back
14 comments
> By reading indiscriminately, I learned to discriminate—and learned also to comprehend: for it’s only with the acquisition of large data sets that we also develop schemas supple enough to interpret new material.

That's a good sentence. I've observed the same about the biology curriculum we went through at university. The first few semesters were just huge amounts of information we had to absorb, because it wasn't until we had an extensive foundation of the basics that we could actually start to think about and interpret and criticise new research.

And I guess it's the same with any other area of human knowledge: you have to reach a certain knowledge threshold before you can really understand the systems behind the subject.

I used to provide a similar example to my kid, when he complained about how boring math was: that he was spending years "learning the alphabet" and only on the other side would it become interesting. He stuck to it and ended up majoring in math.

(Fortunately there were various math puzzles and fun examples we could talk about along the way too)

This seems accurate to me. I was never particularly good at math and I was talking to a friend of mine with a PhD in number theory when I mentioned that I thought it would help to show new students to math more of what math research was really like to get them interested. He shot me down with, "No, you really need to understand all of those basics before math research will make any sense."
This was a great comment

You've pointed out that you have to absorb information to be able to get to a point where you can engage with a topic - but also, there's value in having beginners discuss and analyse stuff, because they're not set onto the paths that other experts have and would be more able to connect disciplines or arrive at an insight that others might not be able to think of.

This piece reminds me of the famous study on how skill/craftsmanship is developed, where pottery students learn more by producing 'indiscriminately', rather than by doing it carefully.
That sounds interesting, do you have any more information that would help me find it?

Edit: is this it? https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality...

Yes, I think that post is referring to the same example!
I’m not sure if the over the top style is purposefully ridiculous (it would fit with the passage about working through purple prose) but man, this feels like you asked GPT-3 to do its best Humbert Humbert as a literary critic impression. I’ll grant that it’s an overall enjoyable read, albeit it leaves me with the suspicion that the author is pretty damn insufferable.
I had a similar impression that the prose was over the top in some sense, but then again the site is LitHub so it makes sense.
I always appreciate comments that so perfectly capture the spirit of my yet un-articulated thoughts!
Doesn't it seem like a waste of time to read about how to read? Don't we learn how to read in school? Maybe people who read about how to read, and those who write about how to read, can think of nothing else interesting to read (or write) about?

Following the author's own advice, I probably should not have read his article. I can think of no less "promiscuoius" reading than an article about how to read!

> How should we read? The S-word makes it sound, like it or not, like a moral injunction—deep, passionate and enthusiastic readers we may well be, there nonetheless remains something about the way we transform marks on a page or screen into images and ideas in the mind that leaves us feeling like failures.

Took me a long time to realise what the S-word was.

I still didn't get it. Can someone explain what he meant by the S-word?
Sorry, should have included that. I believe it's "should".