[HN Gopher] The joy of reading books you don't understand
___________________________________________________________________
The joy of reading books you don't understand
Author : speckx
Score : 333 points
Date : 2024-07-03 21:44 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (reactormag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reactormag.com)
| whatnotests2 wrote:
| Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit, Marx's Capital, Foucault's
| work, von Neumann and Morgenstern' Game Theory, and the Perl 6
| Apocalypses and Exegeses from the early 2000's.
| hsavit1 wrote:
| kant's critique of pure reason
| DrStormyDaniels wrote:
| Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Feynman's lectures
| g8oz wrote:
| Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (GEB) - too much
| for me.
| diffxx wrote:
| I found GEB understandable but ridiculously long winded and
| the passages with achilles were insufferably annoying.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I honestly found even the preface insufferable
| __rito__ wrote:
| It was very readable to me. I really enjoyed reading the
| book.
| nextstepguy wrote:
| The bible king james version translation.
| sigriv wrote:
| Deleuze, Bourdieu, Malebranche, ...
|
| I find it incredibly satisfying to stretch my brain with books
| that are inaccessible on the first read.
| mamonster wrote:
| Deleuze is so overrated(although I am personally biased
| against everything that came out and was concurrent with Mai
| 68 in general). I don't know if you read it in French, but in
| French the only "French Theorist" worse than Deleuze/Guattari
| is Baudrillar(for how bad the concepts are).
|
| IMO the most interesting one from that era is Clouscard.
| sigriv wrote:
| Did you read Deleuze's Logique de la sensation?
|
| Yes I read him in french. Unfamiliar with Clouscard. Not a
| fan of Baudrillar either.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better just to slow down? They're not books that
| can't be understood.
|
| edit: I've spent years reading some books. Sometimes I stop and
| realize that the words are just washing over me; I backtrack
| until I'm at a place that I've understood the path I took to get
| there. I go forward again, maybe realize that I'm actually
| missing the background to go farther. If I've been fascinated up
| to this point, I find another book that will give me the
| background. I may come back to the original book a month later or
| ten years later. The other material may obviate the need for the
| original book altogether, or even give me contempt for the
| original book.
|
| This seems more like somebody who doesn't speak French reading
| French books, and claiming that imagining the sounds that might
| be made from the sight of the words in the book leads them to
| some sort of transcendence. People write to be understood. I read
| to understand. I'm not just checking off things and trying to
| come up with a review filled with vague evocative metaphors that
| I can impress people with at a party. There's an obsession with
| appearances and presentation rather than actual engagement.
| Associative dream logic in the place of understanding. Why not
| just meditate on the cover painting and say you read it?
| robbiep wrote:
| When I was 11 I was attracted to the cover of a book that showed
| some boats sailing on a terraformed Mars.
|
| Reading Blue Mars, the final book in the series, at age 11
| totally blew my mind. Not only was I already scientifically
| inclined, so Sax's explanations of the world and descriptions of
| materials science really expanded my 'scope of the possible'
| (even if a bunch of the high tech stuff was hand wavy), this book
| also contained their constitutional convention which rolls on for
| a whole bunch of pages about the different government systems and
| some of the impact these power structures can have. At 11 I had
| no conception of what an anarchist is or socialist or communist
| was (The wall had fallen 7 years earlier and China was a flea
| bite) but it populated my 'potential space' of how all these
| words and concepts I barely understood were related to each
| other, which made it a hell of a lot easier later in life to have
| some grounding in which they had been discussed
| lanstin wrote:
| I love that whole series but when I reread it now I am like
| where are all the Chinese and Indians in high tech science?
| Folks from Africa? It's a very California in the 1990s sort of
| multinational scene.
| jyunwai wrote:
| A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more complicated
| books--especially when reading them out of personal interest--is
| to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about background
| material on a first read.
|
| I've recently read and greatly enjoyed a historical fiction novel
| called "Augustus" written by John Edward Williams and published
| in 1972. On the surface level, it's about the events of the life
| of Augustus Caesar (better known in the book as "Octavian")--but
| on a deeper level, it's about the rarity of longtime friends in
| life, and dealing with aging and one's mortality. I put the novel
| off for a year because I thought I had to read a non-fiction
| historical account of Augustus's life first, as I thought I
| couldn't appreciate the novel without doing so, due to the
| unfamiliar character names and events. But one day, I just
| decided to try it out--and I found myself naturally remembering
| the character names and events without special care in reading
| the novel.
|
| Similar experiences have been reported by people engaging with
| various forms of media. I've seen readers take copious notes on
| the novel "Infinite Jest," which has a reputation for being a
| difficult read, only to burn out. In contrast, readers who have
| finished the novel said that they didn't need to take notes, and
| that the story began to make sense simply by reading more.
|
| I've also seen a similar pattern from subjects as academic
| mathematics, where some learners spend too much time on textbook
| explanations instead of working on the textbook problems, to
| subjects as relaxed as computer role-playing games, in which some
| players end up dropping these games due to a perceived need to
| take notes to understand the story, before they can get immersed
| in the game's world.
|
| I think a lot more understanding and enjoyment of various
| subjects can be attained by being comfortable with confusion for
| a while. While note-taking has its place in understanding a
| subject, I've personally found that immersion is the most
| important factor for understanding.
| scubbo wrote:
| Fascinating. My first response to your opening paragraph was
| horror - how on Earth could you hope to really internalize and
| learn from a textbook without taking notes on it? - before
| realizing that you were (mostly) referring to fiction or
| entertainment media. In which case, yes, I wholeheartedly agree
| with you - don't do anything to pull yourself out of the story,
| remain immersed and (if it's a well-structured work) it will
| start to make sense to you.
|
| I did take notes throughout my first playthrough of Elden Ring,
| for instance, and started enjoying it a lot more once I
| stopped!
| brianush1 wrote:
| it works with textbooks too though
| lanstin wrote:
| Isn't doing the exercises a lot more efficient?
| senkora wrote:
| I finished Infinite Jest without taking notes. I definitely
| missed a lot of stuff but I loved the experience and it ended
| up being one of my favorite books.
|
| I think Infinite Jest is a great example for this sort of thing
| because I later realized that I had completely missed the
| entire main plot. By the author:
|
| > There is an ending as far as I'm concerned. Certain kind of
| parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way
| that an "end" can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond
| the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occurred
| to you, then the book's failed for you.
|
| Nothing converged for me at all and yet I thoroughly enjoyed
| the book. I'm still not quite sure what to think of that.
|
| Aaron Swartz (yep, that Aaron Swartz) wrote a great essay that
| explains the ending and main plot in clear language:
|
| http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
|
| But I don't think I got any part of that plot by reading the
| book. It's all hidden and disjointed, and there's so much
| interesting stuff at the surface that you almost don't even
| care to go deeper.
| sonorous_sub wrote:
| I like the short form stuff DFW wrote for Harper's Magazine.
| The one about his trip to the state fair with an old flame is
| sublime.
| ofcourseyoudo wrote:
| Also the one about a cruise trip, Michael Joyce, and Lost
| Highway... essentially everything from "A Supposedly Fun
| Thing I'll Never Do Again"
| maroonblazer wrote:
| Also, his documenting his 7-day Caribbean cruise, aptly
| titled (IMO) "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"
| senkora wrote:
| Agreed. His short stuff is excellent. I'll also call out
| his commencement speech on the meaning of a liberal arts
| education, "This is Water".
|
| https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
| ravi_m wrote:
| Infinite Jest seems excessively long and I haven't worked
| up the motivation to read it yet, but his short stories /
| essays in Consider the Lobster are excellent, including the
| titular story which is about a lobster festival in Maine.
| And looking at the comments in this thread, seems like he
| had some kind of fascination for fairs and other touristy
| things.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Ticket To The Fair (1993) [0] -- a superb read, indeed.
|
| 0: https://harpers.org/wp-
| content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1994-...
| constantinum wrote:
| The best thing about reading(and finishing) Infinite Jest is
| that you are not sure. Not sure if the book has ended, not
| sure about anything. I've read and listened to multiple
| interpretation of the book. But that is what makes it a
| different experience(because of varying perspectives)
|
| I wrote a small blog on how I did read Infinite Jest >
| https://www.prasannakumarr.in/journal/reading-infinite-jest
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| If you ever get the urge to read Infinite Jest again (which I
| highly recommend--a second read is easily more enjoyable than
| the first), the Infinite Jest Wiki includes some page-by-page
| annotations that are nice to have on hand.
| https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-
| wallace/in...
|
| Probably overkill to look up every little thing (and most of
| the annotations are just defining SAT-worthy words anyway),
| but I liked having it around when a random word/phrase would
| make no sense and it turned out to be a vintage shaving cream
| brand or some bit of Boston-ese.
|
| And it's free of spoilers, so friendly enough to first-time
| readers, but I do think a first read is best with no notes or
| supporting material or anything. Other than two bookmarks,
| lol.
| brookst wrote:
| +1 for re-reading. I'd also suggest the audiobook as an
| alternate form that is differently accessible. Certainly
| it's easier to follow some of the changing perspectives as
| the narrator does a good job of voicing differently.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Holy shit. Thanks for that link.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| This made me think of Umberto Eco's _Foucault's Pendulum_ ,
| where you find yourself thinking "I need to look some of this
| stuff up, it's becoming hard to know if I understand it all",
| but that is part of the satirical commentary he wanted to make
| - it's very meta, very good, not knowing all of the esoteric
| references is the exact point.
| brookst wrote:
| Foucault's is amazing. It's a great story, but it also
| delivers a visceral experience that really mirrors what the
| characters are feeling. One of the best "medium is the
| message" books.
| lanstin wrote:
| I think that property is essential to really good books.
| The running of Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli is a long
| boring slogto read. The trek up Mt Doom is agonizing.
|
| The transformation of writing from the awesome kids tale of
| Sorcerer's Stone thru the awkwardly adolescent middle books
| to the powerfully adult writing and plots of Deathly
| Hallows is such a effective parallel to the kids growing
| up.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| I have no research to back this up, but I think the need to
| understand _everything_ may result from low self-esteem.
| Specifically, when not knowing something, people with low self-
| esteem may feel stupid. To eliminate this feeling, they+ focus
| on learning. It is a good adaptive mechanism, especially
| compared to maladaptive ones like avoidance behaviors. A
| potentially better one is learning not to derive self-worth
| from how much we know or how others perceive us.
|
| + Some of them, not everyone, on average, etc. Also, different
| people have different motivations. Not everyone who has a
| curious mind has low self-esteem. People are complex.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| But it's kind of high self esteem to think that you're
| actually capable of understanding everything.
|
| Low self esteem would assume they're not capable of
| understanding and just give up.
| cal85 wrote:
| People are complicated. You can have a high view of some
| aspects of yourself and a low view of other aspects.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| I think this might be more closely related to self-
| efficacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-efficacy
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's absolutely acceptable to build some of your self worth
| on what you have worked to learn. It's a beautiful feedback
| loop.
| autoexec wrote:
| > A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more
| complicated books--especially when reading them out of personal
| interest--is to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about
| background material on a first read.
|
| I recommend using those little sticky tabs instead. If I come
| across something I want to look up later, or want to come back
| to for whatever reason I use one on the page itself to to
| highlight the line, and another at the top so I can find the
| page again. By the time I'm done reading it might be full of
| those little tabs but it doesn't really slow me down in the
| moment.
| firexcy wrote:
| Agreed. I used to struggle with remembering all these names
| in novels, but recently came to terms with the "dysnomia" by
| drawing parallels between reading fiction with hearing
| anecdotes, where capturing the rough dynamic and vibe is more
| important than remembering characters; confusing names is
| venial if the confusion is part of the experience.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I will admit that there is some level of joy in finding
| previously unnoticed angle or joke on re-read. Every few years
| or so I find one such gem in Pratchett's books. It does make me
| smile. I don't think I can emjoy Infinite Jest or Ulysses that
| way.
|
| For non-fiction, I will admit that it is hard for me to take
| that advice. I am currently going through a historical analysis
| book, which in itself covers a complicated topic and references
| tons of source materials, which now I feel almost obligated to
| add to my reading list. And for harder subjects, it feels like
| I get lost on the foundational materials if I don't take notes.
| 2143 wrote:
| I see so many comments about taking notes while reading. I
| didn't even know that was a thing. I'm not even sure if I would
| want to do it, because it would interrupt the reading. My own
| personal belief (which I came up with just now) is that reading
| novels should be a smooth relatively easy affair. Because I
| read simply for the fun of it. This may not be the case with
| academic books however. I just, start reading.
|
| I have in fact stalled on books before though off the top of my
| head only SICP and Anna Karenina come to mind. I'll reattempt
| both of them in the near future. Stalling on SICP was probably
| due to me not having the sufficient math background, which I'm
| slowly working on fixing. The post you wrote gives me hope.
|
| There's a possibility that I've been doing things the wrong way
| all these years.
| troad wrote:
| I think taking notes while reading fiction would be
| relatively unusual (outside fields like literary criticism),
| but taking notes while reading non-fiction is quite common,
| especially when grappling with denser material.
|
| For example, I kept extensive notes while reading Bertrand
| Russell's History of Western Philosophy. The work assumes
| you're internalising as you go along, which is somewhat
| inescapable given the nature of the material. The author
| can't stop to re-explain some finer point of Aristotle's
| every time it is engaged with in the subsequent two thousand
| years.
|
| Pausing to take notes helps one reflect on the material and
| solidify their understanding, but also gives them a quick
| reference later if necessary. I just use my phone's Notes
| app, to keep the barrier as low as possible.
| skydhash wrote:
| First read, I don't take notes unless I'm familiar with the
| material. At most, I'll mark interesting passages. But I
| usually pause after each or every two chapters, reflecting on
| the concepts.
|
| I don't take notes with fiction books, but I pause whenever I
| can't give it my full attention (interruptions, some other
| tasks, tired).
| k2enemy wrote:
| If you enjoyed Williams's Augustus, do give Stoner and
| Butcher's Crossing a read. I "enjoyed" them even more than
| Augustus. Enjoyed is in quotes because they are both
| emotionally devastating -- Stoner more so than Butcher's
| Crossing. I didn't feel like myself for a week after reading
| Stoner and a decade later I still often think about it.
| Insanity wrote:
| I read Stoner a month ago, and just finished Augustus. Both
| are among the best books I have read this year, so far at
| least. I'll be picking up Butcher's Crossing soon but needed
| some lighter reads in-between :)
| aeturnum wrote:
| I feel like the idea of understanding media has, for many of us,
| become a prison. The purest version of understanding is kind of a
| personal relationship to a piece of media. A relationship you
| form while engaging with it that enlivens your life and has the
| potential to broaden your horizons. But we live in a moment where
| it's very popular to talk about "the right understanding of
| media"[1] and therefor everyone begins to need to explain their
| relationship to every piece of media to their friends.
|
| The bare experience of reading The Baroque Cycle completely
| stuffed full of historical references you don't understand is
| kind of its own immersive experience in a less media-rich
| climate. You kind of get a sense what it might be like to have no
| access to education and run into like, Leonardo da Vinci or
| whoever. But then it comes time to explain that experience to
| someone else and they might think you were silly for not just
| looking the names up.
|
| I just think it's too bad. I once almost broke my wrist snow
| boarding, but my friend wanted to finish the day so I hung out in
| our car. The medics had given me a dose of percocet[2] for the
| pain and I had just started Neuromancer. Finishing that book in
| that hot car, slightly high, has both erased all of "what
| happens" from my mind and left me with this kind of indelliable
| feeling of what it was like to be reading the book. I didn't
| understand it and feel all the better for it.
|
| [1] I think it's very easy to understand why people want to set
| others straight on points like this, even if I don't like the
| ecosystem it creates.
|
| [2] I think it was percocet? Though it seems odd that I would be
| given a dose of narcotics for a bad sprain.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| Those that read 'The Book of the New Sun' will know the feeling
| Kikawala wrote:
| The unreliable narrator doesn't help either.
| savanaly wrote:
| I love reading books that I don't understand and not
| understanding them. As long as I know there _is_ something
| there, which I could either look up what others have pieced
| together online, or reread carefully myself. Funny thing is
| looking that stuff up or figuring it out is optional, I still
| enjoy the read where I 'm in the dark enough that sometimes I
| move on. And look back fondly on the book. Gene Wolfe books are
| very good for this style of reading.
|
| I feel guilty mainly when I run into someone else who says they
| love the book, and I am totally unable to have a meaningful
| conversation about it because to be honest I didn't understand
| or retain much from it. And I end up looking like a poser a lot
| of the time I'm sure, and maybe I am in some way. But I still
| read and enjoyed it!
| sophacles wrote:
| I find that some of the books i don't understand come to me
| very slowly over time. I'll just have some insight one day
| and out of the blue I'll think "oh like that one thing in zen
| and the art of motorcycle maintenance", 20 years after i read
| it (or similar).
|
| As for looking like a poser - most people will respond well
| to "tbh I didn't really understand what I read, tell me more
| and I'll keep it in mind if I revisit" (or "help me
| understand this other thing I have some concrete memory
| about", etc). Some jerks will scoff or dismiss you, most
| people I've encountered are pretty open to a good discussion
| even after it's been revealed.
| cooolbear wrote:
| Exactly what I was thinking. I'm really looking forward to when
| the second read-through will call to me and what I'll get out
| of it then
| malux85 wrote:
| When I was about 14 years old, my parents saw my interest in
| electronics and computers and went to a university professor they
| knew and purchased 6-7 books on various topics. (Mostly
| electrical engineering and some programming)
|
| They were designed for 2nd or 3rd year university students, and
| they were way wayyyy beyond me, but I used to read them, over and
| over, and slowly parts of them were becoming clearer to me, even
| the bits I didn't understand (at all) must have been going into
| my memory because later when the concepts started to click, then
| the connections were being made.
|
| It took me years, I read the books many times over and over all
| through my teens. Reading books I don't understand has become a
| lifelong joy for me, just yesterday I got my subscription to
| "Advanced Materials" and I have thousands of articles to read!
| hilux wrote:
| Both you and your parents sound so cool!
|
| This brought a smile to my face - thanks for sharing. :-)
| djmips wrote:
| Same but for computers. As a child I got the engineering books
| for the 6502 from my father ( he was a power engineer).and they
| were like a foreign language. But I persisted and read them
| over and over like I was trying to decode an ancient cipher.
| And like you, eventually they became clearer and my
| understanding flourished. Such a cool experience.
| malux85 wrote:
| I fondly remember seeing the integral symbol and having no
| idea what it meant, and no internet to check. I remember
| thinking to myself "This must be important if it's in this
| book" and just memorising without understanding. I still
| write x^(p/q)==q//(x^p) as my goto graffiti!
| eigenhombre wrote:
| I do like some "hard" fiction like the Stephenson mentioned in
| TFA, as well as Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, but my mind
| immediately went to some of the harder technical writing I've
| enjoyed - The Art of Computer Programming; SICP and other Lisp
| texts, math books, etc.
|
| I once spent a very pleasant short vacation on a beach on Lake
| Michigan reading Peter Gabriel Bergmann's "Introduction to the
| Theory of Relativity," finding pleasure in gradually unraveling
| the notation, the mathematics, and the ideas, in a quiet and
| beautiful setting.
|
| It always surprises me when I meet engineers who don't enjoy
| reading technical books, but different strokes and all that. It
| takes a kind of patience and persistence to unravel a technical
| text, which can be its own reward if you're not trying to solve a
| specific technical problem at the moment.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Don't leave us hanging, what happened at the end of the beach
| on Lake Michigan?
|
| Jokes aside, I do the no note taking on the first read thing as
| well. Because I like reading, I do sometimes skip the problems
| in technical books the first time round, but I'm consciously
| aware it's a form of procrastination when I'm doing it.
| emporas wrote:
| When i started reading the Common Lisp Reference Manual i knew
| neither English nor Lisp. When i finished it reading it for the
| first time, i learned English better. I read it again 3 times,
| then i started learning Lisp.
| __rito__ wrote:
| > _" but my mind immediately went to some of the harder
| technical writing I've enjoyed [...] math books"_
|
| What are your favorite Math books, and what texts did you enjoy
| the most? Could you please share the titles?
| eigenhombre wrote:
| My very first was Naive Set Theory by Paul Halmos. Way over
| my head in 7th(?) grade but my first intro to math beyond
| pre-algebra stuff.
|
| Lately I've enjoyed, but did not finish, the Joy of
| Abstraction by Eugenia Cheng, on category theory. And there
| was a differential geometry book whose name I have forgotten
| but whose exercises I really enjoyed, because I could do them
| in my head while riding the bus, just by thinking about them.
|
| I'm not particularly well read on mathematics (had a lot of
| math in college, hardly any since) but I would like to circle
| back to reading more at some point.
| __rito__ wrote:
| Thanks for your reply.
|
| The Halmos book is on my to-read list for some months. Will
| bump it!
|
| I also started reading the Cheng book, but I did not finish
| it either.
|
| Let me know the name of the Diff. Geometry book when you
| remember it.
|
| And wish you the best on your plans of circling back.
| ofcourseyoudo wrote:
| Can someone tell me why this website asks if you are between 13
| and 15 years old?
| lannisterstark wrote:
| Could this be it?
|
| >Our websites are designed for children aged 13 and up. We do
| not sell any children's data for monetary consideration.
| Website pages that are aimed at children under 16 are
| configured so that we do not knowingly share any children's
| data with third party advertising companies unless the website
| visitor opts-in to allow the sharing or indicates that they are
| 16 and over.
| nextstepguy wrote:
| I started reading the original edition of Don Quijote in Spanish
| with two years of high school Spanish under my belt. Ten years
| later, I finally finished the first book.
| voisin wrote:
| I've recently started reading The Iliad. I find it challenging
| because characters can be referred to by a variety of different
| things, even within the same paragraph or two, so it is
| challenging to follow the conversation or who is being discussed.
|
| I've taken to asking ChatGPT to summarize chapters and key
| characters within the chapter after I've finished each chapter
| and it helps give me feedback as to whether what I thought
| happened was what indeed happened. It's also given me little
| contextual tidbits that are helpful and apparently would have
| been known to audiences of the time but for me would have gone
| unappreciated.
|
| It's helpful, though I think I'd prefer an annotated copy over
| ChatGPT so I have realtime information as I read without the lag
| of finishing a chapter first (or added friction of stopping to
| search and starting again)
| egl2021 wrote:
| I found Malcolm Wilcock, A companion to the Iliad, and Ralph
| Hexter, A guide to the Odyssey, helpful when I read Homer
| recently.
| voisin wrote:
| Thank you. Putting my thoughts into my comment made me wonder
| a bit more about the translation I am reading which is
| Butler's translation included in the Great Books of Western
| Culture. It apparently is a somewhat weak translation when
| compared to modern ones and so I might switch to something
| modern to see if that helps.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| With Homer, which translation you read can make a huge
| difference for the reading experience. Older translations
| tend to be far more purple and ornate, while recent
| translations, like Emily Wilson's, are far more straight
| forward with a more restrained diction and helpful
| translation notes and introductions. It's all really a
| matter of degree, though.
| damontal wrote:
| Started reading a book by Irish humorist Ross O'Carroll-Kelley.
|
| It's full of Dublin slang specific to the 90's I think. I don't
| understand a lot of it but it's fascinating to sort of listen in
| on the patois.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is a character! The writer is Paul Howard
| walterbell wrote:
| Some books "you don't understand" can change the reader, so the
| (new) reader experiences a (new) book in their next reading.
|
| R.A. Lafferty, from "Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies"
| (1978), an alternate history of television,
| https://www.wired.com/story/who-is-r-a-lafferty-best-sci-fi-...
| There seemed to be several meetings in this room superimposed on
| one another, and they cannot be sorted out. To sort them out
| would have been to destroy their effect, however, for they
| achieved syntheses of their several aspects and became the true
| meeting that never really took place but which contained all the
| other meetings in one theatrical unity.
|
| _> ..On first read, yes, it's nonsense, but this is the
| experience of experiencing Lafferty. He doesn't make any sense,
| until you decide, and you must decide, that he does. Then,
| suddenly, he becomes a genius. Read the paragraph again. What's
| he talking about? Today, you might realize he's predicting Zoom:
| a main meeting full of individual nonmeetings taking place in
| chats and side slacks that together constitute a constant and
| overarching supermeeting! Tomorrow, it'll sound like something
| else entirely._
| shaggie76 wrote:
| I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I
| have eaten; even so, they have made me.
|
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
| alberto_ol wrote:
| It is not certain that the quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/06/20/books/
| borroka wrote:
| But also, who knows if it is true? And why only books and not
| everything we have done in life? And why should Ralph Waldo
| Emerson, assuming the quote is his, know more about this than
| anyone else?
|
| The hours of history classes in elementary, middle, and high
| school, when we discussed the Roman Republic and the Empire
| and before that the Egyptians and the Assyrians and memorized
| the names, perhaps formed and made us, even if we do not
| remember a single date, only the names of Cleopatra and
| Caesar, and we could not find the location of Carthage even
| if our lives depended on it. Or maybe they did nothing to
| most of us, which is the more parsimonious view.
|
| When I was a child, a whole debate emerged about the risk of
| developing a violent personality after watching movies and
| reading comic books in which violence and gore were shown
| quite freely. As far as I know, this development of a
| dangerous, antisocial personality never happened, because,
| dare I say it, we can distinguish fact from fiction, and
| everything we ingest, food or media, is modulated by our
| history, family, genetics, culture, and friends and enemies.
| thunkle wrote:
| I spent so much time on "Road to Reality". I was mostly confused,
| but then every once in a while something would click and it was
| mind blowing. Now I'm going back through linear algebra. I'm also
| looking at the hardest book I've tried "Moonshine beyond the
| monster" I'm trying...
| wozniacki wrote:
| I'm dismayed that no one so far has brought up a point that's
| begging to be made in these sorts of things.
|
| While the point of the article has _some_ merit, there's also
| another equally valid contrary argument to be made.
|
| Just because a book - however storied & fabled - exists out
| there, does not mean that you should strive to find some meaning,
| import or significant cogitable thought when one is not clearly
| and immediately present.
|
| There's a whole industry of writers that exist to exclusively
| furnish meaning to the lofty thoughts of some distinguished
| authors, that that was simply never meant or not present in the
| authors own words. Sometimes the authors themselves invite and
| regale in this kind of festive chicanery. Sometimes not. But this
| sort of thing - far more than useful or warranted - does exist.
|
| In other words some works of writing often fiction but not
| necessarily are just elaborate exercises in getting away with
| balderdash.
|
| It pays to remember the enterprise of getting published in the
| past has not always been equitable as is the case today.
|
| A virtual nobody off the street couldn't expect to even get his
| manuscript read by a publishing house, much less get published
| even for a limited run. So if you were already reputed or
| privileged or had the blessings of a wealthy house of patrons who
| bankrolled your previous works, you were more widely published
| and translated.
|
| In other words far too many mediocre works of the past still get
| top billing, than they rightly deserve largely because no one
| called out their bullshit.
|
| Yes, sometimes if you don't understand the author that is because
| the author never had the intentions of being understood in the
| first place or did not have much to say of value or import,
| however fleeting or ethereal or unyielding to lucid language, the
| authors thoughts were.
|
| HN should buck this trend and not join in adulation.
| MikeBVaughn wrote:
| > Sometimes the authors themselves invite and regale in this
| kind of festive chicanery. Sometimes not. But this sort of
| thing - far more than useful or warranted - does exist.
|
| Why does art and the attempts at interpretation thereof have to
| be useful or warranted? Festive chicanery sounds delightful to
| me. I would like more of that in my life, please.
|
| > In other words some works of writing often fiction but not
| necessarily are just elaborate exercises in getting away with
| balderdash.
|
| > In other words far too many mediocre works of the past still
| get top billing, than they rightly deserve largely because no
| one called out their bullshit.
|
| > HN should buck this trend and not join in adulation.
|
| Do you have some concrete examples of works that fit these
| claims?
| roc856 wrote:
| The title of this post does not correctly reflect the title of
| the article.
| sanex wrote:
| When I saw the article I thought of The Baroque Cycle which I
| finished a year or two ago and am currently working up the
| courage to tackle it again. Pleasantly surprised that it was the
| first series mentioned. I'm thinking of trying it this time on
| Kindle so I can look some things up without leaving the book.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| For books that you don't understand much about and can get
| daunting/painful reading it, you should use the table of contents
| and read the most interesting one first, then the next..
| jdswain wrote:
| The article title reminded me of when I was young and used to
| read Byte Magazine. Byte used to cover a wide range of topics,
| and could get quite technical, but the big thing that is vastly
| different to today is that you would get a monthly digest of
| articles that were selected by the editors, not by yourself. And
| I used to read it cover to cover. There was a lot I didn't
| understand, but also I feel like I gained a wider knowledge than
| if I only read what I was interested in, and many times the ideas
| that I was exposed to turned out to be useful much later in life.
|
| Some of them ended up being distractions too, like playing with
| hardware, or writing a compiler, but it was all very interesting.
| Blackstrat wrote:
| Byte magazine was a terrific publication. There's nothing
| similar in print these days that I'm aware of. Certainly, Byte
| couldn't be accused of dumbing down the content to reach a
| wider audience, unlike many of today's supposedly technical
| magazines. I learned a lot from Byte and experimented
| frequently with the knowledge and understanding I gained from
| Byte.
| lanstin wrote:
| I wrote a lot of basic and 6502 assembler code inspired by
| Byte. So much learning.
| sfink wrote:
| This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese
| teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was
| definitely on to _something_ : In the West, it is assumed that it
| is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners.
| In the East, it is the other way around.
|
| In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme.
| The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,
| they also have to provide the motivation and the entertainment.
| Which I find sad, because some things you can't get unless you go
| to the effort of extracting them yourself. (See many reproducible
| psychology findings about retention being highly correlated with
| depth of processing, for example.) It's like the information
| equivalent of highly processed food.
|
| I find myself falling into this trap on sites like this. An
| interesting but difficult article will be posted, I won't
| immediately know what to think or where I stand on the topic, and
| I'll flip to the comments so that I can get some part of the
| collective to tell me what to think and how to feel about it.
| Which is also sad.
|
| In paintings, it is known that the viewer can get out more than
| the painter put in. It used to be the same with writing, but it
| feels like that is becoming more rare and less acceptable. If a
| reader can't follow the argument, it's automatically the author's
| fault and a waste of the reader's time. Heaven forbid the reader
| might need to exert some effort and grow in the gleaning.
| spacephysics wrote:
| I find a similar trend with education in general. Some states
| have phased out programs for gifted students.
|
| Instead, many of them aren't stimulated enough and end up going
| down a troubling path (worst case) or they don't really reach
| their full potential during those formidable years.
|
| Teachers are expected to make the content match the lowest
| denominator, outside of the occasional exceptional teacher
| surfingdino wrote:
| Because making someone think is stupid-shaming and therefore
| not politically correct.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| Eventually everyone is tested. I have received perfect
| looking resumes and cover letters, then you get the person
| on a call and they are... hopeless. It's very sad. Who
| pushed them so far? How did they get the credentials? Who
| wrote and edited their materials?
|
| Eventually the "rubber meets the road" so to speak, and all
| of the lies and gold stars and platitudes don't count for
| anything.
| kaba0 wrote:
| There are certainly people like that, but there are also
| exceptionally smart people that just absolutely suck at
| selling themselves, and you might unknowingly decided the
| same way in case of both.
|
| It's very hard to fairly evaluate someone. E.g. I had
| interviews where I 100% know more than one of my
| interviewers on the specific topic (not bragging, my
| knowledge is ain't a high bar), and that gap in this
| unusual direction made the process very awkward and
| strange.
| lanstin wrote:
| I have only gotten jobs because of people I have worked
| with before. I have written all kinds of software for all
| kinds of systems and products but I just don't come
| across as smart on a first meeting. And to be fair I
| almost invariably like to chew on a knotty problem for a
| few days turning it over in my head till I get a feel for
| it, unless I have already solved a very similar problem;
| but I only want to solve novel problems. Old problems in
| software should be solvable easily. The current
| interviewing process would not hire me unless I had
| already worked with the deciders before.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| In some ways this supports the point, in others it's the
| exact opposite.
|
| He says spoonfeeding information to people in bite-size
| chunks is like processed food and it should be hard, but
| you're saying that information should be spoonfed to 'smart'
| kids in exactly the right level of difficulty or they'll
| wreck their lives.
|
| Possibly it's like the concept of flow, where the standard
| suggestion is that things should be not too hard and not too
| easy, in order to keep your attention, interest and focus.
|
| But philosphically, that's just 'spoon-feeding' information
| in bite-size chunks like processed food, it's just varying
| the size of the bite to suit the level of the reciever, which
| again is exactly what he's saying is bad.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| And so many of those programs were absolutely horrible.
|
| I had a _lot_ more homework than my peers and was expected to
| act more mature. Sorry, but we were all the same age as other
| kids - we didn 't deserve a higher workload (as kids and
| teens) and we should have been expected to act our age.
|
| It was pretty common to make fun of others for not keeping up
| well enough (struggling not allowed) or for appearing too
| smart (Not me, but a family member).
|
| Some school systems completely separated gifted kids from
| 'regular' students. By high school, it was obvious that this
| created some issues communicating with a broader range of
| folks.
|
| There is more than one way to make sure gifted kids get
| challenged - you don't necessarily need a special class for
| gifted kids.
|
| And you'll need to provide proof for the last one. It is true
| that they do teach so that the test scores are good - and
| since funding and jobs are tied to that testing, other things
| are going to go down. This isn't really making content
| matching the lowest denominator, though.
| conjectures wrote:
| Seems geographical/not uniform. In UK some schools just
| pocket the gifted and talented funds and deliver nothing.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| It definitely isn't uniform in the US - it isn't even
| uniform in schools near each other.
|
| Schooling systems between countries are very difficult to
| compare. I just learned that some UK schools have gifted
| and talented programs and funds, for example.
| arethuza wrote:
| The UK doesn't even have a single education system (e.g.
| exams for university entrance and the length of first
| degrees).
| strken wrote:
| Mine was great. It had a normal amount of homework, a
| smaller class size (which was a happy but unintentional
| accident), and accelerated four years into three. We shared
| electives with the rest of the school and socialised
| widely. I was bullied pretty badly through my pre-teen
| childhood and the program provided a way out of that, which
| in turn taught me how to interact with a group of people
| who didn't physically and emotionally abuse me for social
| gain - something a lot of people take for granted.
|
| Which is to say that anecdotes are of course going to be
| mixed.
| fma wrote:
| My daughter is in gifted. She still has a regular home room
| class that she is in 80% of the day. Gifted is treated as
| an elective where they have a class or two that is small in
| size and more intellectually stimulating (or so they say, I
| don't sit in there and have nothing to compare).
|
| No extra homework...they don't give homework at all
| nowadays.
|
| Because of how fragmented the United States school system
| is, your experience will definitely not be applicable to
| everyone. Heck, even the county next to mine does gifted
| differently.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| The terror of the masses to join the molasses.
| jjmarr wrote:
| I read this comment before the post, and now I feel bad.
|
| I watched a spy movie from the 1960s recently with someone. We
| got 20 minutes in before she was confused about why the movie
| is just about a depressed drunk who lost his job in a spy
| agency, before my movie-watching accomplice looked up the plot
| of the movie on Wikipedia. Spoiler alert, there's a twist, and
| the movie didn't tell the viewer that.
|
| It's interesting that modern movies have to make you _think_
| you understand something, before they pull the curtain back and
| reveal there 's a twist. Otherwise people will get disengaged
| and stop watching before the twist occurs.
| croisillon wrote:
| So how's the movie called?
| tdrgabi wrote:
| Probably "The spy who came in from the cold"
| big_paps wrote:
| The book and the movie are quite rough, raw and extradry
| - i don't mean this in a bad way. The mood reminds me
| more of eastern productions like tarkowsky (stalker) and
| the like.
| ted_bunny wrote:
| "Bond for grownups"
| jhbadger wrote:
| Also called "stale beer" spy fiction to emphasize its
| lack of glamour and that settings like dive bars are more
| common in it than fancy casinos and cocktail parties.
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpyFiction
| croisillon wrote:
| ah right, it starts that way, been a long time already
| bowsamic wrote:
| Well the issue is that people panic, since honestly I think
| we are very insecure about our media literacy
| lqet wrote:
| I also strongly suspect you watched "The Spy Who Came in From
| the Cold". If you enjoyed this movie and the way it is
| narrated, please do yourself a favor and watch all the BBC
| mini series from the 70ies/80ies based on John Le Carre
| books, namely "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "Smiley's People",
| and "A Perfect Spy" (or read the books, John Le Carre is an
| _excellent_ writer, and "A Perfect Spy" can be compared to
| works by Dickens). You usually have no clue what is going on,
| and only learn about it later.
| noefingway wrote:
| Second this. IMHO Richard Burton and Alec Guinness give
| stellar performances in these shows/movies. I would also
| recommend the Len Deighton series Game, Set, Match with Ian
| Holm. You need to watch to the end to figure out what's
| going on.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I think these movies are attempting to put you in the
| position of a spy, where you need to pay attention and
| infer motives from actions, and actions from motives.
|
| The IPCRESS File is probably my favorite in the genre of
| cold war spy thrillers. It's slightly more on the
| fantastical side of the spectrum, but still so good it
| makes grocery shopping interesting.
|
| The camera work is just brilliant, with many shots taken
| from angles that emulate covert surveillance, yet still
| managing to beautifully frame the scenes. Since this is
| implied, but never spoken, some reviewers seem to have
| missed this aspect, and just though they were shooting
| scenes through building windows for the sake of it.
|
| Even just the opening scene says so much about the main
| character on without him or anyone else speaking a single
| word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBCqP7R42K0
| VariableStar wrote:
| "It's interesting that modern movies have to make you think
| you understand something, before they pull the curtain back
| and reveal there's a twist. Otherwise people will get
| disengaged and stop watching before the twist occurs."
|
| I agree with this. For a particularly insidious example see
| the latest Star Wars series, the Acolyte, by Disney.
| auggierose wrote:
| Well, I have watched 5 episodes so far, still waiting for
| the twist. So far I think the Acolyte is pretty dull. My
| girlfriend checked out after episode 3. Your comment fills
| me with hope!
| nswest23 wrote:
| So this is just storytelling 101...you don't have to give
| up the whole story but it does have to be engaging in the
| meantime...before the _big reveal_. Five dull episodes is
| not good storytelling and you're probably going to end up
| disappointed.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > It's interesting that modern movies have to make you think
| you understand something, before they pull the curtain back
| and reveal there's a twist. Otherwise people will get
| disengaged and stop watching before the twist occurs.
|
| So why should you keep on watching a movie where nothing
| happens just because, in the end, it _might_ be that there is
| a twist? I do see the more general point about ever shorter
| attention spans, but in general, it's probably a good thing
| that we have enough options to entertain ourselves in order
| to not having to take these gambles.
| haswell wrote:
| "Nothing happening" can be as impactful and meaningful as a
| scene full of action.
|
| I personally like to know as little as possible about a
| movie before I watch it, aside from genre. I want to
| experience the story as the creators intended, and at times
| this includes being completely in the dark. The transition
| from "wtf is going on?" to understanding is where the
| payoff resides.
|
| Every movie you watch is a gamble, even if you read the
| Wikipedia page first. And it is possible to get a general
| understanding of the _reception_ of a movie without having
| to know anything about the plot itself.
|
| > _it 's probably a good thing that we have enough options
| to entertain ourselves in order to not having to take these
| gambles_
|
| Different people watch for different reasons. I personally
| think it'd be incredibly boring to stop making gambles on
| potentially interesting movies.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You'll see this often on the Internet: proof? Proof? Citation?
| Boy, no one's going to do any work for you. If you believe the
| wrong thing, the consequences are your own.
|
| In fact, only people with no better use for their time will
| spend their time teaching you. This means you're being taught
| only by people whose time is worthless or for whom it is useful
| for you to believe in something.
|
| If you're not paying for the knowledge, you're not the
| customer, you're the product. I never elucidate for those
| beneath me in understanding. I only discuss with peers.
|
| Perhaps the only capable person I know who does different is
| Taleb but his pleasure appears to be in calling someone
| "imbecile" after proving them wrong.
| wozniacki wrote:
| I was waiting the whole time I read this to find a /s
| somewhere. Anywhere. Yikes.
| hju22_-3 wrote:
| I will agree that it is big yikes. But I will, at least
| kind of, agree that you are more likely to meet more arm
| chair scientists than you are scientists and actual field
| experts online in this fashion. Though, obviously, there
| are actual scientists and field experts around. The issue,
| as always, is how to differenciate them from the not-so-
| obviously fake ones as a layman.
|
| But yes. Still big yikes.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| > Yikes.
|
| Proof? Citation?
|
| Jokes aside, I find that this sentence makes much sense,
| especially in the context of online forums such as HN or
| Reddit: In fact, only people with no
| better use for their time will spend their time teaching
| you. This means you're being taught only by people whose
| time is worthless or for whom it is useful for you to
| believe in something.
|
| Why do you think that is inaccurate?
| hashiyakshmi wrote:
| Because there are plenty of people who just enjoy
| explaining things or helping others understand, and to
| say the only two reasons for that behavior is that their
| time is worthless or they have an agenda is myopic.
| latexr wrote:
| > Why do you think that is inaccurate?
|
| Not only is it inaccurate, it is insulting to the person
| teaching you. Have you never been on a popular HN thread
| where a known expert in the field, someone who's more
| productive and knowledgeable than you, provides context?
| But somehow because they did you feel it justified to
| call their time worthless? Well, certainly I'd regret
| wasting my time on someone like that and I'd hope the
| other readers were more appreciative.
|
| What the OP is calling a "better use of time" I'm reading
| "more selfish use of time". Maybe, just maybe, the person
| spending their time teaching others doesn't consider
| their time worthless, but they _manage it better_ and
| thus have some moments to share their knowledge. Or maybe
| they enjoy doing so. This is not a hard concept for those
| not affected by such a superiority complex they claim
| there are others "beneath [them] in understanding".
| bheadmaster wrote:
| That makes sense, thanks for the perspective. Much better
| than just "yikes". I hate tweetspeak.
| protomolecule wrote:
| Because some people want make the world a better place.
| Or simply enjoy sharing knowledge.
| zo1 wrote:
| I only wish for people to take a "little bit" of a charitable
| interpretation of my comments. Lot of time they simply find
| one little gap, wrong wording, etc and just run with it and
| dismiss my entire comment. I do it too, sometimes, but I like
| to think I do it for a reason.
|
| Alas, we're all humans: greedy, and biased towards our own
| views.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Precisely. They usually come to you with misbelief and
| intentional miscomprehension. I don't think it is worth
| convincing someone of the truth if they insist on finding a
| way to believe a falsehood. Let them believe.
| btilly wrote:
| That is because the USA is low context while China is high
| context. For more about this and related topics, read https://w
| ww.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IHGVQ9I/ref=tmm_kin_swatch....
| lukan wrote:
| "Americans precede anything negative with three nice
| comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight
| to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in
| hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of
| the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to
| each other, chaos breaks out."
|
| Oh, it is a book about stereotypes. Well, as a german it
| seems I have to get straight to the point, I do not think,
| thinking in stereotypes this broad is helpful for
| communicating.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| Did you read the beginning of the book or just read that
| one quote? The first chapter on a story about meeting
| etiquette in Chinese business culture is actually quite
| insightful. It certainly resonates with me a least. I wish
| I had a manual so I knew how to behave in a meeting with
| people from different cultures. We are not all the same and
| there is no one size fits all way of behaving in a meeting.
| lukan wrote:
| I stopped at that quote.
|
| There are no doubt interesting anecdota inside, that
| might be insightful and there is no doubt some truth to
| some cliches, but I seriously doubt a box so big as
| "asians" has much value.
|
| And even for "small" boxes like "germans", there are for
| example great differences between east and west germany
| (seperated by the iron curtain and different systems for
| over 40 years) - but more so for the older and less for
| the younger generation. Etc.
|
| So reading in general about cultural differences when
| meeting someone from that culture can be surely be
| helpful - but in my experience it is not useful for
| taking such advice by the letter.
| lmm wrote:
| The alternative to considering "asians" or "germans" is
| probably not understanding each person's cultural
| background individually but rather putting everyone in a
| single "world" box. Which is the biggest and most useless
| one of all. Once you have a good understanding of a
| typical german you can of course zoom in and get more
| detail, but if you refuse to learn about germans in
| general then that's going to make you less understanding
| of both an old person from east germany and a young
| person from west germany, not more.
| lukan wrote:
| There is also the alternative of treating humans as
| humans first, if you don't know much about them, except
| their looks and their passport nationality.
|
| And not assuming one has these and those traits, because
| they look "asian", but were raised in the US for example.
|
| I know I met many people from many backgrounds all over
| the world and my thinking in boxes default mode, was
| never really helpful, but often very wrong. So it _is_
| good to know what some common traits are for a person
| from a certain cultural background, but not with the
| assumption that the individual in front of you is in fact
| like this. That can also offend people.
|
| For example some cultures do not like to shake hands.
| Germans usually do, but personally I also don't. So just
| be conscious and try to read body language, would be my
| advice. And in case of doubt, asking a person on the side
| and not in front of everyone usually works to work around
| missunderstandings.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Well, the differences between western cultures are less
| pronounced, but I do think that knowing, say, Chinese
| etiquette when meeting mainland Chinese people is
| essential to not come across accidentally as rude. There
| are significant differences there, and natural body
| language _does_ differ with culture.
|
| Nonetheless, I agree with your general point/sentiment.
| lukan wrote:
| "Chinese etiquette when meeting mainland Chinese people
| is essential to not come across accidentally as rude"
|
| For sure. And I read up about any culture I visit the
| first time. But chinese are quite different from
| mongolians and thais for example. So my issue was
| especially with "asian". This term is allmost meaningless
| to me, as it puts billions of different people in one
| basket.
| lmm wrote:
| > There is also the alternative of treating humans as
| humans first
|
| No there isn't, that's the same thing as just putting
| everyone in the "world" box. Which tends to boil down to
| just treating everyone like a member of your own culture
| (since most of the people from the world you've met are
| from your own culture), and ends up being worse.
| latexr wrote:
| Alternatively, by doing what you suggest you embed
| stereotypes into the person which may then need to be
| undone, which is harder then starting from a blank slate.
|
| This is how we get to harmful (even if well intentioned)
| ideas like "Asians are good at math".
|
| https://ideas.ted.com/why-saying-asians-are-good-at-myth-
| isn...
|
| https://phys.org/news/2020-07-racist-stereotyping-asians-
| goo...
| trueismywork wrote:
| Well it's not a book of rules.
| btilly wrote:
| What you think the book is, and what it actually is, are
| very different.
|
| It is not about stereotypes for judging someone from
| another culture. It is about how to think about other
| cultures so that we won't fail in stereotypical ways when
| we have to function in those cultures. And how to
| understand and resolve common conflicts that happen
| between businesses from different cultures.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| > Well, as a german it seems I have to get straight to the
| point
|
| "The Joy of Reading Books You Don't Understand"
|
| It seems you didn't even try to understand The Culture Map,
| and opted for a strawman.
|
| > I do not think, thinking in stereotypes this broad is
| helpful for communicating.
|
| You're trying to use it as a cookbook. If you instead see
| it as a dictionary to be used when someone you're
| interacting with isn't behaving the way you had expected,
| it will make more sense. We can still be unique flowers
| with a wide variance, even if cultural regions have shifted
| medians.
| lukan wrote:
| "If you instead see it as a dictionary to be used when
| someone you're interacting with isn't behaving the way
| you had expected, it will make more sense"
|
| Well, to be honest, I doubt that. By now I have read some
| examples from the book and the way he uses nationality in
| absolute terms and placing them on scales is deeply
| offputting to me. So far I often experienced situations
| where people behaved differently, than what I would have
| expected - but I do not recall any situation where
| placing those people on mathematical sounding scales
| would have explained their reactions better. With some
| thinking and asking they all could be explained and
| resolved in a normal way. To me the whole thing sounds
| like something that sounds good and easy on first glance
| - but falls apart when you look deeper. The author as a
| "international business expert" likely knows his way
| around different cultures simply by experience - not
| because he makes cultural meassurments in his head. But
| he made a goodselling book, so good for him. And good for
| you that you find value in it. I don't. So maybe I
| "didn't even try to understand The Culture Map" - or
| maybe I just have a different opinion.
| Jensson wrote:
| Culture correlates strongly with nationality, you are
| throwing away a very powerful tool just for an
| ideological reason.
|
| And no, often it is too late once you have already made
| the mistake, first impressions matter and you massively
| improve your chances if you take their nationality into
| account. Sure they might take your nationality into
| account and adapt to you instead, as you say that often
| works for you, good, but some people actually wants to
| learn to adapt to others.
| lukan wrote:
| "but some people actually wants to learn to adapt to
| others"
|
| Yes. And I said I don't want to learn by fixating on
| nationality. Not that I don't take it into account.
|
| And the quote above from the cover already talks about
| "asians". Even less meaningless. Not completely
| meaningless, but allmost. And all I read about the book
| seems like strongly fixating on nationality. Maybe it
| goes deeper at some point. I only judged from what I
| read. And I am aware of the potential irony given the
| topic, but so far I think, I understood enough.
| sfink wrote:
| If you would like an answer to that, then I would suggest
| reading the section titled "Being open to individual
| differences is not enough", and perhaps the quoted passage
| in the later section "Tasting the water you swim in".
|
| You're probably less "German" than she thinks you are, and
| more "German" than you think you are, but that's not
| incompatible with what she says. Don't mistake the blurb
| for the content. I agree that the blurb is a bit obnoxious,
| but then, its function is to appeal to (or piss off)
| someone enough that they'll pause and consider buying the
| book (maybe if only to prove how wrong it is).
|
| I have not read the book but I have heard the author speak
| on the topic, and in my opinion she adequately addresses
| your complaint. I personally still find her message a bit
| oversimplified, but isn't that what we're talking about?
| That's what you have to do in order to get your
| readers/listeners to understand what you're trying to
| communicate!
|
| Or do you? As in the original article here, there can be
| benefit to reading things where the author _doesn 't_ try
| to make it easy. Perhaps they put down the messy truth in
| disconnected fragments, or they pile up lots of examples
| that don't quite fit any simple orthogonal dimensions of
| explanation. Such compendiums incorporate deep insight to
| anyone willing and able to put in the effort to derive it
| for themselves. Let the reader figure it out by meditating
| on them, or rereading them 100 times, or trying them out in
| practice, or whatever.
| lukan wrote:
| Thanks, that is a more nuanced perspective, so maybe I
| should give it a try.
|
| "You're probably less "German" than she thinks you are,
| and more "German" than you think you are"
|
| Possible. I am definitely "german" in many ways. I
| positivly associate with the "thinker and philosopher"
| tradition. But I hate beer culture.
|
| But I also still have a unconscious deep rooted believe,
| that only german engeneering is good. But when I notice
| that, I stop with "wtf? I know that is BS". Those are the
| stereotypes I want to get away from. But when other
| people see me mainly as "german" - they push me into this
| role.
| jesterson wrote:
| that's extreme oversimplification of multifaceted topic.
| btilly wrote:
| All models are simplifications. High versus low context is
| only one of many dimensions in its model.
| sfink wrote:
| I have not read the book but I have heard Erin speak, and I
| do find the high/low context dimension to be very powerful in
| explaining a great many things. I don't see how it applies
| all that well to this one, though, other than perhaps
| explaining _one_ way in which something can come across as
| dense or cryptic. Specifically, you could use it to say that
| a text is embedded in the context in which it was written,
| and so for example what is not said can speak louder than
| what is said.
|
| But I don't see how it explains differences in what is
| expected of a listener/reader/learner. I may very well just
| be missing it.
| fhe wrote:
| my Chinese teacher supplied me with this supposedly ancient
| piece of Chinese scholarly wisdom: read any book a hundred
| times, and its meaning will be obvious.
|
| i have found this to work amazingly well -- particularly with
| poorly written technical papers.
|
| your comment also reminded me of this one time I was hanging
| out and watching the Matrix (for the 100th time probably) with
| a film maker friend. and he was pointing out to me that
| American film editing guides you with a rather heavy hand on
| where to look on the screen, whereas European films did little
| of that and the viewer has to search for what to pay attention
| to in a scene. after he showed me the editing techniques it all
| made sense, and explained why i could mindless follow hollywood
| movies, whereas watching an european film i'd get lost if not
| paying attention.
| lqet wrote:
| > American film editing guides you with a rather heavy hand
| on where to look on the screen
|
| There are notable exceptions, and I think the most
| commercially successful US director who largely ignored this
| advice was Francis Ford Coppola. In the "Godfather" trilogy,
| nothing is spelled out. You are not guided to anything. If
| you miss a minor detail in some scene, you are on your own,
| and you might not be able to follow the plot to the end.
| mannykannot wrote:
| That is probably what it will take for me to finally
| understand Calasso's The Ruin of Kasch.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| aka 'intensified continuity editing' which is the modern
| evolution of the 'Hollywood style'. David Bordwell out of UW-
| Madison did a lot of work on this.
| lqet wrote:
| I work in academia, and the pessimistic/cynic standpoint is
| that university is not about teaching, but about filtering.
| Making a lecture "fun", comprehensible, or even "innovative"
| may not have the desired effect of improving the level of
| understanding among all students, because a fun and easy course
| is a worse filter than a hard course.
|
| Personally I always learned the most in courses that were
| _very_ hard and had a nerdy teacher /professor who did not care
| at all whether you could follow the stuff on the blackboard /
| in the presentation. Theses courses required work on your own:
| you had to read the actual literature again and again to even
| remotely understand the topics on the weekly exercise sheets,
| or to pass the exam. This "learning by yourself" lead to a much
| deeper understanding than just memorizing some concepts from a
| streamlined lecture.
| infinitezest wrote:
| If you're putting in all of the effort to make the material
| make sense to you, what is the role of the educator? If the
| way to learn things is to read a book a bunch of times, what
| value does my tuition money get me? A syllabus? The ability
| to ask questions of a possibly poor communicater?
| lqet wrote:
| The cynic answer would be: a highly standardized and
| comparable filter and testing environment. A more realistic
| answer: you are guided through and exposed to topics,
| motivated by exams, and in the end you will have proof that
| you understand the topics you received grades on. You also
| have - often direct and personal - access to top-level
| people in your field.
| gyomu wrote:
| I paid all this money to get to a beautiful surf spot, and
| you're telling me I have to paddle and stand up on my own?!
| wavemode wrote:
| > If the way to learn things is to read a book a bunch of
| times, what value does my tuition money get me?
|
| The real answer? You gained a piece of paper which
| certifies that you are educated in a field.
|
| Depending on the school you may also gain access to an
| insular professional network.
|
| That's pretty much it. The notion that university degrees
| are worth anything more than that is moderately outdated.
| lanstin wrote:
| I am in my fifties, a software engineer, and I am
| enrolled in a masters program for mathematics and really
| learning at a ferocious rate compared to my job, where I
| can alternate learning with using what I've learned.
|
| For me, learning a lot is very worthwhile. Not everyone
| shares that goal for education of course.
| lanstin wrote:
| That last sentence sounds snarkier than I meant. For
| instance,for all my classmates they are enjoying the
| learning and also trying to make a career out of it
| somehow. Different altogether than my fun based
| curriculum
| lanstin wrote:
| Often the sequence of topics will be deeply significant
| once you are up to speed. Also for really hard work,
| knowing someone that knows the material is going to grade
| your homework is (at least for me) extremely motivating to
| do my best to master the material. Also office hours-
| periodically I get stuck trying to prove false things due
| to careless reading, and the professors are quite good at
| backing up and asking why I am trying to prove something
| they know to be false.
|
| As with many human activities it is startlingly easy to
| fool oneself and so things involving a more experienced
| person can help. Grading, code reviews, peer review,
| certifications, etc.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| > If a reader can't follow the argument, it's automatically the
| author's fault and a waste of the reader's time. Heaven forbid
| the reader might need to exert some effort and grow in the
| gleaning.
|
| I've experienced the receiving end of this a couple of times on
| HN. I once posted a blog post and it was extremely obvious that
| the detractors (who, despite toxic being a bit of an overblown
| word now, _were_ being toxic and breaking HN rules and got away
| with it) hadn 't even read perhaps a third or less before
| getting angry in the comments.
|
| I don't care if people don't like the suggestion but I believe
| blocking should be implemented.
| rvba wrote:
| Oversimplification is bad, but there is a reason why Western/US
| universities are so much better at teaching students.
|
| Imagine your professors and textbooks werent there to teach
| you, but they were there to show off their knowledge or to
| prove you that you know nothing.
|
| A very known problem in my country is that a professor is not
| making a lecture to teach you something or to explain you
| something, the professor wants to show off his knowledge - that
| he is the king and you are a nobody.
|
| Then you get unreadable textbooks full of big words (sometimes
| you think authors dont grasp them)... which are just plain
| student unfriendly.
|
| I remembet that I had borrowed some statistics books from USA -
| and they were easier to read in English than the crap I had in
| my own language. They were easier to read and easier to
| understand. No big words. Just explanations and examples.
|
| On a side note, they taught us physics with English
| abbreviarions. When most students didnt know English.
|
| Think you are in 5th grade and they nake you memorize things
| like: d = s x t
|
| You have to figure out that it is distance, speed and time.
|
| Note that those abbreviations have nothing to do with the local
| language. Also why even use abbreviations? Lazy teacher (AND
| lazy textbook) could have used full words at least. In own
| language, not English.
|
| Most people from US dont realize how much easier you have. For
| starters you dont spend a lot of time learning English as a
| foreign language. Then the non-Americans can get books that are
| written to teach you something* not to show that the author is
| great. (* although now I think most textbooks are written for
| profit).
| Xfx7028 wrote:
| This sound ls very much like the experience of Greeks
| according to some friend.
| protomolecule wrote:
| While other countries use Greek letters for variables and
| functions)
| kaba0 wrote:
| I think this has more to do with budget. In many countries,
| professors are not paid specifically to write books, but if
| no proper book exists in the local language then they sort of
| have to do it one way or another. It usually ends up as some
| hodgepodge document, each chapter written by a different
| professor - whose are experts _at their fields, but not at
| book writing!_ , which is a specific skill. Some or better at
| it, others absolutely suck. Then they just print it some way
| without any lecturing, unification of styles, references and
| use it as the course book, because they were sorta forced to.
|
| In English, there is competition and people with actual
| experience can publish books, which will be used by multiple
| universities, if it becomes famous than multiple generations
| of students from multiple universities and years have
| criticized it making the nth version better, etc.
|
| This is very different from the budget solution my med
| university (of which 4 exists in this language alltogether)
| could reasonably come up with.
|
| Nonetheless, there were smaller topics, documents, chapters
| which easily surpassed the same found in any English language
| book, especially in mathematics (the Soviet block used to be
| famously good at mathematics, so the level was much higher
| than the west's), for these small gems it does worth speaking
| obscure languages.
| 0xFEE1DEAD wrote:
| Indeed, the truth often lies somewhere in between.
|
| It sounds like you might not have been studying to become a
| mathematician but had to take a statistics course as a
| requirement for your degree. In such scenarios overcoming
| vague and complex teachings can indeed feel incredibly
| cumbersome, often resulting in a negative overall experience.
| However, when it comes to topics you're passionate about the
| situation can be quite different. While exceptions exist in
| every field passion can make certain teaching styles more
| tolerable.
|
| For instance, I taught myself programming at the age of 13
| and I vividly remember struggling with OOP. It took me 2
| months to grasp it, but I persevered. English is not my
| native language and I was quite poor at it in school. I began
| learning English on my own because there were far more
| programming resources available in English than in my native
| language. I was terrible at math and finished high school
| with an E in math. Fast forward a few years I developed an
| interest in algorithms and theoretical computer science
| because I wanted to understand how compilers work. I spent
| months learning to comprehend mathematical symbols and
| notation, reading numerous resources that assumed a solid
| mathematical foundation which I did not have. I persevered
| because I was genuinely interested.
|
| Making learning too difficult isn't helpful, but neither is
| making it too easy. Like most things, it really depends.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| 100% agree, the same things happen in Poland and I wish it
| was closer to US.
| exe34 wrote:
| the problem is how much shite there is out there to read
| through. you could read all the monad tutorials in the world
| but it won't help until you start using them yourself.
| (admittedly I'm going a step further from your point, not
| against it).
|
| however, I'd say if I can't understand what an authors trying
| to say, it makes more sense to find one that I can understand
| first, and then go back to the more abstruse one.
| mannykannot wrote:
| If this is true in general, it might have been a factor in why
| the scientific and technological 'revolutions' of the so-called
| Enlightenment occurred in the West.
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| How?
| mannykannot wrote:
| I feel the most apposite response, given the topic of the
| post I was replying to, is to leave it as an exercise for
| the reader.
| electrodank wrote:
| >In paintings, it is known that the viewer can get out more
| than the painter put in.
|
| There's something very much "Dabblers and Blowhards" about this
| statement that I can't quite put my finger on it. [0]
|
| Try painting, I mean really painting, before spouting nonsense.
| It wreaks havoc on the rest of your comment.
|
| [0] https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I am all for the "western" side, where the speaker has to
| provide the understanding, motivation and entertainment,
| especially in the modern day where information is easily
| accessible. It doesn't mean that no effort should be expected
| of listeners, more like unnecessary effort should be minimized.
|
| An example of unnecessary effort would be using a foreign
| language listeners have no particular interest in learning.
| Personally, I would rather have my math class in a language I
| am at least fluent it, so that I can focus my attention on the
| math and not on the language. I also like my teach when they
| have an understanding of the psychology of learning, so that I
| can learn more effectively. Entertainment and motivation is
| part of it. It is spoon-feeding, but that's also how you get
| people to focus on the heart of the matter.
|
| At higher levels, it becomes less of a consideration, not
| because it is unimportant, but because at high level, knowledge
| itself becomes scarce, so you'd be lucky to find someone who
| really knows his stuff, even if he isn't the best at making it
| easy for people to understand. So the listen can spare some
| effort as it is the only way to get that knowledge.
|
| In the old days, knowledge in general was scarce so it made
| sense to tip the balance in favor of the speaker as you'd be
| lucky to have a knowledgeable speaker at all. But now, almost
| everything is a few clicks away on the internet, and the entire
| point of having a speaker is to present the information is an
| easily digestible manner. If you want to go "the hard way" you
| can do it by yourself, papers, textbooks, etc... are everywhere
| on almost every subject at almost every level, even more so if
| you embrace piracy.
|
| As for painting, or meaningful art in general, it is also part
| of the artist job to guide the viewer, not just dump a random
| idea on canvas, this is just lazy (on the part of the artist).
| Leave some clues leading to the big idea. Think like a puzzle.
| Puzzles are designed to be challenging, but they also involve
| guiding the player so that in the end, they can solve a more
| difficult challenge than they would have been able to with no
| help.
|
| Another thing to consider is that in a speaker-listener
| relationship, there are usually more listeners than there are
| speakers, so it is more efficient to have the speaker spend the
| effort being understood than having the listeners spend it
| understanding.
| sfink wrote:
| I didn't intend to claim that the "Eastern" way is
| unconditionally better. I'm just used to the Western way of
| thinking, so it's a novel perspective that I keep finding
| applies in more situations than I expect.
|
| Making things understandable is good. It's just not always
| the right thing to optimize for. Which is very different from
| saying that complexity is always better. Or as you said it:
|
| > It doesn't mean that no effort should be expected of
| listeners, more like unnecessary effort should be minimized.
|
| If all the information that needs to be conveyed is in the
| material, then making it accessible, understandable, and
| digestible probably is most important. Again, as you said:
|
| > it is more efficient to have the speaker spend the effort
| being understood than having the listeners spend it
| understanding.
|
| But it's kind of the difference between a sack of gold and
| the proverbial Golden Goose. For some things, you can't get
| all the benefit at once. As someone else here brought up with
| the idea of reading a book 100 times, some
| books/lectures/whatever give you more, and something
| different, every time you go back to them. It's like you need
| to incorporate the previous pass into your head before you
| can peel back a layer and grasp the next one down. It's a
| weird experience; with the same Chinese teacher I mentioned,
| I've many times had the experience of re-listening and
| hearing something totally different than I remembered. I
| sometimes doubt that I've ever listened to that one before. I
| think partly that's because the information is not coming
| just from the material, it's coming from the interaction
| between my mind and the material, and my mind is changing all
| the time. (Not necessarily for the better, but I'll leave
| that aside...) So I disagree that this applies universally:
|
| > But now, almost everything is a few clicks away on the
| internet, and the entire point of having a speaker is to
| present the information is an easily digestible manner.
|
| It really isn't. A lot of stuff is, so much that we get
| overwhelmed and blinded by it to the point that we assume
| that it must cover everything. But some things are not out
| there, or at least not out there for easy picking. Nobody has
| yet been able to write up such a clear and accessible
| description of how to ride a bicycle that someone could read
| it and then ride off on a bike their very first time. And
| that's the rule, not the exception, even with cerebral
| subjects like calculus or programming or whatever.
|
| It's not the _difficulty_ that provides the extra value; you
| 're not going to communicate more by making it artificially
| hard (as with your foreign language example)[1]. What helps
| is getting the learner to process more deeply, or apply the
| knowledge, or practice, or "use it in anger", or compete with
| it, or whatever way you want to say roughly the same thing.
| Our brains are not landfills of facts that benefit from the
| more you dump into them. They are coordinated systems of
| knowledge and behavior, where truly adding to one place
| requires adjusting everything else a little or a lot to
| accommodate.
|
| [1] Actually, you might, but only because it slows the reader
| down enough for things to sink in. Any other mechanism would
| work as well, and a mechanism that adds something else to the
| mix like tests or reviews is going to be overall more
| effective and efficient than artificial friction.
| eruci wrote:
| with Poetry, the onus is still on the reader to get something
| out of it, even in the west. I recently read "Pale Fire".
| (without the preface and Nabukov's commentary). I enjoyed it
| thoroughly, without understanding a lot, which is fine.
| j7ake wrote:
| A appropriate difficulty level is where you understand enough of
| the book to enjoy it, but that there are parts that are just
| beyond your reach so you can grow.
| milleramp wrote:
| I read the Baroque Cycle almost 20 years ago and have to say I
| enjoyed every bit of it, the relatable characters, the circle of
| life and the science was amazing. I am sure there were parts that
| went completely over my head but it felt good to sit down open
| the large books and dive in. Thanks to the poster, it's about
| time I re-read the series.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| This reminds me of a (half-remembered) quote from Joe Strummer
| about reggae songs - the words are so hard to understand that
| every time you listen to them you understand a little more.
| emmanone wrote:
| I've recently moved to Europe and found myself surrounded by
| hundreds of famous galleries, which are essentially the main
| entertainment here.
|
| I started visiting them and looking at classical paintings,
| little by little googling what it was and why. It turned out to
| be so exciting!
|
| Now, a year later, I can say for sure which of the women with a
| severed male head in their hands in the painting is Judith and
| which is Salome. And I understand much better how people lived in
| these parts before, and why they live the way they do now.
|
| Therefore, I completely agree with the author of the article -
| sometimes you need to plunge into the unknown, and this unknown
| will reward you.
|
| I'm afraid to imagine how many discoveries await me in museums of
| contemporary art.
| ogou wrote:
| As an artist and technologist living in Europe, I am glad to
| see a comment like this. It's refreshing. An open-minded and
| incremental approach to culture can be incredibly rewarding.
|
| https://berlinartgalleries.de/
| bigthymer wrote:
| I would read a blog post about this friend.
| ximilian wrote:
| If we read for the joy of not understanding, why don't we write
| books that are optimized for sounding interesting and clever but
| have no real meaning?
| tuduka wrote:
| I recently read 100 Polish books in 100 consecutive days to see
| how much of the language I'd learn (I also listened to the
| matching audiobook of each book). To make meaning of the text, I
| relied on quick look-ups, context clues, and the audiobook's
| narration (inflection, pacing, etc.). At first, I hardly
| understood anything and didn't know any Polish vocabulary, but
| somewhere around book #50, I started recognizing words and
| phrases and even experienced language automaticity.
|
| Many language experts say you should be able to comprehend about
| 90%+ of the vocabulary in your target language when you read, but
| I think that's completely unrealistic. Read as if you're fluent
| now, even if you don't understand a word of it. You will
| eventually learn!
|
| For those interested in my experiment, I wrote a book about it
| called "BLITZED: What I Learned Reading 100 Books in 100 Days in
| My Target Language": https://a.co/d/0bKrjq44
| banish-m4 wrote:
| If works do not test you or bring new ideas, then what is the
| point of reading them in the first place?
|
| Uncomfortable nonfiction is like eating your vegetables. There is
| much disquieting history and knowledge that must not be ignored.
|
| Mainstream mass public education will not teach curiosity or
| imbue anyone with ambition or initiative, it is something one
| must cultivate on their own.
| lanstin wrote:
| Life isn't some contest where we only need challenges. Pleasure
| is a fine part of creation.
|
| And I had some wonderful teachers in mass education who
| inspired me quite a bit on the virtue of curiosity and striving
| for what exceeds my grasp. I don't know what you mean by
| ambition but for me it has been trying to do each thing with
| focus as well as I can and to attempt to live a life of
| openness and love and hard but fulfilling work. The rewards of
| life accrete in the moments, not in the external rewards (I
| enjoy external rewards but they are definitely frosting not
| cake.)
| monacobolid wrote:
| Related to "I don't entirely understand what I just read, but I
| loved it" from the article - some time ago (I'd say it's been
| years now), there was a submission on HN (at least I believe I
| found it on HN, though I'm not 100% sure) about rules for
| critiquing art (again, I'm not 100% certain, but this is how I
| remember it). Unfortunately, I think I didn't finish the whole
| article, but at the start it said that if you want to critique
| art, you have to understand that:
|
| 1. There is art you love that is also actually good. 2. There is
| art you don't love but is actually good. 3. There is art you love
| that is actually bad. 4. There is art you don't love that is also
| actually bad.
|
| If you know which article I'm talking about, please let me know.
| I've been trying to find it on and off for what seems like years
| now.
| severine wrote:
| Maybe this?
| https://salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/477-thirteen-ways-o...
| monacobolid wrote:
| Unfortunately no. I think that one I have in mind is more
| authoritative, almost a guide.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I know he's well regarded on this site but I'll espouse my own
| experience with Cormac McCarthy books. Blood Meridian is nearly
| impossible to get through without some kind of version of a
| "urban dictionary for the old west" at hand, but the lurid
| language draws you in constantly. The beauty of language, I
| think, lies in the absolute specificity of a word. One that could
| only exist at a certain point in time, and his books are filled
| to the brim with language like that. Is it dense? Yeah
| absolutely, but it makes your arm hairs tingle, some of the
| writing he employs.
| teekert wrote:
| It's like watching 3Blue1Brown. A look into the soul of the
| universe causing a sense of awe and wonder, but little
| understanding.
| __rito__ wrote:
| Depends on one's background, really.
|
| I understood some videos really well on the first watching, but
| some videos on the same technical level were like- "what?...
| Ooh, maybe that's okay... Oh... Yeah". Total discomfort.
|
| It's the areas of Math where you already have decent
| groundings, you will find that you can take more with you from
| 3b1b.
|
| Same with Feynman's Lectures. If you are a smart person but no
| formal background in Physics, they are fun, sure. But you read
| the same lectures as a Physics undegrad in your Junior or
| Senior year, your 'return' from reading those lectures goes up
| five-fold.
| prakashk wrote:
| Is there a path (short of going through a Physics undergrad
| curriculum itself) to enjoy and get more 'return' from
| Feynman for someone without formal Physics background? Any
| recommendations of books to read prior to undertaking
| Feynman?
| bowsamic wrote:
| There's a fine line between "I don't need to understand" and "I
| have no idea what's going on". At some point it becomes
| unworkable and you have to give up.
| world2vec wrote:
| I'm halfway through Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" and it's
| absolutely delightful but it sure requires frequent
| dictionary/Wikipedia consultation, at least for me.
| lanstin wrote:
| This ability to look things up on the fly is why I love
| ereaders, despite the newproblem of finishing one book on my
| TBR list and having bought more than one book referred to in
| the first book. A divergent sequence of books I fear.
| RandomWorker wrote:
| I had a huge complex in my youth , I simply couldn't read as fast
| as my peers. Now, I realize that I was going too fast, and by
| slowing down, taking my time and reading slowly I could absorb
| more, and understand, and I had this amazing ability to never
| forget anything I did read (at least for an extended period of
| maybe 2-3 years). I realized over time that going fast isn't for
| me. Better to go slow absorb, digest and ultimately retain more
| would get me where I needed to be. Never did well in school in
| terms of grades but ultimately I got better and better doing a
| masters and actually got sponsored to do my PhD. Many years I
| read but could not understand, but ultimately it was the joy of
| reading slow that got me further than the joy of reading and not
| understanding.
| skydhash wrote:
| I do this for my media consumption. I take breaks, never trying
| to finish in one go. I also pause intentionally when pause
| occurs (chapters in non-fiction books, series episodes. And I
| don't mind revisiting the material, especially if it was good.
| As for music, I treat it like a soundtrack, focused albums (and
| a few playlist) listening, falling back to silence when my
| attention is needed on some tasks.
| joaorico wrote:
| Kafka [1] on which types of book to read:
|
| "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting.
| If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the
| head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My
| God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those
| books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary.
| But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that hurts
| us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than
| ourselves, like if we were being driven into forests, away from
| all people, like a suicide, a book must be the axe for the frozen
| sea inside us." [2]
|
| [1] Brief an Oskar Pollak, 27. Januar 1904. ,
| https://homepage.univie.ac.at/werner.haas/1904/br04-003.htm
|
| [2] Literal translation by ChatGPT. Original:
|
| "Ich glaube, man sollte uberhaupt nur solche Bucher lesen, die
| einen beissen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen, uns
| nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schadel weckt, wozu lesen wir
| dann das Buch? Damit es uns glucklich macht, wie Du schreibst?
| Mein Gott, glucklich waren wir eben auch, wenn wir keine Bucher
| hatten, und solche Bucher, die uns glucklich machen, konnten wir
| zur Not selber schreiben. Wir brauchen aber die Bucher, die auf
| uns wirken wie ein Ungluck, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod
| eines, den wir lieber hatten als uns, wie wenn wir in Walder
| vorstossen wurden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord,
| ein Buch muss die Axt sein fur das gefrorene Meer in uns."
| techostritch wrote:
| I don't know if I'm taking Kafka too literally here, but the
| books that I read that bite and sting probably fall into two
| categories. Things that are cynically written in bad faith and
| things that are hopeless and callous. Torture porn bites and
| stings, reading hacky partisan politics bites and stings.
| Anything that makes me feel stupider after reading it bites and
| stings.
|
| The things that I think that he wants to say, the inconvenient
| truths, the things that make me see the world in a whole new
| way, that challenge everything I believe in. Those things fill
| me with joy and wonder they are just so few and far between.
|
| Maybe the thing he's getting at is the existential dread? The
| truth that nothing you do is meaningful? The staring into the
| abyss? In which case maybe in moderation, but I fundamentally
| disagree.
|
| in a sense I wonder, if this is what he means, what a weird way
| to view life, that those things that challenge you are
| negative.
| dudinax wrote:
| Kafka'd want you to get tougher so some hack can't hurt you.
|
| "Those things fill me with joy and wonder they are just so
| few and far between."
|
| Yes, but that's what you should be looking for.
| DaoVeles wrote:
| A lot of positive change can from works of philosophy.
|
| Thats things that just knock your world view around for a
| brief moment in a almost confused-joyous-understanding. Make
| question your intuitions for a little bit.
| borroka wrote:
| "If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to
| the head, then why read the book?" --
|
| That's the authorial feeling of self-importance making itself
| visible. Why read the book? Because it might be enjoyable, a
| pastime, something that makes us dream, reflect, cry, or
| connect some dots in our lives through a parallel
| representation of feelings or ideas. There are many reasons,
| and the "blow to the head" will not and should not be the main
| reason, especially for older people who have seen some water
| flowing under the bridge and see the shock factor as artfully
| constructed and therefore much less provocative than the author
| intended it to be.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I don't know anything about the man; what kind of life did
| Kafka have that happiness was easily had IRL and he needed
| books to experience misery?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Looking up history for context while reading The Baroque Cycle?
| That's like looking up spoilers!
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I think there is a limit. If it's a topic you can look things up
| about (Maybe something technical where you haven't read the
| prerequisites.). The initial example from the article is
| interesting, in that you can learn so much about history with the
| looked-up context, but you can still follow and enjoy the books
| without it - you will just not know which characters and events
| were real! I think you will probably remember the history better
| this way with a fun story-context than wrote memorization, which
| I believe is a point of the author.
|
| Some material, I feel like I am too stupid for, or my brain is
| wired so differently from the author I will never make sense of
| it. Examples: Gravity's Rainbow, and parts 2 + 3 of The Divine
| Comedy. (Granted, the latter is full of parts where looking up
| contexts and references will help, but I am not sure what to do
| with the former; there are rare sections where I can gain a
| purchase on events transiently, but it mostly passes through
| without absorption for reasons I don't understand).
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| Gravity's Rainbow is downright abstract at times, but if you
| use a guide like this [0] then you can move beyond trying to
| figure out what actually happens and really enjoy how Pynchon
| twists language and sentences into incredible images and
| scenes. Some of it is, for lack of a better term, downright
| fantastical rather than literal.
|
| [0]:
| https://people.math.harvard.edu/%7Ectm/links/culture/rainbow...
| jasinjames wrote:
| For the divine comedy I can recommend the Robert Durling
| english translation. Each canto has a large section of notes
| which give all of that context and various interpretations in
| condensed form. Really excellent stuff.
| lanstin wrote:
| The problem here is that hell is exciting and heaven is dull.
| I enjoyed the John Ciardi translation of hell a lot and
| purgatory in a sort of academic way and couldn't make
| progress thru heaven.
| temporallobe wrote:
| This is how I feel about most HN posts.
| EGKW wrote:
| I get the point. Only a few days ago I watched the restored
| version of "Jeanne Dielman,...", to its full length of 3 hours
| and 20 minutes. Nothing happens in that movie, absolutely nothing
| at all, except for the registration of a housewife's daily
| routine and a few conversations with her son. Until the last
| quarter of an hour. You start with boredom, wanting to stop and
| forget all about it. But then curiosity kicks in, and you learn
| to appreciate the innumerable small details.
| cubefox wrote:
| There are also books and movies which don't even have plot, or
| where the plot isn't very important, where the journey is the
| destination. An example is the film Amarcord (1973).
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| This is how I felt listening to the audiobook of Infinite Jest
| over the course of many months. Who was that person again? What's
| going on? Doesn't matter, it's something to listen to.
| cubefox wrote:
| This reminds me of the recent "Neuromancer" discussion here on
| HN: The early cyberpunk writing style, and especially that of
| William Gibson, made extensive use of unexplained technical
| terms. The story was occasionally hard to follow. But that was
| part of "cyberpunk", at least initially. If you were really about
| to read a report from a different possible world, you also
| wouldn't understand everything. In reality not everything serves
| some central plot. There are always superfluous details, and
| (especially for fictional settings) things that are hard to
| understand for the outsider.
|
| I remember reading, a few years ago, Amazon reviews of the 1990
| William Gibson/Bruce Sterling novel "The Difference Engine".
| Apparently most people expected a normal novel, just with a
| "steampunk" setting, so naturally they were disappointed and
| complained about the book being confusing. That's because it's a
| cyberpunk novel. Which is a literary genre, not merely a setting
| like steampunk. (The latter term didn't even exist when the book
| came out.)
|
| I remember Stanislaw Lem (an SF author well-known outside the
| English speaking world) said approximate this about historical
| novels: Historical novels have the advantage of _depth_ , they
| can reference a world that is much more complex than required for
| their plot, they can set themselves in the deep complexity of
| actual history -- whereas fantasy and sci-fi books must always
| rely on their own made-up world, which almost necessarily looks
| flat and shallow in comparison, even if it seems spectacular on
| the surface.
|
| I really came to understand this when I read Umberto Eco's "The
| Name of the Rose". All the historical details are so intricate
| that they are almost impossible to match by a novelist writing
| about a fantasy world or the far future.
|
| This is, perhaps, also why The Lord of the Rings is such a great
| fantasy story, and why most other fantasy stories fall short in
| comparison: Tolkien didn't just write a novel. He invented a
| fictional language first, then an elaborate fictional history
| around it, and the Lord of the Rings is really just a small part
| of this story near the end. When reading the book, you constantly
| read allusions to "historical details" about things that happened
| thousands of years ago in Valinor, Beleriand, Numenor, in certain
| ancient wars etc. These "superfluous details" are occasionally
| hard to understand (except if you read Tolkien's posthumous
| "Silmarillion", which his son compiled from fragments) but they
| approximate something like the depth that usually only a
| historical novel can achieve.
| TillE wrote:
| > All the historical details are so intricate that they are
| almost impossible to match by a novelist writing about a
| fantasy world or the far future.
|
| This is a thing game designer / writer Ken Hite always says
| [1], and he's absolutely right. If you dig deep enough into
| even the most boring corner of history, you will find more
| interesting details than any person could possibly invent. And
| if you base your creative work on an exciting part of history
| that people are familiar with, you have huge advantages.
|
| [1] It's a frequent subject on his podcast, but this talk is
| also good introduction:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwVcbZ0CKCY
| greentxt wrote:
| Strange to me so few comments, none based on my skimming mention
| either, 1) reading code, 2) shakespeare.
|
| There's levels of reading. Sometimes you skim, sometimes close
| read. Sometimes you read to glean something about the author,
| sometimes for pure enjoyment. Different codebases have to be read
| in different ways. Shakespeare can be appreciated without
| "getting it" just enjoying the meter and an occasional bit of
| word play. You can see cool programming tricks without grokking
| the entire codebase.
|
| Read, reread, get what you want or need. Come back later on if
| you find there's more value. There is no right way to do it.
| DaoVeles wrote:
| Alan watts once gave a book of Zen koans to a friend in hospital.
| Friend read it and said "I didnt understand a word of it but it
| was very enjoyable".
|
| That is one way of doing it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-04 23:01 UTC)