My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am • Hacker News Board

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#71

Post by utopcell » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #56

Klathmon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a discussion with my friends many years ago that your comment reminded me of. I don't "visualize" things I think about automatically. I'd need to concentrate on trying to visualize pizza to see it and even then it's a vague visualization with no real defining features. When casually thinking about pizza I don't visualize anything. Some of my friends couldn't not visualize what they were thinking about. If they…

There have been a couple of articles about aphantsia on HN. I'm having trouble finding them. Here's two https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10148792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894

*aphantasia

(from phantasia, the greek word for fantasy, literally meaning "lack of imagination")

Very interesting posts, thank you for sharing.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#72

Post by dmfdmf » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:17 PM UTC

thomyorkie wrote: post #70

dmfdmf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept "argument" presupposes you have freewill so its circle, self-contradictory non-sense to "argue" that it is an illusion. Edit: for clarity

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Say that you believe X and I believe Y. If I present an argument for Y that amounts to presenting evidence for your consideration that Y is true and X is false. The implicit assumption behind arguing with anyone (even your self!) is that your mind is free to choose to believe X or Y, THAT is freewill.

If freewill is an "illusion" then "argument" is a hollow concept as well. If we don't have a choice in what to believe then what is the point of arguing?

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#73

Post by Pica_soO » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:19 PM UTC

sweetjesus wrote: post #68

This is going to be difficult to accept probably, but fwiw here's the gist of what modern psychiatry has to say: the brain is not divided into conscious thought and unconscious thought; rather, all the brain's work takes place unconsciously, on all topics, all the time. What we then call consciousness is a product of the fully occupied and engaged unconscious mind. So in terms of the headline, your unconscious is not…

The term unconscious is i think used for a non-reproduce able and deduceable though process. You can retrace the steps rational, process orientated thinking took you to a result. Even if provided by the unconsciousness, the illusion of control remains. Subconsciousness as stated by the author, is the type of processes, where the brain did not bother to invent a backstory for its product.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#74

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:19 PM UTC

sweetjesus wrote: post #68

This is going to be difficult to accept probably, but fwiw here's the gist of what modern psychiatry has to say: the brain is not divided into conscious thought and unconscious thought; rather, all the brain's work takes place unconsciously, on all topics, all the time. What we then call consciousness is a product of the fully occupied and engaged unconscious mind. So in terms of the headline, your unconscious is not…

[deleted]

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#75

Post by inopinatus » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

sweetjesus wrote: post #68

This is going to be difficult to accept probably, but fwiw here's the gist of what modern psychiatry has to say: the brain is not divided into conscious thought and unconscious thought; rather, all the brain's work takes place unconsciously, on all topics, all the time. What we then call consciousness is a product of the fully occupied and engaged unconscious mind. So in terms of the headline, your unconscious is not…

I felt immediately that my experience was different to the OP, since I do not perceive my "unconscious developer" as a different person but merely another perspective on myself. Thanks for suggesting how this arises systematically.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#76

Post by phee » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:39 PM UTC

gfwilliams wrote: post #42

I get this too - thought it was just me/my family. I never seem to actually 'dream' the answer, or know what it is ahead of time. It just seems obvious when I look at the code again later, and I totally rely on it now. As others have said, actively thinking about the problem makes it less likely I'll solve it. Usually I just keep looking through my open issues, maybe writing a few lines, until I get that feeling I kn…

I definitely experience it a lot with math. I think the way we learn and "write" math is somewhat different from how our brain does it. So you need to give it a bit of time to translate everything to its language and back to the formalism we use.

Sometimes I feel like a problem is way easier in unconscious space, like I'm sure solution is there, I can almost see it but it needs time to encode it in the much slower conscious form.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#77

Post by wyager » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

sweetjesus wrote: post #68

This is going to be difficult to accept probably, but fwiw here's the gist of what modern psychiatry has to say: the brain is not divided into conscious thought and unconscious thought; rather, all the brain's work takes place unconsciously, on all topics, all the time. What we then call consciousness is a product of the fully occupied and engaged unconscious mind. So in terms of the headline, your unconscious is not…

Forgive me if I put as much faith in this answer as anything else said by psychologists or psychiatrists over the last 100 years (I.e. almost completely irreproducible and constantly overturned claims). I'll believe it once psychology is reduced to computational neurophysiology.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#78

Post by wyager » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

charlieflowers wrote: post #45

lazydon wrote: post #31

If you look carefully enough its not only the developer in you but anything meaningful or living in your life is done by someone other than what you usually refer to as me. Normally, such phenomenon is mostly associated with ideas we get on waking up or during shower or exercise. My observation is that whenever you do anything that's unscripted or unplanned - it's "someone else". Say - answering well an interview wit…

Think about what happens when you decide where to eat for lunch. There's an internal process whereby you propose various images (hamburger? pizza? Mexican?). Something else "inside you" says, "Nah, that doesn't sound good. Hmm, maybe. Yeah, that!" Who are you asking? Who is answering?

What you're describing sounds like an outcome generator (which outputs the results of various possible actions) being fed into a utility function evaluator. As I understand, there is reasonable evidence for this being a functional model of part of human decision-making.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#79

Post by wyager » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

sdfjkl wrote: post #66

I used this a lot while consulting (as System Architect). I usually instantly knew if something was a good or bad idea of going about things (or a technology to use), but would then often have to go off and do some intense research to provide the evidence of my totally gut-based opinion. Often I found such evidence sooner rather than later, but sometimes I did not. Since it still felt right, I'd present whatever I di…

Interesting. I can't identify with this at all; I usually have a very conscious idea of why I do or don't like an approach. I don't have strong gut feeling about possible approaches one way or the other.

Re: My Subconscious Is a Better Developer Than I Am

#80

Post by sweetjesus » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #77

sweetjesus wrote: post #68

This is going to be difficult to accept probably, but fwiw here's the gist of what modern psychiatry has to say: the brain is not divided into conscious thought and unconscious thought; rather, all the brain's work takes place unconsciously, on all topics, all the time. What we then call consciousness is a product of the fully occupied and engaged unconscious mind. So in terms of the headline, your unconscious is not…

Forgive me if I put as much faith in this answer as anything else said by psychologists or psychiatrists over the last 100 years (I.e. almost completely irreproducible and constantly overturned claims). I'll believe it once psychology is reduced to computational neurophysiology.

100 years ago, the proponents of the "plum pudding model" and "ether" were still alive and kicking. Good science takes time, and must account for all the evidence. Psychology won't be reduced till we achieve "computational neuroemotional physiology". Don't let an enduring discomfort with human emotions give you a scientific blind spot to human nature, otherwise your AI will have trouble finding its way out of the uncanny valley. ;)