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@ -12,7 +12,8 @@ you want.
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All content is under a [Creative Commons] Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike
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3.0 license. You can do with it whatever the fuck you want, as long as you don't
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sell it or make it unfree.
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sell it or make it unfree. You can also get the [source], if you want.
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[source]: http://github.com/muflax/muflax.com
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[Creative Commons]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de
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[GPG]: muflax.asc
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@ -29,6 +29,6 @@ All major changes on the site
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[Determinism]: /reflections/determinism.html
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[Poetry]: /poetry/
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[Rants]: /rants/
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[Good Sleep]: /experiments/good_sleep.html
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[Good Sleep]: /experiments/sleep/good_sleep.html
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[Speed Reading]: /experiments/speedreading.html
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[Letting Go of Music]: /reflections/letting_go_of_music.html
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@ -8,8 +8,7 @@ f.lux
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[f.lux] controls the level of blue your monitor shows and tones it down during
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the night to allow you to get tired naturally (and not stay up all night,
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playing ケロロＲＰＧ like _some_ people). There's quite a bit of research to back
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it up and I'm actually quite excited. Hey, maybe I won't screw up my schedule so
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much anymore!
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it up and I achieved some really good results with it.
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(While [f.lux] has a Linux version, it's just an ugly binary. Use [Redshift]
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instead. All good distros have it in their repository (i.e., Gentoo).)
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@ -50,6 +49,15 @@ angry reflex. Using something that slowly fades into awareness, like slow music,
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works way better. I also got good results by using TV shows. Waking up to
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something engaging and interesting is always good.
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Unfortunately, I haven't yet tried a strong, gradual light sources, although I
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do have my 3 TFTs set up to turn on each morning, so I suspect that it would
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help as well. Regardless, all artificial light sources pale in comparison to the
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sun, even on a very cloudy day. You aren't able to consciously tell how bright
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something really is (because most of human vision is processed as relative to
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its surrounding, not in absolutes), so it's easy to get this wrong, but during
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my [polyphasic] experiment I found standing outside for even just 5 minutes to
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be a great help in waking up.
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Caffeine
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========
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@ -73,8 +81,14 @@ be really sore and my heartbeat sounded very unhealthy.
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Nonetheless, getting enough caffeine, especially in the evening, each day
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greatly improves my sleep, my breathing and my ability to wake up.
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Unfortunately, it still blocks adenosine, so I find it harder to fall asleep.
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It's quite a paradox state to be in, when you can't fall asleep, but once you
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do, you sleep great. I had even considered taking *both* an upper and a downer,
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like caffeine and diphenhydramine, but found this too silly (and I dislike all
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available downers, including melatonin).
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[Why Did I Sleep So Well?]:
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http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2008/09/03/science-in-action-why-did-i-sleep-so-well-part-10-2/
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[f.lux]: http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/
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[Redshift]: http://jonls.dk/redshift/
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[polyphasic]: /experiments/sleep/polyphasic_sleep.html
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@ -45,22 +45,22 @@ split-brain patients, who don't have a connection between their left and right
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hemisphere, you actually get two independent consciousnesses and I did read up
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on people that tried to induce this with normal brains.
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Because the left side of vision (i.e. left in both eyes) is handled by the right
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Because the left side of vision (i.e. left in both eyes) is handled by the left
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hemisphere and vice versa, you can wear glasses that have either their left half
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on each glass blocked by tape or the right side, and only give visual input to
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one. This actually causes a significant effect if your two hemispheres are
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currently in disagreement. Some people with depression or anxiety were able to
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reduce it or turn it almost off temporarily while wearing such glasses! So for
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example, you feel very nervous with your therapist, block the left side,
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everything is the same, then instead block the right side, wosh!, your anxiety
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everything is the same, then instead block the right side, woosh!, your anxiety
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is gone. It comes right back when you take the glasses off, but still, way cool!
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So by being able to make each hemisphere dominant at will, you can really fuck
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with your mood. Find where your language side is (typically the left hemisphere,
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thus the right side of vision) and block it - you become more empathetic and
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reading gets harder. Block the other, reading is normal, but relating to content
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is harder. The effect is typically not that large because both sides are still
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internally connected, but I found it quite noticeable.
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with your mood. Find where your language side is (typically the left side) and
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block it - you become more empathetic and reading gets harder. Block the other,
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reading is normal, but relating to content is harder. The effect is typically
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not that large because both sides are still internally connected, but I found it
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quite noticeable.
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Anyway, I tried to improve on binocular reading by separating not only between
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eyes, but sides of vision. Let my left half of my left eye read one thing and
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@ -86,24 +86,34 @@ Speed reading involves any technique that makes you read a normal text faster
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**without sacrificing comprehension**. No, it's not **skimming**: that only
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tries to give you a basic overview of the text. The idea is to be able to
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understand the text just as if you had read it "normally", even though the
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process of getting there may be very different.
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process of getting there may be very different. There are techniques to organize
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your reading better, like first skimming through and getting a feel for the
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structure and so on, and they are all useful, but that's *not what this is
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about*. We want pure reading speed, nothing more, nothing less.
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But what can be achieved? First, measure your current reading speed. Say, pick a
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Wikipedia article, read it, time yourself and then count the words. Average
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among most people is about *200-250wpm* (words per minute). Good college
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among most people is about *150-250wpm* (words per minute). Good college
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students read at about *300-350wpm*. A fast conventional reader gets up to
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*500wpm*, maybe *600wpm* if they are really good. Speed reading, on the other
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hand, falls into a range of about *800 to 1400wpm*. Because a normal page in a
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book has about 350 to 450 words, depending on font size, people typically read
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about 30 pages per hour, college students about 50 to 60 and speed readers about
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150 to 250. Those numbers are of course averaged over a lengthy text and don't
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have to be constant - a difficult paragraph may slow you down and a simple one
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may just fly by.
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hand, falls into a range of about *800 to 1500wpm*. For some texts and some
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people, this can go even higher, but as a reasonable general limit, 1500wpm is
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about it.
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Because a normal page in a book has about 350 to 450 words, depending on font
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size, people typically read about 30 pages per hour, college students about 50
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to 60 and speed readers about 150 to 250. Those numbers are of course averaged
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over a lengthy text and don't have to be constant - a difficult paragraph may
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slow you down and a simple one may just fly by.
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What about **comprehension**? There are two components to it: **understanding**
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the text and **remembering** it. Understanding means being able to follow it,
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being able to give a summary of it and so on. Remembering involves still knowing
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details, all characters or arguments involved and so on.
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details, all characters or arguments involved and so on. Basically, if at the
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end of the book, you don't sit around confused what the fuck just happened, you
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*understood* the text (and didn't read James Joyce). If you can also pretty much
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tell someone everything you just read, you also *remember* it. The two are
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usually closely connected, but not always.
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I am only interested in techniques that *maintain* a high level of
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comprehension, typically a retention of 80-90% of the content. Sacrificing
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@ -128,30 +138,31 @@ like high bandwidth and all the benefits that come with it, this just isn't for
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you.
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Finally, a note on **subvocalization**. When reading, there are basically 4
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different ways with regards to sound:
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different aspects of sound:
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1. *Reading out loud*. This is what beginners may do, or what you do when
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reading to someone. It was actually quite common in ancient times and the
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idea that you could read silently was very weird to many Romans.
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2. *Reading to yourself internally*. You basically still do the same thing,
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including moving your tongue, but you don't produce a sound. This is often a
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transitional period for early readers (and make no mistake: for every
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language I learned, I went through that phase again). It will disappear with
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practice.
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transitional period for early readers (and quite useful - there is some
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evidence, including my own experience, that learning new languages is easier
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when subvocalizing). It will disappear on its own once you become more
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confident.
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3. *Subvocalization*. You still *hear* the sound, but you don't feel that you
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produce it. Muscle movement doesn't exist (at least not any you would notice)
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and speed is greatly improved. You often skip words, or only hint at the
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sound. This is the normal mode for most people to be in, even many deaf (who
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often are not 100% deaf), and this is the *inner voice* most of us use to
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think.
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think, at least some of the time.
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4. *Reading in silence*. Finally, reading without hearing any associated sound.
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No inner voice, but direct meaning, just as you look at a map, for example.
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Because visual processing is, for almost everyone, vastly superior to aural
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processing you can read much faster that way. Personally, I believe that the
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problem is that understanding an inner or outer voice is necessarily
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sequential, but the brain never *is* sequential, it is always parallel, so it
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simulates it. This is quite slow. Visual processing, on the other hand, is
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not - you can parse many parts of an image or scene at the same time and only
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problem is that to understand an inner or outer voice, your brain has to
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simulate sequential processesing, but the brain is only parallel. This
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makes it all quite slow. Visual processing, on the other hand, is not - you
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can parse many parts of an image or scene at the same time and only
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coordinate results at the very end. Also, your visual hardware is far more
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optimized and greater in size.
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@ -168,10 +179,9 @@ that fast?
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I could credit reading practice. I do read a lot, especially on the web, but
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that's not all that plausible. I know enough people who easily read just as much
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as I was reading at 14 years of age, and I was reading about 400wpm back then,
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too. Sure, you need to be fully fluent in a language to do that, but most people
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never seem to go beyond 300wpm, no matter how much practice they have reading
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texts.
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as I was reading at 14, and I was reading about 400wpm back then, too. Most
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people never seem to go beyond 250-300wpm, no matter how much practice they have
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reading texts.
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So what *do* I credit? Video games. I'm serious. I played a *lot* of shooters
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and racing games and this really improves your ability to react *fast* and react
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@ -182,25 +192,56 @@ jumps around a lot faster than normal, no matter what they are working on.
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The typical example is taking a gaming teenager and having their teacher watch.
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Give the teen a computer menu to figure out, or a form to fill out or something
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like this, and watch how desperately the teacher tries to keep up, even though
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the teacher surely has plenty more reading practice. Still, no chance
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whatsoever, and the same goes for all non-gaming teens. But any gamer will have
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no problem, no matter the age.
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like this, and watch how the teacher desperately tries to keep up, even though
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the teacher surely has more reading practice. Still, no chance whatsoever, and
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the same goes for all non-gaming teens. But any gamer will have no problem, no
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matter the age.
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So if you read only 200 or 300wpm, you are not playing enough. Get Quake 3 or Halo or
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Starcraft, a big supply of caffeine and *train*. After a while, your reading
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speed will pick up, I'm certain of it. Some people, especially those with ADHD,
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may be better at this than others, but most gamers I know read fast, no matter
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what their attention span normally is.
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So if you read only 200 or 300wpm, you are not playing enough. Get Quake 3 or
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Halo or Starcraft, a big supply of caffeine and *train*. After a while, your
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reading speed will pick up, I'm certain of it. Some people, especially those
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with ADHD, may be better at this than others. Sometimes, a short attention span
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really pays.. oh shiny!
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Turning off subvocalization
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---------------------------
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The most important change to achieve any kind of real speed is getting rid of
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the dependency on subvocalization. The rationale is simple: as long as sound is
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involved, in any way, even just at the last step of comprehension, you will not
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go faster than about 600wpm. Forget it, it's impossible.
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However, the idea is *not* to permanently turn off subvocalization. It does have
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some useful purposes. It's quite good at understanding names, or unknown words,
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or reading anything sound-based, like poetry. However, the vast majority of text
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is entirely disconnected from sound. (Some languages maybe more than others.
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French and English are already only remotely linked to their actual spelling,
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but many Chinese languages have basically *no* written pronunciation. It also
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has never stopped any scholar from reading old languages, whose sounds have been
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lost to us.) Ideally, we would like to read visually whenever possible and only
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resort to sound when necessary.
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So let's cut out the middleman. But how? I'm going to present three techniques that
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worked for me, but before I do that, I want to address one common problem.
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It is quite typical to worry how to *suppress* subvocalization. How do you *not*
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think in a certain way? The short answer is: you don't because you can't.
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Thought suppression never works. You can't *learn* to not think of a cow by
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*trying* to not think of a cow. Try it yourself! By giving attention to the idea
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of a cow, and you must, otherwise you wouldn't know that you are not thinking of
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it, it will always come to mind again. However, certainly *can* not think of a
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cow - by not giving cows any kind of attention. The same goes for
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subvocalization - the following techniques will simply not care about it and
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will in fact make it impossible to use it. It will disappear on its own.
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Chunking
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--------
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I highly recommend [Look, Ma; No Hands!], a book that teaches semantic chunking
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very well. (And it's short and precise. You get results very fast.)
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A chunk is the largest unit of information you take in at once. When you learn
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reading, your chunk size is "one letter", slowly building up to "one syllable"
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to "one word". Unfortunately, most people stop there. The goal is to enlarge
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your chunks to multiple words, maybe even whole sentences at once. Chunking is
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the whole meat of speed reading. It's the main trick to discover.
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Once you read at a very high speed, it really makes a huge difference how large
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your chunks are. Here's a little demonstration:
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@ -209,9 +250,15 @@ your chunks are. Here's a little demonstration:
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Both animations run at the same reading speed of 1000wpm, but the first one
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shows every word on its own, while the second one uses groups of 4.
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shows every word on its own, while the second one uses groups of 4. If you watch
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it for a while, you should be able to read the second one, but the first one is
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a lot more difficult. However, notice that it will also get easier once you know
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what the sentence is. This is the trick behind chunking: pattern prediction. If
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you have a good clue how a sentence is gonna develop, you can read more of it in
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one go. This is why this will only work when you know the language well and the
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text contains not too many unfamiliar ideas.
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Once you go beyond about 10 chunks / second, visual processing starts lagging
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Once you go beyond about 10 chunks/second, visual processing starts lagging
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behind more and more. After-images, too slow eye movement and so on start
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interfering with your reading. This means you can read maybe 600wpm if you read
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every word on its own, but increasing your chunk size from just 1 to 2
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@ -224,10 +271,25 @@ problem here is the size of the area you can keep in focus. Chunking a whole
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page at once is probably impossible because you could never get all words to be
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sharp and readable.
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Font Size
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---------
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A very useful technique for training purposes is **Rapid Serial Visual
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Presentation**, or RSVP for short. That's quite a big word, when really, it just
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means "flashing words really fast", exactly like the two animations before.
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You can only succesfully chunk if you can actually get enough words into focus.
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The best RSVP I found is [Eyercize](http://www.eyercize.com), even though it has
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the stupidest name *evar*. Nonetheless, it's the only speed reading tool I know
|
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with support for fixation points and complete customization. I usually set it to
|
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2-3 fixation points per line, about 5 lines of context and increasingly higher
|
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speeds. I occasionally ignore the marked line and read the upcoming context
|
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instead, though. [Spreeder](http://www.spreeder.com) is also nice and maybe
|
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easier to use at first.
|
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|
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I would also recommend [Look, Ma; No Hands!], a book that teaches semantic
|
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chunking very well. It's quite short and precise. You get results very fast.
|
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|
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To make chunking possible, you have to watch out for the right **font size**.
|
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You can only see about 5 degrees sharp enough to read. If you hold out your arm
|
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and make a piece sign, then your index and middle finger are about 5 degrees
|
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apart. So it is crucial to get enough words into focus.
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|
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I was often reading texts at very high font sizes, like 30pt or so. Hey, I have
|
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bad eye sight and sit quite far away from my monitors. But I found that this
|
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|
|
@ -240,36 +302,178 @@ compromise between readability and strain on the eyes. (I also find it hard to
|
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read Japanese below 10pt. There just aren't enough pixels left.)
|
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|
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At those sizes, the font used matters a lot. I've always been very fond of the
|
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Microsoft fonts, even though I haven't run any of their systems for years.
|
||||
Regardless, experiment and use something that is clean and very easy to read.
|
||||
Microsoft fonts, even though I haven't run any of their systems for years. The
|
||||
Google Droid font is also very nice. Regardless, experiment and use something
|
||||
that is clean and very easy to read.
|
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|
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Speaking of font size, column width matters just as much. It's no use if you see
|
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a lot of text, but the current paragraph fits into one huge line across your >20
|
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inch display. The maximum line length should be about 100 characters or 20
|
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words.
|
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inch display. Ideally, you would get a whole sentence into your focus at once.
|
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The maximum line length therefore should be about 100 characters or 20 words.
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|
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If you are a console hacker, then I'd also recommend checking out bitmap fonts.
|
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They really shine at such sizes. Remember that you can only fix bugs in code
|
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that you see. The more lines fit on your screen, the better you can debug.
|
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|
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Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
|
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--------------------------------
|
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Faster pacing
|
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-------------
|
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|
||||
Woah, that's a big word, when really, it just means "flashing words really
|
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fast". RSVP
|
||||
This is where the "speed" in "speed reading" comes from. Chunking is the
|
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requirement, but it on its own won't make you faster. The human body, and that
|
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includes the brain, is very efficient at avoiding work. It is a ruthless
|
||||
optimizer and always do what is easiest *right now*. Being good at conserving
|
||||
energy is the reason we are still here, but also why any kind of exercise is so
|
||||
hard. If you *somehow* can get away with spending less, you will do so. That's
|
||||
why you only get muscle growth if you push yourself hard enough to make it
|
||||
absolutely necessary. You will never get stronger just by jogging, and you will
|
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never get faster by reading at a comfortable pace.
|
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|
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Late Binding
|
||||
------------
|
||||
To get faster, we need a kind of setup that makes it easier to process text
|
||||
faster than anything else. The best way to do this is to externally enforce a
|
||||
high speed. For digital texts, you can use the RSVP again. I prefer short
|
||||
sprints, so take a text of at most 5000 words, which is about a longish blog
|
||||
article. Take your current reading speed and multiply by 2. Use a chunk size you
|
||||
are comfortable with, or about 3-4 words when in doubt. Try to keep up, but
|
||||
never slow down. If you missed too much, try again, at the same speed. You may
|
||||
change the chunk size, but never decrease the words per minute!
|
||||
|
||||
Late Binding is a concept from computer science. Basically, instead of resolving
|
||||
what an expression means right away (like when the program is generated), the
|
||||
system waits until the latest possible moment.
|
||||
Don't worry that you will not get everything at first. In fact, don't worry if
|
||||
the text makes no sense at all. Concentrate and try to get as much as possible.
|
||||
At first, you may only make out a word here and there. Soon, you make out
|
||||
groups. Whole chunks. The occasional sentence. Then some meaning returns. That's
|
||||
when you do the next step - you go *faster*.
|
||||
|
||||
Because the computer shows the text for you, you can't cheat. You can't fall
|
||||
back and read a sentence again or slow down in any way. You must either pay
|
||||
attention and use your eyes maximally efficient or you won't understand the
|
||||
text.
|
||||
|
||||
Here's an idea for an exercise and how I did it. Because I read at 400wpm, I set
|
||||
my speed to 800wpm. I would read like that for about 5 minutes. Then I increased
|
||||
my speed to 1000wpm, again for 5 minutes. Then go back a bit, to 900wpm, which
|
||||
will now seem much easier. Continue alternating between "can kinda keep up" and
|
||||
"can barely make anything out" for a total of about 30 minutes, maybe an hour at
|
||||
most.
|
||||
|
||||
The principle behind this is a bit like high-intensity interval training where
|
||||
you run as fast as you can for 20 seconds, then jog for 10 seconds and repeat
|
||||
this in total for 5-10 times. The idea is not to be able to always run as fast
|
||||
as during those sprints, but by putting this huge, but short pressure on your
|
||||
muscles, to greatly increase your normal speed.
|
||||
|
||||
It is perfectly normal and actually good to be confused and not understand
|
||||
anything during this exercise. :) This speed is far too fast for your internal
|
||||
voice to keep up and your brain is under huge pressure to make any sense of what
|
||||
you are reading asap. Once you go down to a more normal rate, you will actually
|
||||
overshoot and read faster than you thought would be necessary. Voilà, you read a
|
||||
bit faster! The brain gets used to this high speed and soon comprehension
|
||||
returns. In fact, I found that I got bored now if I would read at 400 or 500wpm,
|
||||
even after just one week! Be warned that this may annoy any non-speed-reading
|
||||
observer. ;)
|
||||
|
||||
As material I used minor blogs I enjoyed reading, but didn't care too much about
|
||||
if I missed anything, and novels I had already read or that were kinda
|
||||
predictable. That way, if you go blank from time to time, you can find back
|
||||
into the text easily. And it's a great chance to read Twilight without any
|
||||
guilt! ;) (You can find usable novels in .txt or .pdf form in certain bays or,
|
||||
for older texts, in the Gutenberg archive, for example.)
|
||||
|
||||
It took me about a week to read 800wpm that way without missing anything. After
|
||||
two weeks, I could keep up 1000wpm almost all the time, and 1200wpm if I really
|
||||
concentrated. You don't have to do this all day, but try to do at least 20
|
||||
minutes daily.
|
||||
|
||||
Reading nonlinearly
|
||||
-------------------
|
||||
|
||||
Finally, it's time to fully exploit the parallel processing and to do more
|
||||
aggressive pattern prediction. It's time to throw away the chains of ~~oppression,
|
||||
comrade!~~ intended text flow that the author gave us and to read in any order
|
||||
and any direction that gets to the meaning faster.
|
||||
|
||||
Reading nonlinearly means you read text just like you normal look around. You
|
||||
jump to the points that look most interesting, figure out the context around
|
||||
them, then jump to the next spot. But if you read everything sequentially, you
|
||||
can't do that! At least, you'd have to go back and start reading the current
|
||||
sentence you're in.
|
||||
|
||||
Imagine you looked around like you read. You go into a room and move your eyes
|
||||
to the upper left, start moving them to the right, line by line, until you have
|
||||
scanned the whole room. Sure, you would *see* everything eventually, but it
|
||||
would be *way* stupid and inefficient. Instead, you first have a quick look
|
||||
around, maybe 2 or 3 unconscious eye movements, to figure out if anyone is in
|
||||
the room and where the interesting stuff is. Nothing unusual on the floor or
|
||||
ceiling, so you skip those areas altogether. But you saw something like a face
|
||||
over there, so you concentrate more on this point until you recognize who it is
|
||||
(and in what mood they are). This takes maybe a second or so in total, and you
|
||||
may have only actually looked at 5% of the scene, but you sure know everything
|
||||
that matters. So why not read that way?
|
||||
|
||||
A good exercise I found was to enforce a time limit per page. I set up a
|
||||
timer[^pororo] to give me a little beep every 20 seconds, following which I
|
||||
would *have* to turn the page, no matter how far I was. This would equal a
|
||||
reading speed of about 800wpm for a small paperback. You do this for maybe 5
|
||||
minutes, then go faster. Go to 15 seconds, then 10, then 5. Finally, go back to
|
||||
20 again. It will now be far easier.
|
||||
|
||||
Sometimes, it was no problem to read a page very fast, but soon I could tell on
|
||||
first sight if I would be able to make it or not, *before* being conscious of
|
||||
any content. If I recognized the page as hard, I would scan it rapidly first,
|
||||
working out the structure and main phrases on it. This would take only a few
|
||||
seconds, but reduce the difficulty of the page drastically. I could then clarify
|
||||
the missing pieces, reading them far faster than before. Like with vision, you
|
||||
first establish where core ideas (=people) or interesting words (=colors) are,
|
||||
then concentrate on them exclusively.
|
||||
|
||||
Instead of going for whole pages, you can also train to read multiple lines at
|
||||
once. At first, start with 1 second per line, for maybe a minute. Read any way
|
||||
you want, but after 1 second, move on to the next line. It helps to trace the
|
||||
lines with your finger or a pen to enforce a consistent speed. Then do 2 lines
|
||||
simultaneously in 1 second, again for a minute. Then 4. Then whole blocks of
|
||||
texts, ideally whole paragraphs. Such huge blocks are very nice for skimming and
|
||||
getting a feel for the book, where everything is and what the main ideas will
|
||||
be, but it's a bit troublesome for normal reading. Still, it took me about 2
|
||||
weeks to get used to reading about 2-3 lines at once. I now have a far broader
|
||||
pattern in which my eyes move over the page, not clinging to every word, but
|
||||
rather "painting" the page in a zig-zag pattern with a brush about 2-3 lines
|
||||
thick.
|
||||
|
||||
Another good exercise is to read *backwards*. You start at the end of the line
|
||||
and right to the beginning, i.e. for an English text, you read right-to-left.
|
||||
Once you got a bit of practice at that, you can alternate and read in a zig-zag
|
||||
pattern. The advantage is two-fold: you save a lot of eye movement and you get
|
||||
used to understanding sentences out of order.
|
||||
|
||||
Combined with a harsh time limit, I found that this exercise greatly improved my
|
||||
ability to jump in the middle of a paragraph, figure out what's going on and
|
||||
assemble meaning by moving into all directions, not just left-to-right.[^ltr]
|
||||
|
||||
[^ltr]:
|
||||
It may help if you are used to multiple languages that have a different
|
||||
word order or writing direction. German and Japanese, for example, build up
|
||||
quite large word stacks and you may end up with a sentence that keeps on
|
||||
piling up modifiers and objects without revealing the crucial verb or target
|
||||
at the end, so maybe this practice makes it easier for me to adapt to
|
||||
backwards reading than for others. Also, Japanese is read both left-to-right
|
||||
and up-to-down (and then right-to-left), depending on context, so I'm already
|
||||
used changing directions.
|
||||
|
||||
Once you go beyond a certain speed, it stops being uniform. I noticed that I can
|
||||
read consistently at 300-400wpm using my previous techniques, but when speed
|
||||
reading I vary among 700wpm to 1200wpm from page to page. Especially dialogue
|
||||
really slows me down. This also means that each book has its own speed, so
|
||||
measuring reading speeds in "words per minute" stops being useful. "Bits of
|
||||
information per minute" would be better, but how do you calculate that?
|
||||
|
||||
[Look, Ma; No Hands!]: http://www.semanticrestructuring.com/lookma.php
|
||||
|
||||
[Consciousness Explained]: /reflections/con_exp.html
|
||||
|
||||
[DXM]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DXM
|
||||
|
||||
[^pororo]:
|
||||
I wrote my own timer for such purposes. You can check it out at
|
||||
http://github.com/muflax/pororo. Basically, you set a timer for each level
|
||||
of the task, like a 23s timer for the page and a 200page timer for the book.
|
||||
Alternatively, I used the metronome function of my mp3 player, especially
|
||||
when reading on the train or when waiting for something.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -301,10 +301,10 @@ mystic experiences, not believe in woo) as bad in itself, but this is very rare
|
|||
even among hardcore atheists and materialists.
|
||||
|
||||
The argument that mystic experiences will lead to pseudoscience or superstitions
|
||||
is easily disproved; just have a look at how many both scientists mystics are
|
||||
still clearly rational. Good examples may range from Michael Persinger on the
|
||||
science side, to Sam Harris somewhere in the middle, and the Dalai Lama on the
|
||||
religious side. Sure, like any counter-intuitive and large open question,
|
||||
is easily disproved; just have a look at how many both scientists and mystics
|
||||
are still clearly rational. Good examples may range from Michael Persinger on
|
||||
the science side, to Sam Harris somewhere in the middle, and the Dalai Lama on
|
||||
the religious side. Sure, like any counter-intuitive and large open question,
|
||||
spirituality lends itself to false believes, but that's a general human problem,
|
||||
not something specific to the topic. The answer are good rational practices, not
|
||||
abandoning music.
|
||||
|
|
@ -315,11 +315,11 @@ Conclusion
|
|||
In the end, one thing stands out: many attitudes towards music, and their
|
||||
rationalisation, are indistinguishable from memetic addiction. People are being
|
||||
exploited by music. It has shaped our brain for its reproductive advantages.
|
||||
Sure, we may have won some sexual selection yourself, but this is of little
|
||||
concern to music. The memeplex has all characteristics of a virus. It eats up as
|
||||
much of individual resources as it can without disabling its host. We are
|
||||
constantly encouraged to listen to more music, get more music, recommend it to
|
||||
our friends and so on. It spreads for the sake of spreading. Good music is
|
||||
Sure, we may have won the game of natural selection sometimes, but this is of
|
||||
little concern to music. The memeplex has all characteristics of a virus. It
|
||||
eats up as much of individual resources as it can without disabling its host.
|
||||
We are constantly encouraged to listen to more music, get more music, recommend
|
||||
it to our friends and so on. It spreads for the sake of spreading. Good music is
|
||||
judged not by its inherent benefits to individuals or the species, but by how
|
||||
popular it is, that is, how good it is at spreading. Being an ear worm is a
|
||||
*good* thing for music to be. If someone states they doesn't listen much to
|
||||
|
|
@ -332,7 +332,7 @@ It sure looks like the behaviour of addicts. If you are not devoted to music, at
|
|||
least a bit, you must try harder! These are memes that ruthlessly exploit their
|
||||
hosts. Natural selection has shaped them to be highly resistant, persuasive and
|
||||
addictive. All of music theory and education is only occupied with how to make
|
||||
more popular music, how to spread it better, how it increase its impact. It
|
||||
more popular music, how to spread it better, how to increase its impact. It
|
||||
conveys no message (or only an empty shell of one), it teaches nothing, it gives
|
||||
you nothing except pleasure. It circumvents the purpose of a reward system by
|
||||
directly stimulating it without giving something in return. It is a parasite.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in a new issue