%% [[Zettelkasten]] [[Luhmann, Niklas]] [[writing technologies]] %% [[Writing Philosophy with Hypertext]] - [[A Brief History of Linked Writing]] - [[Analogue Linking]] - [[Zettelkasten]] - **[[Zettelkasten Linking]]** - [[Digital Linking (Hypertext)]] - [[Notetaking Software (PKMs)]] # Zettelkasten Linking - Luhmann used alphanumerical identifiers to organize and reference notes in a heterarchical slip box system unified by a primary index correlating the identifiers with topics. - Luhmann included two main forms of note linking. - First, the note identifiers were themselves arranged hierarchically so that A.1.b.2... would refer to a topic A, subtopic 1, subsubtopic b, subsubsubtopic 2, etc. The identifier, along with the index, relates the note to others in the same topical or argumentative chain. - Second, Luhmann used identifiers in the text or meta-data of his notes to establish direct relations between two notes. - For example, a Zettelkasten index might include the following: - A: On Writing - A.1: On the Philosophy of Writing - A.1.a.3: On the Philosophy of Word Processing - B: On Computers - B.1.a.1: On the History of Word Processing - And then one might link directly between say A.1.a.3 and B.1.a.1 to reflect a conceptual link between the history and philosophy of word processing. - As one can image, Luhmann's Zettelkasten became rather cumbersome both physically as the paper notes grew in size and organizationally as note identifiers became more complex and retrieval grew more involved. - Note that there's no direct historical connection between Luhmann and the inventors of hypertext / wiki systems, through there is a connection between Luhmann and modern notetaking software. ## References - See [[Zettelkasten]].