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How You Know

paulgraham.com

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Re: How You Know

#11

Post by larrys »

"What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?"

Well for one things it gives you pleasure. You could also say "what's the point of listening to music" or "what's the point of watching comedy". Other than pleasure, as a generality, you might read because it makes you feel good to do so.

I find that a key to good mental health (that works for me) is not to question what harmless things make you feel good and why. If I did that it would make me unhappy. Just go with the good feeling.

One thing that I'm sad about is that I don't get the same pleasure that I used to from browsing books at Barnes and Noble. With the internet there is to much to read already. I don't find the same utility that I used to from books that are essentially a single perspective (at least the ones that I used to buy, non-fiction).

Re: How You Know

#12

Post by snide »

hudathun wrote: post #5
snide wrote: post #2

This goes both ways. Sometimes I avoid rereading books for the same reason. There was a Summer where Catcher in the Rye felt very important. I'd hate to reread it under my new, adult perspective. I'd prefer to let it linger in nostalgia.

I had the same same thing with the much less erudite Stranger in a Strange Land. Re-read it 20 years later and was disappointed. On the positive side, I should consider how much I've moved forward in that time :) or sideways :-S

The nice thing about Heinlein is he has a book for all stages. As I've gotten older I really prefer his "Time Enough for Love" novel, which is about looking back on a long life.

Re: How You Know

#13

Post by sbensu »

I experienced this phenomenon starkly when I started a book, and felt it was filled with obvious remarks and little novelty. It took me 50 pages to realize I had already read it.

Re: How You Know

#14

Post by Alex3917 »

Why not take notes? Whenever I read a book I want to remember, I just pencil a dash in the margin next to any key fact, insight, or quote. Then after I'm done with a few chapters I retype these sections into a mindmap. It probably only adds 10 - 20% extra time, but you're getting 1000% more value.

In general what matters isn't how much you read, but how much you retain and what sorts of connections with past and future insight and information. It's important to have the full experience of having realizations and making connections while you're reading, which is why I just make a dash in the margins as opposed to taking actual notes in real time, but I feel like by not circling back later you're cheating yourself out of the true value of learning.

Especially since you have no idea if the books you're reading are even true or not until you vet the facts with primary sources.

Re: How You Know

#15

Post by sbensu »

The problems is figuring out which books provide those useful mental models. I found that fiction usually doesn't but a list with recommendations in the comments would be great.

Re: How You Know

#16

Post by applecore »

It's deeply heartwarming to see another “OG” PG essay enter the canon. (Obscure reference to historical French prose in the introductory sentence? Check!)

Re: How You Know

#17

Post by larrys »

debacle wrote: post #4

I don't like the flavor of this post. It feels very much like navel-gazing and, if it wasn't for the domain name, it likely would have been lost to /newest. Where is the knowledge here? That we don't have immediate recollection of retained information? Knowledge is based on a beginning and ending context.

Which makes me think of a saying. One that I remember. "Sophia Loren without a nose is not Sophia Loren". Here's another one "if my grandmother had balls she'd be my grandfather".

The point is PG wrote it so just like if anyone of note wrote it it would be more of interest than the same thought from anyone else.

After all these are analog thoughts and subjective this isn't science.

Re: How You Know

#18

Post by etrautmann »

nilkn wrote: post #10

There's also a danger associated to this phenomenon. If the source of your mental model is later debunked, you may not realize that you need to revise your model precisely because you don't remember what your source was. You may even read about the debunking of the source but fail to draw the connection and realize the implications that it has for your own view of the world. I think that perhaps very squishy subjects…

Great point - a possible explanation for a wide range of phenomenologically bizarre viewpoints (e.g.: anti-vaccers, birthers, chem-trails, creationists, etc.)

Re: How You Know

#19

Post by arjunnarayan »

nilkn wrote: post #10

There's also a danger associated to this phenomenon. If the source of your mental model is later debunked, you may not realize that you need to revise your model precisely because you don't remember what your source was. You may even read about the debunking of the source but fail to draw the connection and realize the implications that it has for your own view of the world. I think that perhaps very squishy subjects…

This is an important corollary of Paul's essay that I wish he mentioned. Sometimes when you update your model of the world significantly, you still have a cache of previously computed facts that were computed using the old model. You have to clear out that cache and recompute with the new model, and that takes a significant amount of time. Often, rereading is a core part of that, since it forces you to revisit a lot of source material and recompute.

Re: How You Know

#20

Post by OoTheNigerian »

I think this is the phenomenon that forms the basis for Gladwell's BLINK.

It took me a while to learn that almost everything I have heard or seen has already been stored. The problem of memory is in retrieval.

This also applies to creative work. When you have seen quite a lot of things, it ends up influencing stuff you could swear was original.

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