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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One way to interpret it is as the relative contribution of diligence in input and passion in output to expertise. (Of course, an even more fundamental question is the relative contribution of input and output to expertise as well.)
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For many, diligence in input becomes its own output. The question of why that acts as such a poor substitute for authentic output when it comes to developing expertise is quite interesting IMO!
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This is a great point. High-diligence-input often *looks* a lot like the high-efficacy behavior! Whereas in the most effective folks it's often a byproduct of passion, not a source.
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Absolutely! I think it was Hemingway that quipped, "Never mistake motion for action"
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