I agree with the rest of your post, but this sentence is a hard disagree. 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?
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.
This isn't some "gotcha." I addressed the parts of your comment that I disagreed with, and didn't address the other parts...
As with most things in life, a good balance is needed.
Edit: and not everything can be learnt from books
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
This is just not true haha.
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.