How do you think?

My thought process changed through the years.

First it's was what one could call pessimistic... At least in design.

I question everything on what could go wrong, and if it looked like a good possibility that it may not perform as planned, I'd start planning and incorporating a plan 'b' if plan 'a' fails.

Doing this was pretty hard on me, but the results were awesome.

People say that I made it look easy. And that I was really versitle and quick thinking... If they only knew that it could also be quite torturous. :/

Yea. always been a bit on the pessimistic side myself as well.

Really hard to disappoint someone who is expecting it!

And yes I tended to be the worst critic of my work too because of analyzing it in unnecessary detail but now I have a wife to do that for me and she can apparently do it without so much as an utterance of analytical thought ever crossing her mind.

Hey,.... Don't be too hard on yourself... :P

I rarely am. I'm a pessimist who has learned to laugh at himself.

Yep, we all are laughing with you. :P

If I am working on a technical problem, I visualize a model of the problem. For other things, I guess it is a verbalization. I would say I pretty much match what you said. Maybe it's an engineer thing.

That's actually what I am trying to pin down is is there a fairly easy to define thought process that engineers use Vs non engineers or specifically per a certain type of persons natural gravitation towards a type of work.

Do architects think differently than engineers and do accountants think differently than those two and so on.

I repeated the how do you think question to my wife and daughter over supper tonight. Daughter still sticks with the pictures and words description and my wife is still basically absorbing static around her through etheric osmosis.

(Maybe that's part of why she believes so heavily in nonsensical things like astrology, past lives, and that anyone who is smarter than her is secretly from an advance alien society. )

I just pour coffee beans into a funnel on top of my head.
Then I turn a crank axially aligned between my ears.
From this emerge well grounded (or grinded) pronouncements.
Once in a blue moon, someone agrees.
652 times so far....

I like to keep it simple, I ponder important things like...will it be merlot or a cab tonight?

Yes I think it is normal to wonder how we think. I think the conscious mind has two parts, the periphery and the centre? The hunter and prey?

The hunter is the normal mode, dealing with reality, and the prey a highly intelligent part of the brain analysing our situation? Reality has access to associations of our past, recognition of language and sensory memories. And the periphery part prompting us to analyse, by prompting our feelings, by talking to us?

Regards JD.

I've found that if I am facing a design problem & the answer is not coming easily, I forget about it. If I stop thinking about it for perhaps a day quite often the answer comes more easily when I look at the problem again. I guess there is some sort of unconscious processing going on without me realising. In the same vein, I usually do the newspaper crossword during lunch break &, if I get stuck on any of the answers, I usually find that I can fill them in easily when I get home in the evening.

I also walk away, think of something else.

I have read that even though your doing this, you brain is still working on the problem.

And also, the term 'I'll sleep on it". there is validity in that, research shows evidence that the brain is still working on that.

How many people here have been dealing with a problem during the day. And at night in a sound sleep' suddenly (and some times quite dramatically) wake up with a solution. Try getting back to sleep then can be near impossible, unless you write it down or something.

I don't believe I'm the only one.

I wonder if I can convince my employer that sleeping is part of the creative process? I could swap my office chair for a recliner.

hey, if you can prove to your employer that you have increased performance when sleeping than working,...... I don't believe that will bode well for your waking work performance to begin with.

I agree about taking a break from the problem. Sometimes even a short walk helps clear out the old thoughts and brings fresh ideas.
Numerous times I struggle with a problem in the afternoon with no good solution.
Go home, come to work the next morning and the solution just pops in. I wonder why I didn't think of that yesterday.

Ideas come out of the blue sometimes like you say, laying in bed, awake or asleep or taking a shower.

Of course the best ones come while I'm sitting on the ..... uhm .. well, must be something to do with the extra brain activity going on.

On my last project I got stuck on the same stage with a problem and couldn't get past it. Then I realised that my rout / approach to the problem stayed the same. Thinking in Afrikaans and English. As my thinking goes up to where I found the problem the first time, and then I get stuck there every time. It was only when I went to discuss it with somebody ells, I realised where I went wrong. The next time I got to that problem, the answer was the hole time in front of me, but I couldn't see it because the way I was thinking. Yes my experience told me that it needs to be built like this, but since my brain accident my way of thinking has changed, and this was an good example of it and I got some more experience, so the next time I will be OK.

Maboer

I had that experience, when you can't see the answer to a problem but, if you try to explain it to someone else, the answer suddenly seems obvious. It seems like just putting the problem into words makes it easier to understand.

I hope you are feeling well now. Yes, words help, sketches sometimes help. Thinking in more than one language helps, especially if you keep all the cuss words in only one language, then you only need repent in that same language. LOL

Lyn and Phoenix: I find that when I am bogging down on something at work, it makes me sleepy, and so I get up and take a walk, smoke, think about it, and come back to sit down, and get in another argument on CR4.

Ha, I got called in to the office about (4) years ago and reprimanded because some yahoo reported that I should be at my desk.

I explained to him, there are times that I have to walk away which he agreed and does the same himself.

I also told him, I don't care who reported me, but you can pass along, that maybe instead of taking a break and walk through the plant, that maybe I should do what most in the office does and go out for a smoke break 6-12 time during the day.

I told him to pass that along. he said "I don't think I should do it" I said, "I think you should."

because I have an idea who the menthol smoking peckerwud is that squealed

I also brought up that I can also cut down to 8 hours a day which was the requirement, instead of the 10-12, I have been doing.

His response,...... "ah,......... forgot this ever happened."

You're not, you share that trait with Jonas Salk who woke up one morning and saw that he wrote "...killed virus..." on his nightstand notepad, the rest is history.

Or Kekule's dream of the snake eating its tail, leading to the discovery of the benzene ring structure.

I suppose that you refer mainly about the "way of thinking" as an engineer.

It's more "images like" thoughts that pop up in my head following by a short inner dialog (in Greek language of course, except from English technical terms) trying to clarify and evaluate all these blurry images/ideas in a more logical manner. This first step is based mainly on instict and experience. And when I end up with some possible solutions/ways, then I further evaluate and analyze each of them (in a deeper level and taking into account many different factors), in order to find out the more adequate and proper one.

Sometimes, the over-stress may block your mind or lead it to wrong paths. (Once I was facing a problem with a circuit and I couldn't find a way to overcome it for several days. And then on a Saturday morning I just woke up on my bed with the solution ready -as a clear mentally image- in front of me.) Many other factors may influence the way of thinking and the concequence results. In some situations the decisions are based on instict (especially when an immediate reaction is needed) while others are the result of a more logical/analytical slow process.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but a couple of posts have mentioned arriving at an answer by instinct. I think this is not some vague instinct but an answer based on experience.

I would agree that "instinct" is more likely memory. After lots of years in various industries, I have seen/done a lot of different ideas and designs. Thankfully the vast majority of those have become stuck in my brain(probably because of the sense of satisfaction). I often think to myself when a new problem arises, "yes I have seen this before what finally ended up working the best". When the light bulb goes on, then it is only "is there a better way".

Surely, you have heard the expression: "That fellow has good instincts". These "instincts" are indeed probably the summation of education, experience, and insight.

In the business world, the more successful entrepreneurs manage to "see" the new hot trends that will take place (before the statistician can finish counting the beans), get out of whatever slow thing he is on now, and jump into the new thing before anyone else even knows there is a new trend. I call that instinct. Some have this trait finely honed, some do not.

I suspect it to be the same in the world of engineering, but the field is sooo broad, so technical, and so finessed (in many instances) that no one person can gain that criticial advantage over other engineers without having some really keen analysis skills, and also realizing advantages of this way over that way, and doing it all quickly.

As a mechanical type engineer I think in snapshots mostly. As a problem is brought to me I am already going through the machine process as the problem is described to me. Most times I will have a good idea of the solution before I ever get to the machine to watch it.

Experience and training (thought processes) are leading to the snapshots and the solution. If it is a new problem, or a design problem on a new task, well, those things are not always observable from the outside and the movie in my head starts with applicable theories being scanned for a place to live in the process. IE, machine alignment; material variance; proper machine maintenance; machine and part set-up; etc.

A wise boss told me when I was young, if you can't draw it, you can't make it.

I believe most engineers think linearly. Visualize a product/end result, construct a process around it. The process part is mostly from experience or training; the "memory stored of sensory input" as SolarEagle has said.

tcmtech stated , "worst critic of my work too because of analyzing it in unnecessary detail". I think to an extent that is true with all engineers. There is no such thing as a 'perfect' machine or process; however that is the goal most engineers. Budgets, time constraints, and even available space drive us to envision/think of what is good enough with what is available.

I believe that all manufacturing needs a 'old-timer' around that has the experience to say, "hit it with a hammer here". Then we can look at why we need to hit it with a hammer and come up with a solution.

Then there are the creative engineers that visualize buildings and cars and such. That is just magic.

I believe the thinking processes has a direct correlation to the language at birth or the whatever language used during the upbringing stage... Which may be very different to the medium of teaching used in schools! I was once asked by a friend who happened to be also my secretary during my retirement party... This question; "How come when we asked you certain questions it took at least a day or two for you to respond before?" Apparently the "before" she was referring to was about 35 years ago when I just arrived here in the states, the U.S.A. My jokingly answer was, "before, I had to go back home, think on the question and find the proper translations in English of the answers before I can respond! Mind you the country I came from is half-way around the globe, which will take me at least 18 hrs to travel, One way! Honestly at that time my thought processes was still based on my old local dialect, and direct translations in English will sound funny, ridiculous and just not correct!

That part about "going home, thinking about it (in native language), and then translating to English" (loose quotation), was absolutely a beautiful response.

I wish I could try that trick on my wife, when she asks me why I have not done so-and-so task she has delineated for me.

If I ever do these chores, she expects me to instantly incorporate them into my daily routine (which she couch potatos her way through old age), or else I get the laser eye treatment. Her eyes are the most coherent source of light in the universe!

She could burn a hole in something with those.

Yea my wife does the laser stare at me as well when I don't do what she thinks I should have done even if it makes no sense.

Fortunately all the time I spend outside not hiding from the world has given me a good tan and thick enough skin her burning stare now has no real affect on me!

So far my favorite counter defence for the who has the most work arguments is to simply say "No Problem! I would be happy to trade my chores for yours!" Then list off everything I can think of that needs fixing, repairing, building, being hauled out, dug up or filled in and how much money and physical effort I will be spending while getting those things done.

5 years and so far only once did she try the trade thing only to find out my skillsets and work ethic crossed over to her chores far better and easier than hers could to mine and the only major things she had to do that day was remember to gas in the mower before mowing the yard or have to figure out how to refill it and get it started again where ever it ended up running out of gas.

I form a 3D wire-frame in my mind and see forces on the frame as far as deflection and bending.

This made me think about the old farmer's sayings:

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong.

Other sayings of equal value in days ahead:

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2013/11/18/advice-from-an-old-farmer/

I tend to "see" the object, think about what problems it has in its simple form, and start adding "stuff" that allegedly "fixes" the weakness, or problem. I usually find out where I went wrong when I make my first prototype, as that is where my design failures really pop-up. Things like an allen screw sticking up too high to clear the next part, but I didn't have a stubby little allen screw when I built the thing.

Then I have to figure out how to "reverse" a part so the other part fits next to where it goes, and the allen screw then can run into something else or a hole.

Sometimes, when visualizing what I thinking, I can't see the forest for the trees. Other times, I miss the forest as a whole for focusing on just this one tree, in minute details, down to the beetle marks on the bark.

For me it depends on what I'm thinking about.

For technical issues, I normally think 'visually,' building the equipment/circuit in my head and watching it run.

For planning, it tends to me an inner monologue, "If tomorrow is Yhursday, that means I need to get this, this, and this done today⁽¹⁾."

Obviously, anything involving writing or other wordplay is inner monologue as well, except when it involves other media. If I'm working on a 'fan fiction' for a show, I tend to 'see' the story developing as if I were watching a fictional episode and then transcribing the action.

Notes:

1. Thanks to my time at UPS, where the late-shift work was screwing up with my sleep schedule, I'd end up waking around noon, and the first thought in my head was "Well, this day's wasted, can I do anything useful tomorrow?" Since the morning was gone, and the afternoon would be spent with the deadline of heading to UPS sitting in the back of my mind, sucking the joy out of anything I tried to do. I couldn't get so involved/immersed in an activity that I lost track of time, so I couldn't really enjoy a good book or get invested in a game's storyline. After a few years of that, something got tweaked in my head, and I now start all my planning related thoughts by thinking about what TOMORROW is, not TODAY. It doesn't feel right, and I've been trying to shift my 'reference day' back to 'today,' but it's not quite 'sticking' yet.
   

I try to always have an optimistic outlook. There are always more possibilities with a positive outlook rather than a negative one. As we encounter problems always be looking for solutions, rather than just kicking around the problem and lamenting "how bad things are".

Even when things are going "good" I try to think how to make them better; Plan, Do, Check, Adjust, the process. "You don't have to be sick to get better."

I seek to always be in the learning mode. I read as much as I can in areas I want to improve in. I listen to audios that inspire me to learn. I associate with people who are better than me in the areas I want to improve in. What I know has gotten me to where I am so if I don't like that, I need to learn more. As John "Coach" Wooden said, "it's what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts."

I'm a pictures and words guy. There's a lot of the dialogue in there as well, "If I..." "Then it will..." I find that, in the physical world, moving my hands can be helpful to the visualization, and staring at a stationary point in the middle distance can be helpful overall.

Verbal and reading tasks;- Quickly, ahead, gap filling. This often leads to jumping to wrong conclusions and miscomprehension. I have to read slower and further to get correct comprehension.

When tasked with answering this thread for example i form the sentence as i go. This leads to backspacing and corrections. Sometimes whole sentences go.

Physical/spacial tasks. When tasked with making something i see the finished 'thing' in my head. I then draw it and find the things that won't work then go to prototype Mk1 expecting to make up to Mk4 before getting something commercial.

I worked in healthcare with people oriented in the humanities. Their thought process is quite different. They tend to be concerned with what the client/patient will think about the product, the process, my behaviour, their behaviour and the colour! Typically they have poor spacial awareness and cannot 'see' the finished product even when shown a drawing. My wife's thoughts are about what she thinks I am thinking about. Particularly evident when a pretty young woman is in the proximity. ( about a square mile )

I had one employee whose thought process was always about his next move, as in, playing chess with people. He would pre-determine what he would say or do to elicit a particular response from the person he was interacting with (family or me ). I caught some of this from him and i have found myself in less hot water as a result. Before I employed J** I would always put my mouth into gear before engaging my brain. After J** i would at least think about the possible effects of my next words, sometimes. I am aware that different people think differently and so i try to work out how they think so i can work with them in their world but sometimes i can't work them out. Try this conversation;

her (client); i want the roof to be flat.

Me; i can do that but it will leak.

Her; It better lot leak. I won't pay you if it leaks.

Me; I better pitch it then.

Her; I want it flat.

Me; it WILL leak.

Her; I want it flat without leaks.

And on it went. My conclusion was that she is just 'being a woman.' I have met many women like this but just a few men, most of those men worked in the humanities. I am currently doing a job for an engineer and he and i think alike. It is an absolute joy.

Jim

They make you think that they think this way on porpuse, they are capable of technical reasoning (I've caught them several times). They do this to make clear they're no less than you are, exhibit an over-controller attitude and agressive behavior because they don't want to be abused (Ok, a few are plain stupid). The truth is that if they were like us, but kept thinking the same way, the world would be a huge butchery.

I call upon my ability for abstract thought and mechanical aptitude which I feel were somehow inherited and/or absorbed from a long line of people who took the time to see that I was genuinely interested and helped me understand how and why things worked.

Sometimes when I really have to.

I have migrated to this form of consciousness because all to often I hear; "What were you thinking?" and I can't logically answer "them".

After all "they" have more than once said; "We did not have this problem until you brought it to our attention."

Logic therefore dictates I must limit my thinking process so that it will not be my fault. Right?

When I was younger I suffered greatly with urethral osmosis and random illogical dreams that often misguided my actions however I am getting better with age. Ahh... those were the days.

Let's say in a brainstorming session, At times I'll throw something out there total abstract and bazzar,,... (If for anything, my own amusement ). Some look at you, and you can read their facial expressions to the effect 'wth'. These guys thought process was already shut off and was killing the session.

While others, you can see them become deep in thought, thinking what is it you just said... And after some banter, a few good ideas come out.

Years ago when brainstorming was more in vogue, there was a logic of always inviting someone who knew nothing about the problem in hand. They would be someone not usually part of the design process, probably not an engineer. The idea was that they would question things that everybody else assumed were right because they were not locked into the same pattern of thinking. I think this is the same reason that you don't see missing dimensions etc. until you print a drawing, it's the change of format that refocuses the mind.

inviting someone who knew nothing about the problem in hand.

actually a fresh untainted view is one of the reason I liked having someone like that.

probably why I did it... well one of the reasons.

Oh, you, never check you own work..... but who now-a-days has the extra man power. that was also the problem in the 80's.

This happens more often than I'd like to admit. I think I go over the CAD with a fine tooth comb only to print it and find I can't make the part because of a missing dimension. I used to feel bad, but now I can blame my brain and not me!

Seriously, the change of format IS a thing. I cringe when I see other 'engineers/designers' print out a change/new design and just say, "It's in the printer, make it like that."

How we think...synapses and electrical currents. Some studies have shown that the visual cortex is powered on when we think; 'picturing' a problem/idea. Source: Google

and do it multiple times.... sometimes walk away and come back. This will gives your brain a reset.

Yes these are hard lesson, but you're not alone.

I'm sure there is a pile of dimensions in the bottom of my printer, I can't of forgotten all of them.

Remember,.... some go to CADD heaven.

Is this like the pile of native american warriors in the bottom of my father's TV set, it seems most tube failures had to do with not periodically opening up, and sweeping these (and various dust bunnies from Elmer Fudd cartoons) out the bottom of the TV.

Do these lost dimensions have anything to do with dark energy? If you go into a room, and the lights are not on, how do you find your way in the dark, unless you can see in dark energy? Enquiring minds want to know....

If you put extreme pressure on the lost dimensions, will it cause another Big Bang? Big Band? Rubber Band Universe?

Has anyone here ever made anything of metal without writing down all sorts of dimensions? What about doing this by sense of feel? How the parts "fit" together (or not). Sometimes in the flow of things in my shop, I just make stuff, put it together, and expect it to be right, simply because it exists in my mind that way. Then I often get in the middle of the project only to find, that I have to change course.

""We did not have this problem until you brought it our attention."" Geez, how mature is that? In other words, if the ignorant can remain in bliss, it does not matter how many "derailments/mile"? Talk about the poster children for complacency, where do you work, the U.S.D.O.T?

Especially in the world of software, PLC coding, HMI coding, etc., there is a lot of schlock practice, where items are copied and pasting from one redundant branch to the next one, sometimes even without changing, correcting the labeling, and especially without providing any, much less the proper line documentation. Where do people pick up these bad habits? I still believe they were not taught this way in engineering school (if that is where they learned their programming skills).

I almost started a new discussion, any maybe should have but I just caught this article on "The Engineer" and my attention made me want to share it.

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/1020356.article?cmpid=tenews_1144212

"AI breakthrough" - Centennial Man to be on the scene soon? Don't count on it, but this is a start, and I suspect that neural networks using memristors will in face take off, since the ion memory is nearer the human brain than is transistor logic.

I artificial intelligence is perfected, then we can stop worrying about brain-dead teenagers (zombies) walking around. Just install the AI chip and Johnny will behave almost like normal, like normal....lli8ekie nnnnnnnnnnoooooooooormalllllllllllllllllll.

On the lines of pondering about how people think it bewilders me how some people can be told something and yet they refuse to accept it yet when life plays out exactly as was explained they then get mad at you for being right.

Do these people not think or is it some sort of cognitive memory block or something else entirely that makes them predispositioned to this action?

Perhaps? they are thinking, a person with that knowledge, that affects their lives, is not using that knowledge to do something about it. Perhaps

Interesting subject. regards JD.

I can follow that logic to a point but when it happens repeatedly that where I start scratching my head and wondering if they listen at all or if there is some sort of disconnect between past experience and present actions.

I can relate to children doing this due to lack of experience and limited mental development plus short attention spans but when adults do it I often wonder if either I am saying things wrongly or if I am not being heard or if it's just not sinking in.

It can also boil down to what ones believe is right and wrong, the belief system is part of human nature? And pushing logic a bit further is the belief system part of the survival mechanism? Fight or flee?

Regards JD.

I think Paul Simon put it best, "...still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest..."

It's just something that annoys me I guess.

I don't like being the bad guy even when I have told someone full well that if they do something it is going to end up going differently than they imagined based on past experiences.

Yes I think some of us have been there, the only thing I can thick of is the advice I gave my son, stick by your principals and you will get support. And he did.

Regards JD.

It could be:

(1) they can't actually hear you, and just nod and proceed

(2) they have a limited attention span, and someone else pointed out a squirrel

(3)their mind was already on something else, and you majorly interrupted their thought process (about what to put into tonight's lasagna).

(4) Evolution continues.

(5) the same reason old men die before their wives: they just want to.

The general term is "cognitive dissonance". It is basically the difference between what our conscious mind experiences and what our subconscious perceives, and all the possible combinations in between.

Examples include seeing a stop sign and not stopping, being told that something is bad for you and doing it anyway, when your subconscious says that's dangerous but you proceed anyway, knowing that an AP will probably cause a blackout or kill himself if he blindly follows your suggestion and you tell him anyway (or is that the Darwin Award??), etc., etc.