How to cultivate my inner Feynman?

Feynman is a poster child for critical thinking, intelligence, and efficiency. Even the way Feynman read scientific papers was brilliant—read abstract, guess conclusion, and then check conclusion for surprises to see if the article was worth reading. This man was nothing short of a person who understood exactly what he was doing and for what purpose. I want to take advantage of my common sense more often, and I think it is something wholly unconnected to science but rather connected to all kinds of problem-solving. How would you best describe Feynman's problem-solving ability, and what steps can you take to emulate it in one's studies and every day life?

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You need to read my diary desu

Listen to Sam Harris' podcast: Waking Up with Sam Harris. He's the great critical thinker of our day, a master of science and philosophy. Once you've got a grasp of his audio ouvre, graduate to Christopher Hitchens youtube videos to learn the art of rhetoric, an essential for any budding intellectual. When you finish with him, you're ready to grapple with truly abstract ideas and learn how to become the most efficient man you can be. This is best done by entering the tutelage of Dr Jordan B Peterson. The easiest way to do this is to browse the videos on my YouTube channel, Intellectual Awakening, linked below.
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Enjoy

Why are you guys trolling me? :'-(

All I asked was for like, a heuristic or something, or maybe some chill discussions about how to have more common sense.

oh shit senpai I watch your videos all the time. It's an honor. Can you give like a .3 second shout out at the end of your next video to me by the alias: "beef sandwich"?

You have to have an IQ of 120

Only works for IQ's below 120

>tfw 112 IQ

i wanna B smard ;_;

The retarded American NEETs must be the only people online.

>what steps can you take to emulate it in one's studies and every day life?
alright I'm on Adderall so may come out as incoherent rambling.
anyway, a friend of mine whos going for his Ph.D. in neurology talk about this type of shit for hours.

before I ramble on. if you need to ask this question on Veeky Forums on the Veeky Forums board. lets just assume you aren't a genetic freak aka you're not smart but aren't dumb.
Feynman is in the same upper echelon as lets say Michael Jordan or fucking Roger Federer of genetics. of just having the natural talent that majority of people on earth will never develop. now you're probably thinking or have already? how the fuck am I going to improve myself. well, theirs methods and ways of achieving them but it will ultimate boil down of you being patient of unlearning decades of bad habits due to childhood, parenting and social surroundings.
now your only chances of getting will be.
stick to mastering one topic at a time.
experimenting with diets and drugs. for example, go off meat one month. quit caffeine for another. upper your dosages etc

Hero worship is a terrible thing. Think for yourself and stop crushing on a Jew.

Feynman had anything but common sense. He dwelves, albeit unkowingly, into very abstract and obtuse kinds of reasoning. It SEEMS like common sense to you because he has distilled his thoughts to exhaustion. Heuristically speaking, you learn such reasoning out of mere curiosity by association. Instead of thinking "what does X do?" Simony consider "what is the relation between X and every Y out there?". This kind of connected network of supporting definitions is how Feynman could solve things fast.

Also do not buy into the nature vs nurture debate. Feynman had a great dad and formidable support allied by a favourable genetic makeup. Doesn't mean you can't mimic his thought process to achieve your own goals.

I don't fucking worship Feynman. I think his opinions on philosophy are idiotic and a blemish on an otherwise great intellectual career. But I know a genius when I see one, and Feynman was generally sharp as fuck.

Forgive me for picking somebody famous that wasn't perfect. It's like every fucking time you bring up a science genius here, you have tons of brain-envy literature fucks that sperg out over claims one didn't even make.

>if you need to ask this question on Veeky Forums on the Veeky Forums board.
I ask here because plenty of non-conformist intelligent people tend to post here when you catch them at the right moment, and this website promotes a "no-bullshit", or at least a "no safe space" mentality which I enjoy.

> lets just assume you aren't a genetic freak aka you're not smart but aren't dumb.
Ascribing behavioral habits, that anybody could learn, to genetics is a great way to condemn yourself to lifetime mediocrity. I'm not asking how to come up with the next Standard Model of physics or write the next literary classic. I'm asking how to cultivate that kind of grounded direction and efficiency.

>well, theirs methods and ways of achieving them but it will ultimate boil down of you being patient of unlearning decades of bad habits due to childhood, parenting and social surroundings.
I'm not a super genius but I'm not a moron with terrible habits myself, i.e., full ride to HYP-tier university. All of us have our own methods to our madness. I was thinking maybe we could try to combine approaches to form some sort of simple system or point out similarities, but I guess I was wrong. Shitposting central today.

>Also do not buy into the nature vs nurture debate. Feynman had a great dad and formidable support allied by a favourable genetic makeup. Doesn't mean you can't mimic his thought process to achieve your own goals.
Thanks for the real answer.

>It SEEMS like common sense to you because he has distilled his thoughts to exhaustion.
What do you mean by this? Just a little more elaboration please.

>This kind of connected network of supporting definitions is how Feynman could solve things fast.
Experience + raw calculations is great, but I don't think that was the kind of question that I was talking about. All of that is for nothing if you don't know how to "focus" in the way I described in the OP. A lot of people waste their time chasing windmills when they could have simply re-evaluated their methods, their goals, or their standards and achieved much more productivity.

i.e., I'm not looking for things to do unless they're general principles or methods that can be internalized. You can't read scientific papers like Feynman unless you're already, at bare minimum, a competent PhD in your subject.

>Feynman is a poster child for critical thinking, intelligence, and efficiency. Even the way Feynman read scientific papers was brilliant—read abstract, guess conclusion, and then check conclusion for surprises to see if the article was worth reading. This man was nothing short of a person who understood exactly what he was doing and for what purpose. I want to take advantage of my common sense more often, and I think it is something wholly unconnected to science but rather connected to all kinds of problem-solving. How would you best describe Feynman's problem-solving ability, and what steps can you take to emulate it in one's studies and every day life?
You can start to follow someone who actually matches those criterias.

You know what, you autistic pseudointellectual fucks? I thought it was obvious that a Nobel-fucking-Prize Winner in Physics would be seen as somewhat who could critically think themselves out of a tight situation. I even provided a CONCRETE EXAMPLE of what PARTICULAR trait I wanted to emulate: the way he read scientific papers (among other eccentricities that were really good ideas, pro tips if you will). I don't want to become a carbon copy of him for fuck's sake. Read the fucking post.

He seems like a cocksucker it'd be fun to curbstomp. Read John Norman instead.

>he way he read scientific papers (among other eccentricities that were really good ideas, pro tips if you will). I don't want to become a carbon copy of him for fuck's sake. Read the fucking post.
we are telling you. its not going to happen. you're too much of a brainlet too realize this

Scientists are pseudointellectuals. WHEN my washing machine needs repairing, I'll let you know, till then, taste anus.

Maybe for you semi-literate sperglords it isn't. Goddamn it's like there's an IQ ceiling in full force today.

You don't seen to have understood my post. Feynman is sharp as fuck because of building associations instead of learning in terms of particulars. Where does worship come into this? It appears all you want is to flame. "Very subtle!"~ Trump

>Ascribing behavioral habits, that anybody could learn, to genetics is a great way to condemn yourself to lifetime mediocrity.

You think like Tony Robbins.

I answered before reading the whole post so ignore this piece of shit

I don't know what you're talking about, unless you've totally misread my post (which I don't see happening unless you don't understand how quoting works). If you were the , then the hero worship posts were not directed at you but at .

>Feynman is sharp as fuck because of building associations instead of learning in terms of particulars.
I already addressed that here: .

>It appears all you want is to flame. "Very subtle!"~ Trump
I'm fighting fire with fire. When people type out civil, well-thought out posts, I respond in kind. When people type out retarded aggressive shit, I call them faggots.

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Seriously, usually this board isn't so fucking irritating and autistic. It's like listening to nails grate on chalkboard, the way I've been trying to keep this thread on topic. What the fuck are you retards smoking today?

Someone who gets angry in response to reason and writes outbursts to himself like "shitposting central today" and "IQ ceiling in full force today" is never going to be able to get to Feynman's level.

>I call them faggots.
feynman would never do this. you are a lost cause user.

>how to have more common sense.
You can't, and what you're talking about isn't common sense anyway.

You didn't even make an argument. That's not reason. That's you unloading your personal insecurities onto me. Go be miserable somewhere else.

Who cares. It's fucking Veeky Forums. Grow a pair.

You can't have more common sense? What do you call "growing up"?

>Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things that are shared by ("common to") nearly all people and can reasonably be expected of nearly all people without need for debate.

What Feynman did with reading scientific papers looks exactly like common sense to me, considering what the purpose of scientific papers should be, learning about new achievements while also testing one's own understanding.

Wrong user, I was observing what you were doing to others. More than one person thinks you're being ridiculous.

I wouldn't be surprised if more than one person is content with being a mediocre person. Your appeals to popular opinion are garbage. If I had insulted people who had taken this thread seriously, then that would be a different story, but half of this thread is literally sperging out about the thought of emulating Richard Feynman in any way, shape, or form, even if he had a few desirable qualities. I never said he was a fucking demigod, and it gets boring really quickly to wade through the amount of people who would rather get aggressive over nothing instead of simply ignoring the thread or spending 5 minutes to think about the premise of the post: good problem-solving.

He was only able to do that because he knew his subject so well. Common sense has nothing to do with it. Your attempt to churn a man's expertise into self-help garbage will fail. Go watch more Joe Rogan.

You didn't begin with problem-solving, you began with an example of someone cutting to the chase because he had specialist knowledge. I can do the same thing in my own field. You need to know something concrete to do that kind of thing, you can't do it by assumption.

I don't even watch Joe Rogan, for fuck's sake. And anybody can read a scientific paper within their own field. What do you think chemists or psychologists read, you dumb fuck? What matters, and what I've been trying to drive home to you for the 20th time, is HOW they choose to read them in order to maximize their benefit, which is evidence of "common sense", "problem-solving ability", "desire to min-max", or whatever you ASD-ridden pedants want to call it.

You're not even trying. Get out of my thread you utter moron unless you want to contribute something valuable, and then I'll change my tone and be friendly. A lot of you insufferable hypocritical faggots complaining that somebody responds in turn with the same tone you used, and it's getting old real fast.

>
You didn't begin with problem-solving, you began with an example of someone cutting to the chase because he had specialist knowledge. I can do the same thing in my own field. You need to know something concrete to do that kind of thing, you can't do it by assumption.

That is already half the point. I EVEN SAID EARLIER THAT NOT EVERYBODY CAN DO THIS UNLESS THEY WERE IN FEYNMAN'S POSITION. Why was I impressed? Because he made the most of his position to benefit himself because he understood the purpose of what he was doing and acted accordingly. I wanted to generalize that in some way.

Read. The. Interlocuter's. Post. Before. Responding. Do you not understand how fucking frustrating it is to deal with people who seem to miss the most obvious fucking statements?

go post on reddit already.

t. Redditor newfag

People here used to be able to read. Then summer happened and now nobody wants to do anything e

>I wanted to generalize that in some way.
So you want to exchange pointless truisms like "knowing what you're doing will help you to benefit yourself"? That isn't thinking, and it's nothing an intelligent person would waste time on.

You can't even conceptualize, you're in no position to condescend to anyone here.

>So you want to exchange pointless truisms like "knowing what you're doing will help you to benefit yourself"?
Who the fuck said anything about that? Is that the limits of discourse for you? Can you not imagine a conversation more sophisticated than oneliners? Go back to plebbit.

>boring, baseless insult by another lazy plebbit-tier faggot
Spare me the condescension. Enjoy the NEET life.

I find that making a habit of stating what activity I'm doing, how I plan on doing it, and why I plan on doing it is a good way of getting these kind of creative juices flowing. If you can vocalize it, then that's perfect, but stating in your mind works too provided that you really force that subvocalization. When I'm not at my optimal state, I sometimes think things through too quickly or without enough detail in a rush of topics, so clearly indicating my direction helps to point out any errors.

There's also the "Feynman method" of learning or whatever, but I've heard like three different versions, and I don't know which one is the right one or if they're all something one should do more often.

You haven't said anything more sophisticated. You're asking for vague tips and then lashing out when people point out that they're not worth having. You seem to want to do the kind of inspecific down-chunking that people get from self-help seminars. I don't know how you get there from Feynman, but wanting to somehow - again, you don't say how - use him to make yourself more intelligent is too unsophisticated an aspiration to have an intelligent conversation about. You haven't said in real terms what it is you actually want.

You don't have an inner Feynman, you're a peasant.

I honestly don't know. But I do know that Nassim Taleb has inspired me to increase the number of books and papers I am reading substantially
And I have taken his advice of only reading what interests me. I used to think I have to finish books but since there are other books that I could read instead I start skim reading or just stop reading it if it doesn't interest me.

And I don't follow all his advice. Nassim wouldn't like my attitude towards literature. Nor do I fully share his view on the Lindy Effect and certain science such as social science.

>You're asking for vague tips and then lashing out when people point out that they're not worth having.
Is cultivating clearer thinking a skill not worth having? Is that something you're really going to argue? Do you think that the shitposts in this thread are valuable in any way? Christ.

>You seem to want to do the kind of inspecific down-chunking that people get from self-help seminars.
Stop projecting and start contributing.

>but wanting to somehow - again, you don't say how - use him to make yourself more intelligent is too unsophisticated an aspiration to have an intelligent conversation about. You haven't said in real terms what it is you actually want.
So is identifying, dissecting, and emulating the best qualities of a famous successful person too much of a lofty goal? It is something that nearly every successful person has tried to do at some point in their lives.

I seriously don't understand the lengths you are trying to go to split hairs instead of just... I don't know... contributing your own understanding of how to direct your thinking in positive, effective directions. A few select people in this thread have clearly understood the purpose of this post and have provided interesting contributions. Why can't you do it?

interesting thread, bump

Ok, this post has made my day. Thanks user.

>So is identifying, dissecting, and emulating the best qualities of a famous successful person too much of a lofty goal?
Just read fucking Feynman if you want to learn more about his ways of thinking instead of bitching other people for not knowing him. Seriously what the fuck do you want us to do? Should we re-animate Feynman and channel his passive intact knowledge though telepahy into your mind by using astral necromancy?

>Just read fucking Feynman if you want to learn more about his ways of thinking instead of bitching other people for not knowing him. Seriously what the fuck do you want us to do? Should we re-animate Feynman and channel his passive intact knowledge though telepahy into your mind by using astral necromancy?
I did read Feynman. That's why I provided an example of the kind of behavior I want to generalize and emulate. I was wondering if other people had some insight into this kind of mindsight or had other examples from other people of creative "common sense" solutions. Again, you are being insufferably dense. Nothing has to be as complicated as you're making it out to be.

Here's some food for thought: if you weren't interested in talking about Feynman and how to think more clearly, then why did you open this thread to shit all over it? Go be a faggot somewhere else, or try your hand at original thinking like the few effortposters in here.

The reason Feynman was good at problem solving was because of his curiosity.

>He dwelves, albeit unkowingly, into very abstract and obtuse kinds of reasoning.
Well, duh. He's jewish.

>I was wondering if other people had some insight into this kind of mindsight or had other examples from other people of creative "common sense" solutions
You can't ask something like this from "other people", that's what you don't seem to understand. If you want to think like Feynman or someone who has a similar expertise, just study theoretical physics, read his works, have physics as a field of expertise, etc. However, you can't achieve any of those by arguing anonymous people on a Manchurian paper washing site. Now please, just kindly fuck off.

>f you want to think like Feynman or someone who has a similar expertise, just study theoretical physics, read his works, have physics as a field of expertise, etc.
But I never said I wanted to study physics, and the example I cited could be employed by any kind of academic. Go reread the original post. What was not clear in it?

>ou can't achieve any of those by arguing anonymous people on a Manchurian paper washing site.
I had plenty of great discussions of the sort that I've aimed for in this thread with people who weren't lazy asshats.

>Now please, just kindly fuck off.
This is my thread, moron. You have no power here.

>This is my thread, moron. You have no power here
Not anymore retard. This is MY thread and you're hereby banned for showing excessive faggottry.

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>reddit-tier humor
Are you trying to get banned?

daily reminder that this Feynman brainwashed a generation of young physicists into a "shut up and calculate" mentality that stifled any interest in the philosophical foundations of physics while at the same time moving science away from its stated goal of providing an account about the world and turned it into a maze for lab monkeys.

pic related

Nobody cares. We've already acknowledged that the point isn't to spurn philosophy.

His memoirs do recount a story of him attending a philosophy class (I believe while he was still studying) and being repulsed by the need for long discussions about semantics before actually addressing the subject itself. Thing is, the hard sciences themselves encounter this problem increasingly as fields such as microbiology, neuroscience, and psychology merge. Ask a professional from each field what a "probe" means and you will get three distinct answers.

To be fair, I could understand the frustration from a physicist dealing with philosophers who don't understand the physics necessary to have the foundations for proper philosophical discussions, because then it does become mental masturbation easily instead of anything worth talking about. Feynman went too far, I agree, and there is room for philosophy to clarify important subject matter for scientific analysis and to discuss subjects that cannot be examined by science (but still have some logical framework to it).

But once again, that was not the point of this thread, since it had to do with neither physics nor philosophy in particular, but rather emulating a type of no-frills, purposeful, "common sense" mindset that could be applied to physics, to philosophy, to art, to literature, to skiing, to carpentry, to life, etc.

>I could understand the frustration from a physicist dealing with philosophers who don't understand the physics necessary to have the foundations for proper philosophical discussions, because then it does become mental masturbation easily instead of anything worth talking about.
Do you seriously know what philosophy is?

What was wrong with my statement? There's no point in discussing the nature of determinism using quantum mechanics as a case example if a person doesn't even understand the details behind the physical phenomena. But of course, there's a difference between somebody like Colin McGinn having no idea about what he was talking about when it comes to physics vs. an established physicist turned philosopher like David Albert rightfully criticizing another physicist, Lawrence Krauss, for ignoring important philosophical consequences from physical phenomena when talking about what is essentially philosophy.

oh I forgot, philosophers are too smart to ever make mistakes ever, hur hur hur DAE SCIENTISM??? Now let's talk about quantum suicide LOLOOOOL

Retard.

Not an argument.

FPBP. Think about it. Were it possible to submit even a plausible /reaction/ would (you) be inclined to.. buy it? Here was a man who knowing the preliminary facts in his own way *really* used his imagination and viola: eureka. And on more than a single occasion! Not only was he legitimately interested in all that was going on around him, but he was a man of supreme intuition, of supreme imagination whose 'methods' were clearly more poetico-mathematic than per se scientific.
He had many interests. And he gave what he had to ALL of them....
Cultivate your true interests. Believe in the nexus of all that truly interests (you). Ward off any fear (you) may possess conerning the use of extended metaphor. Know the applicable maths, or languages in a way peculiar (or particular) to yourself alone. Then go to town....

I'm out. Thanks for everybody who did their best to contribute something that wasn't a total shitpost. Pic related is somewhat similar to the kind thinking I was talking about and works well enough for me. Hopefully more adults might talk about this next time.