[HN Gopher] Why Books Don't Work (2019)
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Why Books Don't Work (2019)
Author : ivanvas
Score : 13 points
Date : 2022-09-28 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (andymatuschak.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (andymatuschak.org)
| tyronehed wrote:
| [deleted]
| uup wrote:
| I think the author's fundamental misunderstanding is that most
| people, even people like himself who "take learning seriously"
| don't read popular non-fiction to learn. Most people read for
| entertainment. So you shouldn't be evaluating how much one
| learned from Guns, Germs, and Steel, rather, you should compare
| how much you got from Guns, Germs, and Steel compared to a TV
| show like Breaking Bad. So, to answer the author's question: what
| should be done about it? Nothing.
|
| The reasons why textbooks work is because you don't just read a
| textbook. You go over the same information repetitively via
| exercises. And it's natural that a course is even more effective
| than a textbook. You can never ask a textbook a question for
| clarification like you can an instructor. That doesn't mean the
| textbook is bad, it just means that that a textbook + an
| instructor is better.
| [deleted]
| bwestergard wrote:
| The author of this ought to engage more with the existing
| complements to reading in educational systems. These have the
| advantage of motivating students and teachers through the
| development of interpersonal relationships. Here are a few
| examples from different cultures:
|
| "During each tutorial session, students are expected to orally
| communicate, defend, analyse, and critique the ideas of others as
| well as their own in conversations with the tutor and fellow
| students."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutorial_system
|
| "Dharma combat, called issatsu (Yi Zan , itsusatsu, literally
| "challenge"[1]) or shosan[2] in Japanese, is a term in some
| schools of Buddhism referring to an intense exchange between
| student and teacher, and sometimes between teachers, as an
| occasion for one or both to demonstrate his or her understanding
| of the Dharma[3] and Buddhist tenets. It is used by both students
| and teachers to test and sharpen their understanding.[4]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_combat
|
| "Chavrusa, also spelled chavruta or havruta (Aramaic: khab@rv'ta,
| lit. "fellowship" or "group of fellows"; pl. khab@ravavta), is a
| traditional rabbinic approach to Talmudic study in which a small
| group of students (usually 2-5) analyze, discuss, and debate a
| shared text."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavrusa
| kkfx wrote:
| There is a deep issue in this model: it works very well in a
| two-people relation, one teacher for one student. It does not
| scale. Books offer an easy scalable ways since the same text
| from a single writer can be printed in many copies, one per
| reader.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > And at least for non-fiction books, one implied assumption at
| the foundation: people absorb knowledge by reading sentences
|
| It was interesting to read this part. I'm not sure if this is
| even such a valid assumption for non-fiction anymore, given what
| we've learned about psychology and how people use books.
|
| People read for so many reasons that we're just starting to
| understand. Just a few examples:
|
| - To be able to say they read that book, to a given person, or
| for a given social or technical process. "Have you read X?" "Yes,
| it was an interesting book" and done, purpose reached.
|
| - To not be caught not knowing about things. In this case even
| "yeah, I recognize what you're saying--that's an idea from the
| book you shared with us" is easily enough.
|
| - To soak in, rather than to learn (intuiting a concept vs.
| mapping it out, for example)
|
| - To experience the energy/vibe/mood of the text; perhaps they
| are in an analogous mental state. I am often drawn to read
| computer programming books when I need to schedule or organize my
| daily work using logical if/then processes, for example.
|
| - To exercise their subjective imaginative capacity, e.g.
| converting words to imagined examples, imagery, or experiences
|
| - To limit their exposure to dopamine, for example picking
| reading from sets of other tasks like finger painting, or playing
| a group-learning game
|
| - To express their identity, e.g. "I'm a big reader, look at
| these books I'm working on" when it may otherwise be in doubt,
| for example
|
| And those are just some of at least hundreds that are broad
| enough to make useful categories which aren't too limiting.
|
| With books serving this many capacities, IMO it's easier to see
| why the concept of books "working" can be broken in a given way.
| Especially "learning" which is one of the more historical cases,
| with books serving as repositories of knowledge.
|
| But it also highlights senses in which one can say, "look, I'm
| not learning a thing here, and I know it, but I'm still reading
| this." IOW "books don't work" doesn't work in some important
| ways, and it could be that this is worth knowing, either for
| audience selection or other reasons.
|
| Anyway, good ideas there, thanks for sharing.
| kkfx wrote:
| Those who measure "knowledge" like a liquid quantity do not know
| what culture means, sorry for being harsh but that's is.
|
| Books are VERY good, of course if well written, to share
| knowledge, not to improve someone profits, of course, topic
| specific. Of course they are a single package of something, they
| are not meant to be "games-books" or other things. So books are
| not _universal_ for anything and anything. But they are the best
| way to transfer most of human knowledge in an asynchronous and
| distributed manner.
|
| Audio books, videos might be superior for some cases, but a
| fairly limited set of cases. Song are also very valuable but for
| an even smaller set of cases. And no, knowledge can't be measured
| like a liquid to be drink, similarly we can't "give culture" like
| some modern schools stating targeting high culture peaks but
| really targeting formation of Ford model workers to be useful
| idiots in the classic Greek's sense state.
| 0xabe wrote:
| Having the information necessarily comes before having the
| understanding. Books relay information, not understanding.
|
| Reminds me of the saying, "I can tell it to you, but I can't
| understand it for you."
| jkingsbery wrote:
| Besides what others have mentioned (the entertainment value in
| reading), I think there are at least a couple other things at
| play.
|
| 1. When asked about a particular thing from a particular non-
| fiction book (or lecture, or podcast), one might not remember the
| text itself, but one may have internalized the point without
| remember where it's from. I know somewhere along the way I
| learned how to write a structured program, and there might be
| certain sources I remember being useful, but a lot of what I
| learned I couldn't off the top of my head point to a specific
| reference.
|
| 2. In a large amount of my reading, I don't read to absorb
| knowledge, I read to remember the reference for later. I don't
| need to try to absorb a lot of knowledge if I can easily pull up
| a book, web page, or document on my computer later.
|
| 3. Most facts I can recall off the top of my head are usually not
| things I read in a book, they are things I read in multiple books
| (or read in a book and later heard in a lecture or podcast). That
| doesn't mean that books don't work.
|
| 4. The style of the author can also come into play. Some authors
| are capable writers - they do their research and put together a
| coherent book - but some authors just excel at writing scenes
| that are memorable. David Mccullough was one such writer -
| compared to other non-fiction books I've read, I feel like I am
| able to remember more details from his writings than other
| similar writings. I think St. Augustine is also in this category
| - he spent a large portion of his life studying rhetoric, how to
| just keep people interested in what he was saying. Whether one
| agrees with Augustine, anecdotally most people I've talked to
| about his Confessions don't have the same problem as the author
| has in his discussions about The Selfish Gene. But I think
| writers that can write at that level are rare.
| steve_john wrote:
| Nowadays people use mobile phones. For news, entertainment and
| other activities they use phone that's why book work.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Excellent article. But Mortimer's "How to read a book" is all
| about the meta process. Reading that book a few times might help
| people read books well, by making them second nature.
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