Christopher Sykes
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 13 months, 2011–2024
6:24 · 388K views · Jan 24, 2009
An excerpt from the 1983 BBC series Fun to Imagine in which Richard Feynman describes how he and a mathematician friend counted in their heads in different ways, one verbally and one visually. It shows that people can reach the same goal through quite different mental methods.
HN points to it constantly in threads on inner monologue, visual versus verbal thinking and communication as the classic, entertaining demonstration that minds work differently.
17 comments from Hacker News
Perhaps if I reword that a little you might understand what I mean: [LINK] is the subjective experience of the ability to think about things and processes as abstractions. Apple, Airplane, Alphabet, Algebra, Balance, Self, or Obama they all exist as arrangements and connections of neurons in your brain. When a song is stuck in your head that's a physical thing that's happening to a some neurons in your head. But, so is everything else your thinking about. These networks also connect to and build off of other abstractions so ((((peanut) + butter) + Jelly) + Sandwich) is built from more than one of these networks. Try and think of a pile of peanut butter next to some grape jelly. No problem it's brown next to purple. Now try and do that for peanut butter next to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Most people feel something odd happen on the second one because they are reusing the peanut butter network for both of those. For me, I can't focus on their colors at the same time. For a great subjective description of this watch: this video Getting back to Consciousness, it's turning on these abstractions by choice. I want to think about Apple so I activate the Apple network and suddenly experience Apple. And it's the same network as if I had just read the word or saw a physical Apple. Language also get's mapped to this which is part of why philosophers think about thinks like platonic ideals yes there is an ideal Chair it exists and it's the Chair classifier in your head.
If you have a few minutes spare, you should watch this video of richard feynman, who talks about how he thinks "thinking" happens in people, and how communication is very lossy : this video i think the fact that you thought a certain way of learning is more appropriate is actually correct - some people learn one way better than another, and that's because in their brain, they model the world in a different way to other people (who also find a different way of learning better). It just so happens that sometimes a person's model happens to suit the sort of teaching method being used in a school, and he ends up looking like a genius.
I completely agree. First started thinking this way after listening to Feynman talk about his discovery of how people think very differently. this video He does a great job of communicating this, despite our interpretive differences. (Though perhaps it's just very well spoken for my interpretation and just the opposite for someone else out there.)
Relevant bit from Feynman talking about how he found that a simple act of counting in one's head can be different and all its implications. I suggest watching the other videos from the same interview. Lots of fun. this video
You'll probably enjoy this video with Richard Feynman about how different people think differently even for something as basic as counting. this video