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You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
11–20 of 466 posts
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#12>I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.
I heard those quote for the first time about 4 years ago. I had often been a bit disappointed with myself for not taking more notes while reading, or reviewing what I read in a way where I could be one of those people to bring up quotes and concepts, citing back to the original source, with freakish accuracy. This quote made me feel better about simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it, and trusting that I’ve gained some perspective, even if I can’t cite all the sources that built my perspective on a topic.
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#13What about people that don’t read at all? Are they nothing?
"The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them." - Mark Twain
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#14"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#15I actually realized recently that this is probably the underlying phenomenon behind "how is my phone listening to my conversations to show me ads/articles?"
The other day I was thinking about LLM aggregation and in my internal dialogue used the example of "aliens built the pyramids" as a fringe theory that would be picked up on if tuning for other associated fringe positions by LLMs at places like Gab.
Later in the day I saw in my news feed an article on "how were the pyramids built?" (One of my interests is Egyptian and LBA Mediterranean archeology, so on topic.)
At first I thought "how the heck did it read my mind?"
But then as I thought about it more I remembered that usually my go to example of a fringe position is flat earth. So why was I suddenly using pyramids as the example in my internal dialogue.
What must have happened was that I initially saw the article headline in my feed in passing and didn't consciously register it, but when I was reaching for a fringe position example had been primed for that, and then only after having consciously been reflecting on the topic actually noticed the article in my feed.
Which IMO is a much more alarming explanation for the phenomenon - that my thinking was being written to a degree by my feed - than that my phone was somehow listening in on things or reading my mind.
It reminds me of a graffiti artist in NYC who used to write graffiti about how in reading it he had effectively graffitied your mind.
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#16except when an AI does it they call it "copyright violation"
human can't experience it whole of internet like ai.so it is a very bad comparison.
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#17This is relevant not only in the context of books and blogs, but also for the shorter forms of reading that we do more often like HN or Reddit comments, tweets etc.
One way to think about it is that reading on the internet, no matter how casual, is like scattering seeds on the soil of your mind. Some of these seeds will grow into trees and influence your actions and decisions, whether you're aware of it or not.
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#18>I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. I heard those quote for the first time about 4 years ago. I had often been a bit disappointed with myself for not taking more notes while reading, or reviewing what I read in a way where I could be one of those people to bring up quotes and concepts, citing back to the original source, with freakish accuracy. This…
> simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it, and trusting that I’ve gained some perspective,
This is the way to approach it, particularly in these times when knowledge is so vast and there is so much to read. The principle to keep in mind is "Knowledge for Knowledge sake."
But what has happened ever since Industrialization is the focus on output (for a Economy). Hence everything is supposed to be done for a job/money/fame/etc. which i believe is detrimental in the general case.
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#19Same thing is true about all your other habits: your thoughts, your food, your friendships, your music, what you buy and so on.
Tell me your habits, I will tell you who you are.
Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it
#20>I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. I heard those quote for the first time about 4 years ago. I had often been a bit disappointed with myself for not taking more notes while reading, or reviewing what I read in a way where I could be one of those people to bring up quotes and concepts, citing back to the original source, with freakish accuracy. This…
I still encourage you to write though. Writing has seriously transformed the way that I think. I refer to my notes very often too.