Digital brain as a knowledge base for Data Science

One brain is good, two is excellent.

Taking notes on everything I learn has been a constant in my life, the main question of my notes is, where are they.

I have taken notes on paper, Evernote, notepad, word, napkins, etc…, in the end, all those notes are not in a specific place, they are scattered everywhere, with different formats and inaccessible, this causes all the valuable knowledge acquired over the years is nothing more than a nice moment of annotation and a perpetual cycle of forgetfulness.

To write down everything and never read it again is synonymous with wasting time.

The human brain works as a branched set of interconnected concepts, that is, it is not linear, it is in a permanent movement of ideas, a concept within the human mind can branch to the point of leaving the central idea and go to unexpected places, in the same way, within the mind can be born valuable ideas to go through several concepts that together give rise to new ideas.

The acquisition of knowledge in various disciplines can produce new and innovative ideas on reflection of the whole.

Today there is a note-taking system very similar to how the human mind works, i.e. having the possibility to connect notes with other notes and create a body of knowledge as potentially expandable as the user creates it.

When you have a system where you can keep all the acquired knowledge what you get is a knowledge base, when you can intuitively connect this knowledge what you get is a digital brain, a second digital brain that allows you to go back to each recorded concept, make traceability and be able to expand it at will.

Imagine you are learning data science, the relevant knowledge that encompasses this discipline has a large compendium of skills and specific knowledge, from Python as a programming language to databases with SQL, or soft skills such as communication and non-verbal language when presenting a solution to your customer.

You could create a learning environment where you can branch out the fundamentals of Python and within those annotations, you can connect at certain times concepts with Linux, with databases, libraries for data manipulation, or any idea that may be useful at some point.

There are several alternatives to implement the system of interconnected notes, some of these alternatives are; roam research, zettlr, logseq, notion , or my favorite obsidian.

Why choose Obsidian

From my point of view, Obsidian is one of the best options when choosing to implement this note-taking system as the basis for building your knowledge base and digital brain, the main reasons are the following:

• Specific focus: Obsidian is specifically focused on creating a knowledge base of perennial notes, that is, notes that do not expire, notes that last over time, are easy to access, and interconnected with each other.
• Markdown format: Obsidian is based on note-taking in a plain text format, it is viewable and editable in virtually any environment.
• Real privacy: Obsidian saves all your files locally, the notes of all your life will not remain in limbo if Obsidian decides to change course or simply ceases to exist, it is also possible to save it in your trusted cloud and create permanent backups, a respite to the cloud.
• Dedicated community: Obsidian has a wide range of users who develop plugins from themes to customize the interface or enhance the benefits of obsidian at a very high level, the Obsidian community provides support to anyone who needs help, within the home page itself you have access to a community forum.
• Free: Obsidian is free, there is the option to pay 25$ to support the development and get updates before everyone else, you can pay 50$ for commercial use, you even can pay 8$ monthly to have a cloud backup directly with obsidian, they also offer a monthly payment of 16$ to make publications.
• Continuous improvement: Since its release to the real world to date obsidian has maintained a constant evolution as far as updates are concerned, obsidian developers listen to their users and this makes it a very valuable tool for the needs of all users, also the ceiling of the evolution of this system of notes still has a lot of growth potential, what will we see in the future of this tool?

Real example

This is a screenshot of the graphical view of my notes taken over 7 months.

Within each point there is a specific note connected with other notes, this would correspond to the concept of synapsing the neurons, here is a graphic and functional similarity of the comparison between a human brain and this system of perennial notes.

Obsidian and data science

Imagine you are learning the basics of Python and you want to connect your new knowledge with increasingly complex concepts, this intelligent note system allows you to go from the most basic to the most complex, drawing a traceable and enduring learning path over time, leaving behind the fragility of memory and getting the possibility of sealing that synaptic path in your brain.

Here you can see a central note called Python on which it branches to several note branches.

Each new branch of notes, branches out to other more specific concepts, that is, deepening the knowledge.

I have lost count of the number of times I have needed to turn to my notes and through a tag, the system managed to find everything I needed at the time.

I intend to go deeper into Obsidian’s functions, workflows, tag system, metadata, long etcetera in search of optimizing this second digital brain.

I invite you to investigate and delve deeper into this amazing tool and the possibilities it brings when studying anything.