I have enjoyed what parts I read of Godel, Escher, Bach but I have yet to finish it. As far as being a mathematical thinker… I haven’t really identified how my thought process works other than being confused much of the time. I do enjoy math but I don’t seem to have much of a talent for it. Haven’t really found anything I do have a talent for. I am trying to become more of a mathematical thinker and to construct a good foundation to build a system of knowledge on but I have this strong natural inclination to trust anyone and that tends to undermine some of my efforts. My current plan to counter that is to simply find people that I can trust and fill my head up with good stuff so I can use it to block out the bad stuff.
As far as my childhood goes I created a lot of problems for myself by trying to force myself into a mold which conflicted strongly with the way my brain was setup. For most of my youth and teenage years I was this weird wanna-be artist anti-rationality, anti-science stereotype that was stuck in a sophistic nightmare for years. Luckily I can look back on that cringe in horror. I do realize now that there was no way that I could of ever been successful in that field even if I hadn’t made mistake after mistake because my creative writing, for example, reads like a VCR manual. I have noticed now that I have stopped struggling against my general nature and adopted more technical and rational based approaches that I do so much better.
I still suck at this whole mathematical thinking thing but I believe that has more to do with me working to undo years of stupid shit and lacking the necessary experience than a lack of talent maybe. My entire life is just one big game of catchup right now and its extraordinarily stressful. Not sure if this is the story you wanted to hear, feel free to send me an email or something I guess, if you wanted different information.
I have enjoyed what parts I read of Godel, Escher, Bach but I have yet to finish it. As far as being a mathematical thinker… I haven’t really identified how my thought process works other than being confused much of the time. I do enjoy math but I don’t seem to have much of a talent for it. Haven’t really found anything I do have a talent for. I am trying to become more of a mathematical thinker and to construct a good foundation to build a system of knowledge on but I have this strong natural inclination to trust anyone and that tends to undermine some of my efforts. My current plan to counter that is to simply find people that I can trust and fill my head up with good stuff so I can use it to block out the bad stuff.
As far as my childhood goes I created a lot of problems for myself by trying to force myself into a mold which conflicted strongly with the way my brain was setup. For most of my youth and teenage years I was this weird wanna-be artist anti-rationality, anti-science stereotype that was stuck in a sophistic nightmare for years. Luckily I can look back on that cringe in horror. I do realize now that there was no way that I could of ever been successful in that field even if I hadn’t made mistake after mistake because my creative writing, for example, reads like a VCR manual. I have noticed now that I have stopped struggling against my general nature and adopted more technical and rational based approaches that I do so much better.
I still suck at this whole mathematical thinking thing but I believe that has more to do with me working to undo years of stupid shit and lacking the necessary experience than a lack of talent maybe. My entire life is just one big game of catchup right now and its extraordinarily stressful. Not sure if this is the story you wanted to hear, feel free to send me an email or something I guess, if you wanted different information.