Introspection one's thought structure

[horvay]

Recently I have been working to have my writing be more structured and organized. I had found myself able to explain things, but it would be disorganized. It would be like puking out all the right ingredients but depending on the listener to sort through the mess. Recently I believe I realized the problem: my thoughts were not organized.

Though my own introspection, I arrived at 2 major things that had to change:

1) Will oneself to think about some issue until one has the thoughts down and identified.

2) Pick apart everything, put things in categories; make lists, and memorize those list; and do as much separation as possible.

1.

The point of this is to define one's thoughts. Just like a definition doesn't explain a complete concept; but rather, it points to some other bank of knowledge and examples of concretes. It is an identifier to some memory one has. This has to be done with thoughts. If it isn't, I find that the thoughts will be very hard to bring back to consciousness. I speculate this has much to do with the crow epistemology.

2.

Just like in a speech and how one should create points that they plan to speak about, one must do this with the simplest thoughts in their mind, if they wish to be more clear and coherent in their thoughts, speaking, and actions.

I think a common trait in failing to do this is "brain farts" where one completely forgets their train of thought. When I used to make points and explain things, I'd start at one end, and hope the rest comes to me as I go. This will not do as it leads to many bumps in thoughts and is bound to leave things out.

Another purpose of this is to not go extremely concrete on some things, and not others--to be consistent in one's level of abstraction as necessary.

3. By DavidOdden

Purpose is important; identifying a goal in thinking is mandatory. You don't just "think, randomly". I thus find it helpful to explicitly identify my goal, so that I have a standard of evaluation.

---

The first two points here over lap some, as when one goes on a mental tangent, they have a nice identifiable list to fall back to when they go back to the main stream of thought. This makes me think that many people's mind could be like mine used to be: thoughts are a mess, and writing/speaking requires translating the mess.

Any other ideas of ways to organize thoughts? Or comments on the couple I mentioned?

Edited April 30, 2008 by horvay

[DavidOdden]

Any other ideas of ways to organize thoughts? Or comments on the couple I mentioned?

Purpose is important; identifying a goal in thinking is mandatory. You don't just "think, randomly". I thus find it helpful to explicitly identify my goal, so that I have a standard of evaluation.

[horvay]

Purpose is important; identifying a goal in thinking is mandatory. You don't just "think, randomly". I thus find it helpful to explicitly identify my goal, so that I have a standard of evaluation.

Oh, yes. Good idea. I'm going to add it to my main post.

[horvay]

So I started reading, "The Art of Fiction" by Ayn Rand, and have come across some amazing advice in this field. So in light of this, I think I'll quote some things from the book as I go, and give my commentary of course

Your conscious mind is a very limited "screen of vision"; at any one moment, it can hold only so much. for instance, if you are now concentrating on my words, then you are not thinking about your values, family, or past experiences. Yet the knowledge of these is stored in your mind somewhere. That which you do not hold in your conscious mind at any moment is your subconscious.

...and then a bit later...

If a writer feels that he was unable fully to express what he wanted to express, it means that he did not know clearly what he wanted to express. He knew it only as a generalized package deal [a conglomeration of logically unrelated elements]; he had his theme defined approximately, but not sufficiently supported with full understanding of all the elements of that theme. That which you know clearly you can find the words for and you will express exactly

I have seen symptoms of this in myself and many others. One such type is the use of huge paragraphs and blobs of text, with little organization, and basically, comes down to one long rant.

I have heard that concepts are conscious space savers; that is, they generalize many concrete examples in your mind, but allows your conscious to set focus on just the abstract general concept instead of all those concretes. Then, by willing it, one can break down the abstract concept or generalization back into its examples and concretes it was formed from.

I believe that this is what one must do in their head when thinking about some idea. They must take all the aspects of it, generalize and define it enough until they can get the entire idea in their mind at one time. This also requires memorizing (to put it into one's own subconscious) each abstract generalization made, so one can conjure it back for a later date.

[Ifat Glassman]

3. By DavidOdden

Purpose is important; identifying a goal in thinking is mandatory. You don't just "think, randomly". I thus find it helpful to explicitly identify my goal, so that I have a standard of evaluation.

My question is why do you want to write? What topics, for what purpose?

I see these as the first questions that you need to ask yourself.

Are you talking about writing for some blog, writing your own diary? Writing fiction/nonfiction? There could be plenty of types.

[Zip]

The A. B. C.'s

Accuracy

Brevity

Clarity

[softwareNerd]

Writing is usually helpful in clarifying an idea to oneself. Perhaps some people can do it well enough in their heads, but mostly not. When one writes out the ideas one is thinking, two type of things happen. Sometimes, the ideas simply flow, but on re-reading and editing, one finds that the long stream of thought can be summarized in some way. At other times, some stream of thought appears not to be such a fluent stream when one starts to put it down. One might hesitate at some steps, wondering how to express the thought in words. Writing works to resolve both those problems.

A parallel example: one of the things I liked about Lisa van Damme's teaching method is her use of essay-style (as opposed to multiple choice) Q & A in all sorts of subjects, even in math. This style makes a child express his thoughts and reasoning in words, even if he can get to the right answer with part of the process remaining wordless. In doing so, his understanding of the subject is strengthened.

Another thing about writing is that it allows one to put down one's current observations on a subject while they are fresh, and then one has a place where one can come back and add other thoughts that arise. This way, one can gather various thoughts and then -- later -- think them through at one's leisure. Writing plays the role that a shopping list might play -- it frees up one's mind from having to remember all the little thoughts that occur to you, that you might want to think through at some other time.

As for whether it is a blog/diary etc., given Horvay's purpose, such writing would be primarily for himself. So it is primarily a diary. It can be a public, but it would remain for himself. The disadvantage to making something like that public would be any temptation to "play" to one's readers, i.e. allowing their wants to dictate your private purposes.

On the other hand, if one trusts one's own honesty, and if the topics are not personal, writing publicly does have advantages. Even an audience of only one other person -- say a spouse -- introduces a new element. It can help force one into a discipline of documenting an idea not just to the point where it is clear to oneself -- which could be simple jottings -- but to a point where it would be clear to another reader. This forces one into thinking more explicitly in words and connected sentences. Of course, one can choose to write some things for an audience and other things for oneself. For instance, I have a blog where I write things but publish only some of them. Many others are unfinished thoughts that I just wanted to write down and return to later.

[horvay]

My question is why do you want to write? What topics, for what purpose?

I see these as the first questions that you need to ask yourself.

Are you talking about writing for some blog, writing your own diary? Writing fiction/nonfiction? There could be plenty of types.

Actually, the goal isn't to write. Well, no solely, definitely not my focus. The goal is to have clearer and more concise thoughts. To learn how to make my own understanding of things better, more accurate and explicit.

[horvay]

Writing is usually helpful in clarifying an idea to oneself. Perhaps some people can do it well enough in their heads, but mostly not. When one writes out the ideas one is thinking, two type of things happen. Sometimes, the ideas simply flow, but on re-reading and editing, one finds that the long stream of thought can be summarized in some way. At other times, some stream of thought appears not to be such a fluent stream when one starts to put it down. One might hesitate at some steps, wondering how to express the thought in words. Writing works to resolve both those problems.

A parallel example: one of the things I liked about Lisa van Damme's teaching method is her use of essay-style (as opposed to multiple choice) Q & A in all sorts of subjects, even in math. This style makes a child express his thoughts and reasoning in words, even if he can get to the right answer with part of the process remaining wordless. In doing so, his understanding of the subject is strengthened.

Another thing about writing is that it allows one to put down one's current observations on a subject while they are fresh, and then one has a place where one can come back and add other thoughts that arise. This way, one can gather various thoughts and then -- later -- think them through at one's leisure. Writing plays the role that a shopping list might play -- it frees up one's mind from having to remember all the little thoughts that occur to you, that you might want to think through at some other time.

As for whether it is a blog/diary etc., given Horvay's purpose, such writing would be primarily for himself. So it is primarily a diary. It can be a public, but it would remain for himself. The disadvantage to making something like that public would be any temptation to "play" to one's readers, i.e. allowing their wants to dictate your private purposes.

On the other hand, if one trusts one's own honesty, and if the topics are not personal, writing publicly does have advantages. Even an audience of only one other person -- say a spouse -- introduces a new element. It can help force one into a discipline of documenting an idea not just to the point where it is clear to oneself -- which could be simple jottings -- but to a point where it would be clear to another reader. This forces one into thinking more explicitly in words and connected sentences. Of course, one can choose to write some things for an audience and other things for oneself. For instance, I have a blog where I write things but publish only some of them. Many others are unfinished thoughts that I just wanted to write down and return to later.

I think writing for me does do some error finding like you said. I also find writing to be a good indicator of the organization of one's mind. As I try to make better use of my consciousness, writing can become like a barometer that gauges the level of efficiency--as can speaking too.

[horvay]

PART TWO

You can have a good life structure, as well as a good plot structure, by one method only: you must know essentials. You must recognize what is the important thing in any issue you deal with.

I think this comes from having outlining a goal for any extensive thought about a subject. When one declares a goal that they wish to achieve--"I want to develop a list of things I admire most in people"--they then need to stick to the essentials of achieving that goal. If one were to start thinking about:

"Well, I like people who like cats. Cats are fun as they seem to mimic individuality. I'm sad my cat died."

then that is not keeping to the essentials of achieving the goal about finding things one admires. While something like:

"Well, I like people who like cats. Cats mimic individuality and others who find this as a value will also value individuality."

This shows a complete cycle of abstract to concrete to abstract but all the while staying on the topic of finding things one admires in others. This also gets to something else Ayn Rand gets into in The Art of Fiction:

Early in the book she mentioned:

With the exception of proper names, every word is an abstraction. One way to have words come to you easily--words which express the exact shade of meaning you want--is to know clearly the concretes that belong under your abstractions.

This leads to the more important message:

One rule that you need both as a human being and as a fiction writer is: Concretize your abstractions.

In your daily life, in thinking, and in reading, you deal constantly with wide abstractions. If you have only a general idea of how to concretize these, they are "floating abstractions." If you can name one or two concretes under some concept, but no more, it is a semifloating abstraction. You do have some knowledge of how it applies to reality, but your understanding is very limited. For instance, if you are asked what you mean by "independence," and you say, "A man who thinks for himself," that is one good concrete. Much more is necessary, however, in order to understand such an abstraction as "independence."

This was dead on with one of my problems. I used to always have to struggle to do this. Someone would ask for an example of what I was talking about and I'd have to jump to the example in whatever book I read about the abstraction. If I was talking about concept formation, I'd jump to using furniture and tables (or humans and animals) as they were the examples most used.

Fortunately, Ayn Rand gives some good tips here:

You do not have to start concretizing all your concepts systematically. Start with those which interest you most, or proceed at random, whenever you catch yourself using a floating abstraction. Do it whenever your mind is unemployed, on the bus or while brushing your teeth. Train your mind to concretize every abstraction as a general policy. As with typing, it is only at first that you have to do it by conscious, measured steps. Eventually it becomes an automatic mental habit.

So I went for a jog and started to do this. Its amazing how much of a web of abstractions appear. One that I faced were "freedom", "individuality", "analytical", "building", and sense all these led to defining what I was speaking about, they led to more abstractions to analyze and concretize.

Some more on abstractions:

You must be able to work backward and forward from the abstract to the concrete. In other words, you must be able to concretize any abstraction you deal with and, vice versa, to draw the abstraction from any concretes you deal with.

Train yourself to see what any series of concretes--whether people, events, character traits, or whatever--have in common. 'I have seen a number of people do X. The premise behind it is Y.' When you think like this, you are abstracting a concept or a general principle from a number of concretes.

If you do not constantly draw abstractions of your own, you lose a lot of good material. For instance, you might observe some characteristic thing that people do which would be good to include in your writing. But if you store it in your subconscious without tying it to anything else, it is lost. It is only a concrete observation and will be of no value to you.

Instead, tie your observations to abstractions. For instance, you observe that someone is aggressive in a nasty way, and that he is also frightened and uncertain. You might conclude that he is putting on a show, that he is a coward who is aggressive as a defense. This is classifying a concrete under an abstraction--and this is the kind of observation that will be valuable to you as a writer.