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I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

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Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#151

Post by fjsolwmv »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #36
pnsr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ça va." translates "It's going well", not "it is". Similarly, "Ça va?" translates to "Is it going well?". It's as meaningless an exchange as most greetings (the only meaning being to actually acknowledge and greet the person), but it does mean something literally, and the exchange is technically more complete than when answering "How are you?" with "Hi". That being said, you'll see someone answering "Salut, ça va?"…

Well apparently my French is a bit rusty. "Ça va" translates literally to "it goes". So the above exchange would literally translate to: Hello, it goes? It goes, and you? It goes. I guess it's no more banal than answering "how's it going" with "it's going", which isn't that uncommon for people to say. Answering "how's it going" with "not bad, yourself?" isn't really any better either.

Is read that as: "keeping on?" "Keeping on, and you?"

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#152

Post by mrkgnao »

Alexander Grothendieck, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, on cognitive "facility" and giftedness:

   Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome,
   to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people
   in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was.
   I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas,
   juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt
   clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox
   faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured)
   things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to
   the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright
   student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight
   of hand, the most forbidding subjects.

   In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have
   gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or
   thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the
   mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve done all things,
   often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which
   they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained
   prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of
   a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to
   rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was
   mine: The capacity to be alone.
(from Récoltes et Semailles)

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#153

Post by nickthemagicman »

akvadrako wrote: post #144
kwhitefoot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of us slow thinkers are of the same calibre as Darwin but never achieve anything because life doesn't afford them the leisure to doggedly pursue their thoughts. In my case I think I only share Darwin's disadvantages but perhaps there are others out there who could have the same impact as he did if only the circumstances were right.

Life does give you the chance to doggedly pursue your thoughts; you just have to devote yourself to it. I personally live this way, freelancing about 3 months a year and spending the rest of it on whatever interests me.

How to get freelance clients?

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#154

Post by junke »

BuckRogers wrote: post #34
toomanybeersies wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a standard greeting. Personally, I find it weird if people actually tell me how they're going when I ask them. It's even more peculiar/banal in French, where the conversation goes: Salut, ça va? Ça va, et toi? Ça va. "Ça va" translates to "it is". So in essence, it's a completely meaningless exchange.

I worked/lived in France for some time earlier in my career, you can just use ca va. No real need for salut or the et toi. I had this conversation many mornings in the office. Ca is closer to "it goes" than "it is" in this context. Va being the same as in Spanish. Ca va? Ca va ca va. Ca va? Ca va.

Later, the same day, the exchanges goes:

- Re.

- Re.

Some people hate "Re".

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#155

Post by gnode »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #83
Swizec wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi". But, really, the script you're meant to follow goes like this: Hey how are you? Hey, good, how about you? Pretty good Then, if the conversation is meant to continue, which it most often is not, one of you says "So ... what's up in your life?" or "So ... how's that thing you're working on going?" or some other mo…

> You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi". It's not that they don't notice, it's that "How are you" can be read as either a question or a greeting in modern English. It's even more pronounced with other phrases. If you're introduced to three people and they respond "Hi", "Hello", "What's up?", it's understood that they're all pretty much saying the sam…

I've heard that this is more common with American English, and that Americans are sometimes a bit taken aback when the response is "I'm well, how about you?" or something taking the question more literally like that.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#156

Post by _0w8t »

diminoten wrote: post #79
princeb wrote: post #57

like to put it out to you to not think of 'fast thinkers' as people who can think on the spot, but actually people who have spent a lot of time and effort thinking ahead of time, so that when a question or situation arises, the remaining effort is simply pattern-matching and recall. the even better ones prepare a logical narrative for the purpose of knowledge diffusion and education even if the opportunity to use the…

Chess is a good example of this. Seeing a chess master play appears like incredible analysis and advanced thinking (and it certainly is in some cases), but a lot of the time it's pattern recognition and recall ability. In other words, as you say, they've literally been thinking about the scenario they're in now before, and already have an answer prepared.

This may explain why skills in chess don't translate beyond the chess. A good chess player has simply no patterns to recall in situations outside the chess.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#157

Post by trentmb »

usgroup wrote: post #106
techstrategist wrote: post #63

We slow thinkers are among good company, including Charles Darwin: "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought…

I’ve wondered recently if speed and intelligence have anything to do with each other at all. It does in IQ tests but Darwin by his account would have been average at best. Further, the argument goes that there exists a g factor, and performance in a test that is sufficiently complex will be predictive of performance at anything else sufficiently complex ... Yet if we allow time to vary this seems to be so obviously f…

My undergrad was in mathematics. I routinely failed midterms, but would ace the final exams.

I generally felt that, by the end of the term, I understood the material and simply had more time during the final exam than the midterms.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#158

Post by justsomedude43 »

n4r9 wrote: post #43
derefr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As well, the South African “howzit”, which from my observation isn’t even actually a question but just invites the other person to say what they wanted to say.

In the south of England we have "alright?". The only valid answer is "alright?.

Yeah I find that annoying. It means nothing and is just a waste of everyone's time, much like:

"How are you?" "Not bad, yourself?" "Good, so I have this problem..."

"Hey, how was your weekend?" "Not bad actually, you?" "Yeah not bad"

I mean, you clearly have no interest in other person's life, so why have stupid, dull, pointless greetings like that?

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#159

Post by arcticfox »

akvadrako wrote: post #144
kwhitefoot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of us slow thinkers are of the same calibre as Darwin but never achieve anything because life doesn't afford them the leisure to doggedly pursue their thoughts. In my case I think I only share Darwin's disadvantages but perhaps there are others out there who could have the same impact as he did if only the circumstances were right.

Life does give you the chance to doggedly pursue your thoughts; you just have to devote yourself to it. I personally live this way, freelancing about 3 months a year and spending the rest of it on whatever interests me.

I think you're underselling your talent if you think the capability to live off 3 months / year of work is generally available to people. Most people just aren't good enough at anything to work that little and get by, no matter how hard they try.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#160

Post by jpster »

diminoten wrote: post #75
njarboe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And use your System 2 process to improve the responses your System 1 produces.

I think this is the part people forget too often about the "two system" theory written about in "Thinking Fast and Slow". You can improve your System 1 responses, and there's a decent amount of the book that talks about all the ways System 2 post-hoc justifies the System 1 response, so it's not like System 2 is always going to be better. Having a good System 1 response is a much clearer way to arrive at a solid decis…

How do you train System 1?
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