Writing is thinking

I see a lot of people say "writing is so important," and I think what they mean is "I feel really smart/good when I write." And I think what they are experiencing is that they've been assembling ideas in their heads for weeks, and only when it's all come together are they ready synthesize that information at a higher level, and they mistake this synthesis for the writing itself (rather than the writing being a symptom OF the synthesis -- if they had tried to write a week prior they would have found it unproductive).

This is not true for at least me.

Let's say, I am making something concrete by putting ideas, thoughts, knowledge into paper. While doing it, I am finding gaps and mistakes and finding opportunities to correct them. But it is not limited to 'correction', it also opens newer dimensions and perspectives- ones that previously didn't exist in my conscious mind.

I consider writing as a tool of thinking. Another tool is brainstorming with a group, or any group discussion in general. These amend to your thoughts, make the existing ones more solid, and opens new direction, and unravels connections previously not accessible.

Read this essay by Paul Graham: Putting Ideas into Words [0]. And also refer to his other essays on writing.

There is also a great book by Paul Zissner: Writing to Learn. I suggest this book to people.

Writing, when done while learning works akin to teaching- one of the most crucial steps in so-called Feynman Technique of learning.

[0]: https://paulgraham.com/words.html

Yeah I think I've read multiple PG essays on the importance of writing, but they always struck me as no different than Katy Perry telling you to sing, or some Grandmaster saying "go play chess." That is -- a personal anecdote that doesn't necessarily generalize.

I'm not saying that writing can't be a useful tool to organize ideas, definitely it can. But I think I've found two things:

- Now the best way to "iterate" my thoughts is to rubberduck with ChatGPT; it's really amazing how much faster I can learn when I admit how little I know, even on something like global warming or an advanced math topic.

- By and large, "organizing my thoughts" isn't really a high-return activity in my life. Having an intelligently written blog that I've put hundreds of hours into has never done anything for my career or led to any personal connections, and honestly who's to say my time wouldn't have been better-spent just coming with some jokes to network better rather than having some cohesive theory of everything that nobody asked for?

Sometimes I like to test whether I can actually construct or assemble a finished something in my mind from an inkling of a thought.

For example a few days ago I realized that I found it hard to reverse a word in my mind, even a simple one. Try for yourself, think of a word and then reverse it in your head with your eyes closed.

Some people might struggle with the above, some may find it doable in their heads, but most can agree that it's absurdly easy if you can externalize it to paper or a text editor at least.

While I agree with the underlying message, "writing is thinking" is only circumstantially correct. It wasn’t always like this.

We learned to think by writing only after writing became cheap. Yes, we’ve trained our brains to develop ideas by editing raw thoughts on paper, but it is just one of the possible methods.

I have read a lot of late 18th, 19th and early 20th century books and diaries, and it is plainly clear that writers such as Tolstói, Zweig, Goethe and others developed full books in their mind first, then wrote them from cover to cover in 20-30 days.

Thinking used to be detached from writing. That is a fact. We just lost that ability in the modern era thanks to cheap writing technology: pen and paper, then computers. I'm not saying the current approach is wrong, but don't assume that the only way to think is to write.

Socrates argued that writing would destroy people's memory. He wasn't 100% wrong, yet here we are. The criticism towards the use of LLMs is so deliciously ironic. The analogy with writing... writes itself. Kids that grow up with LLMs will just think differently.