> and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with

Are we really going to speak down to how someone uses a bunch of paper bound together? That's how they wanted to use it, which is cool, it's just not how you like it.

It is very frustrating the number of people who say "it's their property, they can do whatever they want" and similar comments, all of which are missing the point. Yes. It is legal to write on your own property. I know thay. It's my opinion that they're doing something that is guaranteed to harm overall human knowledge: whoever purchases/inherits/digitzes the book has to deal with it. And it almost certainly harms their own understanding of the book.

If by that you meant to suggest that for formal study, some kind of self-review process combined with cold written practice/rehearsal sustained under interleaved spacing, then that is likely the gold standard for comprehension and memorization. But most people don't even know that, either.

But the main premise is we should not assume all book reading is for rigorous self study. Margin notes can be useful for other purposes than direct understanding/retention (I admittedly don't know the psychology evidence for it but many academics routinely write margin notes here and there on (poorly written/edited) papers for purposes of idea generation, scientific criticism, etc. Presumably the Edison example mentioned above would have been more like that.).

Plato argues, in a book, in the voice of his mentor Socrates, that books will destroy knowledge. And the reason is precisely to do with the thing that Socrates is famous for, his Socratic Method of asking his students (or rival politicians or anyone) questions about what they claimed to know, engaging them in a real discussion where we come to things that we agree about and then build that agreed knowledge-base incrementally. For Socrates, a book could never provide that experience; you cannot ask the book a question.

It also coincides with the Taoist philosophy (and actually somewhat Buddhist) of learning through actions and not speech. The most famous (if I recall the story correctly) of the Buddha teaching his disciples by smiling and twirling around a flower.

Kind of fascinating that these faraway places kind of arrived at the same ideas. Independently or not I think nobody would know but it does not matter.

A book with notes is a guarantee that the book didn't spend its life sitting on a bookshelf not being read. If people are reading it is a net positive for overall human knowledge.

Lastly, your usage of Socratic teachings is a hollow appeal to authority. Socrates is dead and a modest library in an elementary school would surely have brought him to tears had he known how far we've come as a species, much less the remainder of books currently available.

Even if we take for granted that it was principled, it almost certainly wasn't pointed at marginalia. The argument (that Plato put in his mouth, through written text, no less) is that writing that substitutes for internal recollection can't answer back. It's an argument against outsourcing a thought to fixed text. A margin note is the opposite: it's the reader talking back to the text.

You have a personal preference about buying unmarked books, and you retreat to a Grand Unifying Socratic Theory whenever someone challenges it.

> it almost certainly harms their own understanding of the book

What? For all people who ever mark up a book in the margins or highlight passages? How could you possibly know that?

> they're doing something that is guaranteed to harm overall human knowledge

Also what? Human knowledge is necessarily a collaborative effort. Reading a text with another person's notes alongside it is just another way to engage with it. I'll maybe grant you highlighting since it's been shown to not help with retention all that much.

We have a deeper understanding of some of the most famous thinkers in history because we have books that they marked up to help us understand how they engaged with specific texts. This is invaluable for "overall human knowledge."

Herman Melville marked up his copies of Shakespeare's works and that shaped how scholars read Moby-Dick. Did he "harm overall human knowledge" by doing that?

And not that it matters, but "cross out" doesn't imply "destroy beyond recognition." A simple strike-through is sufficient to keep the text legible (so you remember what it is you disagree with).

if it doesn't clarify in the description, ask or don't buy.

Very often when I write in margins it's to question or argue against what's written (e.g. "really? what about ...", or "no, contradicts ...") which, to me, seems in line with the dialectic process Socrates promoted. Multiple sides, truth-seeking.

Sure, having a spacious notebook on the side is even better. But it's the same goal, isn't it? Engage more deeply with a text and encourage questioning as you read it, while it's still fresh.

Amazon's used prices are usually set by booksellers that base their prices on stuff like this for some books... When you get to like old cheap paperback romances though, or that .01 plus shipping, you might or might not.

I would be pissed if I expected a clean, un-scribbled-on book I wanted and it was represented as such, but got that.

Anyways, my point was to counter the parent post’s claim that notes in margins are shallow or unsocratic. Some are, some aren’t IME.

But I get where you're coming from as well. I guess it just really depends on the context of who/what/why when it comes to reading.

That's like, elite literary territory though. Let's stick to the discussion on books.

also if you're buying used books, expect them to be used!

I would expect them to be in the condition they were graded as. I'll avoid poor or fair condition books that have lots of marking in them. Good books that have minimal marking should be fine to me.

different strokes. if you want to ensure you don't get sick from a line being crossed out, buy new.

Here is my github repo with scans of the marginalia from Edison: https://github.com/RRWagner/Making-Good-in-Business-Babson-E...

"History proves that religion is a curse and is the master scheme for Exploitation of man" - p47

"God helps nobody. 20 million perished in the late war — for no fault of theirs Why did God permit this" - p48

You can buy unmarked used books. Just check. (And if you're buying online the state of the book is expected to be in the description.)

and so now, some ancient math tehcniques can be unearthed by finding all the layers of writing in a book

Oh, I recognize your name ... wrong about so many things.

From another one of your comments here:

> No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in

But the person who advocated for writing in one's books if desired said nothing about lending or reselling them ... YOU were the first person here, in your response to them, to whine about BUYING such books. Talk about obnoxious!

It seems like me insisting that LLMs are stochastic parrots [presumably that's what you're mad about] is beginning to draw personal attacks on totally unrelated threads. Happens a lot. I used to have an account here with my name on it. HN is simply not a safe place to disagree with prevailing tech ideology.

And his "presumption" is erroneous, absurd, and misrepresents previous commentary.

Whatever. My HN front end has a mute function and I use it for people acting in bad faith. Ta ta.

Another way of saying it is discussing a book with some people will be really rewarding. But others you will rather prefer not to. This is just an instance of a more generalizable rule: people develop preferences regarding who they want to spend their time with.

I would even say that "crossing out lines you disagree with" is vandalism because a book can always be read by others and come to a different conclusion and debate in their mind from there.

Why treat books as disposable mind scaffolds when they can be used again by others productively and even preserved for later generations? If you found a book to be at least somewhat useful to write notes on, then why would others not also find it useful?

Margin notes are fine though as long as they do not make the main contents of the book unreadable like "crossing out lines".

I have been delighted by the writing I've seen in books, especially if it's a copy of a friend or family member, as you feel you are connecting to another reader years later, and the item is no longer identically mass-produced. But maybe it depends on the taste of the person writing in the book.

I admit I don’t mark up my books but I feel tempted to try

if you cross out words in a book you borrowed, that is vandalism. if you cross out words in a book you own, by definition, that is not vandalism.

it would be uncool to mark up a textbook you planned to resell at the end of the semester, but it still would not be vandalism assuming you bought the textbook.

Do you even understand what you sound like? "Writing in something you own is vandalism because poor people".

That doesn't mean scribbling in your own book is wrong.

There is also nothing wrong with donating such books with clearly written disclaimer on the front page about the condition of the book.

Repackaging as 99% likenew and selling them should be a crime though.

As I say elsewhere, it depends on the edition or book, and how common they are.

I think it's a combination of a ritual and some sort of somewhat-more-elevated engagement (or wishing thereof) with the material. Somewhere between meditative ritual and attention aid. I doubt it helped much, if at all - except for Stabilo; they were the true winners.

The unfortunate part is that you can't then unhighlight a passage.

And it's not like some ADHD thing which is new. E.g. Stanisław Lem as a kid: "But because the act of reading was too passive, too simple, I would rest a chair leg on my calf or knee or foot and with little movements keep the chair at the very brink of falling."

(I do wonder if the people here who hate it are picturing students who blindly highlight pages, and the people who like it are remembering the times they've seen a few pencilled sentences in margins of an old book)

nor was there a reason to blanket discourage treating books as precious and worth preserving. i'm interested in the part where you note what you noted and let the other glaring transgression pass. That was a choice.

Not all books, of course. If you're reading a self help book or some technical one, scribble away at your heart's content.

No one is forcing you to buy used books with writing in them.

Books are treasures. The second book is an enormously valuable source of wisdom. I am glad nobody vandalized that wisdom with marginalia and highlighting.

Also it seems like you can buy the George Rey one for $54 new here https://www.wiley.com/en-us/shop/general-philosophy/contempo...

unless you also don't believe in paperbacks.

And the other is on amazon _new_ here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198244649?lv=shuf&channelId=500&p...

for someone so concerned about knowledge, you don't seem to be too worried about continually using this word incorrectly.

So it's a little self-centered to make this about you. It's not.

If someone buys a book then they own it and can do what they want with it, without concern that maybe some day they will sell it and some narcissistic rando will resent them for what they have done with their own property.

If there's no aggression intended, that's great, but I'm struggling to not see it when I read them.

I have begun to write a page (by hand) summarizing my thoughts after reading a book, and put it in the start of it. That was a tip I saw on HN some time ago.

> sucks to see someone else's notes

You don't have to buy books with notes in them.

I wouldn't be so sure of that.

I always make an effort to buy books I really like (or expect to really like) in hardcover. This is because, around 20 years ago, I found some shelves full of books in a house belonging to some ancestors of mine. The books ranged from maybe 60 to 120 years old and had been unattended maybe for 40 or 50 years. At a first glance, all the books looked fine, but when picking them up, the paperback books literally crumbled in my hands and were unsalvageable. The hardcover ones were fine and I still have some with me now.

The thing is, lately hardcover runs of most books seem to be pitifully small. They print a few at the beginning and then they switch to paperback only. Often I want to buy a book that is only 5 or 10 years old, and almost no one has the hardcover. Those who do often demand extortionate prices. It's not uncommon to see regular hardcover editions of regular books with nothing special from 10 years ago, with retail price around €20, sell second hand for €100.

So if you consider that paperbacks aren't valid for preservation because they will crumble sooner than later, there will be many books with a rather small number of copies available.

Although tbf its kinda hard to check without reading the whole book, no? A bit like saying "you don't have to buy a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing"

I don't know about you, but when I re-read a book 20 years later it's unlikely I'll have that trapper keeper handy. Re-reading something later and seeing my younger thoughts is magical.