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Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

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Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#31

Post by TheLilHipster »

bootload wrote: post #4
Namrog84 wrote: post #2

I have become addicted to having long thinking session in the shower. I probably shower too much. I often go in there. Make sure all lights are off. Usually sit or lay in bathtub with just shower on. Close eyes and relax and think(and daydream). It's sorta like a combination massage / isolation chamber effect for me. Spending time doing this daily keeps me centered, focused, clear minded, and lastly reduces any tempo…

When you learn things, you do so in a focused mode using working memory. Working memory can be thought of as a re-wipeable white/black board. The information,skill,idea is called a CHUNK and is encoded into a weak neural loop . You strengthen loose understanding through practice and repetition. A chunk has no context. Context is how a chunk fits into the big picture of what you already know. At a neural level, contex…

Fuck this is relatable. I'm quite a solitary person, I'm constantly in my head contextualizing and overhauling past opinions and bias.

I thought this was mainly computers that taught me to think this way, didn't realise there was documented philosophy behind it.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#32

Post by ntlk »

You should read Margaret Boden's The Creative Mind, which analyses all the ingredients necessary for the human mind to generate creative ideas. Like with everything, it's a skill you can learn and practice, once you know how the creative process works in your brain.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#33

Post by hal9000xp »

I'm solving olympiad programming problems almost everyday since October 2015 (mainly on CodeForces, also occasionally on HackerRank, Project Euler, TopCoder, Acm Timus, Uva etc). In total, I spend 15-20 hours per week on solving these problems.

Solving these problems is really hard and energy consuming process.

So every week, for more than a year, I'm experiencing getting stuck and being really frustrated, having insights on morning shower etc.

I read this article and I don't find it practically useful except may be it's a nice reading about dopamine or other stuff like that.

I've noticed that to have an insight in morning shower you have to think really hard (and probably being frustrated of getting stuck) a day before. You have to be involved in the problem. Only then, your brain start thinking about it in the background. If you are not involved in the problem, you won't have insight in morning shower. I even suspect that being frustrated day before could be one of key factors why your brain prioritize task of solving a problem in the background.

Unfortunately, I don't see that this article mention that.

I think in general your brain could have two modes of solving problem - deterministic thinking, random-walk thinking.

When you are actively solving problem, your brain works in deterministic mode. When you have insight on morning shower, your brain works in random-walk mode.

So probably, to get unstuck, you have to switch from deterministic mode to random-walk mode. In random-walk mode, you can randomly jump from one branch (dead-end branch) in decision tree to another branch which could be correct one.

Solving olympiad problems is NP-complete (or NP-hard, I don't know). It means that there is no way to solve them deterministically in reasonable amount of time. Probably, our brains evolved in such a way that it uses heuristics with random elements to tackle NP-complete problems in real life.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#34

Post by argonaut »

dyim wrote: post #17
ourmandave wrote: post #16

Does anyone else forget if they washed their hair of not while having an epiphany? Also, I feel weird telling anyone it came to me while I was in the shower. Like I'm putting the image of me in the shower in their head.

I also forget. Thankfully hair-washing is an idempotent operation for guys :) .

If you use shampoo, it's not idempotent. Over-shampooing hair dries out your scalp. A nontrivial number of guys with dandruff could benefit from shampooing less often.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#35

Post by xxdarrenxx »

While through many ways mind and body (physicality) are viewed as 2 entities they are one. Relaxing your body relaxes your mind. To take it further, physical exercise also makes you think better. It creates all kind off cocktails. Things like staying motivated with an idea, having energy, and not set back by feelings of failure. I also went through depression, and when I got to a better state off mind after therapy I was faster, sharper, more focused and more perceptive. It all needs to balance well together. Like a computer your as good as the weakest link.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#36

Post by xxdarrenxx »

While through many ways mind and body (physicality) are viewed as 2 entities they are one. Relaxing your body relaxes your mind. To take it further, physical exercise also makes you think better. It creates all kind off cocktails. Things like staying motivated with an idea, having energy, and not set back by feelings of failure. I also went through depression, and when I got to a better state off mind after therapy I was faster, sharper, more focused and more perceptive. It all needs to balance well together. Like a computer your as good as the weakest link.

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#37

Post by johnchristopher »

Namrog84 wrote: post #2

I have become addicted to having long thinking session in the shower. I probably shower too much. I often go in there. Make sure all lights are off. Usually sit or lay in bathtub with just shower on. Close eyes and relax and think(and daydream). It's sorta like a combination massage / isolation chamber effect for me. Spending time doing this daily keeps me centered, focused, clear minded, and lastly reduces any tempo…

It seems that doing that everyday isn't that good for the skin. I read a good article about that the other day but it's in french. http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/cleansing/myths/ho... first google results

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#38

Post by bootload »

hueving wrote: post #28
bootload wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you learn things, you do so in a focused mode using working memory. Working memory can be thought of as a re-wipeable white/black board. The information,skill,idea is called a CHUNK and is encoded into a weak neural loop . You strengthen loose understanding through practice and repetition. A chunk has no context. Context is how a chunk fits into the big picture of what you already know. At a neural level, contex…

Is there any science behind Chunks, or is it just a seemingly useful way to model learning?

The science underpinning the idea of learning, memory, recall and is based/described in neuroscience at at cellular level. So you can read papers. The coursework is really at a more abstracted level describing the processes as a model based on cited research. This is a high level course to improve learning, not STEM as such. Still very useful.

Chunking is described in more detail at Week2 https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/home/we... and books:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1101982853/ref=as_li_qf_sp...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544456238/ref=as_li_qf_sp...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743277465/ref=as_li_qf_sp...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674729013/ref=as_li_qf_sp...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1579220541/ref=as_li_qf_sp...

Re: Why Your Best Thinking Is in the Shower (2014)

#39

Post by jstimpfle »

loeg wrote: post #30
brianwawok wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google tells me the average bath uses 35-50 gallons of water, while the average shower uses 2 gallons per minute. Which puts the breakeven point at say 15-25 minutes. Although if you live in the midwest like I do, we have infinite water. Use more water? it goes back to lake Michigan and recycled. The gas to heat the water is the only "waste", but you could offset with a solar panel.

Creating potable drinking water from natural sources requires a little energy. You will probably notice it in your water bill if you start showering twice as long.

I'd expect that showering twice as long would not mean twice the energy required to make that water potable again.
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