The Art Of Memory -- Just a few thousand years of thoughts

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Before the idea of "external memory" (writing, then computers) we had the "art of the locus". First mentioned in Ancient Greece.

This method of organising information uses associative memory. A computer before computing. Typically one would visualise a complex building with alcoves, statues, pathways and other VISUAL markers. You'd rehearse the environment in mind till it got stable. Then you'd associate points in it with things you needed to remember.

For instance, to recall a telephone number of Jennifer you'd maybe associate her image and number with the left knee of the visualised statue of Michaelangelo's David. It works.

One of the problems with "modern memory" is its crap ... externalisation of memory (via various techs) increasingly obviates the need for internal cognitive practice. Without that you end in dependency on tech. I'm not convinced that is entirely healthy.

One of the things that interests me about TiddlyWiki is whether it could be used to foster a VISUAL memory system too.

Modern computing is driven by text. The "other" soft-edged-signifiers, visual, sonic & movemental meaning, have, still, a secondary place. Probably because they can't be ordered to order. 

It might be interesting to create a TW where all navigation is through images.

Just wide thoughts
Josiah

[TonyM]

Josiah,

I agree "It might be interesting to create a TW where all navigation is through images." and for the reasons you state.

But I do not agree with 'One of the problems with "modern memory" is its crap', because it is the best its ever being. This outsourcing allows us access to a greater amount of knowledge, some times we need only remember a word or phrase to encapsulate a complex concept eg tiddlywiki.

Yes, we do under-utilise some aspects of natural memory and even memory systems you can learn, and yes a failure to remember the subtleties behind external knowledge can make us dumb to important knowledge, but to suggest on balance the result is worse, or crap as you suggest, is a complex argument both of us will find difficulty arguing our position. However my hunch is we can do more than ever today with knowledge, memory and thinking due to these external, global and networked knowledge which makes a big part of our knowledge universe.


Not withstanding the above we can already see how returning to our evolved cognitive functions bares fruits, take icons and touch screens as an example.


Navigation through images is but one, using smell in recollection, or face memory or track memory may be even stronger. How do we learn a song, or music, or language? all these offer enormous existing subroutines we could use to advance our connection with the virtual worlds of knowledge. 


Track memory is a favourite of mine, it is how we learn to find our way back, or along the same path a second time, it supports real world navigation but also the next 5+ steps, we rarely look where we step, we tend to look some steps ahead and an unconscious system puts the feet where they should be. Have you being bush walking recently?

Regards

Tony

[@TiddlyTweeter]

TonyM wrote:

... my hunch is we can do more than ever today with knowledge

Absolutely TRUE. Probably the best conception of that is Popper's World Three ... the subsistence of knowledge external to people.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

TonyM wrote:

But I do not agree with 'One of the problems with "modern memory" is its crap', because it is the best its ever being.

On THIS you missed my point.

The "crapness of memory" I meant here was basic memory failure in persistence once you have an "externalised third means" (writing, computers) acting for your brain. My point was about using your brain with NO CRUTCHES. That i could ask you and you would not need to click keys to find an answer.

My question is perhaps not popular--but WHY have a computer when you can do it in thought already? THAT I think is a real question.

And, as is -- IS using this thing damaging my abilities to recollect?

Best wishes
Josiah

[xanato...@gmail.com]

Hi @TiddlyTweeter,

you can ask those questions in a forum / training site https://artofmemory.com . This is a place where each other helps to master all kind of memory learn problems/tricks -
with and without computer. From memory athletes for everyone.

And because everyone has another understanding or feelings about different pictures , it is so complicated to design a visual only Tiddlywiki for example.
You need to have a text only alternative for not so easy pictures.

For example: How you would picture the task to save the wiki in beaker browser or on node.js or to download it.
Do you use the logos of the respective program or a gif picture what it does?

What do you want to memorize? Is it facts that need to be remembered, because you need them for your job/school ?

Does it need to be understandable for others or only for yourself?

So to end my post: What is your need?

Best wishes
QuaraMan

[@TiddlyTweeter]

xanato...@gmail.com wrote:

you can ask those questions in a forum / training site https://artofmemory.com .

Right. I agree. But I'm also interested in it here. Well, today :-).
 

... How you would picture the task to save the wiki in beaker browser or on node.js or to download it.

Do you use the logos of the respective program or a gif picture what it does?

THAT is part of the issue. Until we experiment a bit more visually to find out. The idea you need a specialist site in order to understand the mechanism of memory I don't think is so good. NOT that I have anything against the effort, but rather, better to integrate it into normal praxis.

What do you want to memorize? Is it facts that need to be remembered, because you need them for your job/school ?

Not in my case. School is over. Rather, helping new learners understand better how associative memory works. It really does work.

I was thinking about how to create a TW that helps it. I'm unclear how to realise that.

Does it need to be understandable for others or only for yourself?

The latter, for the former.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Mark S.]

As a teenager, long before Benedictine Cucumber-Patch as Sure-lock Homes (see how it works?) made Memory Palaces popular, I had read "The Memory Book" by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas. Generally, mnemonics are an aid for short-term memory. Only repetition really seems to nail things down. Preferably spaced repetition. The exception is number-encoding systems (Major, Dominic) since numbers really are too abstract. Plus it gives you a game to play with license plates when stuck in traffic.

The thing about the "art of the locus", the journey method, the memory palace method, etc. is that they add context to memories. Human memory doesn't have a numerical or alphabetical index. Instead it is based on context, preferably physical locations.

On paper, or on computers, outlines and mind maps provide a location-independent context. That's why something like the TWOutlier (or something better made) can help your own mind remember what kinds of information you have squirreled away ... somewhere.

-- Mark

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Mark S.

"The Art Of Memory". Francis Yates. The bees-knees: http://tinyurl.com/y7bq4f4w

Mark S. wrote:

As a teenager, long before Benedictine Cucumber-Patch as Sure-lock Homes (see how it works?) made Memory Palaces popular, I had read "The Memory Book" by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas. Generally, mnemonics are an aid for short-term memory. Only repetition really seems to nail things down. Preferably spaced repetition. The exception is number-encoding systems (Major, Dominic) since numbers really are too abstract. Plus it gives you a game to play with license plates when stuck in traffic.

The thing about the "art of the locus", the journey method, the memory palace method, etc. is that they add context to memories. Human memory doesn't have a numerical or alphabetical index. Instead it is based on context, preferably physical locations.

On paper, or on computers, outlines and mind maps provide a location-independent context. That's why something like the TWOutlier (or something better made) can help your own mind remember what kinds of information you have squirreled away ... somewhere.

I do think that "squirrelling behaviour" is pretty central to actual acts of committed memory.

Josiah

[Ste Wilson]

"I do think that "squirrelling behaviour" is pretty central to actual acts of committed memory.

Josiah"

Running up tress and hiding your nuts? That would explain much..

[Mark S.]

You have to admit, it's memorable.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

lol! touche!

[TonyM]

The old cliche of multimedia training still holds true. Representing what you learn with a combination of media, text, audio, actions and repition, not to menton effective models and frameworks is a sure fire way to improve learning even without knowing why it helps.

Tiddlywiki can handle all of these.

Regards
Tony

[Vytas]

The topic “human memory vs its outsourcing” to handwritten notes, google or TiddlyWiki technology seems to be really interesting.

It seems that excessive reliance on googling has a big disadvantage in the fact, that it typically discorouges (because it is so much easier to search google than to sweat while thinking!) one to contemplate INDIVIDUALLY about the thing he/she is about to search google for, which leads towards consuming of fragmented/scattered pieces of information without constructing of deeper relations to within ONE‘s own mind integrated knowledge and experience.

Similarly, if you heavily relate on your notes, you lose the chance to reconstruct/ORGANICALLY recollect once acquired knowledge. It was stated in this thread by several people, that repetition is essential in the course of constructing long term momories. However, I believe that it is important how you repeat: do you think, sweat and to some degree fail in rememberig OR do you just look it up (google, TW notes) in a fragmented way (and after it probably forget soon)?

Isn‘t it that the process of taking notes is actually significantly more important than the later reusability of those notes? Writing something actually makes you look for more and preferably deeper relations, which helps you in consolidating your understanding. The lower the quality of your notes, the more searching your notes reminds of googling. The bigger the quality of your notes, the less you need to invoke them (because you probably already have those things in your working memory, since you have put a lot of effort to understand them to produce those high quality notes!).

So, my question is: HOW should we use TiddlyWiki for?

• a)      Write down and store everything which „might be of some use later“?
  
• b)      Use it more for daily organization of work/activities or for high quality note-taking putting an emphasis on links between individual units of knowledge?
  
• c)       Put more emphasis on employing it for statistics: to gather statistics on how much/how often we have been thinking about various topics / use it to gather organized data about different objects/subjects of some category (a tiddler per person/book/movie/product… [with specially chosen fields for a given category])?
  
• d)      Take TW as an important hobby and concentrate on studying TW mark-up language, developing tools/plugins, taking part in the discussions in this forum? [Somehow I guess that for a decent amount of people here taking TW as a hobby could overshadow the applied role of TW.]  
  

I believe that all of this and much more is to a bigger or smaller degree possible. However, do we really want to relativize everything and escape prioritization?

[TonyM]

We agree furiously

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 7:19:12 AM UTC+10, Vytas wrote:

The topic “human memory vs its outsourcing” to handwritten notes, google or TiddlyWiki technology seems to be really interesting.

It seems that excessive reliance on googling has a big disadvantage in the fact, that it typically discorouges (because it is so much easier to search google than to sweat while thinking!) one to contemplate INDIVIDUALLY about the thing he/she is about to search google for, which leads towards consuming of fragmented/scattered pieces of information without constructing of deeper relations to within ONE‘s own mind integrated knowledge and experience.

Totally true, part of integrated knowledge is learning which questions to ask which we could replace with google on some occasions, however it demands knowing the correct keywords, to come up with the keywords (which are always limiting in some way) you need to start with integrated knowledge of the subject. Googling is part of an integrated approach, the problem is there seems to be a lot of people starting to depend on, or use to a large extent, what I call "just in time learning".  An example I can think of is someone who has only being driving for a few years thinking they can change a tire by youtube. The problem in Australia (given how large the place is) is Dr google may not be contactable, if you did not know it was called a tire would you even be able to search for it?.  It should not be underestimated that if I read while at home some basics about car maintenance and tire changes I gain sufficient knowledge to be able to find my way in unexpected circumstances, and it can be good to not memorise fiddly details than may change later when you can refer to the details with a search. The point is you need a conceptual understanding, perhaps even jargon, before "using the internet as a second brain" will work for you, prior to that it is only a reference.

  

Similarly, if you heavily relate on your notes, you lose the chance to reconstruct/ORGANICALLY recollect once acquired knowledge. It was stated in this thread by several people, that repetition is essential in the course of constructing long term momories. However, I believe that it is important how you repeat: do you think, sweat and to some degree fail in rememberig OR do you just look it up (google, TW notes) in a fragmented way (and after it probably forget soon)?

One again we agree, I think of notes as a way to at first simply extend my listening to more than one medium, in the ears onto the paper helps you more than just ears, the note pad is external brain, I can flag I must return to X later, I may never read them again. I have personally cultivated "conceptual learning" such that I am always integrating what I learn with conceptual frameworks. Truth is I am not good at repetitions, perhaps the truth is I dislike them. I prefer to always try and decompose data into knowledge and hang it on a conceptual frame work, that once reading my notes a few times they are no longer needed. I pride myself also on being able to think out side the box, One way I think I achieve this is I look for conceptual frame works everywhere, I collect them so that I can use and reuse them in novel places. 

 

Isn‘t it that the process of taking notes is actually significantly more important than the later reusability of those notes? Writing something actually makes you look for more and preferably deeper relations, which helps you in consolidating your understanding. The lower the quality of your notes, the more searching your notes reminds of googling. The bigger the quality of your notes, the less you need to invoke them (because you probably already have those things in your working memory, since you have put a lot of effort to understand them to produce those high quality notes!).

Totaly

 

So, my question is: HOW should we use TiddlyWiki for?

• a)      Write down and store everything which „might be of some use later“?
  
• b)      Use it more for daily organization of work/activities or for high quality note-taking putting an emphasis on links between individual units of knowledge?

I do this now, big time, in fact since I adopted  TWC almost a decade ago.

• 
  
• c)       Put more emphasis on employing it for statistics: to gather statistics on how much/how often we have been thinking about various topics / use it to gather organized data about different objects/subjects of some category (a tiddler per person/book/movie/product… [with specially chosen fields for a given category])?

I kind of do this but I could go a lot further 

• 
  
• d)      Take TW as an important hobby and concentrate on studying TW mark-up language, developing tools/plugins, taking part in the discussions in this forum? [Somehow I guess that for a decent amount of people here taking TW as a hobby could overshadow the applied role of TW.]  

I agree with the above list but would go a lot further. TiddlyWiki lets you build conceptual frameworks, systems, relationships and processes. Further it is possible to extrapolate, refine, systematise, redeploy conceptual frameworks on different data and knowledge sets.

I am also using tiddlywiki as a professional thinking tool(s).

Another advantage of tiddlywiki is since within it I can control all of the above it is a platform that evolves with my thinking. When I think it would be helpful to have a solution for example that "summarises tasks across multiple projects to see shared issues" I simply build it. Rebuild it, or try another way.

• 
  

I believe that all of this and much more is to a bigger or smaller degree possible. However, do we really want to relativize everything and escape prioritization?

Please explain what you mean here a little more? 

TiddlyWiki is now an integrated part of how and what I do, it is an extension of my brain. If I had a brain implant I would host in it multiple tiddlywikis.

Best wishes

Tony

[Vytas]

I believe that all of this and much more is to a bigger or smaller degree possible. However, do we really want to relativize everything and escape prioritization?

Please explain what you mean here a little more? 

Here in the group, people always emphasize the multifacetedness of TW, the fact that you can use it in so many ways. What I wanted to push for is for some answers, showing TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength. Take all of the TiddlyWiki's possible applications and choose one which is the most important. What is it? Which several features and a related single application reveals TiddlyWiki's uniqueness and its biggest advantage?   

[TonyM]

Vytas,

Perhaps it is because I am embedded in tiddlywiki but there is no TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength, it has far too many this has being discussed at length in a number of threads often initiated by tiddlytweeter (Josiah). 

Our (or my conclusion at least) is for solutions and/or editions be put out there for multiple focused solutions. So that people see demonstrated TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as note taking, TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as Outlining, TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as presentations, TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as personal database,  TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as interactive applications...... which are arguably in the 100's

Regards

Tony

[Mark S.]

I think TW's biggest strength is that it runs every place, looking and acting nearly identically. And allowing people to share their special editions and plugins without any rewrites. But I don't know how you show case that. There is a segment of the population that are ensconced on their own platform that they might not understand how amazing that is.

-- Mark

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Mark S. (you in violet)

That I find very interesting because I think it highlights both a big upside & a big downside. Maybe its a kinda Catch-22?

Part of the issue is that in order to leverage "... it runs every place, looking and acting nearly identically" you need to understand a lot of NOT identical things in order to overcome "ensconced on their own platform that they might not understand how amazing that is." I mean, at the moment the different installable are not exactly transparent. Whilst ultimately running TW are spectacularly similar over different modes, platforms and wotnot, installing them isn't. I think that is a major barrier to entry.

Best wishes
Josiah

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Vytas

Thanks. I thought your replies very interesting. Especially the questions around purpose. The WHY coming before the HOW in your questions is exactly like what I was originally thinking about.

Vytas wrote:

The topic “human memory vs its outsourcing” to handwritten notes, google or TiddlyWiki technology seems to be really interesting.

... reliance on googling ... which leads towards consuming of fragmented/scattered pieces of information without constructing of deeper relations to within ONE‘s own mind integrated knowledge and experience.

... if you heavily relate on your notes, you lose the chance to reconstruct/ORGANICALLY recollect once acquired knowledge.

IMO part of the issue is that cognitively its getting increasingly difficult to stand apart from the extant software enough to envision other approaches. Since software started, and then the net, various kinds of "models" of human creation and interaction have come to dominate. Its not a conspiracy or anything like that, rather just about getting a few approaches that work (commercially) upfront. However, I think it has also had a negative, narrowing effect. Just articulating the kind of questions you are (rightly) asking can get difficult as there is no common understanding of that issue.

Personally, FWIW, when I think about these issues I try to avoid thinking about computing per se, concentrating more on human MEANING MAKING. Once you get to writing & computers direct "meaning" is already a step away as these are technologies you need to master in order to express intent effectively.

ORAL cultures are very interesting for how they deal with Meaning and Memory that I think have much broad relevance. There is a lot of work on this by anthropologists and linguists that "think it anew". FWIW, probably, one of the finest general works introducing it is Walter Ong's "Orality & Literacy"

I'll make a second reply shortly.

Best wishes
Josiah

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Vytas wrote:

... What I wanted to push for is for some answers, showing TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength. Take all of the TiddlyWiki's possible applications and choose one which is the most important. What is it? Which several features and a related single application reveals TiddlyWiki's uniqueness and its biggest advantage?   

Excellent questions.

Truthfully I think the active edge (people in this Group) is actually using TW as a MEANING MACHINE.

TW's strength, as TonyM & Mark S. pointed out, in different ways, the "multi-faceted", "flexible" aspects are superb, attractive and, likely, addictive. But I don' think its exactly that.

When you look through the questions people raise many (apparently purely technical) actually point to user desires to represent their "meaning needs" in new, more appropriate ways.

Part of the issue is that publicly its not effective to say "I Need A New Meaning Path For My Wiki", so folk concentrate on Utility and "directed meaning forming" remains IMPLICIT, not explicit. The public focus is more on HOW, rather than WHY?

IMO, TW greatest strength (relative to other software) is its more possible in it to work forward from a "felt-sense of real need" to a solution.

Something like that
Best wishes
Josiah

[@TiddlyTweeter]

TonyM wrote:

Our (or my conclusion at least) is for solutions and/or editions be put out there for multiple focused solutions. So that people see demonstrated TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as note taking, TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as Outlining, TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as presentations, TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as personal database,  TiddlyWiki's ONE biggest strength as interactive applications...... which are arguably in the 100's

The implied AND in this is spot on.

The activity you do to know that is one of a BRICOLEUR? :-)

J, x

[Thomas Elmiger]

Hey folks

Excellent thoughts ideed. Below is, what I just typed in my newest tiddler. Just a very personal point of view.

Cheers!

Thomas

Tiddly Thinking

What’s so special about TiddlyWiki?

The reasons why I work with TiddlyWiki (TW) and that make it a unique solution and an ideal thinking tool:

1. it’s an application development framework
2. it’s a content management system with a philosophy
3. power and control

More on that later.

HOW should we use TiddlyWiki for?

inspired by Vytas

Write down and store everything which „might be of some use later“?

Two possibilities here: Throw a lot of content into a single tiddler, maybe tag it with categories or just a ToDo and find it again when you need it. OR:

Think about a useful structure for your information first. What should be a title, how do you store the source, where in your information structure should that piece appear later on?

Let me explain further usage and link the subjects to some related plugins and other stuff I made for these.

Use it more for daily organization of work/activities or for high quality note-taking putting an emphasis on links between individual units of knowledge?

• Plan, do, save, track and archive everyting in a personal todo list like https://tid.li/tw5/tdn.html
• Connect information to topics using tags, structure your content using wikitext, HTML and mighty logic like transclusion, lists and filtering.
• Design your content with standard CSS. And take a look at https://tid.li/tw5/test/bricks.html

Put more emphasis on statistics

For simpler calculations and string concatenation have a look at rpn, a lightweight plugin that adds only eleven kilobytes to your wiki, documentation included.

Take TW as an important hobby

Why would a rather rational person like me invest heavily in learning, studying (thank you, Steve Schneider and SUNYpoly) and developing stuff for TW?

• Power and control: No other software I know lets me adapt design and functionality as flexible as TW does, while being open source and running on every computer that has a browser installed. Publishing is copying a file to a webserver – nothing more. (The only comparable thing would be to write HTML, CSS and Javascript directly ... but that would mean to reinvent TW, which is far, far, far beyond my skills.)
• School of logical thinking. From idea to application I can gradually develop thoughts and tools that matter to me. That makes me a better thinker, I think.
• A sharing and caring community – discussions, solutions, feedback … invaluable food for thought, challenges that help other humans (compare to sudoku) and motivating input for improving my stuff.

Beat that, software world!

[Vytas]

Josiah and others,

I'll try to rephrase your point of view, how I understood it. You see that search for the meaning is the essential thing and the main motivation of taking notes or developing one's own TiddlyWiki, "the meaning machine". Once one gets to know TiddyWiki, he/she forms an idea how it could possibly be harnessed to provide novel methods for dealing with what wants to achieve (build meaning for the surrounding information). This way one forms "felt-sense of real need". Then one can turn to the group to ask for apparently technical questions, under which the underlying deeper goal is hidden. With some work, persistence and some help from the group, one can harness TiddlyWiki to some extent. All of this delivers a result or a tool to deal with the original problem. 

I feel what you mean, by stating that writing and computers are a step away from direct meaning. Overall, you emphasize meaning. I'm more used to terminology of "understanding/world-view", and try to emphasize relations between different pieces of information and the integration of relevant information within one's own "world-view". It's difficult to imagine emergence of meaning without having relations and integration. This is why I feel our views should have quite a lot in common. However, what is DIRECT meaning? And what is indirect meaning? It seems this distinction is quite important for you. Is TiddlyWiki some kind of link between indirect and direct?

Regarding the philosophy I would try to put emphasis on TiddlyWiki's linking tools (for the sake of relations and integration). Maybe through the active BUILDING of links between different pieces of information (tiddlers) we employ the biggest strength of TW? If, while taking notes we actively pay attention to the quality of links (direct links, indirect links via filters, appropriate transclusions), we benefit the most from the uniqueness of TW? [Somehow, I guess that not the search field of TiddlyWiki is the most important thing, even though, just like googling, it's very attractive, addictive and creating sense of euphoria, once you realize that you can GOOGLE your notes! but this googling of the notes is somewhat a rival to the linking.]

In the first paragraph, I described how the effort can turn into a result/tool. However, maybe we put to much emphasis on tool creation versus exploration how we should apply the results in the right way? Maybe we move from result to result (from tool to tool) to quickly and do not use them that much? (That's why I tried to push for some prioritization in my earlier posts, get away from the multi-facetedness to some degree and try to look for the essential.) I try to emphasize APPLICATION, because it feels that it's quite underrated to compare with CREATION (of tools).

Application is important because it's related to HABITS, which actually define to a large degree who you are. If we believe that TW is somewhat game-changing, this game-changing aspect should come through the APPLICATION of the game-changing tool in the RIGHT way. Maybe the more experienced people could could point towards the essential, so that the beginners could pay extra attention to it, would ACTIVELY use the specific tool in the right way for a decent period of time (to change your habits or develop new ones, you need will-power, time and concentrated effort!), so that one could later evaluate the game-changing (?) result of this ACTIVE application?

Somehow, I guess that, sometimes, the less technically skilled people should have advantage in the realm of application. Not having to deal with the technical problems of tool creation, they can put their effort to find the most CREATIVE APPLICATIONS of the existing tools. However, often these tools are buried in the group or scattered around multiple websites and are quite difficult to find and start working with for a beginner or a less technically-skilled. What I push for, is that maybe we should share more details HOW we use TiddlyWiki, so that others could benefit from the EXPERIENCE, not just from the RAW tools. 

I'll finish with the idea, that maybe these issues we discuss could be important for TW in a practical sense. Maybe important philosophical ideas could direct the development of TiddlyWiki to a larger extent?

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Vytas

That is a very rich reply. I'll reply to what I can in parts.

PART 1

Vytas wrote:

... I guess that, sometimes, the less technically skilled people should have advantage in the realm of application. Not having to deal with the technical problems of tool creation, they can put their effort to find the most CREATIVE APPLICATIONS of the existing tools. However, often these tools are buried in the group or scattered around multiple websites and are quite difficult to find and start working with for a beginner or a less technically-skilled. What I push for, is that maybe we should share more details HOW we use TiddlyWiki, so that others could benefit from the EXPERIENCE, not just from the RAW tools.

I agree that end users interested in making CONTENT (assuming they found the right structure to do that through) are CENTRAL to the entire rationale for getting into TW. I mean, why bother, if you spend all your time coding, not producing?

TW is hampered in that most known Public TW are demos of tech functions, not complete TW's made FOR A PURPOSE (e.g. We rarely see "The Miracle Of Bach's Music", rather than, a demo plugin for a music library).

TBH, I think the issue on this is about simply understanding in this group we'd do each a favour by promoting TW we know about that are more than demos. Its not workable to criticise people who like making systems that benefit us all for doing that. Its impossible without them.

BUT I do think its okay to wonder: Okay. Where is this realised?

Give me a functioning whole to look at to see what it looks like.

They are currently too scarce. End users NOT interested in or equipped for programming need them.

Best wishes
Josiah

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Vytas

PART 2

Vytas wrote:

I feel what you mean, by stating that writing and computers are a step away from direct meaning. Overall, you emphasize meaning. I'm more used to terminology of "understanding/world-view",

I could go deeper into this. By "meaning" I meant already the "implying of relationship" since meaning can't exist outside of its contextual heft. But I'll comment about my own background on that separately, later, so as not to make the discussion too complex.
 

and try to emphasize relations between different pieces of information and the integration of relevant information within one's own "world-view". It's difficult to imagine emergence of meaning without having relations and integration. This is why I feel our views should have quite a lot in common. However, what is DIRECT meaning? And what is indirect meaning? It seems this distinction is quite important for you. Is TiddlyWiki some kind of link between indirect and direct?

By "Direct", by example, I mean experiencing THESE FLOWERS in this vase here on the table next to me. By "Indirect", I mean looking at the Representation of THOSE FLOWERS in a digitised image that I uploaded to the net. This is NOT to say one is less than the other. In fact the abstractive art-process that results in the latter from the former may create something unique. But my point is they are NOT directly CONGRUENT. I find that process axiomatic--"direct experiencing" is close to a given, "indirect experiencing" is much more about construction.

This is getting a bit philosophical :-). But you get the idea?

Best wishes
Josiah

[Vytas]

Thomas,

a very interesting reply! I have several questions:

• What is your favourite application of rpn?
• "School of logical thinking. From idea to application I can gradually develop thoughts and tools that matter to me. That makes me a better thinker, I think." Could you elaborate on this, maybe giving an example? 
• Which tools do you use the most?

It would be great to learn from your experience!

[Vytas]

Josiah,

Yes, I see what you mean. If you put it this way, then the only way to get the direct meaning is just by engaging into pure experience. Everything else (computers, writing, TW, art, physics formulae..) is a step away from it.

"TBH, I think the issue on this is about simply understanding in this group we'd do each a favour by promoting TW we know about that are more than demos. Its not workable to criticise people who like making systems that benefit us all for doing that. Its impossible without them." 

I just wanted to explain, that, in my earlier posts, I did not have any intention to criticize people who "like making systems". I went from my own little experience, where I noticed that's once you get into creating tools/solutions, you abandon, to a large degree, the applied part. You simply don't have unlimited time! When I noticed, that also the discussions in the group are dominated more by technical issues, I thought that maybe it would be healthy, for me, to turn to application more. 

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Vytas wrote:

... I did not have any intention to criticize people who "like making systems". I went from my own little experience, where I noticed that's once you get into creating tools/solutions, you abandon, to a large degree, the applied part. You simply don't have unlimited time! When I noticed, that also the discussions in the group are dominated more by technical issues, I thought that maybe it would be healthy, for me, to turn to application more. 

Right.

I had no sense you criticised anyone. I think your questions are great.

I absolutely agree that seriously used END APPLICATIONS matter. They matter for being able to focus on getting stuff done. They matter for getting TiddlyWiki better known. And they matter, too, for developers, to know where they are, what they have done, and what to do next.

Josiah

[@TiddlyTweeter]

What is MY contribution?

Faced by the sheer vastness and brilliance of SoundCloud that includes good songs by my friends ...

 ... Barabara, BOXER MOTIVATION 101

and

... Ghandi's Cat ON THE RUN

and uncountable versions and re-versions of GET LUCKY by Daft Punk (though the best Russian Police Version is only on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYbtAZjB8QM)

I think what has happened to music is the signature tune already.

The sheer volume of stuff.

Its exciting & daunting.

Where is my TW's uniqueness in this?

[Thomas Elmiger]

Dear Vytas,

You have a talent to ask the right questions :)

Let me share an interesting article first, about how to get better at learning:

https://hbr.org/2018/05/learning-is-a-learned-behavior-heres-how-to-get-better-at-it

It describes many aspects of learning I learned (and maintain) through TW. Which are:

* frame a problem or divide it in smaller pieces

* describe a task/the solution

* know, if you can solve it autonomously, using the docs/web or with help from others

* know, where to look things up, find solutions fast

* know, when to take a break

* know, that the best ideas often come during the break (while jogging in my case)

* realize, when something is good enough

* recognize the value of feedback from others

* know, when to say no

* write understandable documentation

* practice English

* ...

Now, to answer your questions:

'Vytas' via TiddlyWiki <tiddl...@googlegroups.com> schrieb am Mi. 9. Mai 2018 um 19:40:

• What is your favourite application of rpn?

I think I developed rpn for the Reminders for ToDoNow, where I have to calculate the difference from now to a due date (minus a configurable interval for warnings before the due date is reached).

And this is still the feature I (and my wife and probably other users of ToDoNow) use almost daily.

• "School of logical thinking. From idea to application I can gradually develop thoughts and tools that matter to me. That makes me a better thinker, I think." Could you elaborate on this, maybe giving an example?
  

To illustrate the points I made above I will use my masterpiece ToDoNow. It was developed over a long time, starting from the original TW example for task management and integrating it with my Listreveal plugin that adds nice functions to lists. Design thinking is popular today and in agile projects you always have a working product after a limited period of time. I tried to stick to those ideas and developed button after button, function after function, always adding to the software I used daily. Search, tag-filter, priorities, a deadline, sorted listings, a work report … After adding substantial value I occasionally released a new version and got invaluable feedback from other real users. Requests from other users led to additions like the archive or user filters. Birthe contributed a danish translation. Other users asked for further developments to get a real GSD software – that was the point where I had to say no. And I had to say no on other occasions to stick to the philosophy I had developed for myself, which is that I am most productive when I focus on only one single task. (The one in the Now-section of ToDoNow.)

Developing new stuff without a clear use case like my recent card experiment can lead to improvements of older functionality, because I discover new things TW can do or I can do with TW. This was the case with the context tagging functionality of Listreveal, that received an update recently, so new tags can be added too. And as stated above: some of the best ideas came to my mind, while I was running through the woods.

• Which tools do you use the most?

Notetaking: I tend to prepare most content for other software in TW, because it is so easy to write well structured content (titles, subtitles, lists) in wikitext. Then you can copy clean and valid HTML-formatted text to office software, CRM, a blog, ... the most invaluable tool to assist with that is the EditorCounter that counts characters and saves my single page wiki in the background after every 200 characters. Also nice if your deliverable is a text of e.g. 2000 characters. (By the way, I could not have done this without studying code from Jed first.) The other plugin I always install immediately in new wikis brings the edit toolbar buttons to save or cancel and close – again something I realized many people were missing, so I developed and published it.

In all my main wikis I use ToDoNow to organize and plan some personal tasks. I speculated with Josiah about it’s user base several times, there are about 30 people we personnally know as users – so it might be safe to say it could be one of the more popular TW-based applications.

It would be great to learn from your experience!

I am learning from it myself again writing these lines :)

Thomas

[HansWobbe]

Thomas ...

Very well said!

Thanks for sharing.

Hans

 

On Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 3:51:34 PM UTC-4, Thomas Elmiger wrote:

Hey folks

Excellent thoughts ideed. Below is, what I just typed in my newest tidder. Just a very personal point of view.

Cheers!

Thomas

[Andreas Hahn]

Hi,

I hope I am not offtopic with sharing this, but back in February I wrote
a plugin for a Minecraft server that connects to Tiddlywiki for the
purposes of exploring memory palaces. The idea was that you could link
up places within your Minecraft world to tiddlers within your wiki,
which would help you both remember facts and visualize content from your
wiki.

After I got an initial version to work, I more or less ran out of ideas
and put the project aside for a bit, but I thought it might be
interesting to show it off, so here is a small video of how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXgcNBXGThs

(Note: I have two monitors, so usually this sort of concept is a lot
more usable)

/Andreas

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Whoah! Andreas that is seriously interesting (and very much on-topic).

The idea to use the TW to "navigate" an external "visual framework" is very effective in that.

Best wishes
Josiah

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Andreas

After I got an initial version to work, I more or less ran out of ideas

It was brilliant to see it.

----

Side note on "ideas" on Memory Palaces. That they can, at first, be tough to populate on computers, comes out, I think, by comparing to the "classical method".

Once one has a structure of an "in-mind" Memory Palace in place and stable enough (admittedly, a lot of introspective hours)--in addition to being able to "pin" associations you can also pin "affect" to points in the palace. Meaning you can associate a feeling directly with a locus. This helps tremendously to locate things and also means that its not just a visual map... its a "feeling-toned-3D-map". Since, in reality, we don't really have thoughts or envisioning without a feeling component to it--however implicit--to galvanise recall.

I'm pretty sure that the visuality of "externally" created Memory Palaces need to be "evocative", in some way, locus by locus, to work well.

This stuff is quite difficult to write about as its directly experiential. But I hope you get the idea?

Best wishes
Josiah

[Vytas]

Thomas,

it is a pleasure to read the thoughts and experience you share! It is great that you can share and show a part of process you go through. This makes the group richer!

You mentioned "In all my main wikis". When do you know it is time to start a new wiki? It seemed to me that there are many people here of the opinion that one can lose a big advantage of TW being a single file/database with a search function, if you have more than one wiki. What do you think?

By the way, the article is also interesting. But I'll will push you a little bit with respect to "many aspects of learning I learned (and maintain) through TW". How does TW help with 

" * know, when to take a break

  * know, that the best ideas often come during the break (while jogging in my case)

  * realize, when something is good enough"?

Best wishes!

Vytas

[Kalmir]

Andreas, I think this is pure awesomeness! I have been considering to build mem palaces in Minecraft but havn't got to it yet.

Is it difficult to set up your solution (for a non-coder, only half-geek)?

[Alex Hough]

Josiah,

I've been exploring space and thinking, from starting point of a garden explicitly designed for speculation

----

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation,positive feedback in my attention system:

It now seems 

MORE LIKELY 

to be directed towards 

how 

GARDENS AND PLACES 

can interact 

with THINKING, DREAMING & SPECULATION

than it was before

=> #PositiveFeedback

https://thegardenofcosmicspeculation.com/about

----

https://twitter.com/100aCreweRoad/status/996354852509937665

On 15 May 2018 at 11:00, Kalmir <kal...@gmail.com> wrote:

Andreas, I think this is pure awesomeness! I have been considering to build mem palaces in Minecraft but havn't got to it yet.

Is it difficult to set up your solution (for a non-coder, half-geek)?

On Friday, May 11, 2018 at 3:44:47 PM UTC+2, Andreas Hahn wrote:

Hi,

I hope I am not offtopic with sharing this, but back in February I wrote
a plugin for a Minecraft server that connects to Tiddlywiki for the
purposes of exploring memory palaces. The idea was that you could link
up places within your Minecraft world to tiddlers within your wiki,
which would help you both remember facts and visualize content from your
wiki.

After I got an initial version to work, I more or less ran out of ideas
and put the project aside for a bit, but I thought it might be
interesting to show it off, so here is a small video of how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXgcNBXGThs

(Note: I have two monitors, so usually this sort of concept is a lot
more usable)

/Andreas

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[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Alex

AlexHough wrote:

I've been exploring space and thinking, from starting point of a garden explicitly designed for speculation

I think its a good analogy. A very good analogy, actually.

"Gardening" is a great example of an activity that needs to be (a) responsive to current conditions; (b) has basic rules you apply until they don't; (c) ... so its on-going learning.

Its both (i) "organic"; and (ii) "interventional"; (iii) you learn by results in a CYCLE ("the Marigolds failed this year, next year we'll do better").

HUSBANDRY/WIFEANDRY is central to the balance between nature and nurture.

At a stretch one could apply that to TiddlyWiki quite well. HOW? Well, in the orientation towards exposition through "my truthful soil".

Regarding Garden Memory Theatres: Fallow Ground may sprout--yet.
 

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation,positive feedback in my attention system:

You are likely slightly more cosmic than I am. I find attentive forking in earth enough already :-).

[Andreas Hahn]

Thanks Kalmir,

the Tiddlywiki side of things are easily setup, as its just a simple
plugin, but it also works with either Jed's MultiUser Version (now
called Bob or something else?) or with TiddlyServer. (Note, you have to
run the nodejs version here)

The Minecraft server is fairly tricky, because what you see in the video
is a PocketMine Server and the Win10 Bedrock Edition of Minecraft. I
think there are providers out there that can host that specific server
software for Minecraft, but I'm not sure. Given you somehow get that
running, it would be a simple drop-in plugin that probably anyone can
install to connect it up to TW.

So while I did make this work by adding a simple plugin to both sides,
the overall setup is still fairly involved and certainly not "optimized"
to be easily used by many others. I think the best way might actually be
a pre-setup virtual machine for people to install and use.

/Andreas

[Ste Wilson]

... Just watched the Minecraft tiddlywiki vid.... Wow! That's like magik!
How the hell do you do that!!!

[@TiddlyTweeter]

@TiddlyWiki just Tweeted about this. It got immediate interest.

https://twitter.com/TiddlyWiki/status/997117597744328709

Andreas Hahn wrote:

I hope I am not offtopic with sharing this, but back in February I wrote
a plugin for a Minecraft server that connects to Tiddlywiki for the
purposes of exploring memory palaces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXgcNBXGThs

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXgcNBXGThs

Is pretty mind-blowing. BUT TW is actually quite "do things" enabled out-of-the-box. Or quite close to that.

Did you see Jed controlling a robot? Or enabling speech playback of Tiddlers?

I like this stuff as it brings out THE EDGE of what is not so difficult via TW, yet is quite miraculous.

Its to do with its basic design.

[Ste Wilson]

Now that you mention it I do remember Jed saying he used tiddly to control a robot... I just don't think it settled in how awesome a feat that is...

[Jeremy Ruston]

There’s a video of Jed talking about it at last year’s TW meetup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUqzcXUGyfA

Best wishes

Jeremy

> On 18 May 2018, at 09:46, Ste Wilson <stew...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Now that you mention it I do remember Jed saying he used tiddly to control a robot... I just don't think it settled in how awesome a feat that is...
>

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[@TiddlyTweeter]

Jeremy & all

I think the ability TiddlyWiki has to (relatively easily?)  control external devices and programs is very, very interesting & significant.

A lot of the time we think "internal" about it, but it seems to me this intelligent "external control" aspect is very significant and not yet sufficiently grasped.

As far as I can see its pretty unusual? I don't know much JS that does that so seemingly easily?

I'm still struggling for words/metaphors to describe it as an available feature of TW.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Jed Carty]

Raspberry pi's are one of the more common hobbyist robotics platforms (and not-so-hobbyist robotics too) and there has been a lot of work to make nodejs easy to use on raspberry pi's. This makes it easy to use javascript to control and interact with physical systems. I haven't seen as much use of this as I would expect yet. Making things like this easier is one reason I have put so much work into Bob, the multi-user aspect of it is actually secondary for what I want to use it for. Using a tiddlywiki to control the functions of a smart home wouldn't be unrealistic, I am hoping to do something like that with a friends apartment here in Paris.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Jed

Thanks. Really interesting. I never really grasped what a "Raspberry" Pi was--I vaguely thought it was a kind of alternative to a "Blackberry" :-)

I went off and read up a bit about it. REALLY neat.  Reminds me of school days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1DtY42xEOI

In fun, & interest
Josiah

[Vytas]

Jed,

this is very interesting! However, the audio quality of your presentation is quite low, and therefore it's difficult to understand. Maybe do you have a more accurate description of what you have done to control the robot with TW?

[Jed Carty]

I don't think I have any in-depth writeup about it anywhere. The very short version is that it uses a lot of the things that became Bob to let me include tiddlywiki into another node application as a module and then use tiddlywiki to display or edit all of the information about the robots state.

The way the robot is put together is based the same ideas as tiddlywiikis plugin architecture so the two work together nicely.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Vytas (Jed & Bob) ...

Jed is a very modest person.

What Jed has done with his robot ("Robbie") is real & real interesting ... he has a Twitter channel for it at: https://twitter.com/RobbieRoybut -- it won't give you documentation, but it will fill out the sense of it a bit.

Best wishes
Josiah