Either generally or in specific instances, I'm fascinated by the operation of mind.
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Either generally or in specific instances, I'm fascinated by the operation of mind.
Maybe you could kick this thread off and by telling us how your mind works?
For instance, I was watching someone philosophize on youtube last night and became aware of how my receptivity to the speaker was shifting and modulating. Partly it was rational assessment of the content, partly intuitive probing for the speaker's true position and intent, but also a more subtle base activity underlying those, in which my ego was using the video as a support for its existence, as a boundary against which to press itself in order to take shape.
Other things I'd read and heard recently had me on the lookout for ego-making, and here I caught it in action.
It brings to mind a mindfullness practice I think I picked up from Pema Chodron; when encountering forms--people, places, things, ideas--that elicit a strong response, remind yourself, "This is an ornament of the mind, a support of the mind." It's kind of a reality check for, well, reality =D
Almost solely through in-housed three dimensional bllitting and visualisations.
As I have said before, I walk around and see things through an automatic HUD.
So--
- Analytical
- Visual
I'm mostly visual, and can think of abstract things visually.
Did you know that in north american culture, most people fit into three categories of thinking? Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic (touch and feel). Which is their primary "thinking sense" is often reflected in how they talk. "I see your point" vs. "I hear what you're saying" vs. "I feel good about this." If you match their speaking patterns to use visual words for visual people, etc. then you will find you get along a lot better with them, like you're on the same wavelength.
Another useful tip to go with this: Ask someone a mentally-stimulating question and check for which way their eyes go when they think about the answer. Make this a habit in your life, and you will find you become a much more likable person. How to read the eye movements, you ask? Bam!
Heh, that's cool. I have good eyes/telescopes, so sometimes I can tell people's reactions from changes in pupil size.Quote:
Originally Posted by Replicon
I am an extremely visual person.
For a while, I thought I didn't have a preference, since I process all types of information roughly as well. I've realized, though, that when I'm given non-visual information, I convert it to visual, process, and convert back.
I'll give you an example of my thought process when presented with this problem:
sqrt(X)+2=X
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3291/sqrtx2xju5.png
I used dots here because I knew the answer would be of integer value - normally I use a slightly more abstract system with just generic 'distance' and 'area' involved. I've used ceiling tiles to help me through problems before, and it's already much easier to deal with fractional tiles than it is to use fractional dots. But anyways, here's a quick verbal explanation:
Visually, sqrt(X) is the number of dots which make up one side of a square array containing X dots. The equation states that by adding two dots to this lower row, you create a square containing x dots. Logically, the only way this will work is if those two dots represent the upper row of a 2x2 square. X must then equal 4. Keep in mind that in myhead, the sqrt(X) is not a fixed length (hence the arrows under it). It can slide from short to long, any distance, and it takes the 'X' square with it. In my head, the sqrt(X) line of dots shortens, collapsing the square, until the two floating dots are snug inside of the square and make a perfect array.
I know that not everyone thinks this way, and to some people this process seems long or complicated, but the reasoning took place in literally 2-3 seconds. This was a question on a timed math quiz for entry into a competition, and I didn't actually examine my thought process until I used this problem as an example of the quiz's contents when speaking to my parents, and neither of them solved it as quickly as I had.
A while ago I came across another problem which I also solved much more easily than my peers, and I recorded my method for that, too. Here it is:
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6...inbebestq0.png
As you can see, I made a graphical representation of the population, sorted by "generation" (meaning first children, second children, etc.). Each generation only exists in the families which had girls last generation, and each generation always has a 50-50 ratio of boys and girls. When you slide the graph's layers over to the center, it's obvious that the final population tends towards a 50-50 ratio overall.
My way of thinking is very helpful in some areas, and hindering in others. For example, with my system of arrays and visual intuition, I was able to use algebraic techniques before I was taught algebra in school. Things like calculus, which are pretty visual at their base, are really easy for me to pick up and even the nuances make sense. The downside is that things like trigonometric identities, which I've never really taken the time to visually process, escape me. I can't just memorize the equation without understanding it unless I put serious effort into it.
You should stop and examine how you think sometimes, you'll be surprised at what you think is natural, but is strange to others.
Auditory for me, visual too.
I'm having trouble fitting my ideation to the visual/audio/kinesthetic paradigm. I'm leaning toward kinesthetic, but I've tended to term my own thinking as holographic and synthetic (as in employing synthesis). I have a good instinct for the shapes paradigms take, so I can get a rough sketch of the "big picture" of any given paradigm with very few details. I remember things best by fixing them at the intersection of multiple paradigms, and find solutions to problems by...kind of figuring out what fits in the hole in one or more paradigms referenced in the problem. Also, I often find novel or difficult solutions by referencing seemingly unrelated paradigms to get a feel for how the situation at hand should flow.
My interpretation of the dancer is clockwise most of the time in my perception as a viewer:
However I able to switch that direction on demand.
For those who have not seen this before go here
I tend to be rightsided in my use of the brain/
Noooooooooo not the dancer! Trust me, we've all seen it.
Visual for me. Alot of times I feel like I am the only human being with consciousness at times. Especially when im out on the town and just watch how people react to situations and move about. I think Im the only one that's actually thinking. lol.
I don't know how to describe how my mind works. People talk about visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners, but I am equally good in each of those methods. I have a constant stream of thoughts in my head along with a movie that the thoughts are describing. If i'm doing a math problem it goes like this:
434
654
-----
1088
I end up with that image in my head while my thoughts are going "Okay 4+4=8; don't need to carry, 3+5=8; don't need to carry and 4+6=10; i need to carry the one, so the answer is 1088"
It sounds like you are more visual because you get a picture in your head.
Im gonna take the lazy way of explaining how i think. According to the dancer test posted by Mystery Hunter i am Right Brained.
RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
I never bought the right/left thing, as it relates to jobs. People like to say software people are left-brained, but left-brain does not mean "logical"... it's more... busy-work. Even math/computers/sciences becomes right-brained, especially when you get into more abstract reasoning.
More direct, intuitive, even idiosyncratic assessments of your mental processes are welcome, also.
When adding larger numbers in my head, I always add left-to-right, though in school they taught us only right-to-left. Anyone else do it that direction?
Ya i do that to....weird most ppl were i live add left to right. atleast i think they do..Quote:
Originally Posted by skysaw
In response to your question... it doesn't, it sits around all day eating my mayonnaise and cheese. Get a job, mind!
Seriously though, I'll have to come back to this once I give myself a self-diagnosis.
I'd say I'm mostly visual. I tend to organize my thoughts spatially relative to each other. Basically everything I know is in a big web that I can see in my head. When I study for exams, I tend to unfocus my eyes, and move my hands around so I can really get the picture in my head.
Yeah, I always start with the large sums and work toward the more particular, adding the smaller number(s) to the larger. Seems faster and more intuitive, and eliminates carrying.Quote:
Originally Posted by skysaw
I add right to left
How?Quote:
eliminates carrying.
because if you have
456+654
going left to right
4+6=10
5+5=10
6+4=10
so then you have to carry to get the result of 1110
Hmm, I guess you're right. It doesn't so much eliminate carrying as make it more intuitive (for me). When you go left to right, you've got something whole or complete the whole way along, and you just adjust or fine tune it as you work toward smaller values, whereas right to left you've got nothing until you hit the final answer. More of my holographic thinking at work, I guess :P
Very slowly!
The way I imagine how my mind works is as a puzzle with the edges solved (that being base knowledge such as: things fall down, not up) and every time I learn something new it fills in towards the centre slightly. Not only that but also the new piece interconnects with other pieces (eg. things fall down due to gravity). Being able to link ideas is brilliant, it makes learning so much easier and more fun to remember. It also means that when I don't know an answer to a question I can occasionally use previous knowledge to work out the answer without necessarily remembering the "correct" method.
I always have some song stuck in my head, normally just the same part plays over and over in my head. I also try to find patterns in EVERYTHING that I see.
Why not? She has a great rack even for a CGI chick...Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Sounds the same as what I described as my "holographic" thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldney
Guys please don't tell me I'm the only person here who thinks like a computer program visually :embarassed:
Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I find it easy to merge melodies of certain songs, so that they easily transition from one into another.
Also occasionally I have spontaneous memories that surface. I really don't know how there related to what I'm thinking about. It's probably just how my neurons are wired.
i see it both ways, the direction switches about every fifteen seconds for me....its odd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mysteryhunter
I tend to think visually. I sometimes used to think using an HUD: if I was keeping track of something, I would visualise a crosshair and make it follow the "target" as far as possible. If I couldn't see something in the distance very well, I tried to "zoom in" on it using a pop-up window (I'm sure I got a bit farfetched with that though.) :D
I now tend to think less with the HUD though.
Another interesting thing is what I visualise when I hear sounds or music; I can visualise "pulses" and shapes that change with how the sound sounds. I love how the mind works. :)
Since there is infinite space within my mind I think... well infinitely well.
My mind revolves around geometry (which is infinite) and dimension (also infinite) I tend to see things perspectively from a existential basis, like what is the over all function of things within the absence of time and linear measurement. To me all things exist simultaneously quite the quandary to figure out or explain.
I also think very philosophically in terms of axioms and axiomatic concepts or irreducible primary's.
Try this for starters.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
My mind is too lazy to work. Get a job, bum!
On a more serious note, my mind relies on observance. Everywhere I go I am constantly analysing my location, the people around me, the things around me, the forests, flowers, and clouds around me, and so on. I like to think behind things, mentally explore the phases to how they got here, how they became the way they were. For instance, I'll be looking at a building, and I'll think of all the people who are working in that building at that moment, and then I'll think of the people who came up with the idea for the building, which started off in some other building as nothing more than simple blueprints surrounded by architects and engineers. Or I'll look at a tree, and imagine from the trees perspective how life had changed over the last two hundred years it's been steadily growing.
So myself, I am always watching and learning. Still exploring.
I'm immortal. Does that tell you anything?
Auditory, analytical, symbolical/associative, theoretical
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seismosaur
Woah, are you two able to actually see those things? Like, actual vision?Quote:
Originally Posted by •Neko•
I mean, when I imagine something, I don't actually see anything, I just sort of 'know how it would look like'.
Do you actually see it, infront of you? If so, what happens when you don't focus on it, or if you just look away for some time? And how do you do it? D:
I think in Schemas. Quickly recognizing paterns, analysing data, namimg them, giving them defenition, associating and organizing them with other Schemas and store them by type.
Add a handful of hormones, instinct or other biological triggers and that how my Mind works
i see it as infinite space slowly creating more and redefining everything around me constantly with every new experience.visual......don't know what the other words mean...:P
"How the mind works" by: Steven Pinker. Pretty good read.
The picture starts out clockwise, but when I start looking at something, like a picture, it switches. Maybe you switch from looking at it like a picture to looking at it like a mind test. IDK, just a thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by ray
I can't really seem them, it's just visualisation. And I can't really zoom in; I just theorise what it might look like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maeni
Useless, I know. :)
The realism can be pretty intense but usually it's almost like a mirage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maeni
And also: What Neko said.
Oh well, but it's cool still.
Maybe useless, but still fun to do ;P
Yea, as long as you don't forget it's there or don't get distracted by it.
My mind is insanely visual. I analyse things a lot, unless I am peed off. I think very deeply which annoys my gullible elders and I have fantasies so vivid I couls write novels out of them. I also have synaesthesia and I see numbers and letters as colours as well as sounds as colours, shapes and textures. I didn't realise I had it up until a few years ago because it's more automatic than breathing. But that doesn't influence my life at all, not even my taste in music. It's just kind of THERE, and doesn't do much. It certainly does not give me super memory and math skills as in some others. I was also diagnosed with aspergers syndrome but as soon as I entered my teens it kind of died; I don't see any of the symptoms any more.
Patterns, visual, audio digital.
Usually constant motion till lately.
It doesn't. Not really. :)
Seriously, my brain as an astounding difficulty dealing with all things logical and obvious - therefore I generally suck at sciences. :cry:
On the other hand, I have quite a good memory for sound and can visualize things pretty good.
I also have this thing of turning sound into image. Sometimes I hear a noise and this object of a particular shape, color and texture pops into my head. Intricate melodies will produce landscapes or action scenes out of nowhere (all very cinematic), and I will often find myself describing sounds with visual adjectivs. I could actually draw the voice of my favourite singer! :D
ClouD - What does audio digital mean?
I'm subject to frequent episodes of waking lucidity, very similar to realizing lucidity in a dream, where all concepts and ideation fall away and the world is just there, naked and present in vivid detail. It happens pretty often on the train, but I thought to write this post because last night while watching a movie (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) and drinking some beers, total awareness of the moment just flooded me, including awareness of my intoxication and the information coming at me and the whole civilization supporting the experience and the underlying causal patterns, and I just kept doing what I was doing, watching the movie, with this awareness surging and subsiding in waves for half an hour or so.
But yeah, that's a pretty significant element of how my mind works since '01 or so. I spent most of '01 in a kind of self-imposed retreat, meditating a lot in a cave-like studio apartment, eating very little and sleeping on no fixed schedule, working something like three days every two weeks (tho not that regular). Summer of '01 was just a string of mystical experiences bleeding together, until I was steeped in a kind of extreme awareness of unity--that All is One--that paralyzed me, eliminating all preference and motivation.
I suppressed that awareness for a while, and with the help of my friends got into a more stable situation where I was able to take up a more casual meditation and gradually digest the experience. Ever since then, interdependence manifests quite forcefully on a regular basis, though without the original paralyzing effect.
My mind is adaptive. I use algorithms that are assigned to whatever schema I'm in. If the algorithm breaks, I use an algorithm from the schema next-closest.
Analytical and inquisitive. i must find out how everything works, and it is easiest to do so in a scientific way. If I havenbo idea how to start figuring out something particular, I wioll ask someone who does know until they either tell me or throw me off a bridge with my feet encased in concrete. I analyze things that don;lt actualy have a basis in reality in their most popular definitions, such as love, and try to make qualitative things quantifiable.
It's like a commentary that follows me around. Usually it sounds like Matthew Perry.
Whenever I trip up there's canned laughter and whenever I see someone famous there's an impressed gasp.
Purpose-seeking/feeling
Target: Tree
Purpose: Life sustenance.
Conclusion: Benign. Beautiful.
Target: Gas Station.
Purpose: Perpetuation of petrol-powered transportation.
Conclusion: Unsustainable. Makes air look grey and smell terrible.
Objective: TERMINATE
Target: Music (particular song I'm listening to)
Purpose: Entertainment. Therapeutic. Other.
Conclusion: Beautiful.
Objective: Add to favorites (har har)
Numbers also have colors for me. I was taking a course on psychology at one point, and the instructor had mentioned that some people can associate colors or sounds to certain things they see. I was a little surprised to see the bewildered expressions on the faces of the other students, since I was always under the assumption that it was much more common.
1= black
2= midnight blue
3= orange
4= yellow
5= black
6= saturated blue
7= rust orange
8= bright red
9= lime green
10= black
11= grey
etc etc.
I'll bet there are plenty more people here that can understand the number/color scheme from personal experience.
Yeah, that too. I use screwdrivers a lot! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by JET73L