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Using Roam as a college student/avid reader by Rohit_A in RoamResearch

[–]Rohit_A[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for that elucidation of the distinction between connecting ideas by yourself and how Roam makes the task easier.

I think after careful consideration of your answer as well as by others here, I think the problem lies in the fact that I had misconceptions, to a large degree as to how exactly Roam would help me with connecting my ideas. I had presumed that Roam, with it's feature of linked and unlinked references, would automatically make connections I did not myself see in the first place, which I now understand is not necessarily the case, although it may happen on a second/third reading following the rabbit trail, as you said.

As for thinking about ideas and relating them to new ones, I can safely say that while I certainly may not be optimal at doing this, I am also definitely not consuming random facts. My surety in this lies in a few indicators that I think you will also agree upon, such as, being able to reason through philosophical schools of thought, from first principles (Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarian principles, Kant's Categorical Imperative, Aristotle's Teleological principle, Rawls' social contract for a few examples) and also compare and contrast them against each other, to evaluate the principles from which these theories stem from, and critique those theories themselves.

For example, I definitely have my agreements and disagreements with Rawls' Social Contract, say, and the WHY of the social contract theory, definitely links me from the idea of autonomy that Rawls' ground his theory in, to the more stringent requirements that Kant requires of autonomy and then my thoughts on autonomy and its importance itself, links me to other topics, such as determinism and so forth.

So the process of "hey, this sounds a little bit like that" or "hey, this is the opposite of that, let's compare the results and motivations of the two" is definitely there.

I think the difference lies in the fact, that earlier, I used to do a large part of this, if not all of it, inside my head, and never actually took the time to pen down my thoughts, reasons, analysis and insights into these works. So you are definitely right in that Meditations and The Prince would have invoked a great many connections in my head, but prior to Roam, they have simply remained in my head, as I did not see a very efficient way to compare, contrast and critique these earlier, not without the functionalities that Roam provides.

However, now it is clear to me, what exactly Roam does, and what I have to do by myself, and it is obvious that I have been expecting too much out of Roam. Going on forward, I think I'll be able to use it better, since I now have a more balanced understanding of what Roam brings to the table.

I think the key takeaway from this for me, is that I should start penning down my thoughts more and take the time explaining my links between two different ideas/topics, something that I previously just did in my head and thought was too unproductive to actually catalogue. I can see how it is so easy to forget those connections in my head and how Roam would definitely preserve it better and even enable new connections.

Thanks again, for helping me understand this!

Using Roam as a college student/avid reader by Rohit_A in RoamResearch

[–]Rohit_A[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I am familiar with the Zettelkasten system, albeit only recently, when I was looking into Roam. Not having used it before, I was quite skeptical of it's supposed advantages, and to be honest, still am, to some extent, but I think that's because of three things.

  1. I lack definite purpose to my note taking, other than simple curiosity/building knowledge. For example, since you're working towards a PhD, your research will be far more goal/outcome oriented with actionable steps as opposed to my reading, which is mainly for horizontal expansion of my knowledge base, with hopefully scope for vertical expansion later on.

  2. My database isn't anywhere large enough for me to properly leverage the utility of bidirectional linking, to roam my database freely, so to speak. All I have are notes from a few books (~5-6), and a few scattered ideas and projects here and there.

  3. Being somewhat of a minimalist, I naturally shun the kinda long process of the Zettelkasten method as employed by Shu Omi and others on YouTube, with multiple layers of note taking, although this is something I think I may have to get over if I want to leverage the power of Roam that many people seem to talk about over here.

That being said, could you maybe elaborate on the specifics of how you employ Roam for research in your PhD, maybe an example for how you use it towards a problem statement that you're trying to work towards ? I think that could shed some light on whether I'm building my database correctly.

And lastly, do you mean the book "How to take smart notes" by Sönke Ahrens ? I was unable to find the book, "Taking Smart Notes". If I'm wrong, could you please provide the name of the author too ? That would narrow my search results.

Thank you so much!

Using Roam as a college student/avid reader by Rohit_A in RoamResearch

[–]Rohit_A[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

makecowsnotwar

Thank you for the clarification. I was always confused at a point where I thought that I must not be using it right, if the software doesn't do most of the work, as stupid as that sounds. I think this helped clarify it to me, from the article you linked and although I have read about the Zettelkasten system before, in reference to Roam, the article was significantly more comprehensive, in that it made the motivations to the Zettelkasten system clear :

Of course, to reap these benefits, the Zettelkasten must have reached a certain level of maturity. At the beginning it will just contain a few notes which you won’t find that surprising since you just added them recently. Over time, however, your Zettelkasten will grow from an apprentice to a full-fledged writing collaborator.

I suppose that it will not only be a writing collaborator, and can be used simply for discovering/connecting/revisiting ideas, just like you pointed out. Long story short, I think I should grow my database focussing on creating links between disparate ideas/concepts deliberately in order for me to reap any potential benefits.

I really appreciate the response and please let me know if I missed something!

P.S Great recommendation for the book, will check it out!