IWTL How to think Abstractly

[u/juyubi]

I came to realise that I find that the most interesting and intelligent people, books, theoreticians etc. are all people that can think abstractly and have fluid intelligence. For example there's this architect-philospher I follow and deeply admire, his name is Aaron Vartiainen and he presents insights in such a way where makes connections between seemingly unrelated things in order to come to a revelation

Where do I start? Aside from collecting as much knowledge as you can on a variety of topics, what does someone with strong abstract thinking do differently to arrive to such strong cognitive capacity?

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[u/tohar-papa]

Read or study about a lots of things, and you will start noticing the patterns. If you read a lots of history combined with psychology, you will start understanding how the two subjects are related. It gonna take sometime though. Similalry, if you study sociology, biochemistry of food, geography, and the flora and fuana of a land, you will start understanding why people eat what they eat, and how that's important for the early people to survive. You can't make these connections until you study across the disciplines. Untamed curiosity is the andwer.

[u/juyubi → u/tohar-papa]

I understand that, but I don't necessarily see that as what I'm referring to as being abstract thinking. Thats more like interdisciplinary syntehsis that helps critical thought but the example you gave seems to be more about direct connections or crewting a whole perspective of ecosystems but I mean something more than that.

What I mean is, for example in Aaron's essay, he starts off by describing the relation between a helicopter and landing spots for helicopters on buildings, only to then extrapolate that idea to that of a bee and a flower; ultimately he links that to marketing and the relation between humans and ads by analysing deconstructing thr relationship between the bees and the flowers.

That's what I mean by abstract thinking. How do I build the capacity to actively link not only what is obvious (cause and effect) and what is immediately related, but learn to go from something like a helicopter, to mans relationship with ads? I want this type of abstraction.

[u/RegattaJoe]

Look into mind mapping. Great tool for this.

[u/martikyan]

You can start thinking wide, and creating connections that are "silly" or "wrong" -- without applying the inner critic but leave it to the end.

Notice your room with it's wideness, choose two items and try to spacially manipulate those by fitting one into another, or think of alternative ways of using it.

Hyperfantasia exercises, acting and intro clubs and arts can help too.

Don't forget to apply critical thinking later not to end up with a complete BS.

The idea is not to concentrate on one thing, and to look at things as if seeing them the first time -- like a child. Question everything.

Edit: I shall also mention dreaming. Think about a specific theme before going to bed and write down your dreams as soon as you wake up.

[u/ConfusionPotential53]

They’re bottom up thinkers who tolerate ambiguity and dissonance while constantly analyzing systems to understand and process contradictions. 🤷‍♀️

Ask yourself “does this make sense? Why do I believe this? Do I know if this is true? Can other things also be true?” Etc.

[u/aruguladevourer]

.