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During your lifetime you'll be faced with a certain number of problems. Each problem requires a certain number of thoughts to solve, and the faster you think,

by palish 19y ago

During your lifetime you'll be faced with a certain number of problems. Each problem requires a certain number of thoughts to solve, and the faster you think, the faster you solve those problems. Carefully choosing which problems you apply your thoughts to will also allow you live longer because if you sidestep a problem you won't spend any time thinking about it. This leaves you with more time to do with as you choose, which has the effect of making you live longer. Nifty, huh? :) Thinking faster also has the side effect of giving you a greater influence upon humanity. If you assume that any given thought has a certain chance of influencing others, then the more thoughts you have, the more influential you can become. But wait, isn't our rate of thought fixed? I don't think so. Every single part of us - our muscles, our reading speed, our tools - can all be improved. Why should our rate of thinking be the exception? I was driving home from work today and stumbled upon this theory. I want to enrich at least one other person's day with it, as it enriched mine. So, to all of you, I encourage you to spend time thinking of ways to think faster, think more, and think smarter. It will make you live longer and add value to anything you apply yourself to. Shawn

gyro_robo 19y ago
Uhh, simply thinking faster doesn't mean you'll think the appropriate thoughts to come to your desired solution. Without emotion there's no real compelling reason to choose one arbitrary course of action over another, and it takes time for the chemical bath to build up and wear off. Most of our decision-making is unconscious anyway. See the Precognitive Carousel: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1422464 http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1422464 http://reddit.com/info/1cqi4/comments/c1ctfp http://reddit.com/info/1cqi4/comments/c1ctfp The subjects already had electrodes implanted in their brains, and the experimenter "gave them a slideshow to watch, with a button to push to advance to the next slide. But the button was fake. What really moved the slide was a motor potential building in the brain before they were aware of the desire to move it. It unnerved the patients, because it seemed to them as if the projector was always advancing just before they'd consciously decided to advance it." Your unconscious decides to do something about half a second to a second before letting your conscious know about it. > then the more thoughts you have, the more influential you can become. The old quantity over quality argument, eh? > think smarter. Well, I guess that solves everything! Thanks!
- palish 19y ago
  There's still a higher probability that you WILL come to your desired solution if you have more thoughts. That's why spending more time on something yields results. The trick is to focus on one thing at a time. Grr, damn man. Your reply really gets under my skin for some reason. I wasn't saying the above because I thought I was -better- or anything like that. I was hoping to motivate one person into doing something they ordinarily wouldn't have. Thanks for the downvote though, I appreciate it. I rewarded it with an upvote.
  - gyro_robo 19y ago
    > There's still a higher probability that you WILL come to your desired solution if you have more thoughts. Sounds like an unsupported assertion to me. And not how the brain seems to work, at least that we can tell -- e.g. computer chess vs. human chess. You seem to be describing a brute force approach. > The trick is to focus on one thing at a time. That sounds awfully contradictory. > Your reply really gets under my skin for some reason. Tripe like "think smarter" gets under mine. This ain't no pointy-hair seminar!
    - palish 19y ago
      Focusing on one thing at a time falls under "think smarter". Do you not get anything done because you're scatterbrained or something? Yeesh, I've elicited an almost religious response from you.
      - gyro_robo 19y ago
        There's a difference between critiquing ideas and ad hominem attacks. "Think smarter" is so vague and nebulous it can refer to anything you want it to. This is the first time I've heard it refer to "focus", as that usually falls under the category of... "focus". And certainly it's the first time I've read advice to "think more thoughts" claim to mean "focus on one thing", and "think faster" claim to mean "spend more time on something".

by palish 19y ago

gyro_robo 19y ago

Uhh, simply thinking faster doesn't mean you'll think the appropriate thoughts to come to your desired solution. Without emotion there's no real compelling reason to choose one arbitrary course of action over another, and it takes time for the chemical bath to build up and wear off. Most of our decision-making is unconscious anyway. See the Precognitive Carousel: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1422464 http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1422464 http://reddit.com/info/1cqi4/comments/c1ctfp http://reddit.com/info/1cqi4/comments/c1ctfp The subjects already had electrodes implanted in their brains, and the experimenter "gave them a slideshow to watch, with a button to push to advance to the next slide. But the button was fake. What really moved the slide was a motor potential building in the brain before they were aware of the desire to move it. It unnerved the patients, because it seemed to them as if the projector was always advancing just before they'd consciously decided to advance it." Your unconscious decides to do something about half a second to a second before letting your conscious know about it. > then the more thoughts you have, the more influential you can become. The old quantity over quality argument, eh? > think smarter. Well, I guess that solves everything! Thanks!

palish 19y ago
There's still a higher probability that you WILL come to your desired solution if you have more thoughts. That's why spending more time on something yields results. The trick is to focus on one thing at a time. Grr, damn man. Your reply really gets under my skin for some reason. I wasn't saying the above because I thought I was -better- or anything like that. I was hoping to motivate one person into doing something they ordinarily wouldn't have. Thanks for the downvote though, I appreciate it. I rewarded it with an upvote.
- gyro_robo 19y ago
  > There's still a higher probability that you WILL come to your desired solution if you have more thoughts. Sounds like an unsupported assertion to me. And not how the brain seems to work, at least that we can tell -- e.g. computer chess vs. human chess. You seem to be describing a brute force approach. > The trick is to focus on one thing at a time. That sounds awfully contradictory. > Your reply really gets under my skin for some reason. Tripe like "think smarter" gets under mine. This ain't no pointy-hair seminar!
  - palish 19y ago
    Focusing on one thing at a time falls under "think smarter". Do you not get anything done because you're scatterbrained or something? Yeesh, I've elicited an almost religious response from you.
    - gyro_robo 19y ago
      There's a difference between critiquing ideas and ad hominem attacks. "Think smarter" is so vague and nebulous it can refer to anything you want it to. This is the first time I've heard it refer to "focus", as that usually falls under the category of... "focus". And certainly it's the first time I've read advice to "think more thoughts" claim to mean "focus on one thing", and "think faster" claim to mean "spend more time on something".