Ask HN: How do you improve your analytical thinking?

Re:Ask HN: How do you improve your analytical thinking? by jdowner on Sunday January 28, 2018 @03:33PM (#16253299)

Mathematics and puzzles/games. Take sudoku for example. It helps you to practice deductive reasoning. But the important step (I think) is when you start trying to solve harder problems and turn to math to formalize the collection of techniques you have accumulate during practice, resulting in concepts like 'pre-emptive sets'. When you transition from a collection of techniques to a theoretical foundation, you know have a much deeper understanding of the problem and how to reason about it.

You could call it 'deep learning'.

But you shouldn't ;)

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Re:Ask HN: How do you improve your analytical thinking? by cimmanom on Monday January 29, 2018 @08:43PM (#16262238)

Exactly the comment I was going to make.

After playing one puzzle game on commutes for a few weeks, I'll find myself almost subconsciously doing the same sort of pattern matching against bricks or tiles or the windows on a high rise. Switch to another game and it becomes a different sort of pattern matching.

The human brain, of course, is a trainable pattern matching engine. Puzzle games are great for giving it a workout and teaching it new classes of patterns. The more casual the game the better. Dots or 2048 or Mah Jong or whatever.

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