> Frankly, if you are not reading something with %100 comprehension, you are not reading it.
No one reads anything with 100% comprehension, and the assertion that such a thing as perfect understanding exists is absurd. Real meaning of words is fleeting and there certainly isn't any universal truth to every written work.
These new-fad speed reading tools are an alternative method of presenting text, the comprehension of which is a function of the speed setting. At what speed does reading become not reading and something else entirely? I say such a limit doesn't exist.
Maybe such tools aren't for you, not everybody is going to like them but some people find them useful. There certainly will be people that overstate their usefulness, but in the end a perfect scientific description of it isn't necessary.
A tool is useful if the person using it finds it useful, not if somebody can scientifically prove it.
You're a skeptic, so what?
I find it to be a useful tool, not for all reading but certainly for longer blocks of text or books which 100% understanding is less important than completion. I find for me it is easier to stay focused reading more words for longer periods, especially for things which I don't find particularly engaging or valuable, or when my mind isn't running at peak. I'm sure lots of others will find usefulness in it too.
You can speed read some things because they are highly redundant and mostly puffery. You can't speed-read an article which cares more about a clear and concise argument than padding itself with lots of fluff.
Of course, you're more likely to run into the former. The education system seems to lean toward articles people pretend to write, written for people who pretend to read them. I guess speed reading is useful, if it teaches you what teachers will be using to read your work. You'll know why it's so important to put your main argument in the topic sentences; and why flaccid padding in the rest is OK.
> A tool is useful if the person using it finds it useful, not if somebody can scientifically prove it.
This is a horrible criteria. People found blood letting useful as a treatment.
>No one reads anything with 100% comprehension, and the assertion that such a thing as perfect understanding exists is absurd. Real meaning of words is fleeting and there certainly isn't any universal truth to every written work.
"meaning of words is fleeting"
Maybe over long periods of time words change their meaning. That doesn't mean you can't fully comprehend SOME writing had you slowed down.
I think a core premise of the parent argument is the existence of '100% comprehension' when reading and believe arguments against this premise are very much not directed towards a strawman.
Sure the meaning of words flows with time, but more importantly our languages are imprecise and subject to much interpretation. How any one person translates the meaning of a word or passage into internal conscious and unconscious understanding is most certainly inconsistent. Ask any hundred academics the meaning of a passage of literature or a poem and you'll get 100 analyses. Ask 100 judges to make a determination of how the law applies to a case and you'll get 100 different judgements (even though the law is supposed to be very precise language by design).
My position is that complete comprehension is absurd therefore all comprehension is incomplete.
Given all comprehension is incomplete, arbitrarily setting limits on levels of comprehension based on tools and reading speed is absurd.
Any comprehension is useful, and doing things quickly is useful therefore a tool that provides some comprehension over meaningfully shorter periods of time for a given block of text has definite utility in some circumstances.
A person can be skeptical of the utility of a tool for their own purposes, but the absolutist opinion of the parent is a silly overstatement of that skepticism.
> Frankly, if you are not reading something with %100 comprehension, you are not reading it.
No one reads anything with 100% comprehension, and the assertion that such a thing as perfect understanding exists is absurd. Real meaning of words is fleeting and there certainly isn't any universal truth to every written work.
These new-fad speed reading tools are an alternative method of presenting text, the comprehension of which is a function of the speed setting. At what speed does reading become not reading and something else entirely? I say such a limit doesn't exist.
Maybe such tools aren't for you, not everybody is going to like them but some people find them useful. There certainly will be people that overstate their usefulness, but in the end a perfect scientific description of it isn't necessary.
A tool is useful if the person using it finds it useful, not if somebody can scientifically prove it.
You're a skeptic, so what?
I find it to be a useful tool, not for all reading but certainly for longer blocks of text or books which 100% understanding is less important than completion. I find for me it is easier to stay focused reading more words for longer periods, especially for things which I don't find particularly engaging or valuable, or when my mind isn't running at peak. I'm sure lots of others will find usefulness in it too.