Increasingly curious as to why the tools-for-thought folk talk a lot about note-taking tool features and plugins and not at all about the cognitive science of better externalised thinking.
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An example of why paying attention to the cognitive science is important:
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One of the basic ideas: bullet points make it easy to create the *facade* of order. You don't need to specify logical relations, like "A causes B" or "A explains B" - bullet format encourages jumbles without narrative or logical cohesiveness.
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Also relevant (though this one demands some understanding of cognitive flexibility theory, and why learning in ill-structured domains is markedly different from structured domains): citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo
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For the record, I’m genuinely interested in thinkers who grapple with the underlying cognitive effects of their tools. The main point I’m making with the link out to the Tufte thread is this:
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Replying to @jithamithra
That wasn’t the point of linking to that thread 
Sure, TfTs don’t push you to summarise, but then what do they push you towards?
Are the forms of cognition they encourage better in some ways, or worse? What ways?
Where are the Tufte-style analyses?
Sure, TfTs don’t push you to summarise, but then what do they push you towards?
Are the forms of cognition they encourage better in some ways, or worse? What ways?
Where are the Tufte-style analyses?1
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maybe this is being unkind but: because it’s much easier to synthesize release notes than research papers
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Maybe understanding the science is not necessary for a 2x improvement in output?
Of course it might be necessary for a 2.5x improvement, but many are happy with 2x
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I think this kind of thing occurs in other fields too.
e.g. some photographers spend a lot more time researching the latest cameras' images quality and other gear than they spend getting better at taking pictures.
Seems like a similar phenomenon.
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In an alternate universe, the external-brain tool discussion is *all* about bootstrapping notes about external-brains, but never gets around to applying that to other knowledge work.
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Per Alan Kay, it's a pop culture; for the most part, people aren't engaging deeply with the problem.
(separately, though I think the former is the true reason: I'm not optimistic that current cogsci theories about this particular topic present many powerful ideas)
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I’ll send you an email next week with a summary of a body of work I’m currently digging into.
I’m still writing it, but there’s apparently 40 years of research + hypermedia implementation of learning systems in ill-structured domains.
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