Knowledge systems which display contextual backlinks to a node open up an interesting new behavior. You can bootstrap a new node extensionally (rather than intensionally) by simply linking to it from many other nodes—even before it has any content.
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I first noticed this watching use Roam. As he took notes on our chats, he made certain noun phrases (e.g. my name, named theories) into node links. Those nodes had no content of their own, but after a few days, they developed an implicit definition through the backlinks.
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Those backlinks provide kindling for writing the "proper" content of the node later. Seems important for the system to display the backlinks' *context:* a simple list of backlinks won’t implicitly define a node very effectively. Gotta see the context around the link.
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Isn't that roughly the concept behind pagerank? The relevance of a website is defined by the websites that link to it?
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It's interesting to think about the relevance angle here—something you reference a lot is clearly important to you, even if you haven't written anything on it explicitly. But this is more akin to saying a website is partially implicitly defined by the websites that link to it.
0/ Could the creation of a new node, by an extension, done automatically (instead of intention) - driven by the need for output modalities in the future?
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1/ To be precise: your name, theory names being created as node links, even though empty initially, is driven by core need to retrieve information with that context in mind. Sometimes we need metadata, sometimes we need an event timeline, sometimes a TL;DR; sometimes contact info
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