Without writing, you are going to get lost in your thoughts and eventually they will all crumbled down around you when you push too far.
Writing is such a great invention - because it lets you transfer knowledge across time and between people.
However, I find less people appreciate that, without writing, a lot of the complex ideas people have worked through would not be possible. Your brain just can’t hold it all in there.
The paper becomes an extension of you and your brain.
which is exactly why when paper becomes digital, free software (FSF and GNU free, not open source) becomes quite important.
I fear that it will have to get really bad before everybody agrees on this, and it might even be the case that people like me who worry about free software are wrong about our fears and everything will be fine... ultimately time will tell.
They are worried that if data is stored in a medium that is not Free/Libre that whatever is used to read the data will be discontinued/made prohibitively expensive and the information will be effectively lost.
I'm of mixed feelings about the situation, but tend to agree.
The biggest sign of hope that I see is that many programs use either open or simple enough standards that non-authorized/non-supported software can open it. However, this is always subject to change.
This makes me think about how Yahoo Groups is shutting down in December 2020. Or Geocities in the past. All the content on both platforms is user generated.
The companies that offered those services have the right to shut it down. It's not really a public utility that's funded by the people using it or tax payers or anything like that.
It's up to each individual to archive what is important for them. But a lot of what we publish online is across different devices and on different platforms. It's not as easy to manage all that data as it could be.
DRM is a sweet poison. It is definitely good for the companies producing content and encourages investment, but it offers no long term provisions for the survival of the content itself. When amazon goes bankrupt all of my ebooks in their format, in their reader will be gone forever.
This is an interesting point. Is there a legal notion of 'perpetuality' for creative works? Would it be better if Amazon was seen as the current custodian rather than absolute owner? More like an art gallery.
That's why I refused to buy Kindle books as long as I didn't have a good way of adding them DRM-free to my Calibre library.
I do buy Kindle books now.
What is funny is that there are Kindle books on Amazon that you cannot read on your eInk Kindle!
For example, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forcing-London-Mathematical-Society... has as its format "Print Replica", which I like for math books as they are basically just high-quality PDFs. But you cannot download it to a Kindle Oasis, for example! Funnily, after you remove the DRM, it just becomes a PDF, and you CAN download it to the Kindle Oasis.
> The paper becomes an extension of you and your brain.
Because when the medium over which we write (the "paper") becomes a digital computer-based system it becomes possible for some actor other than myself to gain control over this extended portion of my self and my mind.
And while this has always been possible to lose control over one's writing (other actors may steal and/or modify them, etc..) with digital computer it becomes possible to remotely do this in better and more efficient ways (...etc)
A classic book on using writing to come up with new ideas is "Thinking on Paper"[0]:
"Thinking on Paper shows how writer's block as well as many other writing problems are engendered by the tendency, supported by traditional approaches, to separate thinking from writing. Drawing on the developing field of symbol theory, V.A. Howard and J.H. Barton explain why this separation is unsound and demonstrate how to improve dramatically our ability to generate and express ideas."
Interesting. Thanks for the recommendation! Do you know of any books that also account for drawing or diagramming alongside writing? I wonder if those can particularly help for programming or general problem solving.
Sure, writing helps with thinking, but the final written output is an educational product that ought to be built and tested around the needs of the reader, not the ego or indulgence of the writer.
(It's also worth noting that the article is built on personality-specific advice, and not everyone is wired or able to think via writing. I personally love it, but a whole lot of people will only receive useful insights and clarity by talking through new ideas and issues and not via of writing about them.)
I found it gives a nice perspective when you read old pages you wrote. Do you feel the same?
It gives some perspective, and the feeling is like reading something an old friend (another person) wrote.
[T]he final written output is an educational product that ought to be built and tested around the needs of the reader, not the ego or indulgence of the writer.
Can you expand on this thought further? Who decides what the "needs of the reader" are, but readers themselves? And fiction isn't "an educational product."
True, a lot of writing is just reacting - An emotional response.
It's a big mistake to assume that everyone is driven by logic and reason when, in fact, the majority of people's communication is driven by emotions and learned rhetoric; sometimes masquerading as logic and thought.
As an extreme case, I find that people who say things like "People who believe the earth is flat are idiots" are themselves not logical; they are driven purely by faith and group-think.
Aside from astronomers and certain other kinds of scientists, most people cannot say with 100% confidence that the earth is round.
This is because most people were taught this fact at a young age from a science textbook or from a teacher; they have no actual evidence to back it up; their foundation of knowledge in that area is therefore extremely weak and yet they're prepared to call doubters idiots based on consensus alone.
They ignore the fact that the popular consensus can be wrong and has been wrong many times in history.
People's failure to identify points of weaknesses in the foundation of their own knowledge is a sign that they are driven by emotions.
I have to agree that writing is thinking. In fact, in my opinion it gets to the root of why humanity is what it is.
This lady is writing about writing. This is recursive. Humanity has the ability to think conceptually and recursively about things - this is thinking about thinking. This act opens the world to creativity in a way that is not possible for other creatures.
Eg we can think about a table as a concept - it brings to mind something like "Four legs, a flat solid top". As a concept though, we can take those bits out it and ask things like 'What would a table be with no legs?' or 'what would a table be without a solid top'.
This is how easy it is for us to play with concepts - thinking about thinking. And then write about it.
That's why I enjoy commenting on HN. It lets me refine ideas that are in my head in more detail.
I don't think in words, I think in terms of visuals, structures and logic so it requires a lot of practice to express my ideas succinctly in words.
Currently, I have a problem with editing too much. I have to re-read my text multiple times to make it match my mental model in an unambiguous way.
Trying to communicate concepts unambiguously to many people who have different mental models helps me to identify ambiguity in my own mental model too.
I enjoy reading responses on HN too (especially disagreements) because it sometimes helps me to identify words and phrases that are ambiguous and which I should avoid using.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 60.4 ms ] threadWithout writing, you are going to get lost in your thoughts and eventually they will all crumbled down around you when you push too far.
Writing is such a great invention - because it lets you transfer knowledge across time and between people.
However, I find less people appreciate that, without writing, a lot of the complex ideas people have worked through would not be possible. Your brain just can’t hold it all in there.
The paper becomes an extension of you and your brain.
I fear that it will have to get really bad before everybody agrees on this, and it might even be the case that people like me who worry about free software are wrong about our fears and everything will be fine... ultimately time will tell.
What exactly are you worried about ?
I'm of mixed feelings about the situation, but tend to agree.
The biggest sign of hope that I see is that many programs use either open or simple enough standards that non-authorized/non-supported software can open it. However, this is always subject to change.
The companies that offered those services have the right to shut it down. It's not really a public utility that's funded by the people using it or tax payers or anything like that.
It's up to each individual to archive what is important for them. But a lot of what we publish online is across different devices and on different platforms. It's not as easy to manage all that data as it could be.
I do buy Kindle books now.
What is funny is that there are Kindle books on Amazon that you cannot read on your eInk Kindle!
For example, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forcing-London-Mathematical-Society... has as its format "Print Replica", which I like for math books as they are basically just high-quality PDFs. But you cannot download it to a Kindle Oasis, for example! Funnily, after you remove the DRM, it just becomes a PDF, and you CAN download it to the Kindle Oasis.
That's just ridiculous.
Because when the medium over which we write (the "paper") becomes a digital computer-based system it becomes possible for some actor other than myself to gain control over this extended portion of my self and my mind.
And while this has always been possible to lose control over one's writing (other actors may steal and/or modify them, etc..) with digital computer it becomes possible to remotely do this in better and more efficient ways (...etc)
"Thinking on Paper shows how writer's block as well as many other writing problems are engendered by the tendency, supported by traditional approaches, to separate thinking from writing. Drawing on the developing field of symbol theory, V.A. Howard and J.H. Barton explain why this separation is unsound and demonstrate how to improve dramatically our ability to generate and express ideas."
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Paper-V-Howard/dp/0688077587
(It's also worth noting that the article is built on personality-specific advice, and not everyone is wired or able to think via writing. I personally love it, but a whole lot of people will only receive useful insights and clarity by talking through new ideas and issues and not via of writing about them.)
Can you expand on this thought further? Who decides what the "needs of the reader" are, but readers themselves? And fiction isn't "an educational product."
As an extreme case, I find that people who say things like "People who believe the earth is flat are idiots" are themselves not logical; they are driven purely by faith and group-think. Aside from astronomers and certain other kinds of scientists, most people cannot say with 100% confidence that the earth is round.
This is because most people were taught this fact at a young age from a science textbook or from a teacher; they have no actual evidence to back it up; their foundation of knowledge in that area is therefore extremely weak and yet they're prepared to call doubters idiots based on consensus alone.
They ignore the fact that the popular consensus can be wrong and has been wrong many times in history. People's failure to identify points of weaknesses in the foundation of their own knowledge is a sign that they are driven by emotions.
> Drawing is thinking.
> Sculpting is thinking
> Building things is thinking.
> Wrestling is thinking.
> Playing chess is thinking.
> Creating is thinking.
> Cooking is thinking.
> Walking is thinking.
All these statements can be correct and are correct to a certain extend.
This lady is writing about writing. This is recursive. Humanity has the ability to think conceptually and recursively about things - this is thinking about thinking. This act opens the world to creativity in a way that is not possible for other creatures.
Eg we can think about a table as a concept - it brings to mind something like "Four legs, a flat solid top". As a concept though, we can take those bits out it and ask things like 'What would a table be with no legs?' or 'what would a table be without a solid top'.
This is how easy it is for us to play with concepts - thinking about thinking. And then write about it.
I enjoy reading responses on HN too (especially disagreements) because it sometimes helps me to identify words and phrases that are ambiguous and which I should avoid using.