The indicators that Luhmann often uses can be divided into the following four categories.
The first category is subject index. When the content of a topic is rich enough, Luhmann will make a theme index card to summarize the topic. The theme index card will collect the codes or links of all relevant notes, and each note will briefly explain the core content in one or two words or a short sentence. This kind of index is equivalent to giving you an entrance to a topic.
The second category is similar to the topic index, except that it is not an overview of a topic, but an overview of all the different topics involved in cards in similar positions in the box.
The third category is to index the current cards, logically indicating what the previous bet is and what the next bet is (these cards are not necessarily next to each other in the box).
The fourth category, which is also the most commonly used index form, is a simple "note-note" connection. These two notes may be completely unrelated, and connecting them often leads to unexpected new ideas.
Through these related operations, we can better combine, splice and extract the card content, thus producing higher quality content.
There are two basic mechanisms of human memory: storage and retrieval. Bjork first distinguished two different types of memory competition: storage intensity and retrieval intensity. People used to think that the faster the memory, the better the learning effect. In short, the easier it is to save, the faster it is to extract. However, his experiment found a conclusion contrary to common sense: "there is a negative correlation between storage and extraction", that is, the easier it is to store in memory, the more difficult it is to extract; On the other hand, if it is difficult to store, it will be more convenient to extract knowledge.
For example, our common sense is to take notes in class. However, the principle of necessary difficulty suggests that you should not take notes in class, but you can take notes while listening to the teacher. You will hear too clearly and write too easily, but the hard disk of your brain will not be easy to extract in the future. After a while, most of the content will be forgotten. On the other hand, if writing is slightly more difficult, such as going back to the dormitory at night or writing notes the next day, it will be easier to extract them later. In other words, if it is difficult to store it, it will be better remembered and truly learned.
Nabokov, Mei, Yao and other card writing enthusiasts have mastered the principle of necessary difficulty through self-cultivation.
What is the biggest difference between Luhmann and others?
-There's an extra box.
The traditional way of writing cards, like Nabokov, only uses a box to keep what he wrote. Lu Man has an extra box to index and organize the contents of his cards. For example, Nabokov's card writing method is especially suitable for creative writing, such as writing novels, poems, essays, etc. Then the writing rule of Lumanka tape is especially suitable for academic writing and information-intensive writing, such as papers, academic monographs and long popular science.
From the perspective of cognitive science, Luhmann's method is extremely ingenious. Cognitive scientists divide human information processing into two categories. The first kind is first-order operation, that is, "cognition" itself, what you perceive, what you remember, what you learn and what you think. The second category is second-order operation, which is called "metacognition", that is, monitoring one's current cognition: "What do I perceive at present? What do I remember now? What am I studying at present? What am I thinking now? " This is meta-perception, meta-memory, meta-learning, meta-thinking and so on. "Metacognition" is cognitive cognition.
Luhmann's card-box writing method can better preserve and process the content of "meta-cognition" by adding new boxes. A box is used to keep the content itself; A box is used to monitor the content, and the brilliance of the Lumanka box writing method is not limited to this. More importantly, he related cards through various indexes, thus improving the efficiency of memory retrieval.