It seems like I’m pretty bad at communicating what I wanted to communicate. Multiple people in the comments said, is that the case is more complicated, then assigning a single number to reading speed. I agree with this. I think that the way reading speed is normally used by people, is probably too simplistic.
My criticism is about, dismissing the concept as unworkable. There are various algorithms and data in the brain, that enables a human to read. Depending on what this algorithms do exactly and on what kind of data you have, you will be in some sense worse or better at reading. There might be many dimensions to what it means to be good. But there are underlined data and algorithms that in principle we could understand. And I think we could understand them so well, that we would not be confused anymore at all, about what definitions of reading speed make sense for which purpose.
Dismissing to concept of reading speed, in some sense also dismisses this possibility. For rather after you dismiss the concert, would not think about in these terms. You would not think about this at all anymore, as you would have successfully handicaped yourself, by removing a concept that captures something about reality.
This is a general thing that I have observed people doing. And I think doing this is always bad, as long as the underlying concept actually talks about something in the real world.
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.
It seems like I’m pretty bad at communicating what I wanted to communicate. Multiple people in the comments said, is that the case is more complicated, then assigning a single number to reading speed. I agree with this. I think that the way reading speed is normally used by people, is probably too simplistic.
My criticism is about, dismissing the concept as unworkable. There are various algorithms and data in the brain, that enables a human to read. Depending on what this algorithms do exactly and on what kind of data you have, you will be in some sense worse or better at reading. There might be many dimensions to what it means to be good. But there are underlined data and algorithms that in principle we could understand. And I think we could understand them so well, that we would not be confused anymore at all, about what definitions of reading speed make sense for which purpose.
Dismissing to concept of reading speed, in some sense also dismisses this possibility. For rather after you dismiss the concert, would not think about in these terms. You would not think about this at all anymore, as you would have successfully handicaped yourself, by removing a concept that captures something about reality.
This is a general thing that I have observed people doing. And I think doing this is always bad, as long as the underlying concept actually talks about something in the real world.
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.