This was fun to read but FWIW it doesn’t really match my experience. Perhaps I am always fake-thinking, or perhaps I am always real-thinking, rather than flipping back and forth at different times? (I hope it’s the second one!)
I do have a thing where sometimes I say “I can’t think straight right now”, often in the early afternoon. But then I don’t even try, I just go take a break or do busywork or whatever.
Maybe my introspective experience is more like, umm, climbing a hill. I know whether or not I’m climbing a hill. Sometimes I try and fail. Sometimes I know I’m too tired and don’t even try. Sometimes I’m so tired that I can’t even find the hill—but then I know that I’m not climbing it! Sometimes I make local progress but my trail hits a dead end and I need to go back. Sometimes I hear other people talk about climbing hills, and wonder whether really they got as high as they seem to think they did. But I don’t feel like I can relate to an experience of not actually climbing a hill while believing that I am climbing a hill.
(End of analogy). So I likewise don’t feel like I need (or have ever needed?) pointers to what it feels like to be making real intellectual progress. If I’m getting less confused about something, or if I’m discovering new reasons to feel confused, then I’m doing it right, more or less.
Hmm, maybe it’s like … something I discovered in college is that I could taste how alcoholic things are. No matter what the alcohol was mixed into, no matter how sweet or flavorful the cocktail, I can just directly taste the alcohol concentration. It’s like my tongue or nose has a perfect chemical indicator strip for alcohol, mixed in with all the other receptors. Not only that, but I found that taste mildly unpleasant, enough to grab my attention, even if I would enjoy the drink anyway all things considered. Some (most? all?) of my friends in college lacked that sense. Unsurprisingly, those friends were much more prone to accidental overdrinking than I was.
…Maybe I have an unusually sharp and salient “sense of confusion” analogous to my “sense of alcohol concentration”?
If so, I’m a very lucky guy!
Again, I enjoyed reading this. Just wanted to share. :)
I didn’t read the OP that way (but no point in arguing about the author’s intentions).
For sure, I, like anyone, am perfectly capable of getting curious about, and then spending lots of time to figure out, something that’s not actually important to figure out in the first place. Note the quote that I chose to put at the top of my recent research agenda update post. :)
This was fun to read but FWIW it doesn’t really match my experience. Perhaps I am always fake-thinking, or perhaps I am always real-thinking, rather than flipping back and forth at different times? (I hope it’s the second one!)
I do have a thing where sometimes I say “I can’t think straight right now”, often in the early afternoon. But then I don’t even try, I just go take a break or do busywork or whatever.
Maybe my introspective experience is more like, umm, climbing a hill. I know whether or not I’m climbing a hill. Sometimes I try and fail. Sometimes I know I’m too tired and don’t even try. Sometimes I’m so tired that I can’t even find the hill—but then I know that I’m not climbing it! Sometimes I make local progress but my trail hits a dead end and I need to go back. Sometimes I hear other people talk about climbing hills, and wonder whether really they got as high as they seem to think they did. But I don’t feel like I can relate to an experience of not actually climbing a hill while believing that I am climbing a hill.
(End of analogy). So I likewise don’t feel like I need (or have ever needed?) pointers to what it feels like to be making real intellectual progress. If I’m getting less confused about something, or if I’m discovering new reasons to feel confused, then I’m doing it right, more or less.
Hmm, maybe it’s like … something I discovered in college is that I could taste how alcoholic things are. No matter what the alcohol was mixed into, no matter how sweet or flavorful the cocktail, I can just directly taste the alcohol concentration. It’s like my tongue or nose has a perfect chemical indicator strip for alcohol, mixed in with all the other receptors. Not only that, but I found that taste mildly unpleasant, enough to grab my attention, even if I would enjoy the drink anyway all things considered. Some (most? all?) of my friends in college lacked that sense. Unsurprisingly, those friends were much more prone to accidental overdrinking than I was.
…Maybe I have an unusually sharp and salient “sense of confusion” analogous to my “sense of alcohol concentration”?
If so, I’m a very lucky guy!
Again, I enjoyed reading this. Just wanted to share. :)
I think the concern is less “am I making intellectual progress on some project” and more “is the project real / valuable”
I didn’t read the OP that way (but no point in arguing about the author’s intentions).
For sure, I, like anyone, am perfectly capable of getting curious about, and then spending lots of time to figure out, something that’s not actually important to figure out in the first place. Note the quote that I chose to put at the top of my recent research agenda update post. :)