[HN Gopher] Learning how to think (2015)
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Learning how to think (2015)
Author : prostoalex
Score : 133 points
Date : 2021-05-09 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fs.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (fs.blog)
| efitz wrote:
| I had high hopes for this article, but it kind of let me down.
| The tl;dr is that you should slow down and focus in order to make
| better decisions, and that people suck at multitasking and
| multitasking makes you stupid.
|
| The article didn't really get into how to learn how to think.
|
| My opinion is that there are two critical skills to thinking
| effectively.
|
| The first is to assess each of your "inputs" critically - why do
| you think that something you know is true (epistemology)? Why do
| you believe a particular fact? People have a tendency to cherry
| pick and to accept information unquestioningly if it confirms a
| bias; you have to constantly challenge yourself not to do this.
|
| The other aspect of effective thinking, IMO, is to work backwards
| to first principles (challenge those too btw). Extrapolate your
| thought to extremes and see if it still makes sense- if it
| doesn't, you're likely just rationalizing to come up with your
| preferred outcome rather than really thinking.
|
| And of course practice. A lot.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| how to you determine whether you're practicing thinking
| "correctly"? As in, if I practice piano I know if it sounds
| good or not, and over time my playing will sound better. If I
| practice the wrong things, I'll know that my piano isn't
| getting any better.
|
| How do I know that I'm practicing thinking correctly?
| hkt wrote:
| > Good decisions create time, bad ones consume it.
|
| This is, in broad strokes, right, but it is hugely reductionist.
| It is always worth remembering that we're not always in the right
| circumstances to allow good decisions, and we should probably not
| judge.
|
| Otherwise, great essay. I've always thought it'd be nice to make
| "life start" grants or loans to facilitate exactly this kind of
| process of learning to think outside of universities too.
| alexashka wrote:
| Good thinking is mostly just taking things apart by asking 'why'
| or 'how' until you arrive at 'don't know' and trying to answer
| that question.
|
| There actually isn't much more to it.
|
| You can also then combine the whys and hows to create new stuff.
| That bit people find impressive if it helps them solve an
| immediate need.
| whoknew1122 wrote:
| Teaching me how to think is precisely what my 'worthless' liberal
| arts degree did. Interestingly enough, that skill was what let me
| transition into IT. And it allows me to outperform the vast
| majority of my co-workers, 95% of whom have masters degrees in
| some computer-related subject.
| l33t2327 wrote:
| Anyone with a computer related subject who didn't learn to
| think wasted their time in school.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. This is a classic
| flamewar topic and when you broach those with provocative
| language ("worthless", "outperform"), we're going to get a
| tedious, repetitive flamewar.
|
| I'm sure there are more interesting and thoughtful ways you
| could share your experience.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| anotha1 wrote:
| The article is from 2015, but nothing has changed.
|
| Realistically, I think the US University experiment does a good
| job teaching this with first-hand experience. Giving a kid
| significant access to money they'll make in the future,
| surrounded by positive and negative opportunities to spend that
| money, and no clearly correct path to follow since the answer is
| dependent on your personal background. That's a recipe for
| learning to think quickly. Though, it's like pushing the baby
| bird out of the nest, you might only have one shot to get it
| right.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2015)
|
| and just posted a few days ago?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27027188
| kvark wrote:
| This notion of "busy people don't make good decisions" seems a
| bit concerning to me. Even if all my decisions are perfect, and I
| have free time, why wouldn't I invest this time into something
| productive? In the end, being busy is just showing the ability to
| manage time, not necessarily decision making skills.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| The author of TFA asserts "busy people don't make good
| decisions" without citing studies or presenting evidence.
|
| You can save a lot of time by ignoring articles like that.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| Interesting, I think you're onto something, though others may
| find it obvious. Any other tricks for filtering time sinks
| which don't give value without putting the time in?
| robobro wrote:
| I would argue that my degrees in philosophy were granted to me
| while I was learning to think and judge well at university.
|
| It's funny that the paper author goes only into multitasking /
| concentration after wondering why people struggle to think
| critically. Sure, distracted thinking is generally not good
| thinking, but slowing down in and of itself won't improve your
| judgment skills. It's kind of a bummer that after the author says
| "there's a problem with critical thinking!" -- he moves on and
| doesn't talk about ways to actually develop critical thinking
| besides, you know, this 4 minute essay that just says "slow down
| the decision making process." I would have hoped he would have
| talked about different ways to analyze or prioritize problems, or
| discussed game theory or maybe gone into wicked problems[1].
|
| Oh well
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
| polskibus wrote:
| In other words, would you agree that people that make right
| decision fastest are the smartest? What I mean is that making a
| good decision while taking a lot of time is much easier than
| making the right decision without spending much time.
|
| In real life we often have to make suboptimal decisions merely
| because we cannot spend much time on each one.
| lanstin wrote:
| Only in very simple solution spaces. In general the solution
| spaces are pretty big and taking a while to mull it over is
| worth while. Especially for novel problems. If the problem is
| similar to something you thought about previously or have
| already encountered them of course it can be responded to.
| Even the smartest chess grandmaster will play better with
| more time. And for hiring, I always prefer people that have a
| great answer in a day or so than an ok answer immediately
| which they are happy about.
| vntx wrote:
| Ironic isn't it? The author complains about people not thinking
| enough but his articles don't seem well thought out either.
| It's full of reductionism and oversimplications.
|
| Slowing down, concentrating, and having lots of time are
| definitely helpful for thinking but he implies that it is
| sufficient for thinking and that everyone has that luxury.
|
| What about people operating under duress like in wars or
| pandemics? Can epidemiologists slow down while a pandemic
| spreads exponentially? Can soldiers slow down while they're
| being shot at?
|
| I'm pretty sure those people would like to have the space to
| make better decisions but more often then not, they don't.
| Those are very wicked problems.
| kaladin_1 wrote:
| You would have included eating to your list. You sure are
| taking it out of context. He didnt imply you think before you
| do everything.
|
| Even as Engineers we know that some of the problems we come
| up against in the course of a project could have been
| foreseen and tackled if only we spent some time to deeply
| understand the project.
| vntx wrote:
| Now you're taking my point out of context.
|
| I countered with the implication that there may be more
| important factors than just time for those acting in time-
| constrained situations to make "good" decisions and that he
| was oversimplifying, not that we always think before we do
| everything.
|
| AFAIK, most people don't eat their meals under duress. I
| could be wrong though.
| kaladin_1 wrote:
| All those essays and fancy problem solving techniques and hacks
| are good. But they were also invented by people that sat down
| to think.
|
| I don't know for you but I know that when I slow down and tell
| myself to relax, start poking at the problem from different
| angles things go well. I dont know how it happens. The brian
| reaches a point you even continue solving the problem while
| sleeping. There might be hacks for that but with the right
| intention and time it mostly happens for me.
| philipswood wrote:
| I've noticed that people I meet that I think of as intelligent
| usually had an adult that talked with them intelligently when
| they were younger.
|
| I think thinking is seen, then emulated, and this emulation needs
| a bit of coaching.
|
| Yes, once you start reading some of this can happen without
| someone else available, but ultimately thinking is learned by
| exposure to good examples of it and iterated practice.
| erikerikson wrote:
| My adoptive parents are a counterexample to this. That or I'm
| not intelligent but tests and life outcomes would seem to
| indicate otherwise.
|
| I would definitely agree that an intelligent conversant can
| positively impact the outcome and as such apply the stimulus to
| my own child. A lack of this was one of my childhood and early
| adult life's frustrations.
| m463 wrote:
| Parenting/mentoring has lots of hard or painful parts, like
| setting boundaries/limits.
|
| But a really EASY and effective thing is to just to set a good
| example.
|
| (it can also make kids mindful if you tell them to set a good
| example for other kids)
|
| Growing up much if not most of my learning was just from
| observing.
| Isamu wrote:
| This is about concentration, focus, and it is absolutely a skill
| and not really taught.
|
| Beyond that, introspection is not really taught either. That is,
| so I have been thinking about this thing a lot, am I being honest
| with myself about what is grounded in reality and what isn't? Am
| I being honest with myself about my overriding preference for my
| gut feeling vs. what can be verified in the real world with some
| more effort?
| sturza wrote:
| I used to really appreciate fs. After a few years i, personally,
| think it's clickbait and i am not the target audience anymore.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| same... this article doesn't actually seem to cover its own
| topic. One has to wonder if the article itself was written
| slowly, or rushed to production to garner more clicks?
|
| I would have loved to learn about how to synthesize and filter
| what you read, and at what point your amount of stuff to read
| reaches saturation. I always hear "I read all the books I could
| find!" but that's an impossible statement for almost any field
| -- I just want to know if there's an agreed upon state where
| one can feel that one has read everything available to start
| thinking for oneself and forming original thoughts.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| I agree too. I have the same feeling about Scott Young's
| newsletters. They both seem talk a lot but don't provide the
| same level of value they used. Then again, this article is from
| 2015.
|
| > The best way to improve your ability to think is to actually
| spend time thinking.
|
| > Good decision makers understand a simple truth: you can't
| make good decisions without good thinking and good thinking
| requires time.
|
| One I still subscribe to is James Clear, I really like his
| 3-2-1 newsletters every thursday.
|
| One from a few weeks ago:
|
| > "Fear of failure is higher when you're not working on the
| problem.
|
| > If you are taking action, you are less worried about failure
| because you realize you can influence the outcome."
| bogdanoff_2 wrote:
| > "Fear of failure is higher when you're not working on the
| problem.
|
| > If you are taking action, you are less worried about
| failure because you realize you can influence the outcome."
|
| I wish I could internalize that. For some reasons I feel as
| if it was the opposite.
| ampersandy wrote:
| This fear of failure by others is why so many people have a
| hard time delegating. Sometimes things will fail, and that's
| ok (with a few exceptions, of course).
| redisman wrote:
| It's self-help. Usually the half life of those is a few
| articles and then you kind of know that they'll just repeat
| that until people stop paying attention to them
| alexpetralia wrote:
| I had the exact same impression. It has become so watered down
| and superficial.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > I used to have students who bragged to me about how fast they
| wrote their papers. I would tell them that the great German
| novelist Thomas Mann said that a writer is someone for whom
| writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The best
| writers write much more slowly than everyone else, and the better
| they are, the slower they write.
|
| Dear Son,
|
| I am writing this slow, 'cause I know you can't read fast. There
| are a few things happening here at home. We don't live where we
| did when you left -- you're father read in the paper that most
| car accidents happen within twenty miles of home, so we moved. I
| won't be able to send you the address because we moved into your
| cousins old house and they took the numbers with them so they
| wouldn't have to change their address. The new place has a
| washing machine! It's in a small room that also has a shower in
| it. The first day, I put four shirts in. I pressed the lever and
| I haven't seen them since. The weather is nice here. It rained
| twice this week. Three days the first time and four days the
| second time. Remember that coat you wanted me to send you? Well,
| your aunt said that it would be too heavy to send in the mail, so
| we cut the buttons off and put them in the pocket. Monday we got
| a bill from the funeral home. It said if we don't make the last
| payment on Grandma's funeral ... up she comes ... Your father has
| a lovely new job. He has over 500 men under him. He's cutting
| grass at the cemetery. Your brother's wife had a baby this
| morning. We don't know whether it's a boy or a girl, so we don't
| know if you are an aunt or an uncle. Your uncle fell in the
| whiskey vat and drowned. We cremated him. He burned for 3 days.
| Last week 3 of your friends went off the bridge in a pickup
| truck. One was driving and the other two were riding in the back.
| The driver rolled down the window and swam to safety. The other
| two drowned. They couldn't get the tailgate down. Not much else.
| Write more often. Love, Mom
|
| P.S. -- We would have sent money, but the envelope was already
| sealed.
| ClosedPistachio wrote:
| >Thinking is one of those things that can be learned but can't be
| taught.
|
| Then the article (poorly) tries to teach you techniques how to
| think better. Pass.
| mottosso wrote:
| > Good decisions create time, bad ones consume it.
|
| My key takeaway from this article, well put.
| zabzonk wrote:
| First, define in detail what you mean by "think".
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