I think, in order to defend “reading speed” as a useful atomic concept (or perhaps a cluster of things with this as a proxy measure), you would need to define more closely exactly what you think it is, not just waving toward “something in the real world”.
I don’t fully disagree with you that improving one’s speed of absorbing information is useful. I’ve studied and practiced speed reading, including time trials and tests of words-per-minute with retention quizzes. I recommend doing so to almost anyone reading this (indicating that you read things regularly). Even so, I don’t think it’s a “real thing”, but a set of capabilities that are imperfectly measurable; “reading speed” is a correlate of some real things, not a real thing itself.
I don’t mean to offend, it might be my fault, but I don’t think you got the core idea that I was trying to communicate. Probably because I did not say it clearly, or maybe it is to be expected that some people will always not get the core point? But that sounds like an excuse. My core point is not that reading speed is a good thing to improve on (though it might be). It is merely an illustrative example. An example that is supposed to illustrate the core thing that I am talking about, such as to make the general abstract pattern that I want to convey more concrete.
The general pattern is that there is a concept C that is very vague, or even flawed in important ways, but nonetheless points at something in the world, that seems important to have a concept for. Then somebody comes along and says “C is flawed in X way, therefore we should not even use it” or something like that. My point is that abandoning a concept like this, which actually captures something true about the world is almost always a bad idea if you don’t have another way to capture the true kernel that was captured by the original flawed concept.
Instead, you should be aware of the flaws of the concept and use it appropriately. Trying to fix it can be very good. But just abandoning it is almost always dumb IMO.
I think, in order to defend “reading speed” as a useful atomic concept (or perhaps a cluster of things with this as a proxy measure), you would need to define more closely exactly what you think it is, not just waving toward “something in the real world”.
I don’t fully disagree with you that improving one’s speed of absorbing information is useful. I’ve studied and practiced speed reading, including time trials and tests of words-per-minute with retention quizzes. I recommend doing so to almost anyone reading this (indicating that you read things regularly). Even so, I don’t think it’s a “real thing”, but a set of capabilities that are imperfectly measurable; “reading speed” is a correlate of some real things, not a real thing itself.
I don’t mean to offend, it might be my fault, but I don’t think you got the core idea that I was trying to communicate. Probably because I did not say it clearly, or maybe it is to be expected that some people will always not get the core point? But that sounds like an excuse. My core point is not that reading speed is a good thing to improve on (though it might be). It is merely an illustrative example. An example that is supposed to illustrate the core thing that I am talking about, such as to make the general abstract pattern that I want to convey more concrete.
The general pattern is that there is a concept C that is very vague, or even flawed in important ways, but nonetheless points at something in the world, that seems important to have a concept for. Then somebody comes along and says “C is flawed in X way, therefore we should not even use it” or something like that. My point is that abandoning a concept like this, which actually captures something true about the world is almost always a bad idea if you don’t have another way to capture the true kernel that was captured by the original flawed concept.
Instead, you should be aware of the flaws of the concept and use it appropriately. Trying to fix it can be very good. But just abandoning it is almost always dumb IMO.