[HN Gopher] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has died
___________________________________________________________________
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has died
Author : fagnerbrack
Score : 307 points
Date : 2021-10-21 04:22 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| kashyapc wrote:
| One of my favorite quotes from his book, _Flow_ :
|
| _" The ultimate test for the ability to control the quality of
| experience is what a person does in solitude, with no external
| demands to give structure to attention. It is relatively easy to
| become involved with a job, to enjoy the company of friends, to
| be entertained in a theater or at a concert. But what happens
| when we are left to our own devices? Alone, when the dark night
| of the soul descends, are we forced into frantic attempts to
| distract the mind from its coming? Or are we able to take on
| activities that are not only enjoyable, but make the self grow?"_
| ***
|
| Csikszentmihalyi's _Flow_ also introduced me to Seneca and Marcus
| Aurelius (although, I prefer Epictetus to Aurelius).
| akkartik wrote:
| I wonder if future generations will totally misunderstand "left
| to own devices." No, it doesn't mean with your phone, tablet
| and watch.
| kashyapc wrote:
| Yikes ... I didn't even consider the "devices == gadgets"
| angle when I was writing it (I'm old enough to have lived a
| decent portion of my life without any gadgets and gongs).
| I'll be charitable and hope that a sensible future reader
| will situate the book in its time and place.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| > Csikszentmihalyi's Flow also introduced me to Seneca and
| Marcus Aurelius (although, I prefer Epictetus to Aurelius).
|
| Flow led me down the rabbit hole to philosophical Daoism. It is
| astonishing how closely intertwined philosophy and psychology
| turn out to be.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Very much so. My early studies of Taoism were affected
| heavily by the notion that the philosophy was a response to
| an unknown cataclysm of some sort, I just wish I could track
| down the original source on that idea. Jung's investigation
| into Aion is also connected somehow to this but it is an area
| I need to research further.
| kashyapc wrote:
| Not at all astonishing. :-) Modern cognitive behavioral
| therapy (CBT) originates[1] from the 2000-year-old work of
| Epictetus. Cicero memorably called philosophy as "the
| medicine of the mind". Going back to Socrates and Epictetus,
| philosophy was "a way of life", and not tying clever knots in
| thin air and untying them.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_t
| her...
| layer8 wrote:
| > It is astonishing how closely intertwined philosophy and
| psychology turn out to be.
|
| It'd be surprising if they weren't, if you think about it. :)
| leobg wrote:
| Well. In such situations, I turn to HN. Now what does that say
| about me?
| agumonkey wrote:
| And it's staggering that most social structures are impeding
| that.
|
| We need to rethink social interactions to focus on beneficial
| self/group growth, and not only the material/economical side.
| rob74 wrote:
| The correct name is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (never mind the
| diacritics, but the "i" appended to the first name is definitely
| wrong).
|
| Explanation for language nerds: Mihaly is the Hungarian version
| of "Michael", Csikszentmihaly is a Hungarian village in Romania
| with a name derived from St. Michael
| (https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mih%C4%83ileni,_Harghita), and the
| "i" at the end denotes a toponymic surname
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymic_surname).
| fagnerbrack wrote:
| That was copy/paste from the tweet
| MadeThisToReply wrote:
| "Cheeks sent me high"
| friendly_chap wrote:
| Hungarian here: that is a remarkably close approximation.
| Almost perfect, except the vowel in "me" is longer than our
| short "i" which sounds just like the vowel in the word "in".
| madcaptenor wrote:
| Looks like there are a whole bunch of towns with similar names:
| Csikszentgyorgy, Csikszentkiraly, Csikszentmiklos, ... (from
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cs%C3%ADk_(disambiguation)) -
| Csik was a county of Hungary that's now in Romania, so a lot of
| towns in that area have Csik in their Hungarian names.
| dang wrote:
| Fixed in title now. Thanks!
| sebmellen wrote:
| That is a remarkable last name.
|
| Never knew of this man, but getting into the "flow state" more
| often has become one of my core objectives in life. Sad to hear
| of his passing.
| froh wrote:
| "Chick-sent-me-high" was given as a good approximation to
| pronounce his name in one of his books.
| kmarc wrote:
| cheek-sent-me-high would be even better.
|
| One of the lesser known Hungarians (even Hungarians don't
| really know of him), but definitely remarkable life and
| research.
| shaldjfb wrote:
| Is chick-sent-me-holly wrong?
| yosito wrote:
| Yes. In Hungarian, ly is pronounced like y, the l is
| silent.
| [deleted]
| vekerdyb wrote:
| Me-high Cheek-sent-me-high-y would be my approximation for
| the full name. The Twitter post and the HN title has an extra
| 'i' after his first name. Rest in peace, nyugodj bekeben.
| [deleted]
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| HN readers in Hungary are just waking up to this news, but I
| can confirm that's a pretty decent approximation.
| sturza wrote:
| I can confirm this. On the back of "Good work" - book with
| Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi and Damon they mention the Chick-
| sent-me-high pronunciation.
| [deleted]
| troppl wrote:
| Tangentially related, but has anyone here read his other book,
| "Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention". I loved
| "Flow" (his main book) so I wanted to read something else from
| him, but somehow it was just not the same. In the Flow book, I
| understood which concepts I should understand as a reader and the
| background of them, including individual stories, was very
| coherent. I can't really say the same about the other book. I
| would be interested what others think about this.
| relativeadv wrote:
| ten years ago I took a college freshman course that centered
| around "Creativity." I've never actually read all of Flow and
| so "Creativity" was my introduction to the Flow concept. I was
| an art student at the time so it was convenient to have source
| material that did the work of showing me how any of this was
| relevant to what I do. That said, it definitely seems like
| "Creativity" was a re-hash of the concepts originated within
| Flow. It has been a long time since I read it and should
| probably revisit.
|
| I often forget, but it was this book that helped me decide to
| become a programmer. I flip-flopped a lot between college
| majors and just generally what the hell it was i wanted to do
| for a living. The professor who ran that course asked me what
| job would easily create (and sustain) flow states for me. For
| me, it was programming that did the trick. Not even art, which
| i did for 12 hours a day at the time, worked quite as well.
| louis___ wrote:
| For those interested in the flow state, I became convinced that
| this is the kind of state achieved while practicing Zazen
| meditation :
|
| https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/meditation-instructio...
|
| At one point, the only activity of being sit is the one necessary
| to reach the flow state.
| romanhn wrote:
| Sad to hear. At one point I realized (due to his name) that three
| non-fiction books I read in a row all referenced his studies,
| despite spanning entirely different subjects. Clearly an
| influence on many authors and researchers.
| zaplin wrote:
| can you tell us the titles of the books you've read?
| romanhn wrote:
| I believe it was these three:
|
| Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow"
|
| Susan Cain, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That
| Can't Stop Talking"
|
| Daniel Pink, "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What
| Motivates Us"
|
| So, maybe not entirely unrelated, but I certainly wasn't
| looking for a specific theme. Just working down my non-
| fiction list.
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| Might be a strange question to ask, but do you "get"
| anything out of reading non-fiction? Like, is there a
| substantive benefit you gained from reading these books?
| neogodless wrote:
| As an adult human, my life experience contains too many
| variables to reach scientific certainty about the entire
| causal chain.
|
| However, my early 30s were still marked with a heavy
| insecurity, ennui, lack of direction, failure to focus
| and achieve in the workplace, and failed romantic
| endeavors.
|
| I began with work on boundaries and understanding self by
| Henry Cloud, ways to achieve like Find Your Strengths,
| and even business related work like Good to Great.
|
| Flow was an excellent part of this collection, as it
| helped me turn work into something more enjoyable and
| progressive. Drive was very neat, and I really enjoyed
| Your Brain at Work.
|
| I also have a personal interest in education, so I read a
| lot on that, including by Sir Ken Robinson. And I read
| Power of Habit.
|
| Overall I think the things I learned improved my habits
| at home and at work, grounded me, improved my confidence,
| and made me a better resource for others. (Of course I
| must not assume I always have the answer or am absolutely
| right just because I read things in a book.) In general
| when I have deep conversations, I seem to be able to
| follow along and better understand how people work and
| how relationships work.
|
| I'm very happy with my job, feeling very productive,
| significant and learning new skills (in my 40s). I've
| been married 6 years and have a very high satisfaction
| with our marriage. There's still a struggle with getting
| everything done I want, like gathering firewood for the
| winter, but largely I feel that I rise to meet my
| responsibilities.
|
| Now I can't say how much came from dedicating time and
| effort into learning, and how much comes naturally from
| experience and age. But I certainly don't regret any of
| that self-education today.
| romanhn wrote:
| It is an interesting question, and one I think about once
| in a while. My recall of specific facts from books I've
| read is pretty terrible (not sure if this true for
| others, or if it is related to my aphantasia in any way).
| That's true both for fiction and non-fiction I read. That
| said, I do feel that a certain amount of _knowledge_ does
| remain, somewhere below the surface. I can carry on a
| conversation on a variety of topics, concepts that I have
| encountered before are processed faster, my worldview
| shifts and expands. I have general awareness of Mihaly
| Csikszentmihalyi and his work :) Is the benefit
| substantive? Hard to say. But I enjoy the process and get
| to be a slightly more well-rounded person, so why not.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Mortimer Adler's classic _How to Read a Book_ addresses
| both the why and how. I 'd suggest ... reading it,
| synoptically, to answer your question.
|
| https://www.worldcat.org/title/how-to-read-a-
| book/oclc/11137...
|
| Simply: reading is communication over time. It enables
| earlier others to share their thoughts and insights.
| Often, as suggested in this thread, ideas arising in one
| domain have relevance in others --- they provide
| insights, clarity, metaphors, understanding, mechanisms,
| skills, ...
|
| Why do you read Hacker News?
| ramenator wrote:
| That is an odd question to ask, lol.
| pmdulaney wrote:
| I agree -- it is an odd question to ask. One might as
| well ask, "Do you derive any benefits from this life
| thing?"
| killtimeatwork wrote:
| It's a perfectly fine question. A lot of nonfiction books
| contain their authors' pet theories, along with a bunch
| of anecdotes and handwaving to make them seem justifiable
| or even scientific. Some of them quote "scientific"
| research from fields like psychology - but that research
| itself is hardly scientific (hence recent replication
| crisis) and is also used out of context in the book.
|
| As for the question if these books add value - they
| certainly provide entertainment for the reader, but they
| may also warp his view of the world (if the reader is not
| careful, they may become convinced that the book's thesis
| is true even if the evidence/ancedotes laid out are
| hardly conclusive).
| jhedwards wrote:
| This seems like a very bizarre characterization.
| Technically On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
| and Relativity by Einstein are non-fiction. I'm very
| happy to say I've had my mind warped by their pet
| theories.
| killtimeatwork wrote:
| They both present compelling evidence and can be thus
| classified as science. Darwin spent a couple decades
| accumulating evidence before he wrote the book.
|
| Also, majority of non-fiction textbook are about
| psychology, economy, sociology, history etc. which are
| vastly more intractable than biology and physics.
| kmarc wrote:
| For the casual HN reader, he was the one who recognized and
| scientifically described the creative state of "flow" [1]
|
| Why would it be of interest for the audience of hackernews? Well,
| programmers and related fields' mostly creative workers tend to
| experience the flow, and even though it is hard to explain (or
| describe, for that matter) most of us agree that it's great to be
| in.
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
| stavros wrote:
| I tend to describe flow as "when an hour passes in three
| minutes".
| obtusifolia wrote:
| I love it how it's ambiguous whether the three minutes or the
| hour is supposed to be the real time passed in your comment,
| but according to Csikszentmihalyi both can indicate a flow
| state.
|
| > One of the most common descriptions of optimal experience
| is that time no longer seems to pass the way it ordinarily
| does. The objective, external duration we measure with
| reference to outside events like night and day, or the
| orderly progression of clocks, is rendered irrelevant by the
| rhythms dictated by the activity. Often hours seem to pass by
| in minutes; in general, most people report that time seems to
| pass much faster. But occasionally the reverse occurs: Ballet
| dancers describe how a difficult turn that takes less than a
| second in real time stretches out for what seems like
| minutes: "Two things happen. One is that it seems to pass
| really fast in one sense. After it's passed, it seems to have
| passed really fast. I see that it's 1:00 in the morning, and
| I say: 'Aha, just a few minutes ago it was 8:00.' But then
| while I'm dancing... it seems like it's been much longer than
| maybe it really was." The safest generalization to make about
| this phenomenon is to say that during the flow experience the
| sense of time bears little relation to the passage of time as
| measured by the absolute convention of the clock.
| gHosts wrote:
| Or that which open plan offices most effectively destroy.
| kevinmgranger wrote:
| "...and you're happy with the time spent", to exclude time
| blindness, zoning out in a meeting, etc.
| AccountToUse wrote:
| Strategy video games (Civilization series, SimCity, Total
| War series, Tycoon games) are right on the knife edge of
| this. I love the process. I love playing the game.
| Especially total war. I love conquering my neighboring
| nations and living out historical fantasies. But the next
| day, I feel awful.
| stavros wrote:
| Ah yes, though those tend to be "three minutes pass in an
| hour" for me.
| laserlight wrote:
| He didn't just describe the flow state, but also identified the
| conditions to achieve it. One can modify their experience
| according to these conditions to enter a flow state. For
| example, when the problem you're working on is too hard, then
| first work on a simplified version; or make it harder if it's
| too easy! When feedback cycle is long, then first make it
| shorter, e.g., make tests run faster, etc.
|
| I highly recommend reading his book "Flow: The Psychology of
| Optimal Experience".
|
| Rest in peace sir.
| QuestingElf wrote:
| Summoning that successful kind of creative, productive, free
| play state of mind is really difficult in software coding job
| interviews. There's a lot of back and forth, warming up as well
| as looking up things and experimenting to reach that flow
| state. Once you're in it, you know you're in it. You've shipped
| robust apps thanks to it.
|
| Having to explain that almost instinctive process to a complete
| stranger who has control over your career and income can really
| hamper or destroy the ability to get into that groove. I've
| found it really useful to know about flow, what can get it
| going and when it's just not happening, and most interviews
| just aren't set up to encourage it. Csikszentmihalyi wrote a
| shorter book called "Finding Flow" which speaks of creating
| situations that bring out the best in others and us.
| fallat wrote:
| Tangential question: Could someone tell me how you're supposed to
| read "Csikszentmihalyi" ?
|
| To me it seems that names are supposed to be broken up into their
| syllables, but I could be very wrong:
|
| Csiks-zent-mihal-yi
|
| Essentially the same as:
|
| Sixzent-mehalyee
| vladoski wrote:
| It should be something like: tcheek-sent-me-hal-yee in english
| telesilla wrote:
| With which accents? I teach and always embarrassingly stumble
| when I need to announce him.
|
| As a musician his work has been immensely important.
| neogodless wrote:
| If you look through the few dozen comments here, there's
| several threads about this. In fact, it seems to be the primary
| topic of conversation.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28940355
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28944034
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28943790
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28941100
| [deleted]
| QuestingElf wrote:
| I remember a cassette set from 2 authors who referred to his
| works on creativity. They eventually met him and occasionally
| consulted.
|
| The audio said, "His last name is pronounced Chick-SENT-me-
| high-ee. We call him Mike!"
| [deleted]
| Koshkin wrote:
| (OT) One big problem of completely different languages sharing
| the same alphabet is the tendency to keep the spelling of names
| in the original language rather than convert it to reflect the
| way it may be read off in your own. For the life of me I can't
| even guess how to pronounce this post's title. (Or, when you have
| to call a guy whose last name - in _English_ - is Chrzaszcz, what
| do you do?)
| treszkai wrote:
| He and his name have Hungarian origins, and Hungarian words can
| be pronounced letter-by-letter, with emphasis on the first
| syllable. The main problems: what are the letters (some consist
| of multiple _characters_ ), and how are they pronounced.
|
| Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
|
| - M: /m/
|
| - i: /i/ _approximately_ as in big
|
| - h: /h/ as in "hi"
|
| - a: /a:/ as in "father"
|
| - ly: /j/ as in "yes"
|
| - Cs: /tS/ as in "cheek"
|
| - i: /i:/ as in "cheek"
|
| - k: /k/ as in "cheek"
|
| - sz: /s/ as in "scent" or "saint" (which means "szent" in
| Hungarian)
|
| - e: /e/ as in "scent"
|
| - n: /n/ as in "scent"
|
| - t: /t/ as in "scent"
|
| - mihaly: as his first name
|
| - i: /i/
|
| Overall: /'mihaI 'tSi:ksentmi,ha:ji/ [?] mihaay cheek-scent-
| mihaayi
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Mih%C3%A...
| thebrainkid wrote:
| The Mnemonic (which I heard from Merlin Mann's podcast) is to
| approximate the pronounciation of "Csikszentmihalyi" as "Chick
| sent me, hi"
| pronik wrote:
| I can wholeheartedly recommend languages which do not care
| about original spelling, either by having different alphabets
| (was it "Khriashch" you wanted to know? Easy-peasy in Cyrillic)
| or just imposing their own rules (e.g. Latvian: "Mihajs
| Ciksentmihaji"). Elsewhere, if you are e.g. learning German,
| you have to at least master German, English and French
| pronounciation with some bits of Latin grammar.
| Koshkin wrote:
| _Proper_ pronunciation is, of course is a completely separate
| topic, because Chrzaszcz, for instance, might end up sounding
| like "crotch" in English, even though in the original
| language it sounds different but uses phonemes that are
| difficult to approximate.
| dennis_moore wrote:
| There was a recent episode of CBC Ideas discussing him and the
| concept of flow in general: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/flow-
| making-the-impossible-po...
| techsolomon wrote:
| I just checked Flow out from the library yesterday. :(
|
| Mentions on HN: https://hacker-recommended-
| books.vercel.app/category/0/all-t...
| dsizzle wrote:
| Noticed there are two other stories on the HN front page now
| featuring pop psychology: one on Kahneman's work and another by
| Dunning. I wonder if this news is part of the reason why?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I had a brief email exchange with Csikszentmihalyi a few years
| ago over a concept he'd mentioned in an Edge essay. Discussion
| turned to other notable Hungarians (and Austrians), including the
| Polanyis (Karl and Michael). He'd known their neice, Eva Zeisel
| Polanyi, a ceramicist, and he dropped this small-world gem:
|
| _Karl Popper used to go hunting in the summers through the
| Carpatian Mountains with my grandfather; occasionally they were
| joined by August von Hayek, who later also got a Nobel in
| Economics . . . I learned a lot about my grandfather from him . .
| . And indirectly a lot from Popper, whose Das Logik Der Vorschung
| (translated into English with the strange title of The Logic of
| Scientific Discovery) was for years my Bible._
|
| I'd first heard of his Flow concept on a public radio interview I
| caught whilst on a road-trip through a remote rural high plateau,
| in the 1990s. Highly memorable and mildly surreal listening to
| his voice as the countryside flowed past.
|
| Vale, Mihaly.
| bprasanna wrote:
| May his soul rest in peace _/|\\_
| dmos62 wrote:
| May he flow in peace _/|\\_
| yosito wrote:
| Csikszentmihalyi was Hungarian. I live in Hungary, and often work
| from a coffee shop called Flow with a Csikszentmihalyi quote on
| the wall, "Flow is being completely involved in an activity for
| its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action,
| movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one,
| like playing jazz."
|
| RIP
| underyx wrote:
| I love Flow, it's my favorite cafe to work from in Budapest.
| Can't wait to visit home so I can hang out there again.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation! In pre-COVID times, I would
| visit Budapest a few times per year.
|
| My coffee stops are usually Addicted2Caffeine on Bartok Bela,
| and Tamp & Pull, depending on which hotel I'm staying at.
|
| There's also Barako Kavehaz, which serves an interesting
| Filipino coffee varietal called Liberica Barako.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I'm a regular visitor to Budapest (both parents were born
| there) and have added all of these to my list of things to
| include on my next trip.. whenever that may be (borders).
| pjbk wrote:
| Oh, what a loss. I think I first heard of his work in Lyall
| Watson's book _Neophilia_ in the late 80s. I was so mesmerized by
| the concept of flow that was always looking for anything new
| Csikszentmihalyi had published, or any psychology or neuroscience
| studies about flow and related ideas on human cognition. He will
| certainly be missed.
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(page generated 2021-10-21 23:01 UTC)