What I think is somewhat interesting, is that there are numerous pieces of his/her comment, like the piece you quoted, that essentially imply the need for articles like the one posted here.

The idea that you can "learn just as much about [...] the world" from things other than what, until very recently, has been the primary mode of inter-generational human communication is pure absurdity. An idea whose absurdity is illustrated by all of human history. The fact that this requires explanation or demonstration is the reason that the current "trend" of elevating reading to a "rare alchemy" exists, because it essentially is if you're coming from a place of treating all activities as equal methods of learning.

Ah! You quoted me but you put a very convenient [...] in place of learning about "yourself". I think the reason you did that is because your criticism is only coherent if you zero in on learning about "the world" and leave out that messy other business of self-discovery. But learning about yourself is pretty important for personal growth, too, in my opinion so important that I even listed it first when writing that sentence ;)

I think his argument still holds when you also include "about yourself": in the 18th century people recognized the novel as having a power to help us exercise "moral imagination". I fail to see why reading cannot help one understand oneself. EDIT: and I see that you were not arguing against that, in any case.

And you very conveniently don't address anything I actually said, because after "yourself" you also wrote "and the world."

This isn't some "gotcha." I addressed the parts of your comment that I disagreed with, and didn't address the other parts...

Kayaking at least (not sure how much concentration pottery needs) would give you a _lot_ of time to just stare at the beauty of nature and think. Now this may or may not result in anything, but if you are reasonably intelligent and trying to improve yourself but you are lacking the 'downtime' to just let your mind wander then kayaking might do the trick for you. Best combined with a good book for when you're in camp, so that you can read some other bright people's ideas and incorporate them into your thinking process, the pros and cons of what they're saying for your own life etc.

I dearly love both sports and reading, but they are very different activities that give you happiness in very different ways. Kayaking won't teach you quantum mechanics or ancient Greek history. So from a certain knowledge-adquisition point of view, pottery and kayaking are way less efficient, if not a waste of time. Just like reading is a waste of time from the physical happiness POV.

As with most things in life, a good balance is needed.

Doing pottery and kayaking is a better choice for me than reading someone do pottery and kayaking.

Edit: and not everything can be learnt from books

But I can’t lead armies in battles or travel under the sea or challenge a rival to a swords duel. In such cases I’m accepting the reading as substitute.

Also, I'd rather read about other people's cherry orchards, it's way easier compared to me getting one: I'd have to move to the countryside, plant the cherry trees themselves and then wait for 10-15 years for the trees to become big enough.

Sports are often pretty close to battle, and you can learn fencing. Most great writers about swordsmanship could never have written about it without having used them for years...

I have a whole long piece I want to write about this some day but physical experience is about 100x richer than reading. If you read about the best restaurant in some place, and tell me it, your ability to convince me it’s good is very weak. Whereas someone who ate at a hundred places in that cuisine could write a book about it. They could convince me only because they have first hand knowledge.

It’s funny in that way: the best writing comes from people who experienced the most, and yet people get attached to reading as the best way to learn!

No, sports are not pretty close to battles. People killing and getting killed makes a difference. My emotional state would be very different if I would meet a rival at dawn for a fight on life and death than if I'm fencing for points in a club. And most importantly, by reading I get the thoughts, feelings and motivations from other people, which teaches me different ways to see the world and empathy.

And if we for a moment ignore the fact that reading about food is one of the most boring things I can imagine, reading about someone else's experience of food let you see aspects you aren't aware of which your own experiences richer.

People don't read as a substitute for living their own life. People read because it enriches the life they live. Not only in the moment of reading, but also in everything else they do.

I have nothing against reading and enjoy it thoroughly, the discussion here isn't that, it's about learning and being considered competent, and I'm simply pointing out a specific qualia of learning first-hand vs read and how it manifests in your reliability to others.

UFC and boxing are certainly life and death and I'm sure you'd have quite a similar feeling to going to battle. Though again this really misses the point: going to battle is a great example, in fact, not replicable through reading in a million important ways.

No one who has only read about war will ever be in the room deciding important things about war, nor will their stories about war (reciting from a book) ever be quite as interesting or well-said. Of course it's a spectrum, and someone who has read and experienced it first-hand can be better, but the point stands.

I'd argue empathy manifests in real life experience more than reading, but it's hard to convey in writing.

Few people read more than generals. Few leads more than a handful of battles in their lifetime, and they better not repeat anyone else’s mistakes.

And most people, not only 4 of the 5 last US presidents, who decides important things about wars, have in the best case read about wars, rarely fought in any themselves.

Currently reading Greek and Roman Naval Warfare A Study of Strategy, Tactics, and Ship Design from Salamis (480 B.C.) to Actium (31 B.C.) by William Rodgers (the 1964 edition).

While in general I agree with you that experience is the best way to gain understanding, there are rather a lot of topics that are hard to get experience with.

There’s a lot of history certainly. Though I’d rather read historians with as much physical connection as possible - familial ties, visiting ruins, practicing the traditions, speaking the language etc.

> not everything can be learnt from books

I'd argue that you can't actually learn anything from reading. Mortimer Adler argues in "How to Read a Book" that you can only actually learn by action, which means doing something with what you read.

Can I learn from what you wrote, or do I need to do something to learn I can't learn anything from reading?

touche.

The only way to test it is to not put it into action, then see if you learned it, but then ... that process of testing it is an action, so... ???

I applaud your meta-inquiry.

That's really taking it out of context.

> Books let you live a version of the lives of other more intelligent people from almost any point in history. How can pottery and kayaking do that?

I do agree with your statement about books, because I personally love reading. Henry David Thoreau wrote a chapter of Walden called "Reading", and put it way better than I ever could:

> "To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written."

But pottery, kayaking, or a number of other hobbies can also make you a better person.

Pottery can teach you patience, flow, adapting to mistakes, and turning an idea into something real. It exercises your creative muscles. Kayaking gets you in touch with nature, and gets you physically active (both of which have proven cognitive benefits). You can learn about your local geography and history by exploring waterways. Being on the water all day without a watch can give you a new perspective on time and the natural rhythms of a day in your own life.

The best part is that, if you are a curious type, those activities will probably lead you to reading anyway. You spend a whole day doing pottery - then go read up on the history of pottery. You confront the amazing fact that you are learning the same technology with your hands that allowed humans 8,000 years ago to invent the brewing of wine, to efficiently carry water to their fixed settlements, even to make primitive batteries which served as the centerpieces of religious shrines. Your hands are following after Og, the neighborhood potter from Babylon, who erected human civilization from scratch out of the literal dirt a few thousand years before God breathed life into Adam from a pile of dust (what's that line about "life imitating art" again?). That's infinitely more intellectually engaging than just reading a book in a vacuum. It's the kind of practical insight that is almost life-affirming.

During your weekend kayaking trip you paddle by the ruins of an old textile mill on the banks of the river. Your interest is piqued, you go home and read about that textile mill, the history of textile production, you learn about the fact that they named your hometown after a silk-producing region in China when some eccentric entrepreneur made a failed attempt to import silkworms and start a silk industry there. And you got to be right there in the flesh where it happened. You are now a better person; you have a sense of being grounded in your local community, a sense of place, a sense of history derived from something you have directly experienced with your 5 senses.

But most importantly, all three activities (pottery, kayaking, books) give you access to a community of other people who are also interested in them. Learning from intelligent dead and/or inaccessible people from books is a great pursuit. But exchanging thoughts, connecting, and learning from a community of real, everyday, stupid, in-the-weeds people just like you and me is arguably just as valuable, if not more.

Sure, I'm not saying that other activities don't have value, I was commenting only on your phrase "just as much." George Martin wrote, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, and the one who doesn't read, lives just one." Whether that is valuable or not is, as you say, debatable, but it's certainly not possible any other way.

Just to be clear, I agree with you 100% that accessing other people's best thoughts through reading is very valuable and very awesome.

On the other hand, you don't need a thousand other lives to live one good one. As Thoreau wrote, "It takes more than one day to extract the wealth of a day." And as a Buddhist saying goes, "You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin".

> You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin

This is just not true haha.

Understandable to disagree, you're not gonna learn to drive a car or do calculus or speak another language from the head of a pin. Nevertheless, I think there's a valuable philosophical perspective in it.

It isn't true that a reader lives a thousand lives, either, they live one life, and it includes reading, but you weren't nitpicking over that distinction.

I didn't interpret either one literally and was being equally nitpicky.

I agree with you on most of these points and would argue the defining traits you’re putting forth is curiosity and some grit. You’re curious about pottery and will learn about it but with enough grit and obsession that you’ll actually do it and once you’ve done it once you want to know more. Most people I know (including myself) have a tough time staying curious once you get that initial taste. You see the cool textile mill and in the moment wish you knew more but by the time you get home your mind is elsewhere.

Yeah that's a great thought - a combination of curiosity and persistence. For me, the curiosity is the easy part. The thought of "Oh I should go learn more about that, might be something interesting there" comes along often enough. It's the follow-through, or the grit as you put it, that is tough for me.

Adding on to what you are saying, it depends on what one's objectives are. Books do a great job at exposing concepts but mastery is only gained by experience.

If I read a book on pottery, but I never apply those concepts, it doesn't do me much good. Furthermore, refining one's craft is almost always much more time consuming than reading alone. Reading is necessary but not sufficient to thrive and be at one's best.