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<h1 id="post-title">Limits on Reading</h1>
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<p><strong>Entry Question</strong>: What is the maximum number of books I can read in the future?</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="reading-limits">Reading Limits</h1>
<p>Reading speed is bounded. Even on a fiction novel, it’s really hard to hit 1000wpm without sacrificing comprehension - I’m told some of the students of Norman Lewis in Read Better and Faster reached 1000wpm for a given article. And on a technical paper, fuhgedaboutit.</p>
<p>So, assuming you live for another 70 years, it’s fair to assume that if you read day and night, you still wouldn’t come close to finishing the fiction novels in one small library, let alone non-fiction books.</p>
<p>So, that is a major limit on the knowledge you can gain. It’s hard to accept, I know, but these are facts. The sooner you understand them, the better.</p>
<p>I want to believe that someday I will come to have a great understanding of pretty much everything important in the world. I want to believe that that is possible. I believe that your potential for creating a huge Impact is determined by your level of understanding. I don’t feel like accepting that I could be severely limited in my potential, especially by something as prosaic as my reading speed, for heaven’s sakes.</p>
<p>But that’s the way the world works.</p>
<p>Let’s try to estimate how many more non-fiction books I can read and deeply understand. I don’t care about fiction novels these days. Ditto for unscientific non-fiction bullcrap. So, it’s only non-fiction science-based general books or textbooks or technical papers.</p>
<p>What is the length of my intellectually active life - where my mind is agile enough to make useful connections from what I’ve read and do some thinking?</p>
<p>Well, I’m near 24 now. Let’s assume that if I have to produce something useful, it has to come before I’m 40 (aka by 2030). I would have to read and understand important books before then, because I would need time to reflect on them and come up with further ideas.</p>
<p>Time left: 16 years.</p>
<p>Worst case, I go on till I’m 80 (aka till 2070). This would give me the theoretical maximum number of books I can ever expect to read. In that case, Time Left: 56 years.</p>
<h1 id="non-fiction-books">Non-fiction books</h1>
<p>Let’s say that I need to read a non-fiction book at least 3 times to truly absorb its content and make it part of me - think The Undercover Economist or other economic or psychology books.</p>
<p>The size of an average non-fiction book: 100k - 150k words (let’s say 125k words)</p>
<p>Data: One book I checked was roughly 225k words. Another was around 175k words. Another was 90k words. Another was 90k words. Another was 112k words.</p>
<p>My reading speed for non-fiction: 200-300wpm (I would be going slowly to absorb each sentence) - Let’s say 250wpm</p>
<p>Time per book: Size x #Readings / Speed</p>
<p>Time per book: 125k words x 3 readings / 250 wpm = 1500 minutes = 25 hours. WTF?!!</p>
<p>No way I spend 25 hours on one book!</p>
<p>Hmmm… but this is cumulative over the lifetime of the book. But still, 8 hours per reading?</p>
<p>Even if the book is just 100k words and if I read it at 500wpm, it would take me 200 minutes per reading - 3 hours 20 minutes.</p>
<p>These are unavoidable limits. Accept them.</p>
<p>Best case, 4 hours per reading (500wpm); worst case, 8 hours per reading (250wpm).</p>
<p>And yes, I will read the book multiple times, a minimum of 3 times for the good books (aka the books I read :P). So, yeah, 25 hours total per book.</p>
<p>Let’s count online essays too as part of non-fiction stuff - PG’s essays or Eliezer’s posts.</p>
<h1 id="non-math-problem-textbooks">Non-Math-Problem Textbooks</h1>
<p>Number of readings needed to absorb the material?</p>
<p>For a non-math-problem textbook, where I don’t have to work out all the exercise problems on paper, I guess reading the textbook around 5 times should do the trick to absorb the ideas really well. I’m assuming this is a really important textbook and so I would need to absorb it thoroughly, as opposed to just being familiar with it. What do I mean by non-math-problem textbooks? Economics textbooks (only to a certain extent - advanced books will contain a lot of math), Psychology textbooks, Cognitive Science textbooks, Evolutionary Biology textbooks, etc.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t just want to read the textbook, I want to use the ideas somewhere. No Impact, No Right to Talk, remember? It’s one thing to “absorb” the material and another thing to get some strong results by taking action on those ideas.</p>
<p>Anyway, for now, let’s just talk about the limits on how much I can read and “absorb”. We can account for “taking action on ideas” in another section.</p>
<p>So, #Readings for non-math-problem textbook: 5</p>
<p>Time per Reading: Say 5-10 hours</p>
<p>On average: 8 hours, let’s say.</p>
<p>So, total time per textbook = 5 readings x 8 hours / reading = 40 hours / book</p>
<h1 id="math-problem-textbooks">Math-problem Textbooks</h1>
<p>By this, I mean textbooks that have problems you have to actually work out by hand. Stuff like (obviously) math textbooks, CS textbooks (data structures and algorithms, graph theory, theoretical CS), etc.</p>
<p>For this kind of a textbook, I don’t need to read it that many times, but it will take a lot longer to finish the textbook.</p>
<p>Say, #Readings: 2-3</p>
<p>Time per Reading: 20-40 hours ??</p>
<p>On average, let’s say: 25 hours</p>
<p>Total time per book = 2.5 readings x 25 hours / reading = 62.5 hours / book</p>
<h1 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h1>
<p>If I keep it up for 16 years, how many non-fiction books, non-math-problem textbooks, and math-problem textbooks can I hope to absorb?</p>
<p><strong>Note</strong>: This is all a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation to give me a feel for how much (or how little) I will theoretically be able to read in my lifetime.</p>
<p>Let’s say you have 300 days per year. Aka, Sundays are off.</p>
<p>Total #days (in 16 years) = 300 x 16 = 4800 days.</p>
<p>How many hours per day will I spend on reading?</p>
<p>Say, 1-4 hours. I already spend at least an hour each day reading non-fiction. I fully expect to ramp up on my textbook reading in the future.</p>
<p>Let’s say, it’s 4 hours on average per day (I’m being generous). So, 2 hours on non-fiction books, 1 hour on a non-math-problem textbook, and 1 hour on a math-problem textbook.</p>
<p>So, total number of hours = 4800 days x 4 hours / day = 19200 hours.</p>
<p>Let’s round that off to <strong>20k hours</strong>.</p>
<p>This is the theoretical maximum number of hours I will spend reading over the next 16 years. 4 hours a day is really pushing it, but hey, this is just a rough calculation.</p>
<hr />
<p>Let’s say the ratio is around 2:1:1. i.e., I read 2 non-fiction general books for each math-problem textbook. In reality, I read a lot more non-fiction books than textbooks, but I suppose I will change that in the future.</p>
<p>Dividing it among the three categories: 10k hours on non-fiction : 5k hours on non-mathy textbooks : 5k hours on mathy textbooks</p>
<p>So, how many non-fiction books?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>10k hours / 25 hours per book = <strong>400 non-fiction books</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, how many non-mathy textbooks?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>5k hours / 40 hours per book = <strong>125 non-mathy textbooks</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, how many mathy textbooks?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>5k hours / 62.5 hours per book = <strong>80 mathy textbooks</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A measly total of around 600 books over the next 16 years.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say, I am <strong>shocked</strong>. I won’t be able to cover even a single <em>shelf</em> of a library, let alone an entire small library.</p>
<h1 id="major-assumption">Major assumption</h1>
<p>The major assumption was that I would read the book entirely. This need not be the case. I could just read the sections I’m interested in and skip or speed-read the rest.</p>
<p>However, historically speaking, I have always read good non-fiction books from cover to cover.</p>
<p>Ok, assume I don’t read books from cover to cover in the future. Say, I read just 20% of the book, 2 out of 10 chapters.</p>
<p>Then, I would be able to “read” 600 x 100/20 = 3000 partial books.</p>
<p>If I read 50% of each book, then 600 x 100/50 = 1200 partial books.</p>
<p>But then again, for books that are really useful to me, I read them a lot more than 3 times. And this back-of-the-envelope calculation assumes I will read 4 hours per day.</p>
<h1 id="lose-yourself">Lose Yourself</h1>
<p>So, that’s my theoretical maximum number of books over the next 16 years - 600 in total.</p>
<p>400 non-fiction books, 125 non-mathy textbooks, and 80 mathy textbooks.</p>
<p>If we look at the next 6 years alone, then it’s 600 x 6 / 16 = 225 books total.</p>
<p>150 non-fiction books, 45 non-mathy textbooks, and 30 mathy textbooks.</p>
<p>Why care about these numbers?</p>
<p>Cos this is more or less a hard limit on how much I can read. Short of some revolutionary jumps in my reading speed for hard technical matter, it is pretty much set. I can’t allocate too many hours for reading - 4 hours is already pushing the budget. I have other things to do. I don’t think books are getting any more compact. Again, short of some revolutionary changes in writing that allow us to communicate information succinctly, the amount of reading you will have do for a given topic is not gonna shrink. If anything, it will blow up as the fields advance.</p>
<p>If I get most of my external knowledge in the form of books, then I will only be able to absorb 600 books’ worth of knowledge.</p>
<p>In other words, I better damn make it count.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One shot… One opportunity… Will you capture it? Or just let it slip?</p>
<p><a href>Lose Yourself</a>, Eminem</p>
</blockquote>
<h1 id="is-that-enough">Is that enough?</h1>
<p>Without trying to change the current limitations, let’s look at what we can expect.</p>
<p>Will this current rate be enough to get me what I want?</p>
<p>Say, if I picked the right 600 or so books, will I get what I want?</p>
<p>Worst case, I won’t be able to do anything about these fundamental limits. Given that, which books will I choose?</p>
<p>I have to get knowledge from somewhere. The only avenues are thinking and researching on my own or consuming something another person has produced.</p>
<p><strong>Hard Fact</strong>: You cannot learn (in satisfying depth) about all the subjects you’re interested in.</p>
<p>Anyway, until I get around to changing the limitations on my learning speed, I will have to do the best I can with the limited books I can read.</p>
<p><strong>Corollary</strong>: Be careful what you choose to read.</p>
<p>You don’t have that many books left. But, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like you could read a lot more books, there’s so much time left. We humans are abysmal at foreseeing the future. We can’t imagine our life and our other limited resources as a tank of water. Every day that passes by reduces the level of water in the tank. Most of us have already spent 25% of our life tank (assuming we live till 80).</p>
<p>I just have 400 non-fiction books left to read. Just 125 non-mathy textbooks. And only 80 mathy textbooks. I need to keep this in mind. I cannot go around reading any textbook that catches my fancy. There is a severe opportunity cost to be paid.</p>
<p>When I look at people’s book <a href="http://www.gwern.net/Book%20reviews">lists</a>, I feel like I should read those books. They all sound so exciting. I’m like a kid in a candy store. I want that one! And that one! And that one! But, like any good parent, I have to tell myself that you can’t have it all. You can’t even have a lot. You will just end up with an upset stomach.</p>
<p>I was <a href="./Truth-Predictive-Power.html#surprise-surprise">shocked</a> to see that the number of books I could read was so low. Which means, I was implicitly predicting that it would be much higher. Which means all the decisions that I’d been taking based on that implicit number are all misguided. I need to rejigger my book-selection process. I’m already very choosy about what I read, but that was more from a fun and informativeness point of view. Now, the stakes are even higher. If it’s not making you stronger, it’s making you weaker. You’re paying for poor choices with the opportunity cost of all the good books you could have been reading.</p>
<div class="info">Created: November 21, 2014</div>
<div class="info">Last modified: August 6, 2015</div>
<div class="info">Status: finished</div>
<div class="info"><b>Tags</b>: reading, cost, limits</div>
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