Skip to content
Rounds
0:00 / 0:00

Feynman: How to think 1 of 2 FUN TO IMAGINE 11

Christopher Sykes

57K subscribers • 1 video on Rounds

YouTube
  • Recommended by 5 people, in Hacker News, across 5 different months.
  • Presented by Richard Feynman, physicist, as the video describes them

For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.

388K views17 years ago5 recommendations

Brain and nervesNeuroscienceMemory and learning

Physicist Richard Feynman describes how different people use entirely different mental processes, such as visual versus verbal counting, to think.

Now! High quality version at youtube.com/watch?v=P1ww1IXRfTA Physicist Richard Feynman wonders about the different ways in which different people think about things... (to be continued). From the BBC TV series 'Fun to Imagine' (1983). You can now watch higher quality versions of some of these episodes at www.bbc.co.uk/archive/feynman/

Why it's here

5 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as a fascinating illustration of cognitive diversity and the different ways people visualize and process information.

joeyespoin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Accidental Genius: How To Think”

I completely agree. First started thinking this way after listening to Feynman talk about his discovery of how people think very differently. link to this video He does a great job of communicating this, despite our interpretive differences. (Though perhaps it's just very well spoken for my interpretation and just the opposite for someone else out there.)
View on Hacker News

Retricin Hacker News • Recommends

On “MIT discovers the location of memories: Individual neurons”

…problem it's brown next to purple. Now try and do that for peanut butter next to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Most people feel something odd happen on the second one because they are reusing the peanut butter network for both of those. For me, I can't focus on their colors at the same time. For a great subjective description of this watch: link to this video Getting back to Consciousness, it's turning on these abstractions by choice. I want to think about Apple so I activate the Apple network and suddenly experience Apple. And it's the same network as if I had just read the word or saw a physical Apple. Language also get's mapped to this which is part of why philosophers think about thinks like…
View on Hacker News

DavidVoidin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Kubrick found what he wanted by trying things out”

You'll probably enjoy this video with Richard Feynman about how different people think differently even for something as basic as counting. link to this video
View on Hacker News

chiiin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Overview of differential equations [video]”

If you have a few minutes spare, you should watch this video of richard feynman, who talks about how he thinks "thinking" happens in people, and how communication is very lossy : link to this video i think the fact that you thought a certain way of learning is more appropriate is actually correct - some people learn one way better than another, and that's because in their brain, they model the world in a different way to other people (who also find a different way of learning better). It just so happens that sometimes a person's model happens to suit the sort of teaching method being used in a school, and he ends up looking like a genius.
View on Hacker News

oxplotin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Not everyone has an internal monologue”

Relevant bit from Feynman talking about how he found that a simple act of counting in one's head can be different and all its implications. I suggest watching the other videos from the same interview. Lots of fun. link to this video
View on Hacker News

adamdecafin Hacker News • Mentions

On “You don't understand something until you think it's obvious.”

This reminds me of a story from Feynman where he was with a math friend and they were trying to multi-task. Yet, they ended up going about the two things (counting for a minute while reading or speaking) in completely different ways. (Different enough that one could only count and talk while the other could only count and read.) link to this video
View on Hacker News

JL2010in Hacker News • Mentions

On “The Higgs Boson - A one page explanation”

And with that comment I'd like to share this: link to this video Physicist Richard Feynman describes an experience where he and a fellow student visualized the elementary concept of counting in different ways... "What we're really doing is having some big translation scheme going on where we're translating what this fellow says into our images."
View on Hacker News

Jachin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Why Don’t We Value Spatial Intelligence?”

One problem is not everyone has imagination--just like there are some photo-memory people there are those with no capability of 'picturing' anything in their mind. Another is that people's mental imagery is probably very different, how can you teach it directly? If the school is good at getting people to discover that mental imagery on their own it will probably work out, but it's hard to teach it to someone who doesn't share it. (I'd love to see some other psychology studies on this, I think I first ran across the view from a Feynman video: link to this video )
View on Hacker News

furyofantaresin Hacker News • Mentions

On “The Quiet Ones”

This reminds me of an anecdote from Feynman about what sorts of mental things he could and could not do while counting seconds, and how it was different for different people. His counting was internally verbal and he could do anything that didn't require him to speak or anything else that was internally verbal. On the other hand, a mathematician he knew was able to do lots of mental things while counting that Feynman couldn't, and wasn't able to do other mental things while counting that Feynman could, because the other guy counted visually. link to this video
View on Hacker News

tokipinin Hacker News • Mentions

On “I'm a shut-in. This is my story”

I'm like this too. It's awe-some power, but the downside is that serializing my ideas into language is, in the words of Bjork, "like trying to put an ocean through a straw." It's extreme enough in my case that I often sound completely retarded when speaking. Don't get me started about my many adventures in interview land. -.- Feynman on the distinct modes of thinking that people possess: link to this video
View on Hacker News

taericin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Is speed reading really possible? ”

So, whenever I think of the subvocalization debate, I immediately see this video. The basic idea was, do not presume that everyone does the same thing you do in order to achieve the same goal. link to this video In other words, I find it hard to believe a claim that subvocalization is required across the board. At least, at an absolute level.
View on Hacker News

tokipinin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Is speed reading really possible? ”

i think this comes down to how different people perceive the world in very different ways... ways much more different than we realize. for example, here1 Feynman talks about being able to count verbally in his mind while reading , but being unable to speak (since he is using his 'speaking' to count). and his acquaintance is able to count visually in his mind while speaking , but isn't able to read (since he is using his 'eyes' to count). 1 link to this video
View on Hacker News

mightybytein Hacker News • Mentions

On “Improve your touch typing”

Feynman noticed things similar to this. It's shows a really interesting picture of how different people think things differently. He discusses it here. link to this video
View on Hacker News

Jachin Hacker News • Mentions

On “University of Tokyo Graduate School Entrance Exam – Mathematics (2016) [pdf]”

"We don't do science for the general public. We do it for each other. Good day." -- Renato Dalbecco, complete text of interview with H F Judson I assume the same applies to mathematics. I can sympathize with the frustration, but at the same time there's frustration from the other end. It takes a very skilled person who can at once describe something with enough detail to be understood by their peers and also be able to describe the same thing with enough preamble to cover and make clear where any obvious inference level gaps are for a layman. You simply cannot understand factorization (to use the example you've given before) without first understanding several things prior. For general liter…
View on Hacker News

xeonmcin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Writing Is Objectively Superior to Speaking as a Communication Method”

Like Feynman once discovered how different people have different processing architectures, just from the simple act of counting link to this video
View on Hacker News

aeternumin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Simple tasks showing reasoning breakdown in state-of-the-art LLMs”

Feynman came up with a potential test by tracking the things he could and couldn't do while counting seconds (via internal monologue). He found he generally count not talk while counting. He then had others try and found that one of his mathematician friends was able to talk just fine while counting because it turned out he was counting visually. link to this video
View on Hacker News