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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

#341

Post by EricMausler »

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…

I think everything is ultimately net positive if you strengthen and condition the way you internalize all the sensory exposure.

To me, the risks are being overwhelmed by internalizing too much at once, and the opportunity cost of having a limited amount of time to take things in to your senses.

Influence is a very nuanced thing so I don't want to sound too black and white here, but I think it's like a brainstorm session. You take what you like best from your senses/inputs/etc

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

#342

Post by ChildOfChaos »

The advancement in AI and LLMs with decent context windows is a usecase I am excited about for all of this.

Because I can read a book without taking such a huge amount of notes, which makes it easier to stay with those ideas and quicker to read and then I can load a PDF of the book into an LLM and chat with it about the concepts in the book, use it to produce notes, or discuss ideas that were in it and ask it to cross reference it.

It also makes it easier for me to come back to it several months later, I find that this can be better than my notes, as if i remember something from a book that is now relevant, can be loaded into an AI and ask it about that specific part and the quotes that are relevant.

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

#343

Post by fransje26 »

somenameforme wrote: post #263
fransje26 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that language itself does not contain views, values and perspectives. Language itself does, in fact, very much contain views, values and perspectives. As an example, there are population groups that do not have a word for the color blue, and that cannot, in consequence, distinguish between green and blue objects. [0] [1] And that's an example that has been noticed throughout the world. [0] https://www.sciencealert.…

The claims in the first link, at least, should set off your BS detector. The colors they claim the group could trivially identify are very near identical in terms of 3d distance. By contrast, the colors they claim they could not determine the difference between are extremely far in 3d distance. It's objectively illogical. A quick search turns up that the claims are indeed false, and were fabricated by the BBC for a d…

I did not do a full literature study of the claims of the article, as that was meant as an illustration of the point, and it was the first relevant link that popped up.

Whatever the alleged fabrications of the BBC might have been or not been for the Himba experiments, similar observations have been made for other groups as well, from Amazonian tribes, to population groups in Papua New Guinea, to Aborigines in Australia. And the MIT research link is discussing a very similar result.

That languages influence how you perceive and see the world has been well studied and is well documented.

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

#344

Post by naughtmagic »

keybored wrote: post #332

I don’t buy it at all. Effective learning[1] is about effortful recall. Things that you just read have a transient learning effect. But the common way of cramming is done through this transient means because it is a simple strategy for unstructured/otherwise busy students and it works until the exam (but not much after). And you are … maybe in the sense that it always remains in your unconscious. But what use is that…

I'm with you there; you'll need some recall even when reading. You can't learn a new domain when the previously introduced concepts, vocabulary, or equations are inaccessible because you can't remember them.

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

#345

Post by rramadass »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #328
rramadass wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 kn…

> The implicit assumption here is that more is better,

No, that is the assumption that you are making and not what i meant. It is an undeniable fact that today we have a far far greater amount of Scientific and Technological Knowledge (sheer Data without making any value judgements) than in any time in the past Human history. Our Society's dependence on Science/Technology has also increased exponentially since the beginning of Industrialization thus forcing us to know/learn more and more. Also see my comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40154158

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

This is a very limiting viewpoint which is what the posted article and my comments are arguing against. The utility of some knowledge may not be apparent at its inception but may turn out to be of utmost importance when other fields have also developed so everything can come together into a greater whole. A good example is how Materials Science revolutionized Civil Engineering in the building of man-made structures.

> 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.

The justification has to do with getting exposed to a greater amount of concepts/ideas and not necessarily understanding/assimilating everything. Here reading widely does make 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.

Only in the specific case when the end-goal/knowledge is clear eg. Engineering. Many a time in scientific research one does not even know the utility of something until sometime in the future when things align correctly. A great example is "Number Theory" which G.H.Hardy thought useless as a practical discipline but which has turned out to be indispensable in today's information technology (in cryptography etc.) centric world.

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

#346

Post by layer8 »

somenameforme wrote: post #74
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…

I'd challenge this with a thought experiment. Imagine we put a group of toddlers on an island and somehow give them knowledge of language (and enough sustenance to survive), but absolutely 0 external input otherwise. These people, as they grow, would gradually develop their own views, values, and perspectives. Do the exact same thing on another island and you'd get entirely different results! One can see this very th…

The same will happen if you take two identical double pendulums and give them an as identical push as possible. Minute differences in initial conditions and in the environment can lead to arbitrarily large differences in outcome, while everything still being wholly deterministic.

We really have little idea how much our character and behavior is formed by experiences and how much by our DNA. Though pretty clearly, early experiences generally have a larger effect than later experiences.

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

#347

Post by gmassman »

EricMausler wrote: post #341
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…

I think everything is ultimately net positive if you strengthen and condition the way you internalize all the sensory exposure. To me, the risks are being overwhelmed by internalizing too much at once, and the opportunity cost of having a limited amount of time to take things in to your senses. Influence is a very nuanced thing so I don't want to sound too black and white here, but I think it's like a brainstorm sess…

That’s a nice sentiment, but I don’t think it can reasonably be applied to most people. Consider the kids brought up around gang culture and taught to sling dope in middle school. Is that experience a net positive for them?

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

#348

Post by layer8 »

jebarker wrote: post #271
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…

If there's "no going back" doesn't that imply you don't have free will and therefore you can't really choose what you do and don't do?

You can choose what you do, but you cannot choose what you want to do. Choices are usually heavily biased by who and what we are.

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

#349

Post by TeMPOraL »

lukan wrote: post #320
pixl97 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this also just a form of survivorship bias? You wouldn't be posting this from prison for example. Maybe at the end of the day simple platitudes only work for the lucky.

Well, by definition, if you have bad luck, you are unlucky. But sometimes you can move out of a chain of bad luck events by doing something else and not repeating the same stuff while hoping for change.

> not repeating the same stuff while hoping for change

That infamous quote typically attributed to Einstein notwithstanding, really most of learning and progress is done by doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes.

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

#350

Post by Zambyte »

al_borland wrote: post #297
freilanzer wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a blank paper sheet as bookmark and carry a pen, so that I write down important notes from the book content on the bookmark. Afterwards the book is - ideally and dependent on the content - condensed to one sheet, that I can refer to later. It also helps with retaining the content.

I’ve tried this with an index card once and quickly filled it up. As I ran out of space I found myself question if someone was card worthy, which was a distraction. I also tried writing in the margins on a book. I don’t like writing in the book due to it losing a lot of ability to shared after the fact, or if the book isn’t mine it’s a non-starter. That said, it was a very different experience, it was more like havin…

I have also not found a great way to take notes while reading books, but most of my reading is on my computer right now. That makes digital note taking the obvious choice, and space isn't really an issue in that case. My way of deciding what to take notes on is by simply asking myself: could I want to remember this in the future? If the answer is yes (it usually is if I even considered asking it) I make a note of it. The note minimally contains a reference to the source, and some links to related topics. The links to related topics allows me to discover the note in the future by referencing the backlinks on those topics.

I recommend looking into the Zettelkasten method for note taking, if you are not already familiar. It is originally used with index cards, so you might find it to be a useful way to handle taking notes on index cards. I use a Zettelkasten-inspired digital note taking system called Org Roam. The thing I like the most about Zettelkasten is that it minimizes the effort for getting your ideas out of your head. You can worry about organizing the ideas after you have them laid out in front of you.

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