Discuss: Original Seeing Practices

[[deleted]]

What can we practice to help us think original thoughts? How can we see beyond our cached responses?

This is a place to share life patterns, techniques, or exercises that help you (either occasionally or regularly) think new thoughts.

[nhamann]

I’m not sure how useful this advice is for us mere mortals, but this transcript of the 1970 Turing Award lecture has some insight into how Alan Turing worked:

Turing had a strong predeliction for working things out from first principles, usually in the first instance without consulting any previous work on the subject, and no doubt it was this habit which gave his work that characteristically original flavor. I was reminded of a remark which Beethoven is reputed to have made when he was asked if he had heard a certain work of Mozart which was attracting much attention. He replied that he had not, and added “neither shall I do so, lest I forfeit some of my own originality.”

Turing carried this to extreme lengths and I must confess that at first I found it rather irritating. He would set me a piece of work and when I had completed it he would not deign to look at my solution but would embark on the problem himself; only after having a preliminary trial on his own was he prepared to read my work. I soon came to see the advantage of his approach. In the first place he was really not as quick at grasping other people’s ideas as he was at formulating his own, but what is more important, he would frequently come up with some original approach which had escaped me and might well have eluded him, had he read my account immediately.

The speaker goes on to note that:

His knowledge ranged widely over the whole field of pure and applied mathematics and seemed, as it were, not merely something he had learned from books, but to form an integral part of the man himself. One could scarcely imagine that he would ever “forget” any of it.

I wonder how much Turing’s method of working things out from first principles contributed to the widespread level 3 understanding that the speaker suggests Turing possessed.

[[deleted]]

Henry Poincare seemed to work this way as well (source):

An interesting aspect of Poincaré′s work is that he tended to develop his results from first principles. For many mathematicians there is a building process with more and more being built on top of the previous work. This was not the way that Poincaré worked and not only his research, but also his lectures and books, were all developed carefully from basics. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the description by Toulouse in [30] of how Poincaré went about writing a paper. Poincaré:-

… does not make an overall plan when he writes a paper. He will normally start without knowing where it will end. … Starting is usually easy. Then the work seems to lead him on without him making a willful effort. At that stage it is difficult to distract him. When he searches, he often writes a formula automatically to awaken some association of ideas. If beginning is painful, Poincaré does not persist but abandons the work.

Poincare also expected the unconscious to keep working on the problem after “he” had stopped:

Toulouse then goes on to describe how Poincaré expected the crucial ideas to come to him when he stopped concentrating on the problem:-

Poincaré proceeds by sudden blows, taking up and abandoning a subject. During intervals he assumes … that his unconscious continues the work of reflection.

[[deleted]]

This practice makes some sense from a schema perspective of understanding. From The Psychology of Learning Mathematics:

To understand something means to assimilate it into an appropriate schema. [...] Since new experience which fits into an existing schema is so much better remembered, a schema has a highly selective effect on our experience. That which does not fit into it is largely not learnt at all, and what is learnt temporarily is soon forgotten.

This hints that schemata that one forms from reading another’s approach to a problem may inhibit original thought, since assimilation to existing schemata probably occurs mostly automatically (when possible).

[Relsqui]

In the first place he was really not as quick at grasping other people’s ideas as he was at formulating his own

For some reason this line makes me feel better about the fact that I’m the other way around. I think it’s that the wording implies that these are just two skills, and one can be better at one or the other; it doesn’t make a value judgment.

[Manfred]

My advice is to go anywhere, look at the nearby patterns, and then think about them. What do people here walk by every day that is absolutely fascinating?

Perhaps an example: the other day I was waiting for a pizza, and so I naturally noticed that the gas inside some of the neon lights seemed to be forming a pattern, as if there were bubbles. In some places the bubbles moved or vibrated quickly, and in other places the bubbles were stationary.

Quick inspection showed that the bubbles were stationary near the ends and near joins in the glass, which was interesting. Placing my hand near the glass kept the bubbles stationary. Noise levels or tapping didn’t seem to change the behavior of the bubbles. Since this is a thread about originality, I guess I won’t share my guesses.

I’m reminded of the “Surely You Must be Joking, Mr. Feynman” story that starts with him working out the physics of a spinning dinner tray for fun. The story ends with him winning a Nobel prize.

[jasonmcdowell]

Something I’ve done for fun when laying in bed before falling asleep, is to imagine either the bed or myself is in a different orientation.

So if my head is at one end of the bed, I might imagine that my head is actually at the other end. I have my eyes closed and try to imagine how everything in the room would look if I opened my eyes. I think about the furniture, the door, light sources...

I win the game if I get a little “surprise” feeling when I open my eyes and the room is as it should be, instead of what I imagined it to be. Do you think this is useful for anything?

[humpolec]

“Why are you upside down, soldier?”

[jasonmcdowell]

Another thing I like to do is actually switch orientations (which direction I sleep in the bed) about every year or less. It feels good to get a change of perspective.

I’m also theoretically fond of rearranging furniture, though I change apartments more often than rearranging furniture in an existing apartment.

[[deleted]]

Try listening to a very familiar song and see if you can hear it as if for the first time.

I’ve noticed that when listening to a familiar song I’ve found myself mostly paying attention to a lower-resolution cached version (which plays back in sync with the music). I’ve had some success making it feel new by playing with attention regulation.

[NancyLebovitz]

I have a sneaking suspicion the same habit applies to a lot more of life than familiar songs.

[khafra]

There’s a tip-of-my-tongue reference about memory formation, in general, only happening during fairly novel experiences. I can’t recall specifics, though—reading a study on the internet must not have been novel enough...

[[deleted]]

A cognitive science or psychology model of how creativity works might be useful. This Wikipedia article is a start. Has anyone studied models of creativity and used them to increase their own creative output?