A point that’s been made to me before about books and that supports your thesis that they serve to increase salience of ideas: books are worth reading because they cause you to live with an idea long enough to integrate it into your mind.
I’ve certainly noticed this facet of books for myself. There’s plenty of books I read that I could now hardly recall any specific arguments from and that I could summarize their “take-aways” in a few paragraphs, but that nonetheless I got a lot out of reading because for the weeks or months when I was working through it the book forced my attention continually back on to a particular topic, which then also carried to thinking about that topic at other times.
I carry this same sort of idea with me into my choice of where to place my attention beyond books with a question like: how will placing my attention on this bit of media affect what I pay attention to, and is it pointing my attention towards something I think is worth thinking about?
A point that’s been made to me before about books and that supports your thesis that they serve to increase salience of ideas: books are worth reading because they cause you to live with an idea long enough to integrate it into your mind.
I’ve certainly noticed this facet of books for myself. There’s plenty of books I read that I could now hardly recall any specific arguments from and that I could summarize their “take-aways” in a few paragraphs, but that nonetheless I got a lot out of reading because for the weeks or months when I was working through it the book forced my attention continually back on to a particular topic, which then also carried to thinking about that topic at other times.
I carry this same sort of idea with me into my choice of where to place my attention beyond books with a question like: how will placing my attention on this bit of media affect what I pay attention to, and is it pointing my attention towards something I think is worth thinking about?