What is the best idea to get information about a place :reading from book or se

1. 62

   ceydaposted 11 years ago

   What is the best idea to get information about a place :reading  from book or seeing this place?
   
   How can we prove our idea after choosing one of them to convince the readers?
   
   

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2. 84

   SidKempposted 11 years ago

   I don't think it is a matter of "best" or either/or. We learn different things from reading and from direct experience. There is much we can learn in direct experience that can't be put in words or even pictures. At the same time, if we just go and look without learning, we may understand little.
   
   I visited ruins of Nalanda University in India. If I hadn't known what they were, it would have been a meaningless jumble of brick boxes. Knowing that it was a place of study and Enlightenment for 1,700 years, the feeling of being there was extraordinary. And I wouldn't have felt that if I'd *only* read about it. You had to be there.
   
   If I had to choose, I'd visit rather than just read. But it is doing both that gives the full richness of both meaning (reading & study) and experience.

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   1. 62

      ceydaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Of course, this question depends on people 's  own perspective. Reading is accepted as a vehicle to get information about a place but the frame of this place can not set up in our mind that it can be essential to be see this place for some people.

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   2. 84

      SidKempposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Ceyda - I agree that it is different for different people. But I also think that something more is going on. Experiencing a place is fundamentally different than reading about it, one cannot substitute for the other.

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3. 68

   StandingJaguarposted 11 years ago

   I also say do both. I don't think anyone has the right to say something definitive about a place they have never experienced (after all, they are really just passing on someone else's opinion/information), but if you go to a place without bothering to read anything about it, you might miss some gems or cultural viewpoints. That would be a shame too!

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