>You cannot discover new knowledge for humanity by reading a book written by a human.
But you can discover new knowledge for yourself. Unless you think you’ve already read enough that you know all human knowledge. This is why rationalists so often get accused of reinventing the wheel—because if you aren’t well-read, you can’t tell the difference between a genuinely new idea or insight and an old one. And you may come up with a good idea but be unaware of all the downsides that other people have pointed out in books.
Maybe some people need this advice. But most people read dramatically too few books, and in particular too few books from before the 21st century.
Another advantage of reading is to keep open the option of discovering unknown unknowns, shifting your worldview, finding mental tools and maybe even better philosophies in unexpected places (for example, I have been (mentally) referencing cryptonormativity quite alot recently, and Nerst pulled it from reading Habermas – not quite rationalist canon). The idea of the intelligence explosion was sitting in a text by I.J. Good for around 35 years until people seriously thought about what implications that might have, and what could & should be done about it.
This ties in nicely with reading books from before the 21st century (and perhaps even before the 20th century!). Also, one should consider reading books that noone from one’s main intellectual group has read.
This is why rationalists so often get accused of reinventing the wheel
I’ve heard that criticism too, but it’s hard for me to come up with specific examples that I agree with. Do any of these count as reinvented wheels?
EDIT: On second thought, whether or not rationalists already do reinvent the wheel, I strongly claim that they should reinvent wheels at least sometimes. Seems like really good practice for inventing novel things.
>You cannot discover new knowledge for humanity by reading a book written by a human.
But you can discover new knowledge for yourself. Unless you think you’ve already read enough that you know all human knowledge. This is why rationalists so often get accused of reinventing the wheel—because if you aren’t well-read, you can’t tell the difference between a genuinely new idea or insight and an old one. And you may come up with a good idea but be unaware of all the downsides that other people have pointed out in books.
Maybe some people need this advice. But most people read dramatically too few books, and in particular too few books from before the 21st century.
I agree.
Another advantage of reading is to keep open the option of discovering unknown unknowns, shifting your worldview, finding mental tools and maybe even better philosophies in unexpected places (for example, I have been (mentally) referencing cryptonormativity quite alot recently, and Nerst pulled it from reading Habermas – not quite rationalist canon). The idea of the intelligence explosion was sitting in a text by I.J. Good for around 35 years until people seriously thought about what implications that might have, and what could & should be done about it.
This ties in nicely with reading books from before the 21st century (and perhaps even before the 20th century!). Also, one should consider reading books that noone from one’s main intellectual group has read.
I’ve heard that criticism too, but it’s hard for me to come up with specific examples that I agree with. Do any of these count as reinvented wheels?
EDIT: On second thought, whether or not rationalists already do reinvent the wheel, I strongly claim that they should reinvent wheels at least sometimes. Seems like really good practice for inventing novel things.
Logical positivism/verificationism is the obvious example.