[HN Gopher] On the link between great thinking and obsessive wal...
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On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking
Author : prostoalex
Score : 170 points
Date : 2021-08-22 18:32 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lithub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
| nightsd01 wrote:
| I have found that I have my best (and worst) ideas by changing
| mental states. For example I'm usually sober so when I'm
| intoxicated I usually have garbage ideas, but every now and then
| I think of something truly incredible/useful that I would never
| have had insight into sober. The same applies to being sleep
| deprived, it leads me into a different mental headspace where I
| can think differently than normal (though I try to avoid being
| sleep deprived cause it's miserable)
| vvatermelone wrote:
| There is something about sleep deprivation that makes me so
| vividly visually creative, things and image flow in my mind
| like they otherwise never do. Unfortunately I haven't found a
| way to trigger this any other way, so my only real creative
| moments tend to happen in the middle of the night where they
| aren't much use to anyone.
| moehm wrote:
| AFAIK sleep deprivation is discussed as a short term
| treatment of depression. I don't have any exclusive papers on
| hand (I'm not an expert), but if you are interested, please
| do your own research.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Try digging a tunnel. Sensory deprivation combined with
| meticulous hard labor can be enlightening.
| bordakt wrote:
| Very interesting you said that here. I regurarly walk
| aimlessly, I regurarly have this impression that i have to
| skip a day of sleep to be exceptionally productive, and i
| also used to be obseessed with digging large holes especially
| when i was younger and able to dig like that in my parents
| garden.
| baxtr wrote:
| Recently I had to wake up at 3am and drive for a couple of
| hour. Something I never do. I had the strangest and most
| interesting insights! It was very similar to what you describe,
| a different mental state.
|
| However, unfortunately I forgot many of the insights since I
| was so endlessly tired! Should have taken notes while driving
| with just 3h of sleep...
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I don't deny the link. I worked with a programmer/mathematician
| who would just start ambling about the office without any mission
| when deep in thought. I think that in his case the thinking
| actually drives the walking instead of vice versa.
|
| >Oppezzo designed an elegant experiment. A group of Stanford
| students were asked to list as many creative uses for common
| objects as they could. A Frisbee, for example, can be used as a
| dog toy, but it can also be used as a hat, a plate, a bird bath,
| or a small shovel. The more novel uses a student listed, the
| higher the creativity score. Half the students sat for an hour
| before they were given their test. The others walked on a
| treadmill.
|
| >The results were staggering. Creativity scores improved by 60
| percent after a walk.
|
| With everything in the news about reproducibility and doctored
| data, this seems too staggering to believe. Has this study been
| tried again?
| zz865 wrote:
| I'm more interested that the walk was before the test. I
| thought the point was to think while you're walking.
| irrational wrote:
| Maybe they told them the question beforehand and then the
| test was writing down their answers.
| papito wrote:
| This was mentioned before, but the explanation is very simple -
| walking gets your brain flushed with blood, making you think
| clearer. That's all there is to it.
|
| To take it further, recent studies suggest that exercise more
| strenuous than just walking makes you better at dealing with
| uncomfortable decisions and situations (as exercise forces you to
| power through discomfort).
|
| https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-exercise-shapes-you-far-b...
| the_only_law wrote:
| I used to really enjoy walking when I lived somewhere with decent
| parks. I'd wait till early evening, when it wasn't as hot and
| head down to one of the river walk near by and just keep walking
| and thinking about whatever. A little while after things got dark
| I would walk up into town and grab me something to eat.
|
| I really miss late night walks, but unfortunately where I live
| now there aren't so many great options. A few nature trails that
| close early as hell and are probably moderately unsafe at that
| time. There are some of paths in the residential area I live in
| now, but they're relatively short unless I want to link up to a
| main road (cars zipping past you at whatever speed does not do
| well for thinking) and I'm not gonna risk getting harassed
| because I'm out walking too late.
| jcq3 wrote:
| "Historically, however, walking has been the privilege of white
| men." Come on...
|
| Anyway, Nietzsche used to walk before writing like Darwin
|
| Long time ago I read that walking or taking a shower make your
| thinking more effective because it somehow enables automation
| mode and allow to be more focused
| WalterBright wrote:
| For millennia, the wealthy 1% rode and everyone else walked.
| klipt wrote:
| Hunter gatherers (who mostly aren't white) probably do way more
| walking than most modern people.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| lithub is good
| nickjj wrote:
| I like walking and have walked around 2-5 miles a day for the
| last 7 or 8ish years. I also go without a phone and I go every
| day no matter what the weather is like in NY (hot summers and
| snowy winters).
|
| There's a bunch of benefits and I'll continue doing it because I
| really do enjoy it and I do think it helps get clarity but I
| wouldn't treat it like a magical activity that's going to make
| you successful on its own in whatever field you're working in.
|
| It's still very possible to feel the pressures of what a non-
| walker will experience such as procrastination and everything
| else we all know and experience.
|
| But with that said, I do highly recommend giving walking a shot.
| It's a really relaxing way to decompress.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Everything in my life I've ever won an award for I thought
| of/through while walking
| Graffur wrote:
| What are some of the things you have won awards for?
| chasd00 wrote:
| I have ADHD and without my medicine begin walking obsessively. In
| college, i would walk from one end of campus to the other over
| and over. When i lived in downtown Dallas i would walk from the
| West End to Deep Ellum (that's petty far on foot) and back over
| and over as well. It was good exercise i guess but took a lot of
| time/energy. Plus, on weekdays i would do it at night which is
| not the safest thing.
|
| Now on medication, I still walk but not near as much, maybe a
| mile a day. And, like others have said, i've solved many problems
| while walking so it's not a total waste of time.
| damontal wrote:
| Would listening to music or a podcast or an audiobook interfere
| with the generation of ideas while walking? I love running and
| walking but I always feel like I have to have something playing
| in my ear during.
| dasil003 wrote:
| I believe it does interfere.
|
| I started walking pretty obsessively during the pandemic as a
| way to get exercise that I used to get by bicycle commuting.
| Normally I would listen to podcasts during this time.
|
| However a few times when I went without anything in my ears I
| noticed that I was starting to do real work while walking, and
| coming up with great solutions to difficult problems.
|
| Now I limit podcasts just as I would with TV, video games or
| any other passive consumption. Nothing against consumption per
| se--a lot of ideas are seeded from outside--but in terms of
| creative work there's huge value to being left alone with ones
| thought. Anything mentally engaging will disrupt that.
| SamPatt wrote:
| I second this.
|
| I do long distance cycling and always had an audiobook going.
| One day my battery died and I had an hour and a half of
| silence.
|
| I found my thoughts were enjoyable. I now take some rides
| without any audio at all.
| [deleted]
| jrootabega wrote:
| Just don't this as an excuse to have walking conversations in an
| open floor plan office.
| jger15 wrote:
| related: "Perhaps the reason walking helps us think is that we
| evolved as persistence hunters."
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1429535366705463298
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| I wonder if you can discern what type of problem a person is
| working on based on their path. For example if you give a
| person two good solutions to a problem but they can only pick
| one, would they naturally pace back and forth ?
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| My personal assumption was, that walking, always was hunting for
| us as a species.
|
| So to hunt for great ideas, one must connect the whole experience
| to what we did once to track down animals.
|
| Look at the ground, when thinking about facts, chains of
| evidence, the origin of your problems. Walk known routes, when
| traversing well known approaches, take unknown routes, go off-
| road, when you are stuck with the usual ways.
|
| Move your body, like you want your mind to move, but most
| important, do not self-observe while you do it. Forget about
| yourself, think only about the pray and the hunt.
|
| It may just be superstitious. But it is how my subconscious tries
| to explain away my endless pacing.
|
| Horrido.
| patentatt wrote:
| I think it's also just an activity that preoccupies a portion
| of your consciousness so that the subconscious can chime in. I
| get the same effect from mowing grass.
| math-dev wrote:
| I agree 100% with this article - I do my best thinking when
| walking. It is the combination of light exercise that gets the
| blood moving (to the brain!), but not too strenuous that our
| minds must devote mental energy to the act of phsyical exercise,
| the oxygen from the fresh air, the feeling of _wandering_ and
| letting our minds wander.
|
| Sometimes I struggle with deep thinking at my desk - its too
| quiet / stable. A little bit of distraction helps. Not to say I
| don't think while at my desk, I just think walking is a great
| compliment and in our sedentary lives, better to think on our
| feet and leave the desk to implementation / coding.
|
| I say this after two productive walks today :)
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| We took in an older dog who had worked for 10 years at a
| hunting lodge. He's incredibly well trained, doesn't need a
| leash, doesn't go wild or bark his head off under any
| provocation, and is happy going for long walks at a slow pace
| with random pauses.
|
| I've lost track number and quality of excellent solutions I
| have come up with on these walks, including three provisional
| patents filed and a major contract saved. He's earned
| increasingly indulgent treats.
|
| Who rescued who?
| math-dev wrote:
| That's a fantastic story to hear :)
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| http://archive.today/APjsG
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/https://lithub.com/on-the-link-b...
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| For more / additional information, check out Alex Soojung-Kim
| Pang's book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less. Like
| Jeremy DeSilva, the author of this Lithub article, Pang discusses
| Darwin and others who consistently walked to think.
|
| The short story is that Pang went and read through the diaries of
| many notable thinkers, artists and creative types going back to
| the 19th century. Walking is one tool in the tool box. There are
| others, including getting enough sleep and taking naps.
| romwell wrote:
| Can we, for a second, remember that walking-makes-thinking-easier
| is a _classic_ ADHD /ASD symptom?
|
| And that both ADHD and ASD have been linked to creative, deep
| thinking?
|
| Charles Darwin, the #1 example in this article, has been long
| suspected to have had Asperger's (which we classify as ASD
| today)[1]; and had exhibited symptoms of ADHD (one makes the
| other more likely)[2].
|
| That link is only a surprise to neurotypicals. The answer is in
| plain sight:
|
| _" On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking:
| it's ADHD/ASD!"_
|
| EDIT: the word _obsessive_ alone should give a clue were to look.
|
| While walking might make thinking easier for everyone, it might
| be outright _necessary_ for people with conditions like ASD
| /ADHD.
|
| Please consider this before hitting that downvote button.
|
| _Disclaimer: I 'm a person with ASD, ADHD, and a PhD_
|
| [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20090221125332/http://www.telegr..
| .
|
| [2]https://www.masters-in-special-
| education.com/lists/5-histori...
| lordnacho wrote:
| This is why I am looking for a simple AR headset: so I can look
| at code while walking through the woods in my area. Just a simple
| translucent IDE is all I need.
|
| I definitely feel that I am better at thinking when walking, but
| I also need to be looking at source code to get the details,
| otherwise I can only think about larger architecture.
|
| When is this coming?
| Sevii wrote:
| The wolfram alpha founder does this with a laptop and custom
| harness.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-
| prod... this article goes into some details about Stephen
| Wolfram's walking laptop setup.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| Lots of writers are also runners. But if you're collecting
| walking-thinking connections I'll add: Kahneman mentions
| somewhere that many of his ideas with Tversky emerged from long
| walks the two took together.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| I'm always trying to figure out the ideal way of walking and
| inputting information into a computer. I purchased a twiddler 2
| chording keyboard, but didn't enjoy the concept of figuring out
| and learning the ideal key mapping (the defaults are terrible).
| Talking to myself seems silly, but I'm starting to think it might
| be the ideal way of getting ideas down.
|
| Stopping and pulling out pen and paper was too disruptive. My
| ideal would be a walking stick with a few chording buttons that
| would key off different tasks, like start recording, or the next
| vocal word with be a voice command.
| dTal wrote:
| I've recently had some success with a GPD Micro PC, which fits
| in a back or jacket pocket and has a very thumb-typeable
| keyboard. It does require you to look at the screen, of course.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| I've been using emacs through termux on my phone for this.
| It's surprisingly usable, but I'd rather have something that
| works seamlessly with walking.
|
| I'm thinking something like a Zoom H1N field recorder might
| work for just recording all of my thoughts, but I'd really
| like it to be automatically transcribed, if not an
| interactive REPL environment.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| Somewhat related, about 10 years ago I was in a tragic situation
| where someone I loved would be murdered but I couldn't speak out
| because of possible retaliation against my family.
|
| I found myself compulsively walking randomly in the city every
| night for several nights. I would walk half way to a random
| destination only to change directions in 30 minutes convinced I
| was headed the wrong way forgetting the previous destination and
| repeatedly heading part way to successive random destinations. I
| did this night after night convinced there was a place I needed
| to go but in retrospect they were completely arbitrary and there
| was no purpose. I recently read the book Crime and Punishment and
| there is a scene a bit like this which suggests this may be in
| our DNA. To share further, I eventually spoke out (at some point
| you have to pick your poison) and the person did die suddenly and
| unexpectedly. The NYPD coroner eventually ruled out foul play,
| but the suspects the suspects left the country immediately after
| his death so it wouldn't have mattered.
|
| Had you plotted my path you would say that it was the walk of a
| person who is "lost", yet I knew the city perfectly. However it
| was accurate to say I was hopelessly lost.
|
| Changing subjects to lighten things up, I would assume there
| would be a metaphor for walking in way that parallels what your
| brain is doing when it is searching for a solution but I can't
| think of a word. Contemplative walks are certainly not erratic
| and discontinuous as described above. They are smooth and
| differentiable like a gradient descent.
| zics wrote:
| Crime and Punishment was the first thing that came to my mind
| while reading your story! Sorry for you lose and hope you are
| doing better now.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Do you still believe they were murdered? Who were these people?
| Which country is performing possible assassinations in America?
| Why would they want to murder your family member? So many
| questions!
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| Yeah the story about losing a family member to murder (a
| pretty rare form of death, AIUI) overshadows whatever they
| were saying about walking
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| I wasn't sure if my comment was in the spirit of HN given
| it's overly personal and is now totally irrelevant to the
| lithub post. But since you asked -- before the PD's
| conclusion I told myself I would just accept whatever they
| report. But doing that has now left me with the lifelong
| burden of falsely accusing two people of murder.
|
| The people were desperately poor in-laws. He was becoming
| cash poor but was still home equity rich and often commented
| that if he missed too many remittances he would likely be
| killed. Poisoning was rumored to be a common way to
| accelerate the inheritance process in his native country.
| When this is about to happen, the rumors start but everyone
| is afraid to do anything. I heard the rumor from a desperate
| family member but who then ended the conversation with
| "please don't say anything" and another implying they will
| take revenge. The in-laws came for a quick visit, he soon
| became so ill he ended up in the hospital and died, and then
| they quickly left. I have law enforcement buddies that
| mentioned poisoning can be extremely difficult to detect and
| prove and no one in his country could tell me names of
| poisons that were useful to his doctors. His doctors could
| not explain why he was so sick, and the coroner mentioned
| some health problems he found that could have killed him but
| implied that this conclusion was not strong.
| agumonkey wrote:
| condolences for your loss, an oddly fascinating story
|
| I got into walking due to health reason, and there's a freedom
| seeking / search in it yes. The internal process of finding a
| path from idea to idea b is probably linked to the geometry of
| going from spot to spot.
|
| another thing about walking, is that it's free, and every fork
| in the road means you get to decide where you feel like you
| want to go, and that, to me, seems a deep need for our minds.
| gexla wrote:
| I can lose my sense of location when walking in an area which I
| have driven around a lot but then try to walk. Same for an area
| which I try to walk at night when I have only been there
| previously during the day. Or the opposite.
| jcims wrote:
| I had that situation the first time I smoked weed as an adult
| while visiting Seattle. The funny part is that I kept
| rediscovering the fact that I had no idea where I was or
| where I was going, just the compulsion to walk.
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