Fostering creativity in the Zettelkasten process

The Standard Definition of Creativity paper discusses that creativity is novelty + value.

Value is context specific and will be measured differently depending on what form the creative output takes (an artwork, a scientific discovery, etc.).

From the paper:

Originality is undoubtedly required. It is often labeled novelty, but whatever the label, if something is not unusual, novel, or unique, it is commonplace, mundane, or conventional. It is not original, and therefore not creative.

To foster novelty, is therefore to foster the development of a creative outcome. How then to foster novelty when working with the Zettelkasten process?

Similarity Learning can be used to rank the similarity of all notes, in reference to any given note.

I argue that finding connections between the given note, and highly unrelated notes is an exercise in identifying novelty. The explanation for this lies in the statement itself, which in a sense, is contradictory.

Given two unrelated notes, if relationships can be found between them, then they are no longer unrelated. However, simply drawing any old relationship between two notes does not necessarily suffice as a creative act. It’s the quality of those discovered relationships that defines the strength of their relationship. A relationship poor in quality, moves more towards commonplace than novelty.

The very act of taking two unrelated notes and finding relationships, is therefore the exercise in making novel connections. Whether or not this leads to the emergence of a valuable creative idea is secondary. But the likelihood of this happening is arguably increased, as novelty is a necessary component of creativity.

To innovate this process in Zettelkasten, is then to increase the possibility of discovering novel connections when working with the Zettelkasten process.

Therefore, applying Similarity Learning to the Zettelkasten process helps solve the problem of discovering novel connections within one’s Zettelkasten. This is a genuine problem, particularly when the Zettelkasten becomes so big that the majority of its contents is long forgotten (which should happen very quickly if the Zettelkasten is being used to much effect).