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Comment by tannerc | Hacker News Reader

Researching creative thinking processes over the last decade, this is a no-brainer (pun not intended).

There is so much complexity to the brain that it's hard to imagine a time when we, as human beings, will ever really understand how much of it works. It's no surprise there's a lot going on "behind the veil" of consciousness, and I'm glad researchers continue to show this is the case.

Similar studies have shown that the subconscious can recognize ambigious shapes without the subject consciously becoming aware, solve problems completely before raising solutions to the consciousness, and more.

How exciting to be driven by (or driving, depending on what you believe) such a vastly complex thing.

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Agreed.

I often get asked by people things like "how did you think of that?" - and the honest answer is - I didn't.

I "think" by largely shutting off higher rational thought, and just let a problem freewheel through my mind. Either an answer comes pretty much instantaneously, or it doesn't at all.

I don't logically think things through - I find the answer, then it justifies itself.

This was always infuriating for my teachers, as I'd look at a problem in Maths or Physics, write down the answer, and then, if I felt like it, figure out what the "working" was.

I think we've largely forgotten how to think. Language oriented symbol linking and logic is slow - it's a whole abstraction layer that you can just sidestep, if you trust your mind.

> I "think" by largely shutting off higher rational thought, and just let a problem freewheel through my mind. Either an answer comes pretty much instantaneously, or it doesn't at all.

I have gone out of my way to find ways to 'step out of the way' of my subconscious for many years. For me, big, non-trivial answers don't come quickly or in full. As ideas, thoughts and proto-answers surface, I let them 'float' for a minute, and then let them sink back below the surface for a while longer.

In the end, I have 'in hand' a nice tidy pile of possible answers/directions, which I can then apply rational thought to in order to select one or more as the concrete course/courses of action.

I use spatial and visual centres, I think, as I tend to view problems in an almost mechanistic fashion, as components in a multidimensional space, which interact, and have causal results. Of course, if it's a non-abstract problem, then I visualise it directly - or abstract it to then visualise a general class of problems it sits under. Most things fit into a finite number of patterns.

It's really hard to explain, but it makes for easy and rapid evaluation of possibilities, as you can just "see" what fits, and what doesn't.

I'm a writer. As much as I work on my craft, when I sit down and put my fingers on the keys I'm not doing any of it. 95% of what I write I have no conscious decision in making.

I remember completely scrapping a 1500 word piece, rewriting the whole piece and resubmitting it to my editor. He was amazed I did it so quickly, I was quite disturbed I'd written the whole thing with barely an iota of conscious thought going into it.

I don't think I'm riding shotgun for my consciousness, I think I'm a kid in the back of the wagon.

I'm glad to hear that. I write by reading a page or two where I left off, then starting to type. What comes out is often a surprise to me. Of course there's much editing afterward, but the story happens 'by itself'.

Also a writer. The first time I was given a writing prompt as a timed exercise I was surprised by what I came up with. If I'd sat and thought of what to write I never would have written what I wrote in a five minute unthinking flurry.

This is arguably true for most writers I think. Not all writing types, of course, but for many. I created an iOS app around this very topic if you're interested, it's fittingly called: Prompts.

Sounds interesting, I'll check it out.

when it comes to problem-solving in software development, I tend to regard my subconscious as a black-box object with a fuzzy help me! method I can call. If I have a coding problem I'm not sure how to solve, I go for a brisk walk and let my mind wander. By the time I'm done, I've got the answer. If it's a tougher problem, I might need to go home and get a good night's sleep. Then I usually wake up with the answer fully-formed in my head. I give a silent moment of thanks for "the boys downstairs" and go about my day.

I've gone a bit deeper with it.

I spend 7-8 hours at my desk every day. I get about the same amount of work done each day, but I don't consciously control how I'm spending those hours. I might be reading / posting on HN, thinking about personal stuff, or even coding. When doing the latter, sessions start when I feel motivated to code and stop the very instant I'm not feeling it anymore.

After I stop, my subconscious goes to work. While I'm 'screwing around', insights will bubble up concerning the broader architecture of the platform I'm building and where the thing I'm coding now fits into it. At some point I'll realize why I stopped coding and what I need to do to continue. It's inevitably some deeper consideration that I never would have thought of had I not taken a break. I've also stopped making mistakes more than once. The second I make one, I lose motivation to work until my subconscious has worked out why I made it and how not to make it in the future.

I had to 'give myself permission' to operate in this way. Conscious mind just doesn't want to give up control, you need to exercise will in order to give up will. It was a little scary at first. As I built up confidence, I started trusting myself to do it more and more.

> to be driven by or driving

I prefer to think of it as simply "to be"

> How exciting to be driven by (or driving, depending on what you believe) such a vastly complex thing.

Dancing with.

i love this metaphor here.

i spent a long time struggling with mental illness, and it was only when i began to understand the need to work _with_ my subconscious instead of fighting it that things went better for me.

If it is not too personal, can you elaborate on how you manged to work with your subconscious rather that fight against it? Was it through meditation and/or other simple practices?

Jordan Peterson - in his personality series - talks often about depression, and how tending to the subconscious can result in positive outcomes. Importantly - I think - he suggests that people should stop deceiving the subconscious, and instead listen to it, and work with it. Unfortunately, he fails to mention any meaningful ways to accomplish this.

Personally, I accomplished "working with it" by changing my outlook on life: instead of trying to achieve happiness (which was impossible during a prolonged depression), I tried to achieve putting my socks on. Most of my life during those periods translated into tiny goals like this.

Some days it was not possible to do anything. Eventually I learned that it can be OK to not be able to do anything too (instead of trying to focus on forcing myself to do things, which never worked anyway).

These things come down to hearing "I'm too tired to do all of that" and instead of saying "No, I can do all of this" (deception), saying "Maybe I'll try for something smaller". You repeat that process until you arrive at a point where everything doesn't seem impossible anymore. I think that is what is meant by working with your subconscious.

I think most people don't "get over" depression, so much as learn to live with themselves and the world and their new outlook. It's how I feel about it at least, and it's not hard to recognise it in others.

The process can take many years. There's still joy in the world, but I find I have more conscious awareness of it.

I'd be really interested to see studies of people who "recovered" from depression. Maybe there are two cohorts; those who get their rose-coloured glasses back, and those who have to learn to cope with what they feel. [That sounds worse than I intend it to, but I can't think of a better way to express it].

> I'd be really interested to see studies of people who "recovered" from depression.

Indeed. I'd be interested in reading case after case of people that recovered from depression. But for all the industry has put out (drugs, therapy) they do not seem interested in interviewing those people that they say got better in their abstracts. I guess the academia is not interested in that.

I like that, mind if I borrow it for future discourse?

> driven by (or driving, depending on what you believe)

Belief requires free will, making "driven by" contradictory. There may be a mixture or a degree removed, but the idea that free will doesn't exist is always self-contradictory.

Belief requires free will

Why?

I haven't read parent's point, but I guess one could argue that belief requires the hability to ponder opposing views and choose one. The choice part is where free will comes in.

The word "believing" doesn't imply choice anymore, for example you can say an earthworm believes all big animals are the same just because that's how it thinks, not because it made a choice to think that way.

Well now we're just talking about words though.

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