Can you have a real conversation with your notes?

Niklas Luhmann, the prolific sociologist behind the Zettelkasten method, often described his note-taking practice as having a conversation with his system. He would write a note, and the system would “respond” by surfacing related ideas, unexpected connections, unexpected tensions. It was a metaphor. A beautiful one, but still a metaphor. But what if it didn’t have to be? At the PKM Summit in Utrecht last week, I proposed a breakout session around exactly this question: what would it mean to ...