[HN Gopher] How Should We Read?
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       How Should We Read?
        
       Author : pepys
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2021-01-18 15:48 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lithub.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
        
       | veddox wrote:
       | > By reading indiscriminately, I learned to discriminate--and
       | learned also to comprehend: for it's only with the acquisition of
       | large data sets that we also develop schemas supple enough to
       | interpret new material.
       | 
       | That's a good sentence. I've observed the same about the biology
       | curriculum we went through at university. The first few semesters
       | were just huge amounts of information we had to absorb, because
       | it wasn't until we had an extensive foundation of the basics that
       | we could actually start to think about and interpret and
       | criticise new research.
       | 
       | And I guess it's the same with any other area of human knowledge:
       | you have to reach a certain knowledge threshold before you can
       | really understand the systems behind the subject.
        
         | hvs wrote:
         | This seems accurate to me. I was never particularly good at
         | math and I was talking to a friend of mine with a PhD in number
         | theory when I mentioned that I thought it would help to show
         | new students to math more of what math research was really like
         | to get them interested. He shot me down with, "No, you really
         | need to understand all of those basics before math research
         | will make any sense."
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | I used to provide a similar example to my kid, when he
         | complained about how boring math was: that he was spending
         | years "learning the alphabet" and only on the other side would
         | it become interesting. He stuck to it and ended up majoring in
         | math.
         | 
         | (Fortunately there were various math puzzles and fun examples
         | we could talk about along the way too)
        
       | nickff wrote:
       | This piece reminds me of the famous study on how
       | skill/craftsmanship is developed, where pottery students learn
       | more by producing 'indiscriminately', rather than by doing it
       | carefully.
        
       | jpmoral wrote:
       | > How should we read? The S-word makes it sound, like it or not,
       | like a moral injunction--deep, passionate and enthusiastic
       | readers we may well be, there nonetheless remains something about
       | the way we transform marks on a page or screen into images and
       | ideas in the mind that leaves us feeling like failures.
       | 
       | Took me a long time to realise what the S-word was.
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-19 23:01 UTC)