8 replies to this topic

[cognition]

Hello. I want to ask how you can optimize your thinking speed so that it will be the best for you. Is it better to think extremely fast but be more illogical or think more slowly but be more logical? I would think that for philosophy slower thinking speeds would help because philosophy requires more of logic but for things such as taking time-based tests in school, it is better to think faster than you would while you are doing philosophy because tests have time limits. So, does anyone has any advice on what thinking speeds are optimal for different situations in life? Also, is it better to have a relatively experimental, fast but having more errors type of thinking or is it better to have a relatively theoretical,slow but having less errors type of thinking as your baseline type of thinking?

[karusel]

Why not both? When you practice, one time you should push for speed, next time for accuracy. When you go fast, you realize you can go fast and that you make errors, when you go slow you are slow but you realize you are able to be 100% correct. You progress by bringing speed and accuracy together. Otherwise, you must always make a compromise, when you're doing a test, you can't really afford to go through some small part of the test 10 times, checking it from differend angles, on the other hand you can't just write something like a maniac and not look back. In real life though, it's usually better to make no mistakes, when dealing with IRS for instance. There's a site where you can practice / test yourself regarding exactly what you're asking here. CLICK!

[thereverend5]

This is basically an argument between heuristic and algorithm thinking, which are still compared today.

[william7]

Slow, meditative, thinking is always best in my opinion. Our fast paced, high stress society, demands quick, reflexive thinking instead of slow, reflective thinking. To stimulate creative thinking, Einstein use to advise his physics students to find jobs in places like lighthouses where they could get away from it all and spend long uninterrupted hours thinking.

[cognition]

This is basically an argument between heuristic and algorithm thinking, which are still compared today.

Care to elaborate?

Slow, meditative, thinking is always best in my opinion. Our fast paced, high stress society, demands quick, reflexive thinking instead of slow, reflective thinking. To stimulate creative thinking, Einstein use to advise his physics students to find jobs in places like lighthouses where they could get away from it all and spend long uninterrupted hours thinking.

I know that slow, meditative thinking is good sometimes but fast thinking is sometimes needed too. Example: Your house is burning and you need fast thinking to think of possible ways to escape. If at that time you use slow, meditative thinking you may die. What I need is to find the correct balance of fast and slow thinking, perhaps I can use optimization theory to work that out.

Why not both? When you practice, one time you should push for speed, next time for accuracy. When you go fast, you realize you can go fast and that you make errors, when you go slow you are slow but you realize you are able to be 100% correct. You progress by bringing speed and accuracy together. Otherwise, you must always make a compromise, when you're doing a test, you can't really afford to go through some small part of the test 10 times, checking it from differend angles, on the other hand you can't just write something like a maniac and not look back. In real life though, it's usually better to make no mistakes, when dealing with IRS for instance. There's a site where you can practice / test yourself regarding exactly what you're asking here.

So, when speed and accuracy comes together, in what proportions are they in? If in real life it's usually better to have more accuracy than speed does this mean that you think more slowly or you make your actions slower while you still think as fast? And what does IRS stand for? Thanks.

[garethnelsonuk]

It depends on the situation:

When programming, I function best without deadlines as that allows me to think about what i'm doing. I often take a break from actually coding and go over in my mind what i'm trying to implement and picture the code before I write it. Then I return and type it up from memory. When I do this, the end result is much more stable and secure. When I just dive in, bugs creep in and I end up doing messy hacks which are horribly unstable. For fixing a critical security hole in a website, a fast fix thrown together can hold it for a while but needs to be returned to.

When out driving, it's totally different. I need to react fast and have almost 0 time to think (i'm still learning to drive, failed 2 tests due to being overcautious). This is why I actually take a big bunch of stimulants before going out on a driving lesson so that my reactions are as fast as possible.

karusel - when practicing a musical instrument you first learn how to play accurately and then speed up. You can recogonise a crap guitarist by seeing how they'll play lightning fast but miss notes out or fret them incorrectly. The same applies to other situations such as my driving example above - you start on quiet roads where you have time to think and then go into busier traffic areas. My first few weeks of learning to drive consisted of planning out every single turn at every junction and every gear change. Gradually the instructor tried to push me to do more of this myself without time to plan it. When doing a written exam, you should aim for accuracy and getting an answer down for every question. Personally, I tend to go over an exam paper in passes by writing a very rough answer in the first pass and then expanding upon it in the next pass. If I run out of time, the first pass is guaranteed to get me some good marks.

[caston]

Slow, meditative, thinking is always best in my opinion. Our fast paced, high stress society, demands quick, reflexive thinking instead of slow, reflective thinking. To stimulate creative thinking, Einstein use to advise his physics students to find jobs in places like lighthouses where they could get away from it all and spend long uninterrupted hours thinking.

Sounds like good advice.

[xanadu]

Lets not blur the difference between reaction time and thinking. Those are separate and distinct. There is also a difference between training and thinking. Learning to drive, or some other skill, is training. You then react according to your pre-programmed training and do not actually think about what you will do in most situations. Many of us daydream when we are doing repetitive tasks like driving and other stuff. We are not thinking about how to do the task at hand.

When you get into problem solving, then it's a valid question when you talk about speed. Even so, if it's a situation where immediate action is required, such as when fire breaks out, you will generally react according to training you've had or just run or do some other knee-jerk sort of reaction. If you are trapped by a fire, then you have to actually think and solve the problem. Likewise if you are driving and see a roadblock up ahead.

I think piracetam used with choline sources helps speed reaction time and stimulates creativity. I believe it helps both with speed of reaction and being able to solve problems more quickly. I find it also helps thinking over things, making connections and so on. I'm less sure it helps with pure meditation.

[dingo]

I have been researching speed thinking at have come across a cool site

www.thespeedthinkingzone.com

Hope that helps can anyone else tell me of more resources on speed thinking