Augmenting reading for deeper comprehension

Books are made out of books, reading doesn’t equate to learning.

To learn we must deliberate on the content, let our curiosity take a focused leap.

An inexperienced rock climber sees a blank wall. An experienced rock climber sees a wall with subtle notches and hidden paths. Same with reading. Being a more skillful reader allows you to understand what you’re reading. Lesson: “The first and most important rule of skillful reading, active reading, is asking questions and trying to answer them…an undemanding reader asks no questions and gets no answers.” – Andy Matuschak

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First thing first : This how I use LLMs to augment my readings.

Things that you need : 

1. Macbook 
2. Ebook version of your books in docx or txt format.
   • Use calibre app to convert it. 
3. Chatgpt4all– it’s an open source free app, there are many others but this is the one i stumbled upon. 

Steps : 

I will be using an example to illustrate my point. 

1. Annotated and marked extracts while reading.
2. Convert the ebook into – docx, txt, md format
3. Copy your notes,annotations, thoughts, and questions in docx 
4. I took the ebook version and exported the highlights with a docx version of the book. Calibre is perfect for all these tasks, you can convert formats of ebooks. 

gpt4all 

Upload your notes and the book or books related to the same topic.

I use Mistral model as It works the best with my Mac. 

Why use this ai ( llm app) ? 

Paid services like claude and perplexity have wordlimit per document. they can essential perform the same function but this is cheaper and private. the key word here is PRIVATE. 

Your capacity to clearly articulate and analyse the problems presented in the textbook is essential for effectively processing and understanding the material within a book

Questions to ask

Questions enable us to transform nebulous and abstract concepts into tangible understanding, allowing for clearer comprehension and insight.

I used this app to generate a bunch of questions for each sub-heading from the chapters to test my understanding and filll in the gaps. 

1. What is the book about ?

2. What is being said in detail and how?

3. Is this book true as a whole or just some parts – Which parts ?

Now you can deliberate and test your knowledge about the content.

You can ask the ai to elobarate on key concepts and give you examples. This is a method of qualitative reading.

Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralyzing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one’s own thought