The best Second Brains are always dense networks

up:: Network Density

The best Second Brains/linked thinking personal instances are those that grow in a well-linking fashion, close to the “neurons that fire together, wire together” adage of neuroscience.

This can be measured (partially) by the graph’s connectance $\rho$, which is a measure of how many of all possible links actually exist.

In particular, this measure is worth measuring as the graph grows (i.e. $N\to \infty$). If $\rho \to 0$, then this graph is said to be sparse, which isn’t an effective use of linked thinking: there are many notes (nodes) that are being created without linking to enough others.

Otherwise, this graph is called dense: the amount of links created are not falling behind to the increasing amount of created notes. It’s the ideal scenario for a “healthy” Second Brain/Zettelkasten/Digital Garden. It’s called linked thinking for a reason!