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I literally cannot think of anything more visually complicated than a chair in my head before the image becomes disproportionate and inconsistent. Is having a r

I literally cannot think of anything more visually complicated than a chair in my head before the image becomes disproportionate and inconsistent. Is having a robust, precise internal visual imagination a requirement for being a good engineer? I often think about the specific mental faculties that make certain technical tasks a breeze for some and near impossible for others.

qumpis 3y ago
Considering how many professional chess players can play chess blindfolded/in their head, I suspect there's a lot of intuition building/chunking that happens throughout the years before such facilities can emerge in one's mind.
- 6510 3y ago
  Nah man. You know how to set up the board. Its just a static file in your head but you know what it looks like, you know how the pieces move, you know the alphabet, you can count to 8. Now all you need is someone of equal skill to play against and write down the moves. The one to make an illegal move first loses.
- cbracketdash 3y ago
  Very interesting point. It does make sense that Tesla who primarily worked in the field of electricity & magnetism would develop a faster intuition of inventions related the forces.
tanelpoder 3y ago
When I come up with something new and complex (either something that qualifies as an invention or just trying to solve a complex data analysis problem using a single SQL statement), I tend to first have a big blur in my brain... And then it may feel promising... and then individual structural components of the final solution start to emerge non-visually (like where to apply recursion in SQL that generates data for the remaining layers)... it's more like that I feel that there are some solid parts (vs entropy?) in that blob... the whole thing doesn't fully make sense until the last important component has "manifested" itself. Nothing visual though and often I have to "roll back" to the blurry blob from half an hour ago and wait until something better manifests itself from there. Doesn't always work and sleep helps! :-)
- cbracketdash 3y ago
  > ... and sleep helps! I would have agreed with this statement every day of my life until yesterday because Nikola Tesla has pulled apart many of my presumptions. For example, sleep. Tesla slept 4 hours/night in his first year in college and would sleep 2-3 hours in adulthood. (wikipedia). There are some explanations of short amounts of sleep for sustained periods as demonstrated by those that practice polyphasic sleep [1]. Yet these polyphasic sleepers, obtain "bodily rest" because of hours of sitting at a desk. Yet even this seems to defy Tesla's life where he would walk 8-10 miles PER DAY (wkipedia). Despite very little brain rest or bodily rest, he was one of the brightest minds AND lived to age 86. So yeah, I really don't know. [1] https://polyphasic.net https://polyphasic.net
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Tesla was pretty healthy, as far as I can tell, despite being in abject poverty in his later decades. However, he did suffer several mental episodes in his life, and I think he probably over worked himself and experienced some emotional trauma, which could have been exacerbated by lack of sleep. He was also not overly shy regarding his talents, and despite likely being well above average intelligence and a very hard worker, he probably exaggerated many things. Tesla is forever one of the most interesting people to me. He was truly not a man of his time in many ways and ultimately a tragic figure.
cbracketdash 3y ago
Not at all! You can improve like any other faculty of the mind! Even Tesla described that initially the images he would see would be a big blur but after "practice" they became significantly sharper. He could then even visualize motion of objects.

qumpis 3y ago

Considering how many professional chess players can play chess blindfolded/in their head, I suspect there's a lot of intuition building/chunking that happens throughout the years before such facilities can emerge in one's mind.

6510 3y ago
Nah man. You know how to set up the board. Its just a static file in your head but you know what it looks like, you know how the pieces move, you know the alphabet, you can count to 8. Now all you need is someone of equal skill to play against and write down the moves. The one to make an illegal move first loses.
cbracketdash 3y ago
Very interesting point. It does make sense that Tesla who primarily worked in the field of electricity & magnetism would develop a faster intuition of inventions related the forces.

tanelpoder 3y ago

When I come up with something new and complex (either something that qualifies as an invention or just trying to solve a complex data analysis problem using a single SQL statement), I tend to first have a big blur in my brain... And then it may feel promising... and then individual structural components of the final solution start to emerge non-visually (like where to apply recursion in SQL that generates data for the remaining layers)... it's more like that I feel that there are some solid parts (vs entropy?) in that blob... the whole thing doesn't fully make sense until the last important component has "manifested" itself. Nothing visual though and often I have to "roll back" to the blurry blob from half an hour ago and wait until something better manifests itself from there. Doesn't always work and sleep helps! :-)

cbracketdash 3y ago
> ... and sleep helps! I would have agreed with this statement every day of my life until yesterday because Nikola Tesla has pulled apart many of my presumptions. For example, sleep. Tesla slept 4 hours/night in his first year in college and would sleep 2-3 hours in adulthood. (wikipedia). There are some explanations of short amounts of sleep for sustained periods as demonstrated by those that practice polyphasic sleep [1]. Yet these polyphasic sleepers, obtain "bodily rest" because of hours of sitting at a desk. Yet even this seems to defy Tesla's life where he would walk 8-10 miles PER DAY (wkipedia). Despite very little brain rest or bodily rest, he was one of the brightest minds AND lived to age 86. So yeah, I really don't know. [1] https://polyphasic.net https://polyphasic.net
- bmitc 3y ago
  Tesla was pretty healthy, as far as I can tell, despite being in abject poverty in his later decades. However, he did suffer several mental episodes in his life, and I think he probably over worked himself and experienced some emotional trauma, which could have been exacerbated by lack of sleep. He was also not overly shy regarding his talents, and despite likely being well above average intelligence and a very hard worker, he probably exaggerated many things. Tesla is forever one of the most interesting people to me. He was truly not a man of his time in many ways and ultimately a tragic figure.

cbracketdash 3y ago

Not at all! You can improve like any other faculty of the mind! Even Tesla described that initially the images he would see would be a big blur but after "practice" they became significantly sharper. He could then even visualize motion of objects.