The CETDE Framework: A Guide to Deep Knowledge in the AI Era

2025-10-05

Introduction: The Cognitive Dilemma in the AI Era

I opened Readwise Reader one day, searching for an article I'd saved weeks ago. Instead, I faced 3,000+ saved items, hundreds of highlights, and a stark realization: I had built an information graveyard. Collecting obsessively but processing minimally. The highlights were there, but the understanding? Nowhere to be found.

In the AI era, our core challenge has shifted from information scarcity to cognitive bandwidth. We encounter vast information daily, yet only a fraction becomes internalized. When we skim rapidly or highlight mechanically, information flows through us like water through a sponge, never truly penetrating.

That moment became the catalyst for the CETDE framework. Grounded in the DIKW pyramid (Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom), it transforms information into knowledge and wisdom capable of reshaping cognitive structures.

The Five Dimensions of CETDE

Capture: Selective Awareness

Collection transcends mere hoarding. It is conscious selection. The core principle is consolidating information gathering into a single place, reducing cognitive load from constant platform-switching.

In Practice:

• Establish a unified collection tool as your sole reading interface. I use Readwise Reader as my unified inbox. Newsletters, RSS feeds, articles, even YouTube videos all flow into one place.
• Employ "deferred processing": add even search findings to your tool rather than consuming immediately.
• Ask yourself: "What does this stir in me?" to establish emotional anchoring.

Neuroscience confirms that learning without emotional engagement is ephemeral. With limited cognitive bandwidth, choosing wisely surpasses working harder.

Encode: Maintaining Flow

The encoding phase centers on rapidly organizing information structure rather than achieving deep comprehension. It converts data into information through preliminary processing. Think of this as a translator making sense of a foreign text: you're making the content comprehensible without yet integrating it into your personal knowledge system.

In Practice:

• Use AI for structured summarization: one-sentence assessment, detailed abstract, key points. Reader's AI summarization helps me quickly grasp an article's structure and decide if it warrants deeper processing.
• Rephrase in your own words, transforming the abstract into concrete.
• Release binary judgments and let understanding arise naturally without solidifying into labels.

Transfer: From Perception to Cognition

The transfer phase represents the transition from short-term to long-term memory. It establishes preliminary understanding while allowing information to flow naturally. If Encode is like understanding what a map says, Transfer is like memorizing the route so you can navigate without constantly checking.

In Practice:

• Rephrase notes in your own words and assign relevant tags. I transfer key insights into Tana, creating initial connections, while bookmarking sources in Mymind for future serendipitous rediscovery.
• Add valuable sources to buffer tools for later rediscovery through AI-generated tags and serendipity features.
• Harmonize with experience's natural rhythm. Don't force an insight before you're ready, but also don't cling to old ideas out of habit.

Buffering between Transfer and Distill allows information to resurface at opportune moments, providing unexpected connections when you're ready for deeper processing.

Distill: From Information to Knowledge

The distillation phase is the process's core, where deep understanding is established through cognitive conflict, active construction, and emotional anchoring. This forms knowledge authentically yours.

In Practice:

• Use AI to automatically connect existing notes, discovering relationships and contradictions. Tana's AI helps me find unexpected links between ideas I've captured weeks apart.
• Conduct deep inquiry exploring deeper meanings and applications. I often move to Gemini 2.5 Pro for extended dialogues, using its large context window to pursue questions across multiple turns.
• Reorganize insights into new or updated notes.

At this stage, notes transcend simple records to become knowledge assets infused with personal reflection. You know not only the "what" but the "why." These distilled notes become ready-to-use materials for writing and creating.

Express: Natural Outflow

The expression phase transforms knowledge into creative output. Writing and dialogue themselves constitute the deepest processing, testing understanding's completeness while revealing new connections.

Expression should emerge naturally as awareness's spontaneous manifestation rather than forced production. When understanding matures, the desire to share naturally arises. This is when I know the knowledge has truly become mine.

Integrating Zen Wisdom

The CETDE framework transcends methodology. It is a path of cognitive cultivation. These five steps correspond to five dimensions of deepening awareness:

• Capture – Pure Awareness: Non-discriminating, non-dual awareness where observer and observed are inseparable. Not creating a separate "watcher" but being the awareness itself.
• Encode – Suchness Observation: Maintaining fluidity without solidifying understanding into fixed concepts. Seeing things as they are, not as we label them.
• Transfer – Natural Flow: Harmonizing with experience's rhythm, allowing transformation rather than forcing it. Like watching clouds without grasping them.
• Distill – Insight Without Dwelling: Insights arise naturally, yet remain unattached to them. Understanding emerges and dissolves without becoming new dogma.
• Express – Compassion's Expression: Sharing emerges naturally as awareness's attribute. Wisdom flows outward without calculation or self-consciousness.

These dimensions aren't strictly sequential but different facets operating simultaneously, mutually deepening in a spiral upward path.

Raising Doubt: A Cognitive Tool for the AI Era

Let me share a recent exchange that illustrates this practice. I was watching a video that mentioned the possibility of an unknown planet in our solar system:

Me: So the solar system is definitely a single-star system?

Claude: That's the scientific consensus based on current observations.

Me: But how confident are we in this consensus? What's the actual certainty level?

Claude: Very high confidence, though there are hypotheses about distant objects like Planet Nine...

Me: What if there's something beyond our detection range? Could it be a brown dwarf? A primordial black hole?

Claude: Interesting. Those are actual scientific hypotheses. The outer solar system remains poorly observed...

Me: And if such an object exists, how might that connect to the synchronized emergence of civilizations during the Axial Age? Could cosmic factors influence human consciousness?

This wasn't random questioning. It was the Zen practice of "raising doubt" (起疑情) applied to collaborative knowledge inquiry with AI, particularly deepening the Distill phase of CETDE.

The Essence: Continuously engage and refine doubt. Not skepticism but a yearning to transcend established cognitive boundaries. This becomes the driving force enabling continuous deepening in AI dialogue.

Three Key Practices:

1. Raise doubt without attachment to answers: True wisdom often hides within questions themselves. Maintain freshness toward questions rather than rushing to definitive conclusions.
2. Maintain total presence: Fully immerse in the current exploration, undistracted and unrushed, catching subtle turning points in dialogue.
3. Dual verification: Let intuitive insights undergo logical scrutiny while keeping rational analysis open to intuitive wisdom. Transcend binary oppositions, maintaining dynamic balance between "known" and "unknown."

The practice of repeatedly questioning seemingly certain conclusions allows deep insights to surface. Most crucially, raising doubt preserves cognitive independence in the algorithmic age. The "unknowing knowing" within doubt is precisely the human wisdom AI cannot replace.

Conclusion: Depth Over Breadth

The CETDE framework's core insight: deep processing is an attitude. It requires reverence toward knowledge and patience toward cognition.

In the age of information overload, remember:

• Cognitive bandwidth is limited. Choosing wisely matters more than working harder.
• Less is more. Depth surpasses breadth.
• True value lies not in how much you know but in transformation's depth.

The framework provides a theoretical reference point. What matters is discovering and verifying these principles within your own experience. Tools like Readwise Reader, Tana, and Mymind can support this practice, each excelling at different stages. But the specific tools matter less than the underlying principles.

A priori knowledge forms the foundation for effectively using AI, while the practice of raising doubt provides the wisdom to apply this knowledge. Between question and answer, between known and unknown, we discover insights unique to our age.

When we truly grasp CETDE's essence, we discover its five dimensions are actually the same awareness manifesting at different levels, ultimately pointing toward a single goal: transforming information into wisdom, maintaining cognitive independence and depth in the digital age.

Previous |

#pkm #workflow