Ask HN: Resources on how to improve abstract thinking skills? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Resources on how to improve abstract thinking skills?

#81

Post by allhailkatt » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 7:00 PM UTC

mezod wrote: post #41

JamesBarney wrote: post #21

Why do you want to improve your abstract thinking skills? I would be surprised if there is anyway to improve these skills, g(aka IQ) is notoriously hard to improve. But I imagine you want better abstract thinking skills for a specific reason, and it'll probably be much more effective to skip directly to the reason you want to improve these skills.

To be honest, there's no definite reason other than personally growing and being able to understand more concepts. I don't know if IQ can be "improved", but I do know that people who have battled through difficult problems develop ways of thinking that make it easier for further difficult concepts to be understood. Abstract thinking is very powerful and you can train it.

IQ can be higher and lower during a lifetime, surprisingly, as long as you maintain brain plasticity.

This works even better for people who think of intelligence as something improvable, like physical skill. You might not start with great ability, but with practice you'll get better.

Re: Ask HN: Resources on how to improve abstract thinking skills?

#82

Post by ganzuul » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 7:33 PM UTC

aryamaan wrote: post #75

ganzuul wrote: post #19

Suspension of judgment was the very first step I discovered, I clearly remember, from when I was quite little. Perhaps I started out especially daft, but I kept making discoveries ever since. Something which served me well a long time was a mental game of following logic to extreme conclusions and then asking myself "what if this is true, and my premise was wrong?" One of the most powerful methods I use now when appr…

Could you please elaborate and give an example of these techniques.

I can try. Suspension of judgment: say a provocative crime has been committed and a news outlet reports on a suspect. - You should be emotionally prepared that new information could arise which explains even if not forgiving the actions of the suspect. e.g. A parent kidnapping their own child, and then it turns out that the other parent was abusing the child.

For taking stuff to the Xtreme, taxes is an approachable subject. Say if you have 100% tax rate, you might be looking at communism, but you might also look at a pirate ship where the captain divvies up the booty. Another example would be the mental exercise of trying to figure out that maximum possible current through a conductor. Even superconductors suffer from magnetic pinching, but if you have ever seen a plasma globe at a science fair you might discover the magnetohydrodynamic phenomena of Alfven waves. - The taxes example is more direct than these about current, but I'd argue the physics discoveries are more interesting.

I very often see dogmatic beliefs in science. The mistake of 'taking the map for the terrain' is common. People will for example pick a favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics and then with complete conviction deny that effects predicted by other interpretations are worth looking for, because their interpretation excludes it. - Why try to travel around the globe? You will fall off the edge! Figuring out that someone is making this mistake can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Counter-example takes the most creativity, and can be constructed to be too impenetrable. Recently I argued that if the cost of healthcare in the US would best represent the optimum quality, then countries with just as good service and universal healthcare too would be bankrupt.

For paradoxes, you can apparently find a very long list on Wikipedia. I don't remember ever having gone out specifically looking for paradoxes. I have encountered them during sessions of deep pondering as apparent contradictions where I expected none, so to me they are nameless.

Hope this helps! I might turn these two posts into an article... :o)

Re: Ask HN: Resources on how to improve abstract thinking skills?

#83

Post by drakonka » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 7:18 AM UTC

ganzuul wrote: post #19

Suspension of judgment was the very first step I discovered, I clearly remember, from when I was quite little. Perhaps I started out especially daft, but I kept making discoveries ever since. Something which served me well a long time was a mental game of following logic to extreme conclusions and then asking myself "what if this is true, and my premise was wrong?" One of the most powerful methods I use now when appr…

Thank you, this is very relevant to me right now. It is easy to become overly invested in your idea of what a narrative should be.

Re: Ask HN: Resources on how to improve abstract thinking skills?

#84

Post by mezod » Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

ganzuul wrote: post #82

aryamaan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please elaborate and give an example of these techniques.

I can try. Suspension of judgment: say a provocative crime has been committed and a news outlet reports on a suspect. - You should be emotionally prepared that new information could arise which explains even if not forgiving the actions of the suspect. e.g. A parent kidnapping their own child, and then it turns out that the other parent was abusing the child. For taking stuff to the Xtreme, taxes is an approachable s…

please make sure I hear about such article at mezood @ gmail :)

Re: Ask HN: Resources on how to improve abstract thinking skills?

#85

Post by Myrmornis » Fri, Nov 24, 2017, 6:20 PM UTC

tremens wrote: post #74

Myrmornis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was posed on a site dedicated to discussion of programming and related subjects. It therefore should be assumed that the author was requesting advice for developing abstract reasoning skills such as are employed in mathematics or software engineering. Your suggestions require explanation as to why they would help this sort of abstract reasoning. As a matter of fact, many people who are proficient in the…

This comment is strikingly myopic and follows a strain of insular opinion that seems to have become more popular in recent years in tech circles ("Most of them are also not necessary"). Music and the arts have long been documented as wonderful ways to enhance abstract thinking. And you might become a well rounded person as an added bonus!

You might want to look up the definition of necessary!

> Music and the arts have long been documented as wonderful ways to enhance abstract thinking.

That is entirely consistent with them not being necessary to develop abstract thinking :)

I was just being logical, and trying to provide some subtle humor by giving the dry reply of a caricatured technophile rationalist to OP's evident enthusiasm for the arts.