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 &ldquo;respond&rdquo; by surfacing related ideas, unexpected connections, unexpected tensions. It was a metaphor. A beautiful one, but still a metaphor. But what if it didn&rsquo;t have to be? At the…