Depressed People See the World More Realistically (2017)

Re:Depressed People See the World More Realistically (2017) by wolfgke on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @04:52PM (#21275499)

> My brain obsesses with ideas that you would put more in the category of philosophy. It's what you think about when you have nothing to do or start daydreaming that's probably where your brain is best at. I never asked people in tech what they think about in those moments. I'm really, really curious about the answer.

My experience with these is: I often think that I have some deep mathematical insight. The problem with these insights is that they "partly right" - they are often based on a good mathematical intuition of mine. But unluckily the mathematical research typically has come a lot farther than my insight - i.e. my insight is actually a really old hat in mathematical research.

So instead of daydreaming about some clever mathematical insight of yours, better cram advanced math textbooks - they will teach you a lot more than what you will ever come up with by daydreaming.

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Re:Depressed People See the World More Realistically (2017) by kharak on Thursday October 17, 2019 @04:28AM (#21279988)

For sure. Study the literature of your subject. The point is, what do you think about automatically when you don't focus on a specific task? My expectation is, that people who are great at what they do continue to think and daydream about their work. When I read about philosophy (or related subjects), I'm continuing to think about it for days or weeks. That doesn't happen with tech, although that's my daily business.

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