Open Thread, November 1 - 7, 2013

witzvo

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

See also 'rubberducking' and previous discussions of this on LW. My basic theory is that reasoning was developed for adversarial purposes, and by rubberducking you are essentially roleplaying as an 'adversary' which triggers deeper processing (if we ever get brain imaging of system I vs system II thinking, I'd expect that adversarial thinking triggers system II more compared to 'normal' self-centered thinking).

My basic theory is that reasoning was developed for adversarial purposes

Obligatory link.

5TheOtherDave13y

Yes. Indeed, I suspect I've told this story before on LW in just such a discussion. I don't necessarily buy your account -- it might just be that our brains are simply not well-integrated systems, and enabling different channels whereby parts of our brains can be activated and/or interact with one another (e.g., talking to myself, singing, roleplaying different characters, getting up and walking around, drawing, etc.) gets different (and sometimes better) results. This is also related to the circumlocution strategy for dealing with aphasia.