This is a special post for quick takes by Morphism. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.
-Leslie Lamport
This seems..... straightforwardly false. People think in various different modalities. Translating that modality into words is not always trivial. Even if by "writing", Lamport means any form of recording thoughts, this still seems false. Often times, an idea incubates in my head for months before I find a good way to represent it as words or math or pictures or anything else.
Also, writing and thinking are separate (albiet closely related) skills, especially when you take "writing" to mean writing for an audience, so the thesis of this Paul Graham post is also false. I've been thinking reasonably well for about 16 years, and only recently have I started gaining much of an ability to write.
Are Lamport and Graham just wordcels making a typical mind fallacy, or is there more to this that I'm not seeing? What's the steelman of this claim that good thinking == good writing?
I'm not really sure if I'm talking past you in this or not, but I wrote it all out already so I'm going to post it.
I think I found the context of the quote. I'm reasonably certain it's not meant to be taken literally. It illustrates that when used skillfully writing can enhance one's thinking in such a way that it will outstrip the performance of thought without the assistance of writing.
You have to think before you write, and then you have to read what you wrote and think about it. And you have to keep rewriting, re-reading and thinking, until it’s as g... (read more)