6 ms·

> I read about 3 books in a month and 60 pages per hour. Not quite the same as Bill Gates who reads about 150 pages in an hour with 90% retention but I’m slowly

by NOGDP 6y ago

> I read about 3 books in a month and 60 pages per hour. Not quite the same as Bill Gates who reads about 150 pages in an hour with 90% retention but I’m slowly getting closer. Reading books and trying to remember the maximum information seems rather pointless unless you're specifically studying for an exam or something. Your brain already optimises and retains the most relevant/interesting information for you. We don't have limitless memory and we need to forget things in order to learn new ones. Reading 3 books per month and retaining 90% seems both highly unlikely and pointless in the long term.

code_duck 6y ago
It would be interesting to check the difference in retention over a day, a week, a month, and 6 months. I thought I was awesome like that until I realized that there are huge amounts of things that I don't really remember after a time because I never think about them. The memories can be elicited by reminders or some kind of trigger, but otherwise, they are outside of my conscious thought process. It's sort of like archival storage versus what I keep in RAM.
- rajlego 6y ago
  I think what you’re looking for is forgetting curves: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve You might also find spaced repetition cool: https://ncase.me/remember/ https://ncase.me/remember/
barry-cotter 6y ago
> we need to forget things in order to learn new ones. I am not aware of any evidence this is true. Can you point me to any evidence to that effect?
- NOGDP 6y ago
  We have finite brains. We process and learn much more information over our lives than we retain at any point in time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Even what you process every second thru your senses is a huge amount of data and most of it is not memorized (and it's a useful mechanism as we don't need to remember everything either).
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    We do have finite brains but that doesn’t mean forgetting is necessary for learning. There are many examples of people with prodigious natural gifts for memory and more who trained it. Physical and theoretical limits aren’t really relevant to your claim. > According to Herman Goldstine, the mathematician John von Neumann was able to recall from memory every book he had ever read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory
    - NOGDP 6y ago
      > Eidetic memory (more commonly called photographic memory) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision for a brief period after seeing it only once, and without using a mnemonic device. 'for a brief period' is key here. Also from the same wikipedia article: > Each year at the World Memory Championships, the world's best memorizers compete for prizes. None of the world's best competitive memorizers has a photographic memory, and no one with claimed eidetic or photographic memory has ever won the championship. ... > According to Herman Goldstine, the mathematician John von Neumann was able to recall from memory every book he had ever read. That's just what some guy said. > There are many examples of people with prodigious natural gifts for memory and more who trained it. For example? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_possess_an_eidetic_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_poss... > A number of people claim to have eidetic memory, but science has never found a single verifiable case of photographic memory.
      - barry-cotter 6y ago
        I don’t care about eidetic memory. I’m just asking if you have any evidence or research to the effect that forgetting is necessary for learning, your original claim.
1123581321 6y ago
A principle of increasing retention is to change how much is relevant and interesting to you. Based on the notes he publishes, Bill Gates seems to bring a lot of prior experience and context to his reading. This lets him remember much more of the new information by being able to associate it with what he already knows. You can test this theory by reading three similar books in a row on an unfamiliar subject. You’ll remember more of the third book than the first.
- NOGDP 6y ago
  > You can test this theory by reading three similar books in a row on an unfamiliar subject. You’ll remember more of the third book than the first. That's not a very useful scenario when talking about reading X books a month and retaining Y percent. If you don't control for how much of the information is new, then the % retention is pretty arbitrary. You can read the same book 3 times and I'm sure you'll get better retention on the third repetition.
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    My point is Bill Gates, and anyone who reads for retention, does control how much of the information is new by picking books they bring a lot of context to. But you are right that reading the same unfamiliar book three times would also be a way to bring more context to the third reading.
    - NOGDP 6y ago
      Yeah, I agree with what you said. My point is that it's pointless and misleading to bring up retention numbers if most what you're retaining you already knew previously. It's not a measure of how much you're actually learning.
      - 1123581321 6y ago
        True. I originally jumped in to object to the original poster’s idea that trying to control retention is pointless or impossible. There are too many variables that go into how much is objectively retained and for how long, especially since not every subject, author or title is read for the same purpose so success varies. I would, though, assume Bill Gates could retain 90% of a given book with less context than most people would need, i.e. retain a higher volume of new information than most people. That would be true whether measuring retention of everything in the book or just the new parts.
admiral33 6y ago
Citation needed. I'd assume based on personal experience that higher retention rates occur in subjects the reader is already familiar with. If you're reading into a subject you're not familiar with and rely on "your brain" to optimize what's most relevant for that subject I'd bet you'd come out looking like the stereotypical "know it all" in any related conversation.
- NOGDP 6y ago
  > I'd assume based on personal experience that higher retention rates occur in subjects the reader is already familiar with. In that case only a fraction of the information in the book can really be learned. Yes, you can read a book you already know very well and retain 95% of the information, but then what's the point of even citing any numbers? > If you're reading into a subject you're not familiar with and rely on "your brain" to optimize what's most relevant for that subject I'd bet you'd come out looking like the stereotypical "know it all" in any related conversation. Only if you think you retain 90% of what you read.
badpun 6y ago
Reading speed largely depends on the material. Some texts, ex. Bible or Plato's dialogues, are meant as merely jumping points for one's reflection on the subject. Reading them at 150 pages per hour would be utterly pointless.
- mtrovo 6y ago
  Yeah, that’s also my take. Some texts are a mere introduction to a much deeper process that should happen inside your head and there’s no way to accelerate that. The way I like to think is you can change your input bandwidth (reading speed) but can’t change your processor clock (brain assimilation speed). It doesn’t invalidate people that read at 2x normal speed, it just depends on the kind of book you’re reading. I’m able to listen to some books at 2.5x but it’s always the same kind of book: non fiction, business related, those books that in the end you think it could be a blog post rather than a 500 pages book.
  - badpun 6y ago
    > I’m able to listen to some books at 2.5x but it’s always the same kind of book: non fiction, business related, those books that in the end you think it could be a blog post rather than a 500 pages book. Don't get me started on those books... They're essentially a result of a market failure - since the readers are not willing to pay for blog posts, but will buy books, the writers are incentivised to dress up their blog posts as books... This is enromously wasteful, as millions of people are wasting their time reading the filler necessary to reach an acceptable book size (typically a minimum of 150 pages).
watwut 6y ago
> Reading books and trying to remember the maximum information seems rather pointless unless you're specifically studying for an exam or something. Your brain already optimises and retains the most relevant/interesting information for you. That is just not the case. The brain does not work that perfect way. It tends to remember new info about stuff you already know a lot about. That is whole reason for reading for retention is to hack the brain so that it remembers what I want to remember.
- bmikaili 6y ago
  The brain is very much optimized. You're not going to hack thousands of years of evolution. The brain's a LRU cache.
  - watwut 6y ago
    > You're not going to hack thousands of years of evolution. The evolution did not optimized my brain to remember all the things I want to remember, whether from reading or listening. So I gotta hack it. The evolution did not made us perfect.
  - adamrt 6y ago
    I’ve actually heard of studies suggesting it’s specifically not an LRU. That each time you remember something the memory is rewritten (via proteins) so that memory is less and less accurate they more you remember it. One of my all time favorite podcasts is about it: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91569-memory-and-forgetting https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91569... I’m sure science has progressed but I listened to this many years ago. You might dig it.
    - bmikaili 6y ago
      Thanks for sharing!
manjotpahwa 6y ago
I never claimed I retain 90%+ I said Bill Gates does according to that documentary :) What I aim to retain is one single principle or thought from a whole book. Which is why I suggested writing a summary at the end.
tmaly 6y ago
I came up with my own expression, make knowledge actionable. For learning purposes, I only ready what I need.

by NOGDP 6y ago

code_duck 6y ago

It would be interesting to check the difference in retention over a day, a week, a month, and 6 months. I thought I was awesome like that until I realized that there are huge amounts of things that I don't really remember after a time because I never think about them. The memories can be elicited by reminders or some kind of trigger, but otherwise, they are outside of my conscious thought process. It's sort of like archival storage versus what I keep in RAM.

rajlego 6y ago
I think what you’re looking for is forgetting curves: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve You might also find spaced repetition cool: https://ncase.me/remember/ https://ncase.me/remember/

barry-cotter 6y ago

> we need to forget things in order to learn new ones. I am not aware of any evidence this is true. Can you point me to any evidence to that effect?

NOGDP 6y ago
We have finite brains. We process and learn much more information over our lives than we retain at any point in time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Even what you process every second thru your senses is a huge amount of data and most of it is not memorized (and it's a useful mechanism as we don't need to remember everything either).
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  We do have finite brains but that doesn’t mean forgetting is necessary for learning. There are many examples of people with prodigious natural gifts for memory and more who trained it. Physical and theoretical limits aren’t really relevant to your claim. > According to Herman Goldstine, the mathematician John von Neumann was able to recall from memory every book he had ever read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory
  - NOGDP 6y ago
    > Eidetic memory (more commonly called photographic memory) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision for a brief period after seeing it only once, and without using a mnemonic device. 'for a brief period' is key here. Also from the same wikipedia article: > Each year at the World Memory Championships, the world's best memorizers compete for prizes. None of the world's best competitive memorizers has a photographic memory, and no one with claimed eidetic or photographic memory has ever won the championship. ... > According to Herman Goldstine, the mathematician John von Neumann was able to recall from memory every book he had ever read. That's just what some guy said. > There are many examples of people with prodigious natural gifts for memory and more who trained it. For example? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_possess_an_eidetic_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_poss... > A number of people claim to have eidetic memory, but science has never found a single verifiable case of photographic memory.
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      I don’t care about eidetic memory. I’m just asking if you have any evidence or research to the effect that forgetting is necessary for learning, your original claim.

1123581321 6y ago

A principle of increasing retention is to change how much is relevant and interesting to you. Based on the notes he publishes, Bill Gates seems to bring a lot of prior experience and context to his reading. This lets him remember much more of the new information by being able to associate it with what he already knows. You can test this theory by reading three similar books in a row on an unfamiliar subject. You’ll remember more of the third book than the first.

NOGDP 6y ago
> You can test this theory by reading three similar books in a row on an unfamiliar subject. You’ll remember more of the third book than the first. That's not a very useful scenario when talking about reading X books a month and retaining Y percent. If you don't control for how much of the information is new, then the % retention is pretty arbitrary. You can read the same book 3 times and I'm sure you'll get better retention on the third repetition.
- 1123581321 6y ago
  My point is Bill Gates, and anyone who reads for retention, does control how much of the information is new by picking books they bring a lot of context to. But you are right that reading the same unfamiliar book three times would also be a way to bring more context to the third reading.
  - NOGDP 6y ago
    Yeah, I agree with what you said. My point is that it's pointless and misleading to bring up retention numbers if most what you're retaining you already knew previously. It's not a measure of how much you're actually learning.
    - 1123581321 6y ago
      True. I originally jumped in to object to the original poster’s idea that trying to control retention is pointless or impossible. There are too many variables that go into how much is objectively retained and for how long, especially since not every subject, author or title is read for the same purpose so success varies. I would, though, assume Bill Gates could retain 90% of a given book with less context than most people would need, i.e. retain a higher volume of new information than most people. That would be true whether measuring retention of everything in the book or just the new parts.

admiral33 6y ago

Citation needed. I'd assume based on personal experience that higher retention rates occur in subjects the reader is already familiar with. If you're reading into a subject you're not familiar with and rely on "your brain" to optimize what's most relevant for that subject I'd bet you'd come out looking like the stereotypical "know it all" in any related conversation.

NOGDP 6y ago
> I'd assume based on personal experience that higher retention rates occur in subjects the reader is already familiar with. In that case only a fraction of the information in the book can really be learned. Yes, you can read a book you already know very well and retain 95% of the information, but then what's the point of even citing any numbers? > If you're reading into a subject you're not familiar with and rely on "your brain" to optimize what's most relevant for that subject I'd bet you'd come out looking like the stereotypical "know it all" in any related conversation. Only if you think you retain 90% of what you read.

badpun 6y ago

Reading speed largely depends on the material. Some texts, ex. Bible or Plato's dialogues, are meant as merely jumping points for one's reflection on the subject. Reading them at 150 pages per hour would be utterly pointless.

mtrovo 6y ago
Yeah, that’s also my take. Some texts are a mere introduction to a much deeper process that should happen inside your head and there’s no way to accelerate that. The way I like to think is you can change your input bandwidth (reading speed) but can’t change your processor clock (brain assimilation speed). It doesn’t invalidate people that read at 2x normal speed, it just depends on the kind of book you’re reading. I’m able to listen to some books at 2.5x but it’s always the same kind of book: non fiction, business related, those books that in the end you think it could be a blog post rather than a 500 pages book.
- badpun 6y ago
  > I’m able to listen to some books at 2.5x but it’s always the same kind of book: non fiction, business related, those books that in the end you think it could be a blog post rather than a 500 pages book. Don't get me started on those books... They're essentially a result of a market failure - since the readers are not willing to pay for blog posts, but will buy books, the writers are incentivised to dress up their blog posts as books... This is enromously wasteful, as millions of people are wasting their time reading the filler necessary to reach an acceptable book size (typically a minimum of 150 pages).

watwut 6y ago

> Reading books and trying to remember the maximum information seems rather pointless unless you're specifically studying for an exam or something. Your brain already optimises and retains the most relevant/interesting information for you. That is just not the case. The brain does not work that perfect way. It tends to remember new info about stuff you already know a lot about. That is whole reason for reading for retention is to hack the brain so that it remembers what I want to remember.

bmikaili 6y ago
The brain is very much optimized. You're not going to hack thousands of years of evolution. The brain's a LRU cache.
- watwut 6y ago
  > You're not going to hack thousands of years of evolution. The evolution did not optimized my brain to remember all the things I want to remember, whether from reading or listening. So I gotta hack it. The evolution did not made us perfect.
- adamrt 6y ago
  I’ve actually heard of studies suggesting it’s specifically not an LRU. That each time you remember something the memory is rewritten (via proteins) so that memory is less and less accurate they more you remember it. One of my all time favorite podcasts is about it: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91569-memory-and-forgetting https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91569... I’m sure science has progressed but I listened to this many years ago. You might dig it.
  - bmikaili 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing!

manjotpahwa 6y ago

I never claimed I retain 90%+ I said Bill Gates does according to that documentary :) What I aim to retain is one single principle or thought from a whole book. Which is why I suggested writing a summary at the end.

tmaly 6y ago

I came up with my own expression, make knowledge actionable. For learning purposes, I only ready what I need.