One way to dream up post-book media to make reading more effective and meaningful is to systematize "expert" practices (e.g. How to Read a Book), so more people can do them, more reliably and more cheaply. But… the most erudite people I know don't actually do those things!
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There's a funny response curve: folks who are super-diligent about note-taking practices or building simulations seem to generally end up with less insight than their somewhat-less-diligent neighbors.
Maybe it's a explore/exploit thing? Or maybe just a wonk/gestalt thing?
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The best theory I have is something like: it takes so much effort to do these "expert" reading practices now that such readers burn their willpower and mental energy on running those processes, rather than on the ideas themselves.
But I don't know! Gives me pause!
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I suspect there's a phenomenon where you have to go through intense structure in order to build the "feel" to not need it.
This hunch comes from my experience with exercise and nutrition - I can get away without tracking macros or an exercise program *because* of past structure.
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So there may still be value in making that structure lower overhead.
Ooo another example is Headspace: I would not have built a meditation habit without it but now I no longer need it.
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Training wheels for the mind.
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I'm amenable to that argument for things like engineering practices: great engineers automatically do something like Hoare-triple analysis automatically. But erudite readers I know are doing something *way* less complicated than an approximation of Adler's analytical reading.
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Hypothesis: the more 'natural' the skill, the less systematized the experts look.
Again, I'll draw on physical skills: some people are ripped without thinking about what they eat at all or can do backflips on the first try. They never used a system.
OtoH us mortals ...
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