Ask HN: How to Learn 'To Think'?

How old are you? What is your highest level of education? What were your grades like? What’s your job?

What impact does the “in-ability to think” have on your life?

I once told my doctor that I thought I had a bad memory. He asked what grades I was getting and when I said A’s, he said don’t worry about it, you are fine. If you are considering reading Ulysses, a notably challenging book, I think you probably have an above average ability to think.

What did the neurologist say exactly? I don’t think inability to think is a medical diagnosis.

Writing is very underrated way of thinking, but I can recommend it highly. Start journaling and/or writing essays. Just write down what you think, feel, want to communicate, and what you understand. Just be clear and honest. pg has repeatedly written about this [0]. You can also choose to write technical posts.

Solving Math problems and competitive programming problems also enhace thinking.

Teaching is an underrated way, too. When you teach a hard concept, you really need to think a lot about how to get the idea across, how to make it accessible to different kinds of pupils.

[0]: https://paulgraham.com/writing44.html

Your best move is to follow up with a medical practitioner on that neuropsych exam. They will be able to give you advice and treatment specific to your own situation. While we all can give advice, and it might help, if you are skipping professional help specific to your situation, you are ignoring the lowest hanging fruit.

As with most tasks, you learn by doing. You can't learn to play tennis from a book, in the same fashion you can't learn to think from a book.

Find an area where you have to disassemble large problems into small ones, where you have to plan a few steps of the solution. Any knowledge area will do. Writing was suggested in another comment, it's a good playground. As is programming, where there is ample literature of puzzle problems to solve. Algebra, if you are so inclined although, beware, it veers a bit into the abstract. There are physical hobbies with that characteristic too: anything involving woodwork or building stuff out of parts (or disassembling and reassembling, like mechanics).

Having picked up a hobby, apply the hours. Start with stuff you can do, don't overshoot complexity. Then, evolve from there. As with all new activities, embrace failure. Don't just accept failure, expect it, learn from it, step on past failures to evolve.

P.S. I can't imagine not having an inner monologue, or its dual, spatial imagination, but a relevant part of the population doesn't have either, with no ill effects on the thought process. It's amazing, to me, but it seems they are not required for thinking.

I took a (turned into multiple) philosophy classes that forced me to explain hard concepts and my opinions on them to other people and then understand their perspective. I think this applies to many hard, deeply technical, subjects, but discussion is immensely popular in the pedagogy of philosophy.

The harder and more valuable part was putting those discussions into focused, clear, essays. I am a much better writer and thinker because of it.

The best way to learn how to think is to think. The way in which the quality of your thinking is best judged is in relation to other people. So just try a take your thoughts and try and put them in other people’s minds.

Logic puzzles and taking notes.

The several comments suggesting mathematics and logic from scratch are spot on. This can be a bit overwhelming and dispiriting though. An alternative (or really a supplement) to an elementary proofs text is Raymond Smullyan's books of logic puzzles. Smullyan strikes the right balance between fun and substance.

The second idea is to try taking notes. Grab the latest copy of your favorite magazine (mine is Foreign Affairs) and write about the articles as you read them. What did the article say? How does it relate to the prior articles? Common topic? Contrary opinions? How does it relate to other things you've read in the past?

Asking these questions as you read can help to foster an internal dialogue and help you remember what you read and give direction on what to read next.

It's how I advise students who are reading academic papers for the first time and get overwhelmed by diving into the deep end of some subfield.

Make predictions, documenting your process and updating regularly. Keep notes or use a free prediction market like https://manifold.markets/ and analyse your success and failures to learn.

You should start by caring about something so much that you want to both understand it and affect it somehow. When you begin to piece together the system, a model of what you care about, and can begin to imagine how moving one piece will affect another, then you'll be thinking.

I think your question, in and of itself, is a language trap. It's too abstract, and abstractions often fail to motivate. I fell into the same language trap in college. I thought that some wizard teaching philosophy behind the curtain would teach me how to think. But you won't find the secret to thought in the symbols of the analytic philosophers, nor in the cogitations of the continentals.

Roland Barthes once said "Je ne pense qu'aimant," which translates roughly as "I cannot think except by loving." And he didn't mean that love itself was thought, but just that it was only fascination with a subject that drove him to think about it.

I think you should get out of your head, connect to the world, begin to care about some part of it, and let that lead you toward some subject-specific form of thought:

More on same here: https://open.substack.com/pub/vonnik/p/a-few-ideas-that-made...

Sounds like books (passive learning) haven't worked very well for you yet. Maybe a more active learning approach would work better.

Active learning is characterised by producing something and then comparing / critiquing it against a well-known production. Often STEM subjects fit this very well because they are almost entirely built on the premise that you make predictions with a model, perform a test, and then refine your models.

Anything mathematics, logic puzzles, etc. would fit into this quite well since you don't really need specific equipment, you can attempt to solve something and after having a solution you can compare it to what a book / the internet says. Then critically evaluate how you approached the problem vs the actual solution, and the merits/demerits of each approach - as you grow you can probably find multiple competing solutions (being able to discern between them is very powerful)

Personally I really like programming because of the immediate feedback loop, needing to hold a program in your head, reason with and refine that mental model of the program. Also with programming its easy to work on something a bit more interesting: games, websites, dbs, etc.

I think you can also look into essay writing or other fields but its extremely important to have someone to spar with - otherwise you don't know if your thought process has actually improved.

The KGB recommended their students read detective novels. Detectives look at information and model the past: light, shadow, heat, sounds, pressure, timelines, motives.

Also model the future: elections, social trends, stock prices, a movie plot, anything, everything. If your prediction fails, say how did I get that wrong; what didn't I consider that would have made my prediction more accurate?

Or, possibly you have a physical condition like I had; fixing sleep apnea raised my lichess elo by like 200 points.

https://atriumhealth.org/medical-services/prevention-wellnes...

this might be out of the blue, but have you tried music?

i’m 35 and only got into music a couple years ago— not from a sheet music, but from play

i think the same neurological pathways you use to sequence musical tonality is the same as stringing any sequence of thought together.

my hypothesis as to why reading hasn’t helped train thought— the way people write isn’t how they think. it appears words go from their brain to the page, but there’s so much thought that goes into making the flow of their content more like music than their raw brain feed.

good luck!

I really hope that you are a human and not a self-improving AI.

You can’t change a serious neurological condition with all books in the world. Don’t waste time looking for magic pill.

It’s generally much more effective strategy to learn utilizing your strengths rather than trying to compensate for your weaknesses.

Why do you need to think? What do you want to do with that skill?

Look around - not that many people really think anyway and yet many manage to live a good and satisfactory life.

Start with reading "Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction" by Jonathan St B. T. Evans (Oxford University Press, 2017). Very short read and bonus points if you find it at your local public library. At the end of the book, there's a list of suggested further reading if you want more depth.

On a different note from my other comment here: don’t fall in the traps of letting some “evaluation” define you, or of considering your memory or “ability to think” permanently/unchangeably “poor”. While certainly some parts of our biological makeup may be more or less permanent, both memory and thinking skills are, well, skills that can be improved with training and practice.

Don’t get down on yourself or develop an unhelpful belief or attitude about yourself. You can and will improve with practice, and you are not defined by a test result.

I have the opposite problem.

I get “intrusive” thoughts about ideas/anything as a stream of information passively. Not intrusive in the sense that it’s bad stuff (it’s all positive/good thinking) but I literally can’t “switch it off” and it hits me no matter what activity I’m doing. Makes relaxing hard

Sometimes it’s an overwhelming amount of thoughts, so I always keep a journal or phone handy especially at night

No idea how to stop it, medication seems to be the only fix

I think this post is your first step, so kudos to this!, I think philosophy books help, you can read some basic philosophy, pause and write down what you think, instead of internal voice, you can make texts as a bridge between your thoughts and yourself.

You might find the book: "Conceptual Blockbusting", James L. Adams helpful. It contains thoughts and activities that focus on the 'process of thinking' or problem solving. And how we go about characterizing a problem or situation.

One of the best I've read on how to think about thinking.

Build/make something. Preferably something new to you and preferably on your own as much as possible (even if you're following someone else's instructions).

One key to acquiring thinking skill (a skill like any other) is to learn how to decode the world using your own abilities and resources.

Start by asking about a new idea, "How would I prove this idea false?" This is the key to scientific thinking -- scientists first ask themselves, "What would falsify this idea?"

When you acquire an idea, you're borrowing someone else's thought. But to simultaneously learn how to think and make an idea your own, before taking the idea seriously, assume it's false and test it for validity, using your personal knowledge base.

Here's a classic example -- a friend says, "All swans are white." To make this idea yours, don't confirm it by locating ten more white swans. Instead, try to find a black swan. Even if you fail, your personal version of the idea will be, "It appears that most swans are white."

As it happens, this skeptical outlook is the key to the so-called "Enlightenment," an historical change that dethroned blind acceptance of ideas. This paradigm was best expressed in the Royal Society's (https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/history/) motto "Nullius in verba" or "Take no one's word for it." Written in 1660, this motto expresses the essence of scientific, skeptical thinking, just as true today -- indeed, more true now than ever.

Being doubtful and skeptical of received ideas, scientifically testing new ideas, makes you intellectually stronger, and strengthens the surviving ideas as well.

With proper training, your immune system can protect you from germs. In the same way, with proper training, your brain can protect you from bogus ideas. Train your brain.

Great first step asking for help and seeking to improve. :) I would like to point out that a lot of people don't have internal monologues. There are many ways to think and many ways to be smart. Internal monologue is not a requirement. I have it myself so I cannot give advice on how to think without, but just bear in mind that it isn't required.

There are several different forms of it iirc. There are communities:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anendophasia/search?q=Anendophasia&... #Anendophasia

Maybe something like Polya's "How to Solve it" and/or Solow's "How to Read and Do Proofs" would help. When I studied math in college I very much struggled with more advanced mathematical reasoning and those two books helped me tremendously. I would also venture to say that being able to better reason using the techniques presented help in many other areas of life than just math.

Consider starting from basic logic. Thinking cannot be separated from various logical deductions, inductions, comparisons, etc.

Off the wall idea: I have a strong internal monologue and since I was a kid I have always audibly talked to myself when alone. You look crazy when people catch you but it might work.

This internal dialogue business is the wrong direction. Many should learn to shut that off. You don’t need your own thoughts echoing around in your mind. That’s not quality thinking.

Play games. Consider that the real challenge of games is learning how the rules work, how the interface works, how game strategy works, how various systems of values are leveraged.

Learn to assimilate and “do well” in games. Even if you aren’t into the game, or you don’t actually finish it. Some games can be played over and over and over and there is always something more to learn. Building the heuristic understanding of the game is the best means of developing cognitive strategies. There are lots of high quality open source games out there, there is no need to spend cash.

There are many ways of thinking, and not all involve the use of articulated language. It sounds like you may be seeking to improve your critical-thinking skills.

Many community colleges offer critical-thinking courses, so that could be an option.

There are many books on critical thinking. One with exercises that I can recommend is Kirby’s and Goodpastor’s “Thinking” (which could be used as a course book for a critical-thinking skills course). You might also check out books by Rolf Dobelli, Peter Bevelin, and Donella Matthews.

Farnam Street (fs.blog) and sites like it champion the idea of using mental models to think. Farnam Street has lots of good, free materials that you can start with and try to start using in your daily life. The site also recently put out a series of books called “The Great Mental Models”.

But mental models can be found everywhere. For example, I frequently use Nassim N. Taleb’s mental models of “robustness,” “antifragility,” and “skin in the game.” Likewise, I use the concept of expected value when making decisions.

Another good book with easily implemented mental models is “Judgment and Managerial Decision-Making”.

There are tons and tons of books in this space, and you will find many recommendations of good ones here on HN. Just search for book recommendations (an evergreen topic here) and you’re bound to find some.

But if I understand your post correctly, you seem to be trying to learn how to articulate your thoughts more. You could start with the simple but powerful practice of asking yourself, what is this person/book/podcast/etc. saying? Is it true / do I agree with it? Why or why not? And what of it / why does it matter? (These questions are similar to those suggested in Mortimer Adler’s “How to Read a Book”, which is another title I commend to you.)

Take notes when listening and reading, and try answering these questions out loud or in writing after hearing or reading something. It’s a practice, and engaging with the habit intentionally and repeatedly over time will help you to improve your skills.

In this regard, I can suggest the following practice too. Copy the text of a piece of writing and dump it into a plain text file. Open it with an editor like Sublime Text (which I like because it, and other text and code editors, makes it easy to move lines of text around). Then, put every sentence on its own line. (If you’re handy with computers, you can do this quickly with regex, or even find-and-replace.) Next, try rewriting each sentence to simplify it and to restate it in your own words. Then rearrange the lines to restructure the argument in the way that makes the most logical sense. Finally, you can analyze it and write out your reactions to it, or your counter-arguments.

By using this process, you’ll probably discover that many people have little idea of what they’re talking about, and that they articulate their thoughts poorly. You’ll also discover that much of what they say is opinion, and that they use various tricks to hide or warp ideas. On this note, studying Western rhetorical tradition may prove very helpful in your quest to learn how to think better (plenty of theoretical and how-to books there, going back to the Ancients!).

At any rate, you’re in good company here: HN is full of people who think about thinking and strive to think better themselves. I’m sure you’ll find many useful posts and comments from past discussions, as I have. It’s a lifelong journey that has no clear endpoint. That’s the challenge and the beauty of it!

Good luck, and let me know if you think I can be of assistance.

PS: Other writers and thinkers to definitely check out on these topics: Charlie Munger; Richard Feynman; Daniel Dennett (“Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking”).

There are various types of thinking :

https://www.communicationtheory.org/types-of-thinking-tips-a...

There are various types of intelligences :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc...

Having a monologue is like dialoguing with a GPT, be glad you don't have one, that's just a way to bullshit yourself.

Learning to think is dangerous, and not recommended to anyone in its right mind.

Thinking properly is a higher mental process that emerge naturally at its own pace once you are in a "safe" state of mind and "safe" environment.

Once you are in a "safe" state, you can promote its emergence by allocating some slot of time to explore by "doing" (or trying to do at first) things yourself (initiative must come from yourself).

Exposing yourself to a various ideas when in an "unsafe" state is a bad idea that will most likely get you to a worse state. Learning (and thinking) is fundamentally based on rewarding, and if you try it in the wild, it's like starting a game in hard mode and going for the final boss, you'll just get your ass kicked down and learn nothing.

Thinking is nothing new, you can read "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, or write your owns. Just don't expect much, every one of your own thought have probably already been thought about, and joining a collaborative thought effort in search of wisdom will most likely require you to just be a passive consumer.