Ask HN: Can you think deeply in real time?
I have found that I'm unable to formulate well-thought responses in real time. In conversation, one might consider me unintelligent (hopefully wrongly), due to my lack of input into discussions.
But I usually think deeply about such discussions after the fact and when I have the time to consider arguments for/against something.
Why are some people more capable of formulating intelligent responses in real time? Can this be improved?
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[ 411 ms ] story [ 1717 ms ] threadIt seems that IQ scores do not dramatically change in time, meaning that improving you ability in a weak area is simply going to take a lot of practice.
And the other thing I learned to do, the hard way, was to refuse to commit to any decisions made in a meeting until I'd gotten to review whatever new information had been provided and review how the decision would fit into other organizational or corporate decisions.
It sounds very bureaucratic, and it probably is, but I frequently found myself to be simultaneously the most junior person in the meeting and the person designated as the key decision maker.
It took me a long time to accept that it was ok to say "I don't know the answer to that question and I'm not going to make one up on the spot." It's incredibly important that if you do say that in response that you prioritize answering the question as soon as possible afterwards.
Of course it's a bit tricky to pull off, and purportedly more so in English-speaking contexts: some studies [1] have shown that "anglophones tend to be most uncomfortable with long gaps in a discussion."
[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170718-the-subtle-pow...
Not everything you say had to be a genius answer. It can be a simple question to serve as a sounding board.
Finding this hard to believe. Can you share any instances to further examine and learn if this is true.
Yep, let me take a moment to agree fully and expand a bit:
This is why consultants and MBAs do so well. They have studied playbooks and seen so many case studies that they can quickly map situations onto known scenarios from their studies or experience, and almost immediately say, "This is called X, and the way to handle it is Y." It sounds good, comes off well in meetings, and to be fair is even often correct.
But as mentioned, it is not deep thought. It is pattern matching. In many standard business cases, it will work, but you still need the deep thought in the room to flag the situations that don't match and encourage new solutions in those cases.
The most important part of using this pattern matching as a substitute for deep thought is to be cautious of over fitting or otherwise getting it wrong.
Deep thought before and after a real time engagement is optimal.
I've found this to be true of many pursuits: programming, writing fiction, even things like "where should the fridge go when we redo the kitchen?"
What you're talking about, good responses in the moment, isn't about deep thought, it's about being witty. They're different problems.
And I suspect that a lot of the people you think are being clever in the moment are actually repeating fragments of conversations that they've had with themselves in private. This isn't universally true, of course, but I do think it plays a part.
Often in highly technical discussions, there are people who can 'do the deep dive' in real time, vs those who have to explore, formulate and validate their thoughts. I find myself to belong to either camp depending on the particular issue and how familiar I am with the case and past experience relating to potential solutions or pitfalls.
I think one factor that separates those who have those ideas in real time are the ones willing to say something that might be wrong. If you're always wanting to ensure that there's no flaw in what you want to say, it will not be said in the moment.
I first noticed this when I wanted to buy something but had to save money to comfortably afford it. In many cases, by the time I had saved the money, I did not want the item any more. So, I created a rule for myself, whenever I wanted to spend on something that would take more than 500, I would take 30 days to buy it. If I still wanted to buy that thing, I went for it.
This rule is still in place. I don't think about it actively, but some kind of subconscious analysis goes on from time to time.
I have saved a ton of money that I otherwise would have spent on things that I did not need or want.
Then I incorporated some variant of the rule on other avenues of my life. It translates well to other areas as well.
Although, at that point you may as well skip the sycronous nature of meetings and set up a company message board / forum.
I'm more of a reader as well, but I'd hate to classify myself as strictly either, as it may sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a strong innate orientation and learned skills (or lack thereof).
I don't necessarily like the idea of people categorizing themselves too much since I've seen (especially young) people think of aspects like that as fundamental to themselves, only to discover that they and their skills were more flexible than they thought.
I'm not trying to tell you how to view that aspect of yourself, as you certainly know it better yourself, but I wanted to offer another perspective for the sake of other people reading into it.
for topics i am not well versed with, i have only been able to have good responses in the moment by rehearsing mock conversations in advance.
I have the exact same issue, everything is always put so clearly and eloquently in my head, but when it comes out it all just fucks up, probably contributing to me sounding like an idiot.
If this problem is coming up in real time meetings it's because the meetings are the wrong way to do things; not that you need to think faster to support an archaic way of making decisions.
IMHO, people who formulate intelligent responses either
1) Already encountered such topic and had some deep thought;
2) Clever enough to make some reponses that look like intelligent by approaching the question from a specific angle that ordinary people are not aware of, so that their reponses appear to be smart, but actually are still biased. Actually I'd argue the more biased they are, the more powerful they seem to be in some cases;
3) Are trully very smart and can think deeply in real time.
Some days I can’t. The worst days it feels like I’ve subtracted ~40 points from my IQ.
So it depends.
Don't believe people when they tell you there's different types of people who can do this or that better. You can do all of that, if you just set your mind to it and learn it.
Yes, this can be improved. This is going to sound cheesy, but the calmer you are on the inside, the easier it will be to be thoughtful on the outside.
It is also really important to understand that, when you center your mind around coming up with something, you remove its ability to come up with something.
It is not possible to think about coming up with something and actually coming up with something. So if you catch yourself doing that, then stop that. Calm down. It's all good. Maybe the others are too fast and you're not actually slow.
I recommend you start meditating. You want to have deeper thoughts and want to express them, then you need to free up some processing power in your mind. Yes, that's how that works. Don't let people tell you otherwise. You'll achieve that with meditation. Daily. Twice.
Also stop having TV or music running in the background. If silence makes you uncomfortable, then silence is what you have to seek, to get rid of whatever is going wrong in you.
Next is breathing. Breathing, thinking and talking are connected. Most people's breathing is completely out of sync. For better inner calmness, learning how to properly breathe is of utmost importance. Meditation will help with that, too.
It's the norm that people can't rest just in themselves, with inner peace, but that's not normal, it's actually pretty fucked up.
The fact that there is a requirement for distraction means that there is something which needs to be distracted. Everything that prevents you from natural inner calmness is going to prevent you from deeply following conversations naturally and easily.
Also, besides freeing up your mind, it's important to actually understand that other people are supposed to be waiting for your response. When you feel forced into a hurry, then force yourself to be slow.
When you're in a conversation with other people basically reacting (almost) instantly to what is said, then they're not having deep thoughts, they're just mindlessly reacting. Even if it fits. The patterns they're expressing match the patterns they've heard. Doesn't really mean they're deep thoughts.
It is really helpful being able to spot who is actually thinking and who is just mindlessly reacting. You can learn that. Observe the face of the person. Eyes. How long it takes the person to come up with a response.
Deep thoughts require that things "settle" in the brain. They need to be processed. That takes time.
Which leads me to the next one. You should consider that you're pondering about things after the fact simply because your brain doesn't have time to actively work through things while they're a topic. See meditation.
Also, spend a lot of time with this: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-active-listening-302434....
Buy yourself a book about it. Look for an actually good book. Learn it, apply it, live it.
The lack of input in your post makes it hard knowing what the reason for your problem is. It's perfectly possible to figure that out via a conversation, but I'm not convinced this is a platform for that.
Well ... this was short. Not what I'd usually do. Report back in six months so I can see how you're doing. Feel free to ask any questions. I've probably kept this too short and simple.
(normally we'd be sitting together in real...
I’ve noticed that some people are really quick to say things that don’t stand up to scrutiny. I am naturally skeptical when anyone offers up a seemingly smart answer to anything important without thinking about it. I’ll research anything on my own if the well-being of someone I care about hinges of a fast talking, smarty pants being correct. Sometimes I can’t arrive at a meaningful conclusion, and I have to decide to just trust a person & go along for the ride, and in these cases I learn the hell out of whatever is happening as I go along.
Essentially, I think talking fast is overrated if the fast talker can’t or won’t explain their position to someone who should be able to understand the problem. There’s always a small chance I am the Luddite who just doesn’t get it, but that’s usually only true when I’m trying to learn something that truly requires experience to understand. For example, I won’t be able to understand arguments for or against Hubble’s constant being a dynamic value that changes with time because I lack the education and experience in astrophysics to understand either side of the debate. But I might be able to trust someone who could explain to me why he couldn’t understand it.
I have similar traits. People often tell me that I do not speak enough. However, whenever I do say something, people find it novel, valuable, insightful, and nearly always correct.
Once people get to know me well, they start working around this to hear my points of view, and that they keep coming back indicates that I am truly adding good value to them.
I am both a good listener and a reader, and in fact a good speaker and writer too.
However, the quality I produce comes at a time cost as a result of which I am not real-time and nor perceived as speaking 'enough'.
-- The following are things that have generally helped:--
* Do pre-work whenever feasible. This reduces the mental processing power needed in real-time.
{Now once the meeting begins and I am not the initiator, I may only be listening and observing what all things are being missed in the discussions, what common confusions or the hidden assumptions are.}
* Even if not, consider yourself as the owner of the meeting discussion. Assume that if good conclusions or decisions are not coming, it would be your own fault. This helps to participate in a meeting more effectively, even making a callout to slow down the discussion if needed. At times, you may direct the current meeting at understanding the problem better, and invite a follow up meeting for the actual resolution.
* Fine-tune yourself between answering and asking questions. If I already have good thoughts, I may be illuminating others, clarifying, answering, and moderating the discussion. If not, I may be asking the questions on my mind, say to probe assumptions or just to fill my knowledge gaps.
* Making keyword-level notes during the meeting helps. You cannot spend the time writing details as then the needed meeting participation time and attention are lost. Having short notes however helps to bring needed things back into mind quickly. Some people naturally do better at this, having good short-term and long-term memory.
* Use body language to indicate space needed to speak up. During the meeting, I may slowly stand up in a corner or walk up to a whiteboard, aiming to grab speaking time. Being in a standing position helps (it's a body language thing).
* Another important but tricky piece is the time gap between people taking turns to speak. Wait too long, and someone else may start speaking. Wait too short, you may be cutting the cirrent speaker short. Raising hand here helps if nothing else. If I find someone else starts speaking but that is only taking a wrong turn (e.g., incorrect hidden assumption, or going off-topic), I may grab the speaker position by clarifying exactly that (E.g., "we just spoke about this but I think there is a more fundamental thing we need to consider. {It goes here.}")
* Needless to say practice and experience helps.
* If there are no clear goals for a meeting, just general chit chat between a large group of people, it gets harder, however the similar techniques as the above help.
Overall, as far as you are maintaining good quality in what you say, don't consider being slow as a loss. It hurts the most only for the first few months on a new team or group as people are getting to know you better.
If you poke me I'll add some more information.
Most of us are running "programs" that make us look, act, and feel like normal humans. (Anthropologists have pointed out that each culture, no matter how different from the others, manages to get its children to act like its adults.)
If you learn to reprogram your unconscious patterns you become a meta-computer: a computer that can rewrite its own software to improve itself, a Gödel machine[1].
The main reason why you don't "formulate well-thought responses in real time" is that your ad hoc programming doesn't include that functionality, but it's there, intrinsic to your capabilities as a human being.
Hypnosis is a way to put yourself into a sort of "debug mode" and communicate between your conscious and unconscious minds, and, if you like, reprogram your patterns. It's pretty easy to do.
In a nutshell, learn to go into trance[2], then tell yourself a story in which you discover how to "formulate well-thought responses in real time" quickly and easily. When you come out of trance, you will.
Feel free to ask questions, I'll do my best to answer. Most people aren't interested, so I appreciate the opportunity to pass along what I've learned. Cheers!
[1] https://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html
[2] I recommend "TRANCE-formations" by Bandler and Grinder.
You have to write it to make it seem clearer. Thoughts are a lot like arithmetic; you can do 385 x 445 easily on paper, but not in ypur head without practicing the right technique. Heck, even small things like 629527 + 111111 + 111111 is really hard in real time.
At work you need to pick your battles. 10 hours of meeting this week? I’m not doing 100 hours of prep. Afterall, IANAL!
What might sound like “deep thinking” is often synthesizing. And when it’s said in a different way, translated in ones own words, it will be a different take on what the person is telling you. Then if you learn to synthesize the other things you’ve heard and weave that into the narrative you’ll add a lot of value to conversations.
Then a lot of insight is a natural “next step” from one of the descriptions.
We tend to imagine creativity as whole cloth ideas generated by some genius from the ether, but it’s really a listening, repeating, and taking turns seeing one small next step or issue..
Deep knowledge of what you're talking about is the most important thing.
Focused listening (actively following the other people's trains of thought / "thinking with them as they speak").
Writing critically can (over time) improve your ability to also communicate well in conversations.
Bonus fourth thing: practice.