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Here’s a slide deck about Luhmann’s method, as well as how Daniel Lüedecke translated Luhmann’s method into his own program called zkn^3 (boo, no mathjax).
The text on the slide deck is minimal, but it gives a good view of what Luhmann intended, and did not intend. While the programs I’ve used support linking and tagging, sequences of notes seems to be missing in all but zkn^3. While a “sequence” could be an endlessly-growing note, this would violate the principal that notes are intended to be short.
I do not believe Conor-White’s idea is what Luhmann would consider Zettelkasten. Luhmann’s method itself is over-hyped, IMO. It was fine for the time – no automation, etc. It’s also not magic, though a lot of bloggers seem to want to infuse “Zettelkasten” with some sort of power fu.
He wrote notes about his reading, on cards, gave them a number, maintained a keywords list and bibliography, and recorded card numbers in those lists so he could later reference the list and cards, if it want.
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Agreed.
To take the reductionism to another level, he actually just put ink onto paper in different patterns, then stored the paper in boxes 
While it is true he did as you said, the what, why and how of his system goes deeper than the mechanics of doing it. A crucial part of it is the interaction with the zettelkasten and how that leads to insight and discovery. The slide deck above goes into more detail, as does Take Smart Notes.
It’s kind of hard to argue with his publication record of 70 books, and 400 articles on a broad range of topics, as well as his developing a Theory of Society.
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Agree wholly. The mechanics were obvious. The keyword / bibliography lists were his entrée into the notes, and he used them to drill into existing cards to add related cards using the numbering system to do so. I would argue that the system is not what gave him the insight to write, but his interior grasp of the implications of his research. Taking notes doesn’t create wisdom.
Depends what kind of note.
What matters in the Zettelkasten is not that you take any kind of note: the core requirement is that you use your own words to phrase the ideas you have understood. As Take Smart Notes puts it, writing is the medium of thinking.
It’s this process of writing itself, accrued through thousands of notes and relationships between ideas, that promotes thinking, and hopefully wisdom at the end.
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