Clothing is Hard (A Brief Adventure into my Inefficient Brain)
This is an active solicitation for suggestions on how to train it differently.
Apparently, this morning I put on my underwear wrong.
Upon noticing that they were on incorrectly, I took them off by turning them inside out on the Z axis (top of head to bottom of feet), and then rotating them 180degreees along the Y axis (belly button to back, travelling through the spine).
I noted the degrees of off-ness on the two axes, intending to remember them for the next time this happens. Yes, this happens often enough that I’ll probably use the information again. Sometimes, even clothing is hard.
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It was only then that I realized that the easier way to understand what happened would be to say that they were 180degrees off on the X axis (L shoulder to R shoulder, by travelling across the back).
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Ultimately, how this seems to play out is that I get ahead of myself in some rather strange ways. I tend to think of things in motion before I fully understand them in their static forms. In the example above, it would have meant that I was trying to store larger chunks of more complex data, when a simpler notation would have done just as well. I also find that it can distract me from recognizing the context around whatever I’m observing.
I’m only just beginning to be able to identify when that’s happening.
Obviously, I want to address this. I just don’t know how to go about figuring out what needs to be done. From how to gather more information, to what to do with it.
Ideas?
I think you’re much too abstracted in how you’re thinking about this. Visualize the desired end result, then orient them so what you’re seeing matches the visualization.
Also, only on LW would I give advice about how to put on underwear.
Some people are much better at this than others. Perhaps k_ebel is not very good at it.
Some people are much better at figuring out how to do this than others. Perhaps k_ebel is not very good at it.
Then I propose to establish Underwearing Institutes, in all major cities. The people would go there in the morning, and combine their skills at putting on underwear, for maximum efficiency, and minimal error.
Imagining the orientations as a series of rotations along individual, orthonormal basis axes, you may run into the problem of gimbal lock. Try visualising the desired final result as an orientation represented by a quaternion.
The insight that linearly interpolating spherical coordinates does not necessarily result in smooth motion was one of these key experiences that made me trust my intuition in new areas much less.
Map legs to holes. Wrong legs-to-holes? 180 about Z. Inside out? Flip along Z, 180 about Y. Repeat until satisfied. Profit.
I’m rephrasing
As “I think of solutions before thinking of desirable outcomes or the current situation”. It sounds like a small, silly example of premature solution-generating, keyed deep into System 1. Fascinating. Maybe a solution is to train “what outcome do I want?” to be primed by any moment of confusion. Since the principle scales to more considerable problems, having it as a knee-jerk reaction could be worthwhile.
I’m not sure this is bad. In my research (and in everyday life), often the best solution is to try to do something, anything, just perturb the system in some way to see what happens, because I find you often need a vector to start optimizing and correcting. Often I find what a desirable outcome is by taking the action of putting things in motion or thinking of them in motion.
(This is a very strange discussion to be having.)
I’m not sure this is generally readily observable. Inside-out-ness and back-to-front-ness are much more so.
True. Legs-to-holes is what I use to skip steps. Only two holes, can only be approached from one direction. What particular acrobatic is needed to get the first leg in right? Once you’ve made a mistake, of course, back-to-front is what will tip you off.
(It really is. The above is something I only just fully realized I did.)
As a possible point of clarification:
The underwear itself really just happened to be the first time I recognized an example of aspects of my thinking that I’d been having trouble with. Specifically, that I tend to go about tackling problems in an exceedingly round-about way.
I posted it to this group because I found myself able to express the actual orientations and order of operations that my thoughts went through. It was a relatively isolated example, in that it didn’t reference interactions with other people or processes. As such, it seemed ideal for exploring with the specific intent of generating alternative approaches that might generalize to other processes.
It appears that I might have missed a couple of factors in my choice of example. I hadn’t considered the likelihood that such a common activity might encourage responses/solutions outside of the (I see now less-than-clearly) specified areas of focus. I also somewhat habitually underestimate the pull to judge examples deemed silly or unimportant.
FWIW, I have found quite a few pieces of useful information in the responses I’ve gotten, and you all have my appreciation and gratitude for coming with me on this little journey. :)
Most underwear has a label that should be on your back facing in. Thus, there are 4 possibilities: (label in) front, back, facing in, facing out. Hope this helps.
Re: two rotations as one.
Compressing information like that is in general a very complex task, indeed it has been proposed as a definition of intelligence. It should not be surprising that it requires a bit of effort, and is not automatic.