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Writing by hand is good for your brain

nealstephenson.substack.com

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Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#531

Post by sooheon »

Diogenesian wrote: post #396
ekelsen wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't buy used books? They are _used_. If you want a new book, buy a new book?

I read two books recently that are out of print. One of them (Georges Rey's Contemporary Philosophy of Mind ) is $150 on Amazon, and out of stock. The other ( Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, and Ends ) isn't on Amazon at all. Used bookstores are the only viable option. Books are treasures. The second book is an enormously valuable source of wisdom. I am glad nobody vandalized that wisdom…

If they're so valuable, maybe you could spare a thought of thanks that the previous owners passed them onto posterity, whatever the condition. If you don't like the condition, feel free to continue your search. Getting heated over their use of their own property isn't very philosophical of you.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#532

Post by RealityVoid »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #464
ubermonkey wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, be skeptical all you want, but at least TRY it. I know I retain more if I handwrite notes. It's my lived experience, so that's what I do in meetings, generally. These notes get transcribed back into some orderly data store for later reference, but the initial notes are pen and paper.

Oh, I can tell you for myself that handwriting is awful. I'm focused entirely on the process of writing and can't think about anything else. When I type I feel like I can move at the speed of my brain.

Or... Hear me out... Don't take notes at all. I'm sure I can find supporting material that is just much better than my paltry notes. I find that for me, it detracts from engaging with the material. I just much better prefer to listen and engage and think what is being said.

I only take notes if I am trying to work out some of the things said or as support for this or that or maybe 2 really interesting lines or quips I want to remember just so later and I find particularly surprising or interesting (or mistaken, hah).

When solving math problems, yes, by all means take notes! I find writing with a pen indispensable because it's much more flexible and expressive. And i need the memory caching that writing provides.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#533

Post by cyh555 »

dhosek wrote: post #519

On the gadget front, I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad. This combined with the Apple Pencil made a huge difference in the usability of my iPad for writing/drawing. I still prefer to write on paper, but it’s really great for things like my writing group where we generally meet over zoom & I can give the author a marked up manuscript (with multicolor notes). I’m also opposed to getting too preci…

Seriously, just do it with what you have and what you can, like cameras, the best pen/paper is the one you have with you

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#534

Post by galangalalgol »

annzabelle wrote: post #523
dhosek wrote: post #519

On the gadget front, I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad. This combined with the Apple Pencil made a huge difference in the usability of my iPad for writing/drawing. I still prefer to write on paper, but it’s really great for things like my writing group where we generally meet over zoom & I can give the author a marked up manuscript (with multicolor notes). I’m also opposed to getting too preci…

I think you're right. It's very easy in any hobby to make the gear side of the hobby be disproportionate to how much you actually do the hobby. Think someone who's spent $3k on camping gear and constantly researches gear, but rarely camps. On the other hand, if you do actually camp a lot, it is nice to have the lighter weight higher performance gear, up to a certain point. So, Stephenson, as someone who does actually…

If you are writing a lot and have dysgraphia, a cheap fountain pen like pilot varsity ($2) or platinum preppy ($7) can help you fight the excessive pressure we tend to use leading to less hand cramping. Using tools that make you write more because it is more enjoyable is good, using tools that make you spend time thinking about tools is bad. I really liked those tiny comp pads cvs sold, but I haven't seen them in a while and I don't like the dollar store ones. I just grab random pads that aren't bigger than my phone so they sit nice in my pocket.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#536

Post by a_e_k »

pavon wrote: post #313
cannonpalms wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the linked post, he covers this

I'm glad he posted the video. One thing he didn't mention that is striking to me is how high his hand is on the page, essentially resting above the line he is writing, with his thumb parallel to the line. Whereas as a right-hander, my hand is essentially centered on the line, with my thumb at a 45 degree angle to the line. Do most left-handers learn to hold their pen/pencil like that? If not I imagine it would be qui…

From what I've read, lefties are typically classified into "over-writers", "side-writers", and "under-writers". That video caught my attention too, as it shows pretty clearly that he's an over-writer.

I myself am probably somewhere in between an over-writer and a side-writer lefty, edging slightly closer to an over-writer. Maybe a 20 degree angle to the line as my thumb wraps around my other fingers?

I've never found a fountain pen that I've liked because every time I've tried one, I ended up tearing the paper as I go as I'm essentially pushing the nib across the page and so the nib snags on the paper, digs in, and makes little holes. And I left pencils behind as soon as I could in school because every day I'd come home with the side of my left hand silvered with graphite.

These days, my preference is a Pentel EnerGel, a Uniball Signo, or a Pilot G-2 (i.e., gel pens like the article mentions). They can write easily without much force and dry quickly enough so that my hand doesn't smudge. For my daily pocket carry, I've also learned that I always want the capped variants rather the click kind, or else I'll end up with stained inner pockets and scribbles on my thigh. This makes the G-2s nice for home and desk use, but not for daily carry.

(And though the article suggests using cursive and not getting hung up on legibility, somewhere back in grade or middle school I switched to using either print style, or an engineering-hand-like small caps style, depending on mood. Both in the interest of legibility, despite my left-handedness.)

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#537

Post by marjipan200 »

crdrost wrote: post #393
calf wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok then please explain why Socrates is better than margin notes for an assumed purpose, because that is not reasonable common knowledge. If by that you meant to suggest that for formal study, some kind of self-review process combined with cold written practice/rehearsal sustained under interleaved spacing, then that is likely the gold standard for comprehension and memorization. But most people don't even know that,…

You are correct that the reference is a little obscure -- if my memory serves it's Plato's Phaedrus . Plato argues, in a book, in the voice of his mentor Socrates, that books will destroy knowledge. And the reason is precisely to do with the thing that Socrates is famous for, his Socratic Method of asking his students (or rival politicians or anyone) questions about what they claimed to know, engaging them in a real…

thanks to LLMs we can now ask books questions :)

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#538

Post by apparent »

piskov wrote: post #457
apparent wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do find the iPad battery drain to be annoying and inexplicable. When they first came out, iPads held a charge for weeks in standby. New ones drain in a few days, even when background app activity and such are disabled. And you're right that it is frustrating to pick up your iPad and discover that the battery is near-dead, which happens with surprising frequency. That critique doesn't apply to Remarkables or Kindle…

Find my, most likely Turning that off, or using automatic airplane mode (eg in shortcuts set a schedule to turn on airplane mode daily)

Huh, will give both of these a try. But man, I would not be thrilled if the only way to have decent battery life is to make my iPad not-findable, or to have to turn on wifi whenever I want to use it (I couldn't really set much of a schedule).

Seems like the Find My bit could be taken care of by not updating location until the gyros are triggered. Honestly I'd be happy to have it in airplane mode when not being touched as well. IDK what they could call the setting, maybe an Airplane When Idle Mode?

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#539

Post by jibal »

jianfenglin wrote: post #535

This is why Microsoft created Tablet PC and later Surface with handwriting pen: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/surfaceitpro/thinki...

No, that's not why.

And it's good for your brain to read the whole article, not just the title:

"Don’t use a gadget"

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#540

Post by RealityVoid »

nxc18 wrote: post #497
eviks wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't read notes, why waste time making them instead of slowing down even more and spending that extra time/effort on active listening/thinking?

Writing is thinking.

Certain kinds of writing is thinking, but you're not writing in the thinking way, you're transcribing.
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