Curiouskid comments on Cached Thoughts - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 October 2007 11:46PM

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Comment author: Curiouskid 22 October 2011 02:13:53PM 3 points [-]

I believe Schopenhauer came to the same conclusion.

"Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes."

However, I don't think I would go so far as to say that you should think until you run out of thoughts. Finding the right balance seems to be an art we are continually improving on--adapting to each situation.