- 15 Dec, 2025 *
It’s not uncommon for new zettelkasten users who place a premium on deep reading to find the intangible nature of ideas anxiety-producing. Engaging texts abundant in attractive notions, heady concepts, and structurally complex arguments can feel overwhelming, leading the über-curious toward analysis paralysis—unable to distinguish between ideas worth saving and those better left alone. But, knowledge work requires we move beyond stasis and into action. One way to do so is by reading intangible ideas as functional information.
From Fiddly to Functional
Ask a Platonist, and they’ll tell you ideas are idealized "Forms" living in a somewhat, but not entirely inaccessible realm. Ask an Aristotelean, and they’ll say ideas live here, in the rock, in the tree, in th…
- 15 Dec, 2025 *
It’s not uncommon for new zettelkasten users who place a premium on deep reading to find the intangible nature of ideas anxiety-producing. Engaging texts abundant in attractive notions, heady concepts, and structurally complex arguments can feel overwhelming, leading the über-curious toward analysis paralysis—unable to distinguish between ideas worth saving and those better left alone. But, knowledge work requires we move beyond stasis and into action. One way to do so is by reading intangible ideas as functional information.
From Fiddly to Functional
Ask a Platonist, and they’ll tell you ideas are idealized "Forms" living in a somewhat, but not entirely inaccessible realm. Ask an Aristotelean, and they’ll say ideas live here, in the rock, in the tree, in the wind. John Locke tells us, "[Ideas are] the object of understanding when a man thinks." Postmodernists may agree, although they’d take issue with Locke’s gender-normativity, adding a caveat that ideas are always already problematized within the tensile nature of power dynamics. None of this gets close to Descartes’ granular take on innate, adventitious, and factitious ideas, nor does it touch on Rudolf Steiner’s belief that ideas are the things perceived by thought. Different intellectual cultures understand ideas in different ways, each crucial to the culture’s understanding of its unique vision of the world.
Every philosophical tradition bases its definition of "idea" on its own underlying assumptions about their environment, which is why a unified definition of "idea" continues (and will forever continue) to elude us. We’re not dealing with a single conceptual object, but with multiple framings built on different assumptions. We may scramble for a universal definition to be applied to all people, but no universal framing exists to support one.
From the Latin informare, meaning "to give form to," information is what Platonic "Ideas" cloistered in the etheric realm become once they hit the ground. In our process-oriented, human realm, information is employable. We point to it and say, Here it is, and here’s how I want to use it.
We intuit information’s actionality—its ability to act and be acted upon—when we’re "moved" after hearing disturbing news; or when we "snap" at someone for over-sharing, asking, "What would you like me to do with this information?" Information, especially new information, imposes itself. It alters the situations we navigate and the discussions we find ourselves in.
Niklas Luhmann echoes this sentiment when discussing information’s ability to change "the state of the system," leaving behind "a structural effect."1 When new information arrives, a system must react, not only to the new information, but to the changes the new information induces. Information cannot not have an effect. It forces a response.
Gregory Bateson, to whom much of Luhmann’s thinking on information is indebted,2 defined information similarly, as "a difference which makes a difference."3 For Bateson, the system doesn’t respond to the information itself, but to the difference it detects—its deviation from expectation. Every new difference forces a recalibration of what surrounds it. What we call "new information" is simply the arrival of a difference the system can no longer ignore.
Information in Action
To get a sense of how this works, picture a group of people throwing a frisbee. Some are skilled, able to throw long and level. Others struggle to keep the frisbee flat, only able to reach players closest to them. Over time, each person works out where they need to stand, who they can throw hard and fast to, who needs a gentler approach, and from what distance. The players maintain the system of play in order to yield playing. But, add another player (a new informational difference), and both the circle and the players’ responses shift. The boundaries of the playing field widen in some areas, shrink in others. Players adjust who they throw to based on the new player’s skill set and where they’ve positioned themselves in response to the shape of the circle.
Information added to your network of notes works similarly. It’s active when it changes the conditions of the network—the connections, conceptual proximities, and contexts that begin to form around it—the same way a new frisbee player alters the conditions of the game. But it’s also actionable: it can be used, leveraged, incorporated, and moved around. In the same way players can be rearranged to make for a better game, a particularly useful piece of information can be pulled into different topical contexts.
No two people experience or interpret differences in the same way. The system changes depending entirely on the people engaging it. Imagine a group of friends deciding what to eat for dinner. One person says, "Let’s get pizza." Here, "pizza" is the idea, the new informational difference introduced into the situation. But, it doesn’t arrive in a vacuum. One person, having already eaten a lot of bread that day, feels bloated at the thought of eating more. They don’t want pizza. Another reacts with irritation, hearing the suggestion as yet another example of the person trying to make decisions for the group. They suggest tacos to rebalance the power dynamic. A third person visiting from overseas, having heard only great things about New York City slices, gets excited. Their vote is for pizza.
As a unit of informational difference, "pizza" alters the conversation, the mood in the room, and how each person relates to the others. It may even register physically, triggering salivary responses, tension, or an increase heart rate. Neither the individuals nor the group as a whole are the same once "pizza" enters the room.
The Practicality of Information
Whether in social interactions, physical sensations, or in knowledge work, information, like a catalyst, quickens a change. No matter how subtle or significant, information puts things in motion. This is great news for anyone who reads with an eye toward knowledge work, and especially for those who feel stumped when trying to engage with heady ideas. When we relate to an idea as information, we no longer need ask, Is this idea meaningful?, hoping our answer tells us what to do. Instead we ask questions that yield employable answers: What does this information speak to? How does it inform my thinking? Does it support my writing? Answering "yes" to any of the above gives an idea purpose. It demonstrates that the idea you’re working with is having an effect.
This article comes from a draft of a new book on working with ideas in a zettelkasten.
*If you enjoyed this piece, please pick up a copy of my latest book, A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly. You may also sign up for my free newsletter HERE. To get my premium newsletter with all the insights, short essays, and zettelkasten scene weekly recaps, click HERE. To read more of my writing, click HERE. To learn more about me, click HERE. For my full website, click HERE.
Luhmann, N. (1996). Social Systems. Stanford University Press.↩ 1.
Bryant, L. (2011). The Democracy of Objects. Open Humanities Press.↩ 1.
Bateson, G. (2000). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University of Chicago Press.↩