I guess the real question is whether it’s more efficient to process
information in a very intensive way, or just to gather a lot more of it, and let
your brain work out the answers at a slower pace; I use both approaches.
Curiosity-as-such seems to work pretty well for me to absorb lots of
information—I try to read at least one book every week, so as days weeks
months fly by at the same time I truly feel that my overall understanding of things
improves. I’m absorbing the same subjects multiple times (through different
books), and I find that slowly the things work themselves out in my brain,
connections are made etc. I’m not sure stopping all the time and do background
research would get me better results.
On the other hand, the ‘Asking questions’-approach for me is something I use
for high-intensity things like solving technical problems. That seems to work
pretty well there. As mentioned here already, debugging is a good example.
For example, suppose that after choosing your next book you read the cover and the table of contents, took a guess about what was inside, and then spent ten minutes jotting down questions you hoped it might help you answer, before reading it. Would make your reading better?
I’m not advocating “stopping all the time to do background research”. More like, making sure your brain is alive, and you’re bothering to ask questions, notice potential updates, etc. Because for me, it’s easy to go through life (including reading) partially zoned out.
Well, what I tried to convey is that for quite a bit of my non-fiction
reading, I don’t have too many specific questions beforehand. Say, I pick up a
book about Neanderthals. My main question might be something really general,
like ‘how does this fit in with my general understanding of homonid evolution’,
but apart from that, I’ll just read it. For any questions that I have, I
usually check some other sources.
So, I was not really opposing the usefulness of goal-oriented reading, just
that for quite a bit of my reading, my goals are not very specific. When I
have some specific goal in mind, of course asking questions is a good way to
structure your information-soaking process.
Anyhow, for my next book (or probably when deciding what to read next), I’ll try to follow your advise, let’s see if it helps me to read more effectively.
How does this relate to the understanding of art, creativity, madness, motherly love? The notions of greed in children, in adults, in a capitalist economy, and how does that relate to the regulation of markets, conflicts of interests, incentivization and moral hazards? How does this relate to the notions of religion/theology, race, climate tolerance? How does climate tolerance relate to the social structure of Californians, and what does air conditioning mean for society going forward? How does early hominid tool use relate to our ability to drive cars, use computers, integrate robotics with human life, and parkour?
Obviously one can get lost in mindless ramblings of curiosity. But if you make an effort to be constructing an overall fabric of “how things work”, you have a reason and a direction for your curiosity. It combines being mindful with entertainment. Over time you create a your own grand unification theory (not specific to physics, mind you), and you have a framework into which you can easily slot new information (or update existing).
I guess the real question is whether it’s more efficient to process information in a very intensive way, or just to gather a lot more of it, and let your brain work out the answers at a slower pace; I use both approaches.
Curiosity-as-such seems to work pretty well for me to absorb lots of information—I try to read at least one book every week, so as days weeks months fly by at the same time I truly feel that my overall understanding of things improves. I’m absorbing the same subjects multiple times (through different books), and I find that slowly the things work themselves out in my brain, connections are made etc. I’m not sure stopping all the time and do background research would get me better results.
On the other hand, the ‘Asking questions’-approach for me is something I use for high-intensity things like solving technical problems. That seems to work pretty well there. As mentioned here already, debugging is a good example.
Is there a tradeoff?
For example, suppose that after choosing your next book you read the cover and the table of contents, took a guess about what was inside, and then spent ten minutes jotting down questions you hoped it might help you answer, before reading it. Would make your reading better?
I’m not advocating “stopping all the time to do background research”. More like, making sure your brain is alive, and you’re bothering to ask questions, notice potential updates, etc. Because for me, it’s easy to go through life (including reading) partially zoned out.
Well, what I tried to convey is that for quite a bit of my non-fiction reading, I don’t have too many specific questions beforehand. Say, I pick up a book about Neanderthals. My main question might be something really general, like ‘how does this fit in with my general understanding of homonid evolution’, but apart from that, I’ll just read it. For any questions that I have, I usually check some other sources.
So, I was not really opposing the usefulness of goal-oriented reading, just that for quite a bit of my reading, my goals are not very specific. When I have some specific goal in mind, of course asking questions is a good way to structure your information-soaking process.
Anyhow, for my next book (or probably when deciding what to read next), I’ll try to follow your advise, let’s see if it helps me to read more effectively.
But you can broaden the questions as well.
Looking at Neanderthals/hominids:
How does this relate to the understanding of art, creativity, madness, motherly love? The notions of greed in children, in adults, in a capitalist economy, and how does that relate to the regulation of markets, conflicts of interests, incentivization and moral hazards? How does this relate to the notions of religion/theology, race, climate tolerance? How does climate tolerance relate to the social structure of Californians, and what does air conditioning mean for society going forward? How does early hominid tool use relate to our ability to drive cars, use computers, integrate robotics with human life, and parkour?
Obviously one can get lost in mindless ramblings of curiosity. But if you make an effort to be constructing an overall fabric of “how things work”, you have a reason and a direction for your curiosity. It combines being mindful with entertainment. Over time you create a your own grand unification theory (not specific to physics, mind you), and you have a framework into which you can easily slot new information (or update existing).