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The Need to Read

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Need to Read

#31

Post by unsafecast »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #27
npunt wrote: post #13

There’s much more to the story than writing is a way of thinking, and reading is a big input into writing. Specifically, how each interplay with ideas, as most of us after all are in the business of creating things. And here, the most important bit is not reading, its curiosity. Curiosity about others’ ideas drives reading, curiosity about one’s own ideas drives writing. The time we spend chasing each type of curiosi…

Excuse me if this is rude but there is an irony to using others' words to argue one should think for themselves more.

I think this is more about credibility - GP made a pretty good argument without the quotes. But the fact that Albert Einstein supposedly agrees puts a lot more weight onto it.

Re: The Need to Read

#32

Post by marcusverus »

ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #10

“Quantum entanglement” / “quantitative easing” Can we think of a substitute to writing that will allow us to coin these phrases (which in turn sit on a stack of coined sequences of syllables) and make them stick? Speech can communicate writing in its entirety. But in committing to paper, we take these fleeting streams (sequences) of thoughts and sounds, let them live outside our limited working memories, and allow fo…

IMO, the need to express new ideas by combining or redefining old words is a bug in natural language, rather than a feature. It makes communication less precise and that imprecision is prone to gamesmanship.

An example is the attempt by some, in the US, to redefine the meaning of “equality” in the context of our political system, from the traditional “equality under the law” to “equality of outcome”. This sort of persuasion by redefinition, in which you take a word attached to a popular idea and hijack/redirect it to your pet idea, is a Jedi-mind-trick which is enabled by the ambiguity of natural language.

A more rational system of communication, in which distinct ideas were represented by distinct, immutable symbols, rather than combinations/reuses of old symbols, would make for vastly superior communication—-if we could wrap our brains around such a thing!

Re: The Need to Read

#33

Post by pavlov »

zktrust wrote: post #12
wskish wrote: post #5

Here is the output of GPT reading and summarizing this (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33748363 ). Model seems to be hallucinating the author. Any thoughts on how to improve it? "The Need to Read is an essay written by Kevin Kelly. In it, he argues that reading is essential not just for acquiring knowledge, but for learning how to write. He cites the example of a science fiction book in which reading has be…

i think that's also rubbish, just like PG's written opinion piece. How on earth did we then get the great work by William Shakespeare. ShakeSPeare born a time when reading a lot wasn't even possible. There was little to none good content material out there. He was writing more than he could have possible read anywhere else.

Shakespeare wrote about Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, Richard III, Henry IV, and so on. How did he learn about these people if there was nothing to read?

Re: The Need to Read

#34

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Interesting, but nostalgic.

Magical brain upload technology would likely require AI, and would almost certainly include assistive cognition - the use of technology to automate and speed up learning and original thought.

We're edging towards a revolution that will be more of a disruption than the invention of print. Instead of thoughts that are "manually" generated and externalised as static symbols - albeit electronically distributed - thinking and learning will be automated and integrated.

You can use Wikipedia to access a lot of human knowledge. But imagine a meta-Wikipedia that would integrate and summarise an entire domain, combined with assistive cognition that made it possible to hold that summary in your head as a single perceptual entity.

You wouldn't just have the skills offered by domain competence, but you would also be able to look for trends and patterns, compare the domain with others, expand the "shape" with new features in creative but congruent ways, and so on.

Re: The Need to Read

#35

Post by woolion »

npunt wrote: post #13

There’s much more to the story than writing is a way of thinking, and reading is a big input into writing. Specifically, how each interplay with ideas, as most of us after all are in the business of creating things. And here, the most important bit is not reading, its curiosity. Curiosity about others’ ideas drives reading, curiosity about one’s own ideas drives writing. The time we spend chasing each type of curiosi…

Good list of quotes! I would add one by Nietzsche:

“Ultimately no one can hear in things―books included―more than he already knows.”

Reading can help you formalize, or put established concepts upon what you have already understood, even if only unconsciously.

I remember the gist of a quote about the need to read as much as possible in a young age to inform a Weltanschauung (world view) from which in adulthood you're supposed to build on, but can't remember any source.

Re: The Need to Read

#36

Post by achow »

npunt wrote: post #13

There’s much more to the story than writing is a way of thinking, and reading is a big input into writing. Specifically, how each interplay with ideas, as most of us after all are in the business of creating things. And here, the most important bit is not reading, its curiosity. Curiosity about others’ ideas drives reading, curiosity about one’s own ideas drives writing. The time we spend chasing each type of curiosi…

> ..most of us after all are in the business of creating things.. If we want to create, reading must have it’s limits, and sometimes pretty harsh limits, lest we be infected with others ideas about everything.

The point perhaps is what PG is saying "A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing."

Writing is creating and the process of creation is about discovery. When one is sculpting a clay, one is discovering materials and its properties, one is discovering ones emotions, and infact one could be discovering or understanding oneself (this ignoring the pre creation phase where one is discovering and studying art movements, various sculptors, their ideas and techniques...).

Any creation process roughly follows same patterns unless you are a facsimile creator.

Re: The Need to Read

#37

Post by zktrust »

pavlov wrote: post #33
zktrust wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think that's also rubbish, just like PG's written opinion piece. How on earth did we then get the great work by William Shakespeare. ShakeSPeare born a time when reading a lot wasn't even possible. There was little to none good content material out there. He was writing more than he could have possible read anywhere else.

Shakespeare wrote about Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus, Richard III, Henry IV, and so on. How did he learn about these people if there was nothing to read?

u make one hell of a point that i thought about. this is recursion but in different languages, which is not really applicable with exception of Richard and Henry. Read in latin, then translate it to THE ORIGINAL OTHER LANGUAGE ENGLISH. You are diluting my genuine point that I am making. The content of way back then was negligible to content that exists now. In all fairness, the opinion brought forward by your messiah PG is not really fit for standing judgement because of the point i brought forward.

Good writer, good idea makers exist without the need to have been good at reading.

Re: The Need to Read

#38

Post by woolion »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #27
npunt wrote: post #13

There’s much more to the story than writing is a way of thinking, and reading is a big input into writing. Specifically, how each interplay with ideas, as most of us after all are in the business of creating things. And here, the most important bit is not reading, its curiosity. Curiosity about others’ ideas drives reading, curiosity about one’s own ideas drives writing. The time we spend chasing each type of curiosi…

Excuse me if this is rude but there is an irony to using others' words to argue one should think for themselves more.

It's a variant on the 'doubt paradox' (somebody telling you "you should not believe everything people tell you") itself a variant of the Epimenides paradox (simply known as the liar paradox): a bunch of people who have read more than you tell you to be careful about not reading too much.

Re: The Need to Read

#39

Post by zktrust »

mikebenfield wrote: post #25
zktrust wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think that's also rubbish, just like PG's written opinion piece. How on earth did we then get the great work by William Shakespeare. ShakeSPeare born a time when reading a lot wasn't even possible. There was little to none good content material out there. He was writing more than he could have possible read anywhere else.

So you are under the belief that the written output of one man born in 1564 was of greater quantity than all “good” writing prior to his time? Are you sure you thought this through?

no i am not under the belief of anything other than mentioning PG in a slightly bad light will get me downvotes or a ban on this platform.

> So you are under the belief that the written output of one man born in 1564 was of greater quantity than all “good” writing prior to his time? Are you sure you thought this through?

This is not the point i was trying to make.

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