Diving Into Deep Thinking

Making Deep Thinking Easy, Effortless and Spontaneous

The prime deterrent to Deep Thinking is the belief that it is a slow, tedious process requiring a lot of effort, leading to stress, fatigue and exhaustion.

It is this interpretation that coerces people to indulge in hours of circumambulating around a problem, that could have been otherwise resolved by a few minutes of Deep Thinking. An ever-increasing boom in the occurrence of late-night-out misadventures at offices is a sheer testimony of this. For example, a programmer spending several night-outs to fix a bug is an acceptable tradition of the IT industry, although it is well-known that a large number of these fixes could be accomplished much easier by replacing endless, mindless tryouts with a deep analysis of the bug - saving much cost for the vendors as well as the clients.

However, as discussed in The Profession Thinker, "Thinking" - like "sprinting", becomes tedious and exhausting when done in an unaware and untrained manner. To bring in a similar metaphor from swimming, a beginner swimmer's random throw of hands and legs into the water would splash more water than the movement generated, and would tire out the swimmer in no time. The faster such a swimmer moves his limbs, bigger is the amount of turbulence created and greater is the amount of exhaustion, with hardly any productive output.

This is what makes Deep Thinking stressful, too. A trained, coherent movement of the thinking muscles would lead to a very productive Deep Thinking experience without splashing out much water and without creating unwanted turbulence.

In The Science of Deep Thinking, we explored why the exact mechanism of Deep Thinking is totally elusive to a lot of individuals.

The first barrier arises from the fact that the spontaneous flow of the mind is "downstream". The mind loves to express freely, meandering around in whatever direction the downstream flow takes it to - while Deep Thinking requires one to move to a very precise destination. This often requires the mind to swim against the tide.

The second barrier to Deep Thinking is that it's a very abstract concept. Take a moment to consider this :

What do you do when you think deep ?

Think of the last time you were required to think deep. What did you exactly do to achieve Deep Thinking ?

Some of the activities that we end up doing while trying to think deep are - trying hard to focus, pushing the distractions away, trying to concentrate hard on the topic at hand with much force and coercion. This has a direct correlation with the physiology - when we try to think deep, we find ourselves all stressed out and stretched out.

For example, if you chanced upon the chess puzzle discussed in Taking Problems Head-On outside that article, how would you go about analyzing that problem ? What would Deep Thinking look like in that case ? The most common impulse to a chess puzzle is to start analyzing the possible moves of the possible moves of the possible moves. The mind quickly gives in to the the temptation of going - "if Black moves the Queen, then White can move A or B or C ...". Not going down that path is counter-intuitive to the mind and requires a lot of effort to hold back.

How can one learn to train the mind to make Deep Thinking its natural, intrinsic, spontaneous response to situations ?

The very word "Deep Thinking" evokes a feeling of stress and sounds extremely tedious and tiresome. It feels like trying to squeeze our brains very very hard - like empty tubes - in the hope that the answer we seek would pop out. Physiologically, this translates to a lot of strain-inducing actions, e.g. squeezing the muscles of the forehead, closing the eyes with force, etc.

Deep Thinking is effective ONLY when it is easy, effortless and spontaneous.

The Mental Gears

The mind, like any other mechanism, works in different gears. Just as an automobile could move with only so much speed and power in a particular gear, the mind, while operating at a particular depth, can only work with so much efficiency and effectiveness.

Like a thermostat that ensures a constant temperature, the Thinking Mechanism is tuned to function at a constant level of depth. Without a deliberate attempt, the Thinking Mechanism would remain at a nearly constant level of depth, and would create results coherent with that operating level. Merely exposure to new knowledge or training in new skills do nothing to the "depth" settings of the Thinking Mechanism.

The mind feels an optimal peak experience while operating at that level. Operating above that level feels very "superficial" and "shallow", resulting in a sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment. Operating way deeper than that level feels very stressful and exhausting.

For example, let us consider the impact of Deep Thinking on Communication. The level of the depth of our Communication skills is tuned to naturally evoke a certain set of responses from us when engaged in a conversation. A very skillful communicator would respond very differently to a situation than an ineffective communicator would to the same situation.

We would deconstruct "Communication" in later articles, but for now we assume that the effectiveness of a conversation depends primarily on two factors : Intent and Execution.

(i) We begin with a faint "intent" of what we want to communicate. The "intent" is a thoughtless, wordless "knowingness" of what we want to convey. It is not only the "intent" denoting the high-level purpose of the conversation, but the "intent" that gets dynamically generated during each response that we need to articulate

(ii) Each "intent" gets translated to a stream of words, as we speak. We do not consciously think of every word that we say. The intent naturally gets translated to words on the fly.

Both these factors need to work optimally for a conversation to be effective.

A conversation could become ineffective for two reasons :

(a) The intent was not aligned to the expected outcome.

(b) The intent didn't get translated to the right stream of words.

Incidentally, both these factors operate at a below-conscious level, and we are usually not aware of these as they operate. These factors are, so to say, "submerged" in the deeper levels of consciousness, and are not visible to us as they function.

At the conscious level, we just respond to what we hear. We do not always realize where our responses come from, and why. We often surprise or shock ourselves by what we say. "I didn't intend to say this" is a far too frequent experience in our everyday conversations. Because the factors that influence our conversation lie well below the level of conscious awareness, a conversation could feel like a single monolithic activity that ends in the wanted or the unwanted result.

Since, the whole mechanism that influences our conversation happens below the conscious level, we can visualize that the prime objective of "Deep Thinking" is to extricate these factors from the underneath, and bring them to the realm of conscious awareness. Only when we are conscious of exactly how these factors operate can we become capable of transforming them.

So, the first step in taking our Communication to a deeper level is to bring the factors that influence them to the level of conscious awareness. Once we are able to"see" how these factors have been influencing our conversations, we can find ways to transform them. Of course, the transformation would be of any effect only if it is installed back to the sub-conscious level.

This gives a simple two-pronged key to improve one's conversational skills :

(a) Improve the sequence of "intent" generated during the conversation.

(b) Improve the ability to translate an "intent" into the right stream of words.

An individual could be considered to achieve the peak of Deep Communication, when he is able to execute the process outlined above in real-time, while the communication is in progress. This involves a simple feedback-loop, where an awareness of the "impact" being created by the interplay of "intent" and "execution" is fed back to one's awareness, resulting in an automatic self-correction of the factors influencing the conversation.

All factors that influence our Thinking Mechanism operate below our conscious awareness. The first step of "Deep Thinking" is to dig down and bring these factors to the conscious awareness.

Deep Thinking essentially involves reaching out to the deeper levels of our conscious awareness that contains the operating factors influencing our cognitive abilities. Deep Thinking begins when we are able to bring these factors to our conscious awareness, so that we can work upon them, and then install them back into their original place in the same sub-conscious realm.

The Journey of the Deepening Thought - The "Intent" funnel

Howsoever "unaware" and "mindless" an activity might appear to be, there is always an "intent" involved. It's just that what appears to be "unaware" and "mindless" are instances of the surface levels of "intent".

For example, if we watch a beginner Tennis player struggling to return his shots, it might seem that he plays without any intent or objective.

A skill has various levels of "intent". As we get into deeper levels of "intent", our proficiency in the skill deepens.

A beginner Tennis player's shots might seem to be crude reflexes, but they are driven by an "intent", nonetheless. This is how a deepening funnel of intent might look like for a Tennis player :

The beginner Tennis player might seem to be playing without an intent or purpose, but there is an intent involved at every stage of the play.

For an absolute beginner, reaching out to the ball could be the underlying driving intent. He watches the ball going to a certain position and mindlessly runs for it.

Once he is proficient in reaching to the ball, the intention could deepen to being able to hit the ball with the racket. He is happy to connect the racket with the ball.

Getting the ball to the other side of the net becomes the next level of intent. At this stage, his awareness might not be deep enough to focus on the quality of his return, but his non-conscious intent impels him to manage to get the ball to the other side of the net. He is happy to just have the ball cross-over the net to the other side.

As the awareness and proficiency of the player increases, he might look forward to ensuring that his return is not bludgeoned back by the opponent and he could manage to survive for one more shot. He intends to return a crisp shot that doesn't get smashed away.

Eventually, he could start looking at how to place the shot in a way that the opponent is unable to return the shot. He starts to "kill" a rally or place his shots strategically. Each of these could have further levels of intent of its own.

Each player operates at a certain " level" of " intent". A player trying to overdo his current " level" would find it very counter-productive.

A beginner player insisting on hitting winning shots right at the beginning would eventually find himself struggling with the beginner level intents (e.g. connecting the racket with the ball) for a long, long time.

Deep Thinking involves going down this "Intent Funnel". As we go down the "Intent Funnel", we encounter deeper thoughts.

The output of our Thinking Mechanism is highly correlated with the depth at which it operates.

Applying the "Intent Funnel"

From the perspective of the "Intent Funnel", there are two pitfalls that we perceive all around us :

(i) Attempting to get the outputs from the very shallow levels of the "Intent Funnel", and

(ii) Attempting to get to the deepest level of the "Intent Funnel" directly.

A programmer who spends nights after nights trying out this and that to fix a bug displays the first pitfall.

An architect who starts articulating the design and architecture of a system way too soon displays the second pitfall.

Deep Thinking is a gradual, spontaneous journey down the "Intent Funnel".

When the Thinking Mechanism gets a good grasp of the concepts at the current level, it spontaneously moves to the next depth level in the Intent Funnel.

The antithesis of Deep Thinking lies in the fact that professionals - both technical and managerial - DO NOT make sufficient attempt to get a strong grasp of the ideas at the current level. As was shown in the discussion of the chess puzzle in Taking Problems Head-On, the most significant effort one can make is to "deconstruct" the current level better. As an individual breaks down the concepts at the current level, and creates perfect representations of the same, the Thinking Mechanism automatically gets a hang of the next deeper level of the Intent Funnel. The doors to the next deeper level open automatically, and one moves deeper spontaneously.

This process, once mastered, feels like one continuous unfolding process from the problem statement to the final solution.

The corporate world could multiply its productivity while diminishing the stress adopting this model of Deep Thinking.

Deep Thinking as a Spontaneous Skill

We cannot think deeper than the current thermostat values that our thinking mechanism is set to. The Thinking Mechanism can be taken to deeper levels through well-defined processes. Just like any other mechanism, operating the Thinking Mechanism is a skilled process. With the right process, the mind can be trained to self-organize itself into deeper levels.

Deep Thinking begins with the process of reaching out to the deeper levels of our mind to be able to "see" what lies beneath and observe the factors that influence our Thinking process.

There are two ways in which this can be achieved :

The process of diving down into the deeper levels of mind is a long-drawn process. The other alternative - the ability to bring these factors up to the surface of the conscious awareness - provides a much easier access to Deep Thinking, and can get you started in the realms of Deep Thinking right away.

Unearthing the underlying factors that influence our thinking processes, and bringing them up to the conscious awareness is the fundamental skill that makes Deep Thinking possible.

Making Deep Thinking Easy, Effortless, and Spontaneous

Skillful operation of the Thinking Mechanism allows us to create outstanding results beyond the perceived limitations of cliches, trivializations and worldly wise aphorisms. Deep Thinking is possible only when it feels like an "experience of expressing". When Deep Thinking becomes a downstream, enjoyable process, our minds love to indulge in, and Deep Thinking becomes our minds' second nature before we realize it.

Making Deep Thinking an easy, effortless, and spontaneous process is the next big thinking revolution we are aiming at.

Other Articles :

The Professional Thinker

The Science of Deep Thinking

Taking Problems Head-On

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