ConnectedText versus Ndxcards

Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Oct 22, 2007 at 05:30 PM

In that post, I didn’t intend to say that an outline must serve as the endpoint of the process. I was only wondering how CT created outlines from undirected connections, which I mistakenly thought was a feature. Steve Zeoli corrected my misapprension.

But directly to the point you make - I think it is easy to make overly much of the epistemological implications of hierarchies, keywords, and undirected connections. Hierarchical keywords are the logical equivalent of a standard outline with cloning. (It is true that many outliners, however, don’t clone.) A corollary is that a flat series of keywords is the equivalent of an outline only one level deep. Undirected connections—when used as Manfred suggests in his essay on the CT site, as equivalent to a footnote reference—amount to siblings in an outline, with an unknown parent. Where such (temporarily) unlabeled connections are useful, it suggests that those who use an outline format should be more open to undefined nodes, which can be created easily enough.

I do see a problem with excessive use of undirected connections, and personally I seldom find that I see a connection, yet don’t know how the items are connected. Graphical quasi-outliners do exist, however, that emphasize such connections in a non-wiki format. An example is Visual Concept.

john oconnor wrote:
> >Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>> I’m skeptical of undirected connections as in Wikis,
>and I don’t
>>understand how CT can produce an outline (which involves directed
>connections) from
>>the undirected connections that CT allows. Maybe someone can
>explain.
> >If you are looking for something that will create a hierarchy of
>structured static data that can be easly turned into an outline I do not think a Wiki,
>like Connectedtext, is what you need or should use. On the other hand if you are looking
>for software that seems, IMHO, to mimic what the brain does in making connections
>between data and creating knowledge then the Wiki concept may be worth exploring.
>When the brain seeks to solve a problem it does not open up a file and scroll down a list of
>data points arranged in a neat hierarchy.
> >As to the undirected connections that a
>Wiki allows, this is neccessary for the creative part of the brain to function. There
>is a place for describing and labeling connections, just not at the wiki stage. Once
>you assign a label to a connection or descibe the direction in which concepts should
>flow you run the risk of closing off alternate views.
> >Just my thoughts.
> >John
>O’Connor
>