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Comment by TrevorJ | Hacker News Reader

"The simple printed book is much more conducive to promoting thinking than the sophisticated Web. If a book does not provide all the information that one needs, some of the information has to be deduced and some of it has to be imagined."

Not everyone will agree with this, but that point really resonated with me.

Worth the read. I found myself feeling a bit convicted. I may stop by the library later tonight and pick up a book.

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I'd rather spend my deduction and imagination time on problem solving than information gathering.

Or to be more specific: I'd rather spend my deduction and imagination time engaged with my peers on solving problems, than sitting in quiet contemplation of information that I do not have convenient access to.

Why is your "deduction and imagination" time a fixed quantity? The thrust of the argument in favor of learning through books rather than the internet is that you will spend an equal amount of external problem solving time, but more internal problem solving time as part of the information gathering process.

Because all my time is a fixed quantity? I'd like to live forever; I just don't think it's going to work out. ;)

And I don't see any reason to prefer internal problem solving to external problem solving. If anything, I would lean toward external problem solving, as I believe very strongly that interacting with my peers has made me far better at it.

As for myself, I'd say I prefer the opposite. There's something to be said for personal & solitary contemplation.

Perhaps it's just your standard introvert vs. extrovert style of thinking? Everybody's different. :)

(to imitate sibling poster @roc)

I'd rather reduce the overhead of gathering information, so I can think about the actual problem rather than think about where I'm going to acquire the information.

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