Conversation partner

If there is a heaven, I’m going to want to know how much time I’ve wasted trying to increase my productivity. Many of my fellows who waste their time seeking productivity gains probably know of Niklas Luhmann who wrote 70 books and 450 papers using his “zettelkasten” index-card system. Back before computers, he wrote all of his notes down on index cards that he kept meticulously organized.

I’ve tried to set up my own digital zettelkasten, but it takes more daily focus than I’ve been able to muster so far.

My Obsidian vault only has about 3,000 files and they’re not concise like a proper zettelkasten. And thank goodness, because ChatGPT made that whole endeavor pointless.

The point of Luhmann’s zettelkasten was not the storage of ideas, it was the interaction it allowed. He called the index card system a conversation partner. ChatGPT fits that same purpose without the individual work of collecting notes.

Language is a tool, much like mathematics, that allows us to condense ideas into simple patterns that we can manipulate more easily than the instances of memory tied to those ideas. The word “cat” is more easy to wrangle than the concept of a cat.

Our language systems give us the ability to condense information, model ideas, and problem-solve based on the words we’ve heard in our lifetime (millions of words.) A Large Language Model has seen trillions of words. It lacks a multi-modal memory system that collects sensory data where it can compare results to its experience of reality. But other than that, it performs some pretty impressive tasks with language alone.

Any chats I have with ChatGPT or Claude 2 are in essence extending my cognitive capabilities. Even when they just echo back what I say with more words better organized. But especially when they introduce me to new ideas, or summarize a complex idea in a way that I can comprehend.

I really do feel I’m getting smarter every day when I chat with Mr. Chatterbox.