about it later, but I just read David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity https://bookshop.org/a/17195/9781585425402. He definitely has a zettelkasten-like creative process which revolves around "catching ideas". He talks about the philosophy and shape of his practice, but doesn't get into the direct physical form or substrate. He doesn't mention it in the book, but in the late 70s and early 80s his process definitely involved using napkins from Bob's Big Boy restaurant. He was influenced by his teacher Frank Daniel who had a practice of using 3x5 inch index cards for his screenwriting process. The book itself has a very zettelkasten-like flavor, almost as if he wrote ideas on index cards (or napkins), gave them some light arrangement by topic and then tipped the whole into book form without heavy editing. (It would be incredibly easy to cut it back up into individual index cards.) If you're into using zettelkasten for creativity (writing/creating), you'll appreciate some of his philosophy which he also wraps in a very light meditation wrapper.

      This short video encapsulates some of the ideas and flavor of his book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2RFMCmfRmc.

      Syndication link: https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992428117467615333/1158852901192605828

    1. LYNCH: Well, for me, ideas—even a fragment—convey everything. In a spark you see images, youhear sounds, you feel a mood. And it becomescomplete, even if it is a fragment. The original ideacomes with a lot of power, and you have to keepchecking back all the way through the process tosee if you are being true to it.
    2. LYNCH: Well, I could say that Dino De Laurentiis cutmy salary and cut the budget, and then gave mefinal cut. So he was into cutting! (
    3. I haven’t caughtthe next idea, either through a book or from theocean of ideas.
    4. LYNCH: No. The whole thing has to make sense toyou, and it has to feel correct. And—but again, it’sbased on these ideas that have been forming andarranging and finally showing you what it is. Andit’s just focusing on those through the process.And if it makes sense, no matter how abstract asense, again it goes back to intuition rather thanjust pure intellect, and something that can be soeasily translated into words by, you know,everyone. Those are beautiful things to me,abstractions. And life is filled with them, andcinema can do abstractions.
    5. LYNCH: No. I think a film is digested ideas andprocesses. If you take from things that have gonethrough that process, you’re further away from thesource. Ideas are the most important things. Andthey seem to be lying there in an ocean andavailable. So if you could go in and get your ownidea—now, it may have similarities to many thingsthat have gone before, but you feel it’s yours, andyou fall in love with it. And that’s a very goodfeeling.
    6. YNCH: No. What happens is, when you getfragments, the whole is not revealed. It’s just thefragments. And then the fragments seem to want toarrange themselves. And a little bit further down theline you begin to see what is forming. And it’s asmuch a surprise to you as to anybody else.
    7. LYNCH: I know we were doing that, but lookingback, it’s a magical process because you can’t tellwhere ideas come from, and it seems like it’s justboth of us focusing on something. And it was acouple of ideas that were fragments, and thosefragments focus you. And it seems that theyrelease a little lock on a door and the door opensand more fragments start coming in—drawn by thefirst fragments. It’s strange, because if any of youhave ever written anything, you know that one dayit’s not there and then a month later or two monthslater it’s there. And it’s two people tuning into thesame place, I think.
    8. LYNCH: Well, I think it’s everyone’s experience thatno matter what, things come to us in fragments.