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Writing is thinking

nature.com

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Re: Writing is thinking

#51

Post by precompute »

cubefox wrote: post #46
zahlman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, more and more posts on discussion forums etc. is clearly "copyedited" by these tools and the result is quite grating for the regulars.

Probably less grating though than broken English. (Copyediting is also different from pure LLM replies which don't involve editing anything.)

Broken English still has its charm and brings the structure of the writer's native language to the fore, which makes it relatively easier to parse and glean intentions from than polished LLM-speak.

Re: Writing is thinking

#53

Post by tartoran »

nicolapede wrote: post #43
spyckie2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think the effects of LLMs on thinking is the exact same as a calculator. It shortcuts some forms of thinking to open up other forms of thinking. My thinking has increased with the use of LLMs, not decreased, most likely because LLMs take the edge off of grind work like reading a lot of noise to capture the 1% signal, formulating accurate statements for abstract ideas, and bringing together various domains th…

>> But allowing calculators WILL make those who like math reach much deeper into the field than without. Have you ever run into any mathematician that praised the calculator for his/her career? I’d be really curious to read about that.

Calculators are taken for granted but many mathematicians use computers extesively in their careers.

Re: Writing is thinking

#54

Post by Tsarp »

infogulch wrote: post #11

Even speaking is thinking. This is why free speech is the very First Amendment. Whoever denies your right to speak freely is controlling your thinking . Writing is thinking with a superpower. It's like using the "Pensive" from Harry Potter, depicted in the scene where Harry and Dumbledore pull memory whisps out of their temple to rewatch in a mirror pool. Writing enables you to apply your attention to an idea at mult…

https://voicebraindump.com

Re: Writing is thinking

#55

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

infogulch wrote: post #11

Even speaking is thinking. This is why free speech is the very First Amendment. Whoever denies your right to speak freely is controlling your thinking . Writing is thinking with a superpower. It's like using the "Pensive" from Harry Potter, depicted in the scene where Harry and Dumbledore pull memory whisps out of their temple to rewatch in a mirror pool. Writing enables you to apply your attention to an idea at mult…

> Even speaking is thinking. This is why free speech is the very First Amendment. Whoever denies your right to speak freely is controlling your thinking.

There's an excellent podcast (Radiolab, possibly) about how this conception of what the first amendment means is rather recent (1910s-1920s) and that the ideas of what "free speech" meant before that are really radically different.

Re: Writing is thinking

#56

Post by pcrh »

I am quite puzzled how an LLM could even start "write" a scientific paper.

Say you start with a set of findings, for example, western blots, data from a transgenic mouse engineered for the relevant gene, and some single cell sequencing data. Your manuscript describes the identification of a novel protein, editing the gene in a mouse and showing what pathways are affected in the mouse.

What material would you give the LLM? How would the LLM "know" which of these novel findings were in any way meaningful? As far as I'm aware, it is unlikely that the LLM would be able to do anything other that paraphrase what you instruct it to write. It would be a return to the days before word processing became common, and researchers would either dictate their manuscripts to a typist, or hand the typist a stack of hand-written paper.

The actually hard part of writing scientific papers is not putting the words "down on paper" so to speak, but deciding what to say.

Re: Writing is thinking

#57

Post by IggleSniggle »

ysofunny wrote: post #30
jll29 wrote: post #12

To add: Reading is also thinking (ideally). And because reading and writing are thinking we must not delegate it to AI models as a matter of habit. In particular, during students' formative time, they need to learn how to think in reading and writing mode - reflecting, note-taking etc. Compare it with the use of a pocket calculator: once you have a solid grounding, it's fine to use electronic calculators, but first o…

it's like those kids will live in the future, where there's advanced AI I think we should trust children enought that they'll also figure out a crazy changing technological world. on the other hand, internet millenial ideals are fast dying. the digital dream of cultural and mediatic abundance is turning into a nightmare of redundant content as information wars saturate the figurative airwaves

Of course I trust my kids to make the most of the environment they are given, and given that their environment will differ from the one I am adapted for, they will likely surpass me in being well adapted to the environment of the future; it's still my responsibility to prepare them as best as I can for it.

You might put a baby in a pool so it can learn to swim, but you make sure their environment is such that drowning is an impossibility. A child destined to be an Olympian swimmer still requires guidance, even if their natural ability and inclinations outpace both their peers and their elders.

Re: Writing is thinking

#58

Post by IggleSniggle »

allturtles wrote: post #24
carlesfe wrote: post #10

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 t…

Before paper became cheap, wax or wooden tablets were used for ephemeral writing. > 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. I seriously doubt that it was ever common for writers to compose a whole book in thei…

Holding long epic poems in your memory alone was once a celebrated skill.

Re: Writing is thinking

#59

Post by allturtles »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #58
allturtles wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before paper became cheap, wax or wooden tablets were used for ephemeral writing. > 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. I seriously doubt that it was ever common for writers to compose a whole book in thei…

Holding long epic poems in your memory alone was once a celebrated skill.

AFAIK the dominant theory is that they weren't memorized as a whole text, but composed on the fly with the help of a memorized set of stock formulas. [0]

[0]: https://poets.org/glossary/oral-formulaic-method

Re: Writing is thinking

#60

Post by chambers »

zug_zug wrote: post #2

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 sympto…

I think you're right. I'll add on: there's a lot of thinking that does not need writing, and there's a lot of writing that needs no thinking. Deng Xiaoping and other greats wrote pretty minimally for their own thinking, if at all. Whereas many of us not-so-greats seem to knee-jerk comment without a single thought.

It makes sense for our age. Amid a thousand distractions, typing on the keyboard gives the illusion of getting a grip. Note-taking on my computer gives the illusion of a second brain. Ululating on the internet gives the illusion of sharing thoughts.

Instead of "writing is thinking", I prefer "thought precedes speech" https://inframethodology.cbs.dk/?p=1127; it fits the small human mind better though I've yet to learn it properly.

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