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+[1]cliophate.wtf [2]Start Here [3]Reading [4]About Me [5]Now
+
+How to think
+
+When I originally saw this tweet, I chuckled.
+
+[bsky-1200x]
+
+Then I realized: I do the same thing, and so do the people around me. That is,
+we outsource our thinking to a machine, which can’t think in the first place
+(though that fact is a whole separate piece I am working on).
+
+Since the rise of Generative AI, what I caught myself doing is using tools like
+ChatGPT or Claude to go through problems. Not as a help, but instead had it
+spit out an answer that I then (at times blindly) adopted as my own solution.
+
+And going by that post above, and the anecdotal evidence I have, I am not alone
+in this.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+This is not thinking. Again, the machine cannot think. It can only match
+patterns and emulate writing. But thanks to increasingly sophisticated models,
+the solution the machine gives us seems like the solution we were looking for.
+
+But if I am not the one thinking, and thus not the one solving the problem
+(because problem-solving is what thinking ultimately is), I have learned
+nothing. I have just taken another one's thoughts (and again, the machine
+cannot think) as my own. I see little value in this.
+
+This phenomenon is, however, not a recent problem, even though Generative AI
+has exacerbated it. Outsourcing our thinking to other things, or people, is
+something humanity has been doing forever.
+
+Before Generative AI, we outsourced our thinking to influencers and whatever
+the algorithmic timelines fed us. Before that, it was to politicians,
+celebrities, and other people in power. Before that, it was the churches. And
+before that, it was the shamans. (To be fair, people still do this.)
+
+But at least in these examples, the thinker we outsource to is human. We can,
+most often, deduce what their agenda is. But what is the agenda of a machine
+that has been trained by a group of people who probably don’t even understand
+how that machine works in the first place?
+
+I believe that in this age, at a time when we get inundated with information
+from all directions, the ability to think is the most important skill we have.
+
+I expect that when, and if, the AI revolution arrives, people who have the
+ability to think are the ones who will not be left behind. Thinkers will be the
+ones who will thrive in these uncertain times.
+
+And this is how to think:
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+I see four parts that are necessary for thought. You need to cultivate all
+four, because one or two alone may not be enough to form your best thinking.
+
+These are:
+
+  • Thinking in silence;
+  • Thinking through inspiration;
+  • Thinking by writing;
+  • Thinking by not (actively) thinking.
+
+Thinking in silence
+
+AI, algorithmic timelines, and generally just the noise^[6]1 we live in, don’t
+give us the space to think. They hijack our attention and concentration.
+
+This is our fault. Whenever we have the slightest moment of silence—and we call
+that boredom—we try to fill the void with whatever we can find.
+
+But there is a reason you have your best thoughts under the shower, or as soon
+as your head hits the pillow. These might be the only moments you experience
+true silence and boredom.
+
+When we manage to turn off the outside world, we are able to listen to our
+inner voice. That is thinking. That voice that speaks to you, at times maybe
+roughly, though that is for another essay, is what thinking is.^[7]2
+
+By listening and talking to the inner voice, we can give it problems to solve.
+We can mentally go through the steps and let our minds untangle whatever we are
+currently working on. If we feed it with the correct pieces, and let it do its
+job without interruption, it’ll allow us to solve the puzzle.
+
+This is hard. Thinking is an active skill (though there is a passive element to
+that, more soon) that burns a lot of energy. The brain alone consumes, on
+average, around 400 calories per day. To give you an idea: 30 minutes of
+running burns the same amount. (So feed your brain the nutrients, exercise, and
+rest it needs.)
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+I am a strong believer in cultivating silence to let our minds go wild and
+start forming thoughts. It is not easy, though, modern civilization likes to
+flood us with distractions. Therefore, I try to find moments throughout the day
+where I embrace silence. (And I am not talking about absolute silence like you
+have in outer space. You don’t need 0 decibels; rather, what you need is to not
+have inputs. White noise is completely fine and might even be beneficial to
+some. If I struggle with sounds, I listen to a mix of white noise and
+thunderstorms.)
+
+But embracing silence is hard for me. I struggle with this because I have the
+tendency to fill the silence with... something. Anything. Not necessarily
+because I’m afraid of the silence, but because boredom is at times painful.
+Boredom is just so... boring.
+
+I’m not used to it anymore, so I have to force myself to accept it. And only
+then can I sit in silence and let my mind work. And every time I give it the
+space it needs, I am surprised by what that squishy thing in my skull is
+capable of.
+
+Thinking through inspiration
+
+While the building block above shows how to create space for thinking, it’s
+inspiration, I believe, that sparks thought in the first place.
+
+Not every thought is worth something. I doubt this is a surprise to you, but if
+we’d follow every thought we’d ever have life would be pretty fucking weird.
+
+To succeed at thinking, we need to feed our minds the necessary material to
+refine what happens up there.
+
+This happens through a process I (and I probably stole it) call
+cross-pollination.
+
+Cross-pollination is when you take a whole bunch of Lego bricks from all kinds
+of different sources to build your own castle in your mind.
+
+You achieve this by consuming broadly.
+
+But not all consumption is equal.
+
+There is a reason everyone talks about [8]brain rot currently, because
+mindlessly scrolling through TikTok and watching people do whatever the
+algorithm gets them views, is not the type of consumption I am talking about.
+
+Rather, we’re talking about content (and it can still happen on TikTok, the
+medium is NOT the problem) that challenges you.
+
+For me, this content primarily exists as the written word. It is the reason [9]
+why I read as much as I do. But I also find it in blog posts like these, or
+newsletters, or at times even on text-based social media like Bluesky or
+Threads (though let me be real, this is the exception, most content on there is
+mediocre).
+
+If this resonated with you, there’s more.
+Subscribe to get future posts delivered to your inbox. No spam.
+And if you want to support my writing, [10]click here.
+
+You can find that content also in multimedia formats, be it podcasts, YouTube
+videos, or (good!) TikTok shorts. Or you find it as a little nugget in some
+random TV show or movie. Or while talking to other people, or observing nature.
+
+What is important here is that you consume actively. Not necessarily to learn
+every time you look at something, but by spending focused time with the media.
+
+And yes, for that, you need to put away your phone, turn off your gaming
+console, or whatever else you are currently doing. NO multitasking. We all know
+by now that [11]multitasking doesn’t exist. Sit with the material, consume it,
+and let it feed your thoughts with new Lego bricks.
+
+One very important thing, however, is this: don’t only consume things with
+which you agree or that you already believe. All this does is feed your idiocy
+(and we are all idiots) and enforce negative cycles.
+
+Consume stuff you hate. Consume what the enemy created, whoever that enemy is
+(and then ask yourself, why do you have enemies?). Consume things that are
+uncomfortable because they might show you truths you want to hide from. Consume
+broadly and widely, and outside of your comfort zone, because it gives you
+perspective and shows you things you may not have known.
+
+I am not saying you need to adopt these views. Not if you fundamentally
+disagree with them, and especially not if they are just plain wrong. Bigots are
+bigots (and I believe they are bigots because they do not consume what their
+“enemies” create). But this at least shows you what not to think about.
+
+This is crucial, too. This is anti-thinking, another part of having “good”
+thoughts. But how do you know what to anti-think if you don’t know what is out
+there?
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Thinking through writing
+
+Yes, I am biased. But I believe that writing is the other necessary skill to
+succeed in our current times.
+
+Because what writing allows is to sort and distil the thinking you do, break it
+down into pieces and recombine it with other stuff.
+
+As long as the thinking just stays in your mind, I’d argue that it is
+worthless. This is especially true for ideas. Everyone has ideas. The world
+certainly does not lack ideas.
+
+Ideas are not worth anything if they do not lead to future steps.
+
+The first step is to write it down. Because writing is the one other magic
+trick humans possess.
+
+And before you tell me that Generative AI is taking this from us: LLMs do not
+write.
+
+What they do might look like writing, it might feel like writing, but it is not
+writing. Instead, GenAI outputs text, syntactically flawless text, yes, but
+devoid of any substance. The machine just breaks down writing into a
+mathematical formula^[12]3, robbing writing of all that makes it magical. (And
+a lot of us lack the necessary taste to understand that this writing is simply
+not good. Grammatically correct ≠ good.)
+
+So you need to write yourself. And as the screenshot at the beginning of this
+essay ironically shows, even writing down your problem as an AI prompt
+clarifies your thought.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+There are two ways to solve problems through writing, and I alternate between
+the two of them: they are writing slowly, and writing fast.
+
+Writing slowly
+
+I’d argue that to write slowly you have to write by hand. Be it on a piece of
+paper, or like I do, on [13]one of these fancy e-ink devices.
+
+But through writing by hand, you are forced to slow down, simply because your
+hand cannot catch up to the speed of your thinking. And this allows you to
+“de-jumble” the mess in your head before you put it down on paper.
+
+This blog post was first brainstormed on the equivalent of two sheets of A4
+paper, and what came out was basically a completely finished post that just
+needed a bit of polishing (to transform bullet points into proper prose, for
+example).
+
+I write most of my blog posts this way. I also write my journal by hand every
+morning, and most of my notes are handwritten, too.
+
+Again, this is to make sense of what is in my head, by giving me the space (and
+the silence, there are no inputs when I do this) to think through things.
+
+(In theory, you could also use an old-school typewriter. Because if you type
+too fast on that thing, you jam the keys. This is a great analogy because if
+you write too fast by hand, you jam your brain.)
+
+Writing fast
+
+Another practice I follow is what I call the brain dump. This has to happen on
+a computer, either by typing if you are a fast typist or maybe by recording a
+voice note.
+
+The value of the brain dump is by “emptying” your mind. The goal is not to form
+perfectly finished nuggets of thought but instead to unload all that is in your
+mind, all that is taking up your mental bandwidth.
+
+Often, what comes out of a brain dump session is not truly valuable if looked
+at through a vacuum. It is important that you don’t filter and instead write
+everything down that comes up, unedited and raw.
+
+When you look at this brain dump, you’ll realize that most of it is trash. That
+is ok, that is the point of the exercise. You want to get the trash out of your
+head.
+
+But with a certain distance (I never read the brain dumps the day I wrote
+them), you may find certain specks of gold. Here and there, you see a nugget
+that, if you disassemble it, might lead to something. And then I’d suggest you
+take that nugget and go through it by writing by hand.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Thinking by not (actively) thinking
+
+Because thinking is problem-solving, in theory, the result of thought is a
+solved problem.
+
+Sometimes you can’t solve the problem when you actively think about it. You
+just can’t find the solution, no matter how much time you spend on it.
+
+In these cases, stop. Take some distance. Let it rest, do something completely
+different, and ignore it for a few hours or days.
+
+You may have experienced this before. You struggled for hours to come up with a
+solution, kept failing, and ultimately gave up.
+
+But then, in the unlikeliest of situations, you had the epiphany you waited
+for. The complete solution to your problem suddenly came up in your mind as if
+planted there by some alien life form when you were not paying attention.
+
+This is thinking by not thinking. It is passive. It happens without you forcing
+it, in the subconscious, while you do other things. I don’t know why it
+happens. I don’t understand what processes run in our subconscious mind in the
+background, I only know that I’ve experienced this before.
+
+As a writer, the way I use it is to never hit publish on bigger pieces (like
+this one) the day I wrote them. I often let them sit and ripen in the back of
+my mind. When I sit down with them again, I often perceive things I hadn’t
+before.
+
+The same goes when I struggle to fix a problem at work. Giving myself the space
+to not think about it is apparently what I need to solve the toughest of
+problems.
+
+So sometimes, don’t think. Some people seem to be really good at this.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Tools for Thinking
+
+I’m planning to expand this section into a separate post in the future, but
+here are a bunch of tools and tricks I rely on to help my thinking.
+
+While the above steps are the basis needed to think in the first place, the
+tools below are what help me have “better” thoughts.
+
+  • Mental models: You may have heard of Pareto’s principle, aka the 80/20 rule
+    , or Occam’s Razor, or Compounding. These are mental frameworks that might
+    not always be true, but that allow you to see things in different lights.
+    There are a lot of them. In theory, all that follows below could be
+    considered a mental model.
+  • First principles: Break your thoughts down to the most basic truth. Dig at
+    it for as long as you can until you discover the one raw fact that must be
+    true. Strip away assumptions. Build from there.
+  • Socratic Questioning: Ask layered, open-ended questions to clarify, probe,
+    explore and question.
+  • 5 Whys: Ask why until you discover the root cause behind a problem. The
+    first, second or even third level is often not the true reason a problem
+    appeared.
+  • Inversion: Do the opposite of what you were planning to do. Instead of
+    asking how to succeed, ask yourself how to fail. Then avoid that.
+  • Reverse-engineering: Start from a finished system. Deconstruct it to see
+    how it was built, then replicate (and improve) it with your own toolset.
+  • Feynman Technique: That’s what I am doing here. I want to learn how to
+    think, so I teach it in simple terms to the reader. When I struggle to
+    explain a part, I find gaps in my knowledge. I go back and improve.
+
+There are many more tools in my toolset, but these are the ones I (try to) rely
+on the most. I’ll expand this into a separate post down the line, so [14]
+subscribe to the newsletter or [15]RSS feed to get notified when it goes live!
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Thinking is the most crucial skill we need to develop amidst our current,
+uncertain times. It will help us make sense of the mess of the world, and
+especially of the mess in our minds.
+
+By becoming better thinkers, I’d argue we become better humans. And by becoming
+better humans, we’ll be able to make the world a better place.
+
+None of this is easy. It requires a vast amount of effort from us, not only to
+take the time to think or improve our thinking, but also to reject what
+interferes with it.
+
+It is probably why a lot of people will not do this. Instead, they might
+complain, shout at the clouds or simply give up. It is, after all, easier to
+feel defeatist than to struggle.
+
+Those of us who hone this skill (and thinking is ultimately a skill) will learn
+a superpower that brings us ahead of the majority.
+
+It’ll make us superhuman, and I strongly believe this.
+
+So, go and practice thinking.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Some notes on AI: I bashed Generative AI, LLMs and algorithmic timelines a lot
+in this post.
+
+The reason is I strongly believe we should not be offloading the skills that
+make us human to machines.
+
+But I still use ChatGPT on a near-daily basis. The difference is that I (now)
+use it to complement my thinking. I use it for research (and then fact-check,
+because it still hallucinates a lot), I use it as a learning tool, or to see
+things from different angles by actively asking it to do so. It often fails,
+but sometimes it helps me.
+
+Generative AI is a tool we need to learn how to use. I keep comparing LLMs to a
+friend who has a photographic memory and remembers everything. But he is also
+just plain stupid. He makes shit up. He doesn’t know what he is talking about,
+but just parrots what he learned by heart. (And memorizing ≠ understanding.)
+Sometimes he parrots something really intelligent, but that is more a
+coincidence than anything else. We just give this randomness more weight than
+we should, as we find it “magical”.
+
+And as for algorithmic timelines: they are mostly shit. Their only worth is if
+you use them as a marketing tool.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+ 1. This is not a new development, however. The Stoic philosopher Seneca, back
+    in 62-64 AD, already complained about how noisy Ancient Rome was back then
+    ([16]On Quiet and Study). And he didn’t even have Instagram, TikTok or
+    ChatGPT. [17]↩
+
+ 2. Some people do [18]not have an inner voice. I cannot imagine what that
+    would be like, as mine never shuts up. But I’d love to hear from you. [19]↩
+
+ 3. The way LLMs “write” is by calculating what word is most likely to follow
+    the preceding one. But since it was trained on gazillions of data
+    (so-called tokens), it’s rather good at emulating the way humans write. But
+    two things: since we’ve just argued that writing is thinking, and thinking
+    is a human practice, we cannot call what the machine outputs as writing.
+    These machines don’t understand meaning, they excel in (statistical)
+    patterns. And second, the creators of these machines want us to believe
+    that there is more magic in that output than there is. If they can sell us
+    the idea that the machine has created something original by thinking, we’ll
+    have more faith in these tools and thus will throw money in their
+    direction. [20]And they need a shit ton of money. [21]↩
+
+[22]Clarity
+This is me
+'Sup, I'm Kevin
+[23] [24] [25] [26]
+
+If this resonated with you, there’s more.
+Subscribe to get future posts delivered to your inbox. No spam.
+And if you want to support my writing, [27]click here.
+
+[28]Newer Post [29]Archive [30]Older Post
+
+References:
+
+[1] https://cliophate.wtf/
+[2] https://cliophate.wtf/start
+[3] https://cliophate.wtf/reading
+[4] https://cliophate.wtf/about
+[5] https://cliophate.wtf/now
+[6] https://cliophate.wtf/how-to-think#fn:1
+[7] https://cliophate.wtf/how-to-think#fn:2
+[8] https://www.calm.com/blog/brainrot
+[9] https://cliophate.wtf/reading
+[10] https://ko-fi.com/cliophate
+[11] https://hbr.org/2010/12/you-cant-multi-task-so-stop-tr
+[12] https://cliophate.wtf/how-to-think#fn:3
+[13] https://overkill.wtf/supernote-manta-review/
+[14] https://newslettter.cliophate.wtf/
+[15] https://cliophate.wtf/
+[16] https://www.stoics.com/seneca_epistles_book_1.html#L56
+[17] https://cliophate.wtf/how-to-think#fnref1:1
+[18] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976241243004
+[19] https://cliophate.wtf/how-to-think#fnref1:2
+[20] https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-seeks-trillions-of-dollars-to-reshape-business-of-chips-and-ai-89ab3db0
+[21] https://cliophate.wtf/how-to-think#fnref1:3
+[22] https://cliophate.wtf/archive/topic:clarity
+[23] https://bsky.app/profile/cliophate.wtf
+[24] https://threads.net/@cliophate
+[25] https://overkill.social/@cliophate
+[26] https://instagram.com/cliophate.wtf
+[27] https://ko-fi.com/cliophate
+[28] https://cliophate.wtf/taste-voice-genai
+[29] https://cliophate.wtf/archive
+[30] https://cliophate.wtf/redesign