org-brain Concept mapping using org-mode

I’ve tried using personal wikis in the past, in the form of a TiddlyWiki, but it felt weird to use a program separate from Emacs for that task. I kept some notes files in org-mode, used Deft to sift through them etc. But I can’t really say I felt confident about this system, it just seemed like a lot of information which I couldn’t really keep track of and instead of consulting my reference material I usually searched for the information again. The idea of a personal wiki is to use it as reference material when you learn something new, or to connect your thoughts: a way to unload your brain. I guess it has some similarities to a journal, but less focused on chronological order and personal experience?

Concept mapping was unknown to me before I heard of a piece of software called The Brain, which was mentioned in this reddit post on knowledge management in Emacs. A concept map is similar to a mind map, but doesn’t focus on a central topic as much as a mind map usually does. Instead it is a way to connect different concepts with one another, and the same concept can be linked to from different concepts, creating a network of linked concepts. This is similar to a wiki, but in a visual form. I find that a problem with mind maps is that they get cluttered fast; it can be hard to get an overview due to information overload. The Brain solves this beautifully by centering on a node (a thought in brain lingo) and only letting you see its parents, its siblings, its children and related nodes. I was intrigued by this piece of software, but as with TiddlyWiki I thought that it would be in line with my workflow if it was integrated with Emacs. So I started working on a project I call org-brain.