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How to think in writing

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Re: How to think in writing

#31

Post by treetalker »

codelord wrote: post #6

"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.

To be sure, the quoted text in the parent comment is itself the linked essay’s quotation of Paul Graham.

Whether logically rigorous or not, that excerpt seems to be the essay’s author’s way of rhetorically opening his reflections on the idea that writing verbally crystallizes thought.

As a reader, I do not believe that the author is making a claim that the quoted Paul Graham statement, reduced to symbolic logic, is in all respects valid or sound.

Re: How to think in writing

#32

Post by [deleted] »

nxicvyvy wrote: post #5

The PG quote is a hot take. Yes, writing can be a productive focusing mechanism, it can also provide you with good reflections. But so can meditation, so can a good walk. It's a tool, not a requirement. It also has it's own downsides in that it forces you to think a certain constrained way, and while that is also one of its strength, it does limit your ability to think creatively. Similar to how using ChatGPt to draf…

[deleted]

Re: How to think in writing

#33

Post by BeetleB »

I'm torn about this article.

On the one hand, he's right: Writing helps refine your thoughts.

On the other hand, if your goal is to probe the validity of your thoughts, this is painfully inefficient. You'll get much further if you do one or two simple passes on your writing, and then pass what you've written around and ask for feedback.

I think I learned this in one of Haidt's books, and it has jived with my experience: If your brain has a bias or a blind spot, it's fairly unlikely you'll uncover it by pure thought alone. Perhaps if you put in as much effort as this author has, you'll uncover 20-50% more than the average person, which still leaves you with a lot of gaping holes. But outside feedback will uncover them very quickly!

I had a friend who thought like this person, and it was rarely hard to find flaws in his thoughts that he had not considered. He's as smart as I am, so it wasn't an intelligence flaw.

Re: How to think in writing

#34

Post by andsoitis »

pxoe wrote: post #28

writing can be so pervasive, even compulsive, especially nowadays and in digital spaces, that it might be due for a counter: how to just think. how to think freely. think unburdened by having to put thoughts into a form, written or spoken, out loud or internal, or even verbalized in any way at all, without being slowed down by any of those things

symbols are intermediaries. disintermediate!

Re: How to think in writing

#35

Post by bgoated01 »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #19
codelord wrote: post #6

"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.

There's no logical flaw here. An idea can't be fully formed, if it could be more precise and more complete.

Sure, and even ideas that have been written about can be more precise and complete, perhaps by writing more about them, for example, so no one has fully formed ideas by this logic.

Re: How to think in writing

#36

Post by bawolff »

paulpauper wrote: post #2

a major problem with writing or any creative endeavor is the reception is out of the creator's control. you can check all the boxes on clarity of thought and it still fails to resonate with renders for whatever reason

That's a problem with all human endeavour. To paraphrase captain picard, sometimes you do everything right but still fail.

The only way to never fail is to never try.

Re: How to think in writing

#37

Post by tshaddox »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #19
codelord wrote: post #6

"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.

There's no logical flaw here. An idea can't be fully formed, if it could be more precise and more complete.

But also, if more writing can always make the idea “more complete,” then no one at all (even the people who write) has any “completely complete” ideas.

Re: How to think in writing

#38

Post by bawolff »

andrei-akopian wrote: post #16

Though it can be blamed on myself, I didn't understand what you were saying. Your vocab and sentence structure is awesome, but your thoughts just aren't comming across.

Indeed i kind of felt similar. I'm just not sure what the thesis of this piece is supposed to be. Is it that to write deeply you should question your assumptions and follow your argument to their logical conclusions? Is there something more that i missed? Surely that goes without saying?

Re: How to think in writing

#39

Post by Daub »

BeetleB wrote: post #33

I'm torn about this article. On the one hand, he's right: Writing helps refine your thoughts. On the other hand, if your goal is to probe the validity of your thoughts, this is painfully inefficient. You'll get much further if you do one or two simple passes on your writing, and then pass what you've written around and ask for feedback. I think I learned this in one of Haidt's books, and it has jived with my experien…

> Writing helps refine your thoughts.

Very true. Indeed I would go further and say that unless you are capable of expressing your thoughts as words, then those thoughts will have no more substance than steam.

I thought I was a clear thinker until I entered academia. The many reports, instructional materials and academic papers soon enough showed me how wrong I was.

Edit: the illustration to this article is one of the most appropriate I have seen.

Re: How to think in writing

#40

Post by Sharlin »

bgoated01 wrote: post #35
amadeuspagel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no logical flaw here. An idea can't be fully formed, if it could be more precise and more complete.

Sure, and even ideas that have been written about can be more precise and complete, perhaps by writing more about them, for example, so no one has fully formed ideas by this logic.

And that’s probably true. I doubt anyone has ever expressed an idea that couldn’t be amended, clarified, or expanded upon in some way.
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