I'm shit at abstract thinking.
I'm an engineer and I tend to think autistically. If I know the parameters (e.g. a game like chess, or boundary conditions for a problem, or the language for programming) its easy to solve a problem, once you have the "tools".
But the truly brainy people are the ones who create new tools, not combine existing tools to solve a problem. So how do I improve my abstract thinking ability, and in doing so, create new thought tools?
>But the truly brainy people are the ones who create new tools, not combine existing tools to solve a problem. So how do I improve my abstract thinking ability, and in doing so, create new thought tools?
You create new tools by trying to solve problems that cannot be easily solved by existing tools and trying to come up with an easier way of solving that problem.
As for abstract thinking, I would recommend learning some applied mathematics. It will teach you how to convert real world problems into abstract mathematical problems.
All tasks work that way: you have boundary conditions and logic between them, then find a smooth solution.
Hallucinogens once a week. Not even joking.
How applied is applied maths? Is it the graduate-level of "Jose builds a house at the rate of 5 bricks/hr. How many brinks will he have laid in 40 hours" ?
Read up on operations research.
Aside from delving deeper into physics or mathematics, I suggest you learn some philosophy. It is the most abstract you can get. It's literally impossible to represent philosophical ideas visually.
is Abstract algebra help?
Abstract is the opposite of Complex. The word gets thrown around mostly due to it's psychological buzz effect, and certainly means something very easy to grasp like a reference to colors or quantities apart from other properties of sets of objects. Since you are probably talking about solving Physical problems, let us differentiate Physical "Laws" from other kinds of Laws like Legal laws and Games' laws. Obviously, the latter is a reference to boundaries for either an agent or element while the former defines causation in a way that computation of states with Physics yields an exact outcome. The probability involved in Quantum Physics, thus, is a modern exception to the exact causation expected in Classical Science. This probability is however non-problematic because it corresponds to an actual unknown cause which separates possible outcomes from actual outcomes. The end-game of Physics is certainly a prediction of outcomes, or at least a ever-refining model of reality based solely on the rules of Logic, or as some people would like to say, and I would gladly do the favor, the rules of Mathematics. This Mathematics is however unbound of human biases, so it is very different from what we've built with inconsistent systems like irrational & complex numbers, so that is why I prefer to use the word Logic. Having seen many x=x threads here on Veeky Forums, an smart lurker will be certainly thinking of this when I speak of "rules" of logic. And here is the bonus, I've started differentiating the two meanings of the word Law to come now and conclude that the causational laws of physics must rely on causational laws of logic, thus x=x on a scale generates our whole Universe and is not merely a restriction. To be continued...
Get out Tegmark. We don't like your kind around here, you hear?
This, only stop if you think you're losing your mind or you are comfortable with the results.
Good, because this doesn't rely on Tegmark's Mathy Dope "Multiverse"
It can't be learned OP. Just do the best with your limited intelligence
Even from the way this is phrased, you sound a lot smarter than you think you are. I bet you'll do fine maybe you just haven't found your niche yet
Maybe she's born with it
LISP
Logic applied to every Physical model yields a General theory of models, historically a very fresh and new mathematical field called Model Theory, which started making its way to the surface around the year of 1973. To put it simple, it's a Theory of Theories, and when included Physical models, it is on closure classified as a ToE, that is a Theory of Everything. To move on, we first need to further our depth in Logic, specifically what is called Sentential Logic, also known as Propositional Calculus. Starting on the very foundations, let's state that for each thing x that exists, there is logically its negation that can be thought of as the absence of x, it could be the absence of someone, of a beautiful car, of an apple tree and so on. From this it can be also said that an absence implies the logical existence of something, thus everything that is absent in Physical reality implies an unrealized Physical possibility. In one strike this solves the popular question of "Why something instead of nothing?" and it reduces Physical reality to a selection of outcomes. One logical selection of outcomes is what is known as the Anthropic Principle(AP). True in very funny aspects like being born on a peaceful post-nuclear world, which is the only nuclear world you can be born in. True also when immensely increasing chances of being born in relative wealthy conditions. But how far does the Anthropic Principle really go? By evidence and logic, to perceive a Universe is to have at least the minimal amount of intellect to mathematically model it. Based on the computational model of the mind, this amounts to having a Universal Turing Machine for a mind as opposed to a Non-Universal Turing Machine brain: The UTM is able to input an algorithm that will define its future I.O. function, while the Non-UTM will not. Therefore the AP defines not only the past of your world and its momentary peaceful present, but it causes UTM-generating physical laws. To be continued...
go to betterexplained.com and read up on how to develop your intuition
no.
You're not bad at "abstract thinking", you're just philosophically devoid, don't have a framework to understand how things relate, and therefore are poor at thinking in generalized terms and fluidly dealing with arbitrary scales.
Take your chess example. The board is only capable of finite states, and is governed by certain rules. Relative to your brain, it's a very simple finite state machine, and it controls your behavior accordingly. Widening the scope, your brain is a finite state machine and the chess board can be considered to be a part of you. Widening the scope further, the room, the building, the state, the country, the planet you're part of, are all arbitrarily subdividable parts of greater wholes. Once you realize that the universe, as far as we're concerned, is governed by a core logic, that everything has hard limits becomes an omnipresent fact of life that never fully leaves your awareness. You no longer turn on the faucet and feel that water must come out forever, for example. You don't think machines that perform computations can become more efficient and faster infinitely, as many people seem to. There are hard tradeoffs that cannot be transcended.
Go back to the basics. Rebuild your logical frameworks from the ground up. That's all I can say.