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You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#321

Post by bts327 »

daniel_reetz wrote: post #33
y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

Hmm. The experiences that changed and benefited me most were least predictable. As a result, I try to manage experiences less, and choose the unknown more. But in the spirit of what you've said, I try to avoid doing dumb, damaging, or boring things twice.

This is it, combined with the points brought forth by the parent. Like all things, a healthy balance seems to be the optimal strategy. Life’s a journey; good idea to plan but the people and places you find off the beaten path are often the most rich and rewarding.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#322

Post by wizardwes »

verisimi wrote: post #128
jononor wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible in some circumstances. But also possible that they are the result of other peoples actions (example: emotionally abusive parents or partner)

If you have an emotionally abusive partner, and don't do something about it, perhaps depression is acting as a prompt for you to take action. Some part of you (your soul, say) knows better, and via pain (depression) is trying to shift you towards a better, more joyful, result. I believe we have an innate guiding system, and that this is how it works - move away from pain, towards joy. You can fail to take action, you…

Pretty bad prompt to take action then, you know, the thing that makes it harder and less likely for you to take action?

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#323

Post by keiferski »

gizmo wrote: post #262
keiferski wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty trite if you stop to think about it. “Everything in your life that you experience has an effect on your experience of life.” We all exist in the world, not apart from it, and no amount of exclusion or creation of “sterile spaces” will change that.

Expressions like "eat your vegetables" and "life is short" are also trite. But the purpose of folk wisdom isn't to shock and awe with fresh insights. The purpose is to remind people of what they already know to be true. That way we steer our behavior more towards the kind of life we want to live.

Maybe "trite" wasn't the right word. More like a tautology.

I guess you could call it "folk wisdom" but it seems more like a restating of the obvious to me.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#324

Post by riskable »

notnaut wrote: post #315
nuclearnice1 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

polyptoton?

Epanalepsis? Chiasmus? Why are all rhetorical devices given such arcane names?

> arcane names

That's why they're magic! If people used these words every day they'd end up starting fires or summoning demons.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#325

Post by riskable »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #311
daniel_reetz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. The experiences that changed and benefited me most were least predictable. As a result, I try to manage experiences less, and choose the unknown more. But in the spirit of what you've said, I try to avoid doing dumb, damaging, or boring things twice.

>> I try to avoid doing dumb, damaging, or boring things twice. As a parent I tell my kids: "Make lots of mistakes. Learn from them and don't repeat them; avoid the fatal ones". Then I try to remember my own words before I chastize them for their multitude of dumb decisions (teenage boys)...

To be fair, you have avoided the fatal ones. So at the very least you're not a hypocrite.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#326

Post by pixl97 »

schneebyte wrote: post #214
verisimi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of answers about free will. My criticism is that they all seem to make the same error, in treating the existence of free will as some sort of binary decision. My view is that the more one's model is coherent with the underlying reality, the more options are available to the individual. The greater the selection, the more free will you have. Eg, if someone pulls a gun on you, you may think you have no free will.…

Maybe you have a different definition of free will. But to me those examples are just knowledge. Regardless of how many possible options, the process of making the choice would be free will, if it existed.

I mean, no one has a well defined definition of free will, much like the worlds intelligence and consciousness.

With this said having more knowledge expands your ability to explore the problem space of existence. Lets imagine that you are a single bit, you have the 'choice' of being one or zero. From an outside observer the problem space of the outcome is very predictable in the sense we know it's going to be a 1 or 0. Now, keep adding random bits and our ability to predict the outcome of any state drops dramatically very quickly. But that's choosing at random, what if most bit states are bit random at all? For example this digital creature we're talking about now is millions of bit states long set by a learning algorithm, it so advanced it has an internal Turing machine that can simulate potential outcome states far into the future when executing code. You would look at this and say "well, it doesn't have free will, it just has an incomputably large set of potential bit states" But an outside observer unaware of the programs nature and it's starting state (for example it's performing a Turing test against the machine) would probably think the entity has free will.

You are a very large set of states, because of this you cannot prove free will. You've reversed causality in your summary.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#327

Post by habosa »

8bitme wrote: post #290

> the goal of a book isn’t to get to the last page, it’s to expand your thinking. I would apply this to fiction books too. Some people consider reading fiction books a waste of time. But fiction books too can expand your mind by exploring ideas that may not be possible in non-fiction books or exploring the same ideas but in a way that non-fiction books cannot achieve easily or at all.

Do people really consider reading fiction a waste of time? I’d love to meet someone who says reading Mark Twain or Toni Morrison or Vladimir Nabokov is a waste of time. Actually … I don’t think I’d like to meet that person.

There are definitely some forms of fiction that are less enlightening than others, but even the “lowest” forms are generally time better spent than scrolling the internet or watching random TV channels.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#328

Post by _aavaa_ »

rramadass wrote: post #18
al_borland wrote: post #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…

> 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 jo…

> particularly in these times when knowledge is so vast and there is so much to read.

I come down on the other side of this. The implicit assumption here is that more is better, but it's like drinking from the firehose.

> The principle to keep in mind is "Knowledge for Knowledge sake."

The other position is that knowledge is only useful if it lets you do something that you couldn't do without it.

If you're gaining knowledge for the pleasure of gaining it, and I see no need to justify why one would do this, then whether you read deeply or read widely doesn't make much of a difference.

But if you want to do something with that knowledge, the approach you take should be informed by what you want to do.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#329

Post by [deleted] »

y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

[deleted]

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#330

Post by feyman_r »

edanm wrote: post #149
daniel_reetz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. The experiences that changed and benefited me most were least predictable. As a result, I try to manage experiences less, and choose the unknown more. But in the spirit of what you've said, I try to avoid doing dumb, damaging, or boring things twice.

That's a good point. I'm a big reader - and I have lists of thousands of books I want to read. But one reason I semi-on-purpose still pick up random books that I stumble across and look fun, even if they're less "optimally chosen" by me, is exactly so that I sometimes stumble on things I would otherwise miss. Or maybe just, like many readers, I love buying new books almost as much as reading them, and this is just an…

That last bit resonates with me so much! In fact, there’s a word in Japanese for it - ‘tsundoku’! Ever since I stumbled upon it, I feel almost vindicated :)).
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