I’m not really sure if I’m talking past you in this or not, but I wrote it all out already so I’m going to post it.
I think I found the context of the quote. I’m reasonably certain it’s not meant to be taken literally. It illustrates that when used skillfully writing can enhance one’s thinking in such a way that it will outstrip the performance of thought without the assistance of writing.
You have to think before you write, and then you have to read what you wrote and think about it. And you have to keep rewriting, re-reading and thinking, until it’s as good as you can make it, even when writing an email or a text.
You’re right that you can pretty clearly practice thinking without the assistance of writing, but writing gives you the constraint of having to form your thoughts into concise and communicable language, which pure thinking doesn’t provide. Pure thought only needs to be legible to yourself, and repeating the same thought over and over with zero iteration isn’t naturally penalized by the format.
… revising shouldn’t be the art of modifying the presentation of an idea to be more convincing. It should be the art of changing the idea itself to be closer to the truth, which will automatically make it more convincing.
.
Often times, an idea incubates in my head for months before I find a good way to represent it as words or math or pictures or anything else.
This points to a pretty valuable insight. A thought isn’t always ready to be rigorously iterated upon. And, rigorous iteration is what writing is both a good tool and a good training method for. You can use pure thought for rigorous iteration, but using writing provides an advantage that our brains alone can’t.
Writing gives us an expansion to working memory. I think this is the most significant thing writing does to enhance thought. Objects in our working memory only last 2-30 seconds, while we can keep 5-9 unrelated objects in working memory at a time. This seems quite limited. With writing we can dump them onto the page and then recall as needed.
Graham’s claim that people who aren’t writing aren’t thinking is clearly false. People were thinking well before writing. But I do think writing is at least a good tool for significantly improving our thought processes. The words of Evan Chen sum it up better than I can:
The main purpose of writing is not in fact communication, at least not if you’re interested in thinking well. Rather, the benefits (at least the ones I perceive) are
Writing serves as an external memory, letting you see all your ideas and their connections at once, rather than trying to keep them in your head.
Explaining the ideas forces you to think well about them, the same way that teaching something is only possible with a full understanding of the concept.
Writing is a way to move closer to the truth, rather than to convince someone what the truth is.
I’m not really sure if I’m talking past you in this or not, but I wrote it all out already so I’m going to post it.
I think I found the context of the quote. I’m reasonably certain it’s not meant to be taken literally. It illustrates that when used skillfully writing can enhance one’s thinking in such a way that it will outstrip the performance of thought without the assistance of writing.
You’re right that you can pretty clearly practice thinking without the assistance of writing, but writing gives you the constraint of having to form your thoughts into concise and communicable language, which pure thinking doesn’t provide. Pure thought only needs to be legible to yourself, and repeating the same thought over and over with zero iteration isn’t naturally penalized by the format.
.
This points to a pretty valuable insight. A thought isn’t always ready to be rigorously iterated upon. And, rigorous iteration is what writing is both a good tool and a good training method for. You can use pure thought for rigorous iteration, but using writing provides an advantage that our brains alone can’t.
Writing gives us an expansion to working memory. I think this is the most significant thing writing does to enhance thought. Objects in our working memory only last 2-30 seconds, while we can keep 5-9 unrelated objects in working memory at a time. This seems quite limited. With writing we can dump them onto the page and then recall as needed.
Graham’s claim that people who aren’t writing aren’t thinking is clearly false. People were thinking well before writing. But I do think writing is at least a good tool for significantly improving our thought processes. The words of Evan Chen sum it up better than I can: