11–20 of 55 posts
I get “intrusive” thoughts about ideas/anything as a stream of information passively. Not intrusive in the sense that it’s bad stuff (it’s all positive/good thinking) but I literally can’t “switch it off” and it hits me no matter what activity I’m doing. Makes relaxing hard
Sometimes it’s an overwhelming amount of thoughts, so I always keep a journal or phone handy especially at night
No idea how to stop it, medication seems to be the only fix
The several comments suggesting mathematics and logic from scratch are spot on. This can be a bit overwhelming and dispiriting though. An alternative (or really a supplement) to an elementary proofs text is Raymond Smullyan's books of logic puzzles. Smullyan strikes the right balance between fun and substance.
The second idea is to try taking notes. Grab the latest copy of your favorite magazine (mine is Foreign Affairs) and write about the articles as you read them. What did the article say? How does it relate to the prior articles? Common topic? Contrary opinions? How does it relate to other things you've read in the past?
Asking these questions as you read can help to foster an internal dialogue and help you remember what you read and give direction on what to read next.
It's how I advise students who are reading academic papers for the first time and get overwhelmed by diving into the deep end of some subfield.
One of the best I've read on how to think about thinking.
Solving Math problems and competitive programming problems also enhace thinking.
Teaching is an underrated way, too. When you teach a hard concept, you really need to think a lot about how to get the idea across, how to make it accessible to different kinds of pupils.
I think your question, in and of itself, is a language trap. It's too abstract, and abstractions often fail to motivate. I fell into the same language trap in college. I thought that some wizard teaching philosophy behind the curtain would teach me how to think. But you won't find the secret to thought in the symbols of the analytic philosophers, nor in the cogitations of the continentals.
Roland Barthes once said "Je ne pense qu'aimant," which translates roughly as "I cannot think except by loving." And he didn't mean that love itself was thought, but just that it was only fascination with a subject that drove him to think about it.
I think you should get out of your head, connect to the world, begin to care about some part of it, and let that lead you toward some subject-specific form of thought:
More on same here: https://open.substack.com/pub/vonnik/p/a-few-ideas-that-made...
I have the opposite problem. I get “intrusive” thoughts about ideas/anything as a stream of information passively. Not intrusive in the sense that it’s bad stuff (it’s all positive/good thinking) but I literally can’t “switch it off” and it hits me no matter what activity I’m doing. Makes relaxing hard Sometimes it’s an overwhelming amount of thoughts, so I always keep a journal or phone handy especially at night No…
The harder and more valuable part was putting those discussions into focused, clear, essays. I am a much better writer and thinker because of it.
The best way to learn how to think is to think. The way in which the quality of your thinking is best judged is in relation to other people. So just try a take your thoughts and try and put them in other people’s minds.