The Future Is Not What It Used To Be: Hypertext, Note-Taking, And Tools for Thought
TL;DR
Read in such a light, it is shown that current TfT have rediscovered, unknowingly, ideas already known in the hypertext community, while remaining blind both to that prior art and to these alternative traditions.
Abstract
‘Tools for Thought’ (TfT) has undergone a quiet but significant change in meaning since its origins in the 1980s. Where once it described enhancing human cognition it has since been co-opted to describe a new generation of Markdown-centric, wiki-linked, Web-tech based app. This paper traces the conceptual drift, looking at the previously closer relationship of noting and outlining with Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tools and with hypertext research. It looks at what has been lost in the move to the newer style of program via blogging, wikis and the embracing of no/low code app creation. This history is set against the wider structuralist turn of the mid-twentieth century—the same cybernetic move that split into economy-scale and mind-scale visions of control. Also considered are overlooked note-taking traditions—both non-Western and strands within the West itself—that this history has largely ignored. Read in such a light, it is shown that current TfT have rediscovered, unknowingly, ideas already known in the hypertext community, while remaining blind both to that prior art and to these alternative traditions. Lastly, generative AI is considered as an emerging challenge for note-taking.
