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The joy of reading books you don't understand

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Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#131
post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

If this is true in general, it might have been a factor in why the scientific and technological 'revolutions' of the so-called Enlightenment occurred in the West.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#132
post #81
post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

my Chinese teacher supplied me with this supposedly ancient piece of Chinese scholarly wisdom: read any book a hundred times, and its meaning will be obvious. i have found this to work amazingly well -- particularly with poorly written technical papers. your comment also reminded me of this one time I was hanging out and watching the Matrix (for the 100th time probably) with a film maker friend. and he was pointing o…

That is probably what it will take for me to finally understand Calasso's The Ruin of Kasch.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#133
post #118
post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

Oversimplification is bad, but there is a reason why Western/US universities are so much better at teaching students. Imagine your professors and textbooks werent there to teach you, but they were there to show off their knowledge or to prove you that you know nothing. A very known problem in my country is that a professor is not making a lecture to teach you something or to explain you something, the professor wants…

I think this has more to do with budget. In many countries, professors are not paid specifically to write books, but if no proper book exists in the local language then they sort of have to do it one way or another. It usually ends up as some hodgepodge document, each chapter written by a different professor - whose are experts at their fields, but not at book writing!, which is a specific skill. Some or better at it, others absolutely suck. Then they just print it some way without any lecturing, unification of styles, references and use it as the course book, because they were sorta forced to.

In English, there is competition and people with actual experience can publish books, which will be used by multiple universities, if it becomes famous than multiple generations of students from multiple universities and years have criticized it making the nth version better, etc.

This is very different from the budget solution my med university (of which 4 exists in this language alltogether) could reasonably come up with.

Nonetheless, there were smaller topics, documents, chapters which easily surpassed the same found in any English language book, especially in mathematics (the Soviet block used to be famously good at mathematics, so the level was much higher than the west’s), for these small gems it does worth speaking obscure languages.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#134
post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

If this is true in general, it might have been a factor in why the scientific and technological 'revolutions' of the so-called Enlightenment occurred in the West.

How?

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#135
post #55
post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

I read this comment before the post, and now I feel bad. I watched a spy movie from the 1960s recently with someone. We got 20 minutes in before she was confused about why the movie is just about a depressed drunk who lost his job in a spy agency, before my movie-watching accomplice looked up the plot of the movie on Wikipedia. Spoiler alert, there's a twist, and the movie didn't tell the viewer that. It's interestin…

"It's interesting that modern movies have to make you think you understand something, before they pull the curtain back and reveal there's a twist. Otherwise people will get disengaged and stop watching before the twist occurs."

I agree with this. For a particularly insidious example see the latest Star Wars series, the Acolyte, by Disney.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#136
post #130
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the alternative of treating humans as humans first, if you don't know much about them, except their looks and their passport nationality. And not assuming one has these and those traits, because they look "asian", but were raised in the US for example. I know I met many people from many backgrounds all over the world and my thinking in boxes default mode, was never really helpful, but often very wrong.…

Well, the differences between western cultures are less pronounced, but I do think that knowing, say, Chinese etiquette when meeting mainland Chinese people is essential to not come across accidentally as rude. There are significant differences there, and natural body language does differ with culture. Nonetheless, I agree with your general point/sentiment.

"Chinese etiquette when meeting mainland Chinese people is essential to not come across accidentally as rude"

For sure. And I read up about any culture I visit the first time. But chinese are quite different from mongolians and thais for example. So my issue was especially with "asian". This term is allmost meaningless to me, as it puts billions of different people in one basket.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#137
post #50

The article title reminded me of when I was young and used to read Byte Magazine. Byte used to cover a wide range of topics, and could get quite technical, but the big thing that is vastly different to today is that you would get a monthly digest of articles that were selected by the editors, not by yourself. And I used to read it cover to cover. There was a lot I didn't understand, but also I feel like I gained a wi…

Byte magazine was a terrific publication. There's nothing similar in print these days that I'm aware of. Certainly, Byte couldn't be accused of dumbing down the content to reach a wider audience, unlike many of today's supposedly technical magazines. I learned a lot from Byte and experimented frequently with the knowledge and understanding I gained from Byte.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#138
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably "The spy who came in from the cold"

The book and the movie are quite rough, raw and extradry - i don’t mean this in a bad way. The mood reminds me more of eastern productions like tarkowsky (stalker) and the like.

"Bond for grownups"

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#139

I’ve recently moved to Europe and found myself surrounded by hundreds of famous galleries, which are essentially the main entertainment here. I started visiting them and looking at classical paintings, little by little googling what it was and why. It turned out to be so exciting! Now, a year later, I can say for sure which of the women with a severed male head in their hands in the painting is Judith and which is Sa…

I would read a blog post about this friend.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#140

I had a huge complex in my youth , I simply couldn’t read as fast as my peers. Now, I realize that I was going too fast, and by slowing down, taking my time and reading slowly I could absorb more, and understand, and I had this amazing ability to never forget anything I did read (at least for an extended period of maybe 2-3 years). I realized over time that going fast isn’t for me. Better to go slow absorb, digest an…

I do this for my media consumption. I take breaks, never trying to finish in one go. I also pause intentionally when pause occurs (chapters in non-fiction books, series episodes. And I don’t mind revisiting the material, especially if it was good. As for music, I treat it like a soundtrack, focused albums (and a few playlist) listening, falling back to silence when my attention is needed on some tasks.
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