Writing is very underrated way of thinking, but I can recommend it highly. Start journaling and/or writing essays. Just write down what you think, feel, want to communicate, and what you understand. Just be clear and honest. pg has repeatedly written about this [0]. You can also choose to write technical posts.

Solving Math problems and competitive programming problems also enhace thinking.

Teaching is an underrated way, too. When you teach a hard concept, you really need to think a lot about how to get the idea across, how to make it accessible to different kinds of pupils.

[0]: https://paulgraham.com/writing44.html

I am not sure what exactly OP's condition is, but I can attest that writing will help to a degree regardless of whether you are overthinking, "thinking too little" or feeling unable to keep a chain of thoughts.

Generally, I'd like to learn more about what OP actually means. I would be pretty happy if I could stop my inner monologue most of the time. So I guess OP refers to the perceived inability to hold a chain of thought in their mind?

I genuinely think they're being hyperbolic, or reaching for a metaphor, in order to regain agency. I'd wager his "inability to think" is an "inability to think for myself." Resolving the former is insurmountable (if not downright pointless because of the presuppositions involved; it's tilting at windmills), but resolving the latter is straightforward: read and write argumentative works more, study the structure of arguments, explain to yourself why one is more convincing than another, rinse and repeat. That follows with fixing a car just as much as it follows learning "how to think."

If the inability to think stems from the thought “I am unable to think”, then OP might be better off with written CBT tasks than just writing in general.

That’s pretty much doing what you suggested but with a clear instruction set on how to.

My experience is that under certain conditions your mind might not be able to get free writing correct in a way to make it really help you. Then, it might further discourage you from trying even though all that was wrong was not missing thoughts but habitual negative thoughts preventing you from doing what you want to do to begin with.

This can be quite tricky so it would be very helpful to learn more details about OP’s exact issue.

Writing is the most powerful way. I must recommend this blog at least once a month

https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zRbqwbnhmVdfLtKxMCibMoX

The whole site is full of high quality wisdom on note taking and writing.

This is really awesome!

Writing is absolutely the way. In the long term it probably helps with reasoning, but its medium term effect of mitigating memory issues is undeniable and in my opinion even more impactful.

The KGB recommended their students read detective novels. Detectives look at information and model the past: light, shadow, heat, sounds, pressure, timelines, motives.

Also model the future: elections, social trends, stock prices, a movie plot, anything, everything. If your prediction fails, say how did I get that wrong; what didn't I consider that would have made my prediction more accurate?

Or, possibly you have a physical condition like I had; fixing sleep apnea raised my lichess elo by like 200 points.

https://atriumhealth.org/medical-services/prevention-wellnes...

I would definitely second sleep apnea treatment having a noticeable positive effect on mental capacity and clarity. I believe mine was actively getting worse because I had terrible brain fog and akrasia.

Your best move is to follow up with a medical practitioner on that neuropsych exam. They will be able to give you advice and treatment specific to your own situation. While we all can give advice, and it might help, if you are skipping professional help specific to your situation, you are ignoring the lowest hanging fruit.

I took a (turned into multiple) philosophy classes that forced me to explain hard concepts and my opinions on them to other people and then understand their perspective. I think this applies to many hard, deeply technical, subjects, but discussion is immensely popular in the pedagogy of philosophy.

The harder and more valuable part was putting those discussions into focused, clear, essays. I am a much better writer and thinker because of it.

The best way to learn how to think is to think. The way in which the quality of your thinking is best judged is in relation to other people. So just try a take your thoughts and try and put them in other people’s minds.

I agree that. I have learned to think since I started sharing a room with a friend who likes philosophy.

I'm appalled at the amount of bad advice here. 12 hours and 35 answers after the question was asked there is only one correct response [1], plus one that doesn't really offer advice but asks followup questions that might lead them to a correct response.

The person says in their first paragraph:

> I had a neuropsych evaluation which commented on my poor memory and inability to think.

This suggests that something might be going on that is more than the usual reasons a person might feel that they aren't good at thinking. The usual reasons include inadequate eduction, lack of practice, lack of motivation, and similar.

Almost all the answers are suggesting ways that would be appropriate if the problem was due to one of those usual reasons.

Those are unlikely to actually help much if the problem is medical. Worse, they could lead to the person wasting time trying them instead of dealing with the medical problem.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=codingdave

Logic puzzles and taking notes.

The several comments suggesting mathematics and logic from scratch are spot on. This can be a bit overwhelming and dispiriting though. An alternative (or really a supplement) to an elementary proofs text is Raymond Smullyan's books of logic puzzles. Smullyan strikes the right balance between fun and substance.

The second idea is to try taking notes. Grab the latest copy of your favorite magazine (mine is Foreign Affairs) and write about the articles as you read them. What did the article say? How does it relate to the prior articles? Common topic? Contrary opinions? How does it relate to other things you've read in the past?

Asking these questions as you read can help to foster an internal dialogue and help you remember what you read and give direction on what to read next.

It's how I advise students who are reading academic papers for the first time and get overwhelmed by diving into the deep end of some subfield.

How old are you? What is your highest level of education? What were your grades like? What’s your job?

What impact does the “in-ability to think” have on your life?

I once told my doctor that I thought I had a bad memory. He asked what grades I was getting and when I said A’s, he said don’t worry about it, you are fine. If you are considering reading Ulysses, a notably challenging book, I think you probably have an above average ability to think.

What did the neurologist say exactly? I don’t think inability to think is a medical diagnosis.

Make predictions, documenting your process and updating regularly. Keep notes or use a free prediction market like https://manifold.markets/ and analyse your success and failures to learn.

You should start by caring about something so much that you want to both understand it and affect it somehow. When you begin to piece together the system, a model of what you care about, and can begin to imagine how moving one piece will affect another, then you'll be thinking.

I think your question, in and of itself, is a language trap. It's too abstract, and abstractions often fail to motivate. I fell into the same language trap in college. I thought that some wizard teaching philosophy behind the curtain would teach me how to think. But you won't find the secret to thought in the symbols of the analytic philosophers, nor in the cogitations of the continentals.

Roland Barthes once said "Je ne pense qu'aimant," which translates roughly as "I cannot think except by loving." And he didn't mean that love itself was thought, but just that it was only fascination with a subject that drove him to think about it.

I think you should get out of your head, connect to the world, begin to care about some part of it, and let that lead you toward some subject-specific form of thought:

More on same here: https://open.substack.com/pub/vonnik/p/a-few-ideas-that-made...

You can’t change a serious neurological condition with all books in the world. Don’t waste time looking for magic pill.

It’s generally much more effective strategy to learn utilizing your strengths rather than trying to compensate for your weaknesses.

Why do you need to think? What do you want to do with that skill?

Look around - not that many people really think anyway and yet many manage to live a good and satisfactory life.

Start with reading "Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction" by Jonathan St B. T. Evans (Oxford University Press, 2017). Very short read and bonus points if you find it at your local public library. At the end of the book, there's a list of suggested further reading if you want more depth.

Thank you for that suggestion! I will check it out.

If you want books that can help you learn to think, you can't do better than the classics. I suggest Plato's dialogs or the Analects of Confucius. You may find them more accessible than you expect. They were excellent teachers.

Here's a good translation of Plato by Benjamin Jowett: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/plato-the-dialogues-of-pl...

And one of Confucius by James Legge: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/legge-the-chinese-classic...

Both translations are from the 19th Century and so have entered the public domain. But both are also often considered the best English versions of these works, even today.

(Note you can download a facsimile pdf of the original book, and print it out as you go. I prefer to read anything long-form that way. Better for concentration in my opinion).

Sounds like books (passive learning) haven't worked very well for you yet. Maybe a more active learning approach would work better.

Active learning is characterised by producing something and then comparing / critiquing it against a well-known production. Often STEM subjects fit this very well because they are almost entirely built on the premise that you make predictions with a model, perform a test, and then refine your models.

Anything mathematics, logic puzzles, etc. would fit into this quite well since you don't really need specific equipment, you can attempt to solve something and after having a solution you can compare it to what a book / the internet says. Then critically evaluate how you approached the problem vs the actual solution, and the merits/demerits of each approach - as you grow you can probably find multiple competing solutions (being able to discern between them is very powerful)

Personally I really like programming because of the immediate feedback loop, needing to hold a program in your head, reason with and refine that mental model of the program. Also with programming its easy to work on something a bit more interesting: games, websites, dbs, etc.

I think you can also look into essay writing or other fields but its extremely important to have someone to spar with - otherwise you don't know if your thought process has actually improved.

Also don't forget to make it fun and consistent. Playing very logical games can also work towards your goals.

Maybe on some days you can instead play chess and go over your games with the computer, learning from your mistakes and critically working through each path with the highest accuracy. Don't forget to also watch / learn from other people who are better than you who can explain their thought processes well [1]. Maybe after a while you can also sign up to a chess club and learn from real people too.

[1] - If you're interested in chess I really recommend Daniel Naroditsky, he might not be the strongest player or have the most interesting personality. But he is by far the best explainer of thought processes and patterns he uses. Watching people like Hikaru can be more difficult because he operates at a "higher level"

As with most tasks, you learn by doing. You can't learn to play tennis from a book, in the same fashion you can't learn to think from a book.

Find an area where you have to disassemble large problems into small ones, where you have to plan a few steps of the solution. Any knowledge area will do. Writing was suggested in another comment, it's a good playground. As is programming, where there is ample literature of puzzle problems to solve. Algebra, if you are so inclined although, beware, it veers a bit into the abstract. There are physical hobbies with that characteristic too: anything involving woodwork or building stuff out of parts (or disassembling and reassembling, like mechanics).

Having picked up a hobby, apply the hours. Start with stuff you can do, don't overshoot complexity. Then, evolve from there. As with all new activities, embrace failure. Don't just accept failure, expect it, learn from it, step on past failures to evolve.

P.S. I can't imagine not having an inner monologue, or its dual, spatial imagination, but a relevant part of the population doesn't have either, with no ill effects on the thought process. It's amazing, to me, but it seems they are not required for thinking.

Perhaps it's down to a mismatch between societal "norm" compared to how your own cognition works.

Maybe you're a tactile or sequential learner? There's "Method of Loci" or even "External Vocalisation".

You're capable of reading and writing so that's 100% evidence you're capable of learning - and being able to perform a sequence of tasks allows you to understand how to perform an action correctly.

Let's go with that and try external vocalisation. Many would trade the noise in their mind for silence and the ability to focus clearer on a task.

When you're working on a task, since you lack an internal monologue - vocalise it instead, it doesn't need to be audible, even moving your lips quietly should work as this will tap into your motor cortex which is highly tuned for performing sequential micro-actions.

Try talking to yourself about the steps you must take to get something done and see how you go.

---

Of course this is something you can try at home but following up with a few medical advisors will also open up other avenues for course correction if you feel this is becoming a real problem.

I have the opposite problem.

I get “intrusive” thoughts about ideas/anything as a stream of information passively. Not intrusive in the sense that it’s bad stuff (it’s all positive/good thinking) but I literally can’t “switch it off” and it hits me no matter what activity I’m doing. Makes relaxing hard

Sometimes it’s an overwhelming amount of thoughts, so I always keep a journal or phone handy especially at night

No idea how to stop it, medication seems to be the only fix

Have you been checked for ADHD? I think this is a common problem for people who has ADHD, I got diagnosed in college, that's when I realized normal people don't have that much thoughts usually.

Haha yeah, diagnosed recently - almost 30

One key to acquiring thinking skill (a skill like any other) is to learn how to decode the world using your own abilities and resources.

Start by asking about a new idea, "How would I prove this idea false?" This is the key to scientific thinking -- scientists first ask themselves, "What would falsify this idea?"

When you acquire an idea, you're borrowing someone else's thought. But to simultaneously learn how to think and make an idea your own, before taking the idea seriously, assume it's false and test it for validity, using your personal knowledge base.

Here's a classic example -- a friend says, "All swans are white." To make this idea yours, don't confirm it by locating ten more white swans. Instead, try to find a black swan. Even if you fail, your personal version of the idea will be, "It appears that most swans are white."

As it happens, this skeptical outlook is the key to the so-called "Enlightenment," an historical change that dethroned blind acceptance of ideas. This paradigm was best expressed in the Royal Society's (https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/history/) motto "Nullius in verba" or "Take no one's word for it." Written in 1660, this motto expresses the essence of scientific, skeptical thinking, just as true today -- indeed, more true now than ever.

Being doubtful and skeptical of received ideas, scientifically testing new ideas, makes you intellectually stronger, and strengthens the surviving ideas as well.

With proper training, your immune system can protect you from germs. In the same way, with proper training, your brain can protect you from bogus ideas. Train your brain.

Your situation reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti

Perhaps some of his writings can help? Also, people who think/have an internal monologue are often in a state of constantly reacting/commenting/evaluating situations internally. It's often its own kind of torment and clouds the real experience of the situation. Perhaps your kind of brain opens up opportunities that are inaccessible to others? If you have a trusted friend, perhaps they can "think" through this with you, as a back-and-forth conversation.

You might find the book: "Conceptual Blockbusting", James L. Adams helpful. It contains thoughts and activities that focus on the 'process of thinking' or problem solving. And how we go about characterizing a problem or situation.

One of the best I've read on how to think about thinking.

This internal dialogue business is the wrong direction. Many should learn to shut that off. You don’t need your own thoughts echoing around in your mind. That’s not quality thinking.

Play games. Consider that the real challenge of games is learning how the rules work, how the interface works, how game strategy works, how various systems of values are leveraged.

Learn to assimilate and “do well” in games. Even if you aren’t into the game, or you don’t actually finish it. Some games can be played over and over and over and there is always something more to learn. Building the heuristic understanding of the game is the best means of developing cognitive strategies. There are lots of high quality open source games out there, there is no need to spend cash.

Factorio?

I really enjoyed playing Return of the Precursors repeatedly. Every game was a new adventure, learning about the many levels of challenges. After two years of that, I switched to the fusion fork (which is always impossible at scale.)

Sigh, spending hours generating new games just to find a universe offering a fighting chance is an engrossing challenge.

Open Transportation Tycoon is entry level loads of fun.

https://www.openttd.org/

Ur Quan Masters is a nice adventure game full of challenges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ur-Quan_Masters

I think this post is your first step, so kudos to this!, I think philosophy books help, you can read some basic philosophy, pause and write down what you think, instead of internal voice, you can make texts as a bridge between your thoughts and yourself.

On a different note from my other comment here: don’t fall in the traps of letting some “evaluation” define you, or of considering your memory or “ability to think” permanently/unchangeably “poor”. While certainly some parts of our biological makeup may be more or less permanent, both memory and thinking skills are, well, skills that can be improved with training and practice.

Don’t get down on yourself or develop an unhelpful belief or attitude about yourself. You can and will improve with practice, and you are not defined by a test result.

I really hope that you are a human and not a self-improving AI.

Maybe something like Polya's "How to Solve it" and/or Solow's "How to Read and Do Proofs" would help. When I studied math in college I very much struggled with more advanced mathematical reasoning and those two books helped me tremendously. I would also venture to say that being able to better reason using the techniques presented help in many other areas of life than just math.

Great first step asking for help and seeking to improve. :) I would like to point out that a lot of people don't have internal monologues. There are many ways to think and many ways to be smart. Internal monologue is not a requirement. I have it myself so I cannot give advice on how to think without, but just bear in mind that it isn't required.

There are several different forms of it iirc. There are communities:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anendophasia/search?q=Anendophasia&... #Anendophasia

this might be out of the blue, but have you tried music?

i’m 35 and only got into music a couple years ago— not from a sheet music, but from play

i think the same neurological pathways you use to sequence musical tonality is the same as stringing any sequence of thought together.

my hypothesis as to why reading hasn’t helped train thought— the way people write isn’t how they think. it appears words go from their brain to the page, but there’s so much thought that goes into making the flow of their content more like music than their raw brain feed.

good luck!

Off the wall idea: I have a strong internal monologue and since I was a kid I have always audibly talked to myself when alone. You look crazy when people catch you but it might work.

These days, if you're just talking to yourself, people assume you're on a cell call...

Build/make something. Preferably something new to you and preferably on your own as much as possible (even if you're following someone else's instructions).

Nice try LLM, but we can't teach you to think (yet).

Consider starting from basic logic. Thinking cannot be separated from various logical deductions, inductions, comparisons, etc.

Learn to derive ideas from axioms, don't just memorize things for the sake of it.

Learn to do it everyday. Learn to do it fast. You'll reap rewards. For example, like identifying root causes and implementing solutions for it.

bold of you to assume we do.

There are many ways of thinking, and not all involve the use of articulated language. It sounds like you may be seeking to improve your critical-thinking skills.

Many community colleges offer critical-thinking courses, so that could be an option.

There are many books on critical thinking. One with exercises that I can recommend is Kirby’s and Goodpastor’s “Thinking” (which could be used as a course book for a critical-thinking skills course). You might also check out books by Rolf Dobelli, Peter Bevelin, and Donella Matthews.

Farnam Street (fs.blog) and sites like it champion the idea of using mental models to think. Farnam Street has lots of good, free materials that you can start with and try to start using in your daily life. The site also recently put out a series of books called “The Great Mental Models”.

But mental models can be found everywhere. For example, I frequently use Nassim N. Taleb’s mental models of “robustness,” “antifragility,” and “skin in the game.” Likewise, I use the concept of expected value when making decisions.

Another good book with easily implemented mental models is “Judgment and Managerial Decision-Making”.

There are tons and tons of books in this space, and you will find many recommendations of good ones here on HN. Just search for book recommendations (an evergreen topic here) and you’re bound to find some.

But if I understand your post correctly, you seem to be trying to learn how to articulate your thoughts more. You could start with the simple but powerful practice of asking yourself, what is this person/book/podcast/etc. saying? Is it true / do I agree with it? Why or why not? And what of it / why does it matter? (These questions are similar to those suggested in Mortimer Adler’s “How to Read a Book”, which is another title I commend to you.)

Take notes when listening and reading, and try answering these questions out loud or in writing after hearing or reading something. It’s a practice, and engaging with the habit intentionally and repeatedly over time will help you to improve your skills.

In this regard, I can suggest the following practice too. Copy the text of a piece of writing and dump it into a plain text file. Open it with an editor like Sublime Text (which I like because it, and other text and code editors, makes it easy to move lines of text around). Then, put every sentence on its own line. (If you’re handy with computers, you can do this quickly with regex, or even find-and-replace.) Next, try rewriting each sentence to simplify it and to restate it in your own words. Then rearrange the lines to restructure the argument in the way that makes the most logical sense. Finally, you can analyze it and write out your reactions to it, or your counter-arguments.

By using this process, you’ll probably discover that many people have little idea of what they’re talking about, and that they articulate their thoughts poorly. You’ll also discover that much of what they say is opinion, and that they use various tricks to hide or warp ideas. On this note, studying Western rhetorical tradition may prove very helpful in your quest to learn how to think better (plenty of theoretical and how-to books there, going back to the Ancients!).

At any rate, you’re in good company here: HN is full of people who think about thinking and strive to think better themselves. I’m sure you’ll find many useful posts and comments from past discussions, as I have. It’s a lifelong journey that has no clear endpoint. That’s the challenge and the beauty of it!

Good luck, and let me know if you think I can be of assistance.

PS: Other writers and thinkers to definitely check out on these topics: Charlie Munger; Richard Feynman; Daniel Dennett (“Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking”).

Did you process the mental models in real time, or do you just need some time?

If I understand your question correctly, you’re asking how I go about applying the mental models, and whether it happens instantaneously or takes concerted effort and time.

The answer would be “both” or “it depends”. Sometimes the model to use is obvious and jumps right out at me, and the application could be either instantaneous or take effortful time and action. For example, if I am starting a business that has a probability of success or failure, I might instantly recognize that I have a survivability problem on my hands: the business has to stay operational to continue to have a chance to really take off. Thus I might instantly recognize and apply the model of robustness. But then I might ask myself how to go about achieving that. There, I would apply a commonly used model — inversion — and ask myself, instead, what could I do to ensure that the business would fail? Generating those ideas of activities and choices to avoid would take some time.

Likewise, if I want to know how opening this business might compare to other options, I might apply the model of expected value (essentially basic probability). Knowing to use that model is nearly instantaneous, but applying it and calculating the EVs takes time and effort.

In the example above, inversion and expected value are part of a “frequent” or “standard” list of models that I apply to many situations as lenses of analysis. You can generate and implement such a list yourself: it’s basically a way of looking at reality from many different angles. And the more angles you build into your analysis, the more insight you’ll tend to gain when evaluating important decisions.

But sometimes I run into a problem that I haven’t encountered before. There, I might start playing around with different models to see if doing so gives me a foothold. For example, I might analogize and ask, “what if this thing were a rock and were exposed to incredible pressure over a geologic period of time? How might it change?” Or: “What might happen if I were able to evolve this (idea, system, etc.) over many generations by deselecting unfit parts of it over several generations?” (Essentially applying the model of Darwinian evolution.) Such applications can take hours or could happen in several sessions over days, weeks, months, or even years.

In the last example, it can be helpful to collect, list, and organize the key mental models from as many disciplines as possible, and either run down the list and apply each one to gain insight; pick one at random to apply; or just go with your gut if one feels right to apply. Inspiration and play can and do inform the process!

As a final example, I might have domain-specific models and routines that I apply. If I’m evaluating an appellate law case, I might use the models of timeliness, preservation, waiver, and a series of models specific to prospective-clients (conflict of interest, ability to pay, use of past attorneys, personality) to evaluate whether the case is one I can take and one that I should take. Then, if the client wants a contingency fee agreement, I would apply the model of expected value and then a series of domain-specific models to evaluate probability of success and the probable amount of my fee at the end of the day. Knowing the models to apply and how to apply them is a matter of expertise, which we develop through a combination of study, experience, past failures, and systematic efforts and modifications to improve performance in the future. Some models apply often, some rarely; and sometimes even the same model can either be applied almost instantly or else require a slow, methodical, and laborious process — a process that itself might require the application of other “sub-models”.

I hope my answer has gone in the direction that you intended, and that it is somewhat helpful to you.