Thoughts Per Minute

[flow]

I've been "thinking" about how many thoughts I have per minute, and the correlation between personality types and their average TPM rate. Of course, we'd need advanced computers and the proper environment to rate the "speed of thought". This idea feels kind of silly, but at the same time I'd be thrilled to see the results! Some guesses: INTPs rate high in TPM, ESFJs rate low..
I really don't know how we could realistically go about testing/surveying the idea.. hmm

 

[Jesin]

How would you tell where one thought ends and another begins?

 

[Vegard Pompey]

How would you tell where one thought ends and another begins?

Just my query.

 

[Ermine]

Don't know if I could measure that accurately. My trains of thought are really fluid so they are hard to separate. There are also lots of little thoughts under one idea, and a bunch of outside factors can easily affect my thought speed and how many thoughts I would have.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

More importantly, how could you differentiate the level of thoughts?

 

[Kuu]

its about quality, not about quantity...

 

[flow]

I agree! I'm rethinking this idea, I was going through a brainstorm of sorts and realized I had jumped between several ideas very quickly. I'm wondering, what's the difference between a thought and an idea?

 

[wadlez]

ya'll crazy. you would need to define thought down to some unit like 1 single word vocalised in your head. That also has problems though because thinking is so much more than that.

You have general brain activity which is measured by an ECG at cycles per second or hertz. when your awake and normal your brain is at 13 - 25 hertz, this is called the beta state. As its goes lower you go into a more trance like state, this ranges from wide awake to asleep.

Anyway i think thats sort of what your getting at right?

 

[Melkor]

That, or just try and track brain activity in general..


One important question:


Is a fast thought necessarily a good thought?

Or could a good thought be one which is prolonged and coherent?

Difficult really.

How can we say one is better than the other?


We can say that a fast TPM would be better suited to quickthinking impulsive tasks, whereas slow thinking would be better for deep ponderings...


Also, couldn't one choose to alternate this?

Couldn't I for example, think incredibly fast when running from death, and rather slow when writing somethign like this?

Perhaps 'good' thinking should be defined as having a versatility of the two..

 

[bdubs]

I can only consider thought from my own perspective, but I imagine if would be difficult to quantify thought simply because there is a certain amount of translation going on. When I am just "thinking" I do not always put my thoughts into a formal language (english). When I actually intend on sharring my thoughts a translation takes place. This translation almost takes place in real-time but there is a slight delay. Would the translation process be considered a new thought in and of itself? If one does not consider this a thought, how could a machine quantify that I am doing this?

I could not say with any certainty if I am experienceing a faster than normal thought process either. My thought process is the only one that I use and the only one that I understand. When one says they do not like how his/her brain moves a mile a min I find the concept hard to relate to. I do understand the concepts of being "lost in thought" or potentially being kept awake by my own thoughts. To measure the "speed" of one's thoughts against another seems very subjective to me.

 

[chocolate]

I have so many ideas all the time and sometimes I have them before I know I have them, if that makes any sense. I just jump to something and then I realized I had a bunch of thoughts in between to get there, and if I go back it takes a while to access them all.

Not all my ideas are good, sometimes I wish I could just turn off my brain, or filter it or something. Almost everything I see inspires an idea, and every once in a while, when I'm really tired, it gets annoying b/c I think I'm too tired to handle it. Then I just try to not think at all.

My thoughts jump around a lot and seem pretty random, so I think of them as separate thoughts.

edit: I should mention I'm an extrovert in case you wanna know just from intps.

 

[chocolate]

... and the correlation between personality types and their average TPM rate. ..

This idea feels kind of silly, but at the same time I'd be thrilled to see the results! Some guesses: INTPs rate high in TPM, ESFJs rate low..
I really don't know how we could realistically go about testing/surveying the idea.. hmm

My sis is an experiencer temperament (SP). She tells me that she likes to 'feel the moment', so I don't know how that relates to thoughts at all. Would a feeling count as a thought? I'm not sure either what is the relationship between thoughts and feelings; does one precede the other?

I don't think it's a silly idea btw, very neat imho.

 

[flow]

I got this idea while watching Max Payne with my roommates (terrible movie by the way). We had smoked before we watched and I was just getting idea after idea after idea while not paying attention to the movie, and so I started writing down the potential INTPforum topic ideas on my phone. In retrospect, most of the topics still need work (I can come up with a topic name, but then I can't really think of a good introductory paragraph to get the ball rolling). This brainstorming mind-state hits me weekly. All of a sudden I'll be in an exceptionally clear minded state where ideas come to me with ease. I've basically been spending the last year talking to fellow INTPs, trying to lock down exactly how to get into this mind-state intentionally.. it's some kind of brain cycle. A mental high, followed by a mental low.. Hmmm

 

[chocolate]

All of a sudden I'll be in an exceptionally clear minded state where ideas come to me with ease. I've basically been spending the last year talking to fellow INTPs, trying to lock down exactly how to get into this mind-state intentionally.. it's some kind of brain cycle. A mental high, followed by a mental low.. Hmmm

Very interesting indeed. So do the other INTPs get this? This 'ideas with ease' thing happens to me almost all the time. It's not always at the same level, but when it's at a higher level it can get distracting because I can't focus. It's kind of like I have no control over my mind...not sure if that's what you're describing...

 

[Gorgrim]

based on posts i've read its certainly something INTP's get. I do, too.... I wouldnt know how to describe it better than flow has. i also get into the mode of coming up with all sorts of ideas to see how they work, it all seems to go away rather quickly... like 30 minutes to an hour.

'the puzzle is coming together and my mind starts processing like its had adrenaline' also happened today, got interested in an idea and found a couple things that fit

 

[Luzian]

How would you tell where one thought ends and another begins?

Uhhh, ditto

anyone who believes otherwise, is probably "J"

You simply cannot define a thought (at least not very well), therefore you cannot quantify it.

 

[Luzian]

We had smoked before we watched

I'm not sure what you were smoking, but all I can say is that INTP + marijuana = idea hurricane

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Luzian, agreed.

I especially think that 4 hours after smoking weed is a great brainstorming mindset. The high has worn off, but there's still a little bit of the THC-tinge in your brain. At that point I feel like I'm at a "thought plataeu", where I just want to spend time contemplating the intricacies of everythought I can grasp.

That being said... weed isn't necessary for it. I've reached that point other ways. It helps to have a large project that I desperately want to distract myself from.

I'm reading "I am a strange loop" by Hofstader. I feel like he could make a stab at defining what a thought is, he's almost done it a few times. I'm only a fifth through the book. (So if someone has finished it, feel free to give spoilers.)

 

[wadlez]

This state of having heaps of ideas and being really creative is something I get aswell. In regards to weed, I get insane insights and become extremly creative but I cannot rememeber my ideas when I wake up the next day. I've found that if you hangout with a few people who are smoking weed and you dont smoke it yourself, you get in the really creative mindset.

We can say that a fast TPM would be better suited to quickthinking impulsive tasks, whereas slow thinking would be better for deep ponderings...

At uni we learnt of a study done where they measured participants alertness levels or cycles per second and found that while on the higher end of the spectrum people perform better at sports and routine activities, whilst at the lower end people are better at problem solving and activities that require carefull thought.
The study also found that the cycles per second builds and peaks a bit after lunch then slowly drops from there. Thats why you think better at night time.

I think this mindset where you are thinking of heaps of good ideas is when your brain is in the alpha stage, however many cycles per second that is.

 

[AndOhh]

After working this out in my head a bit, I'm fairly confident that I've come to an accurate unit of measurement for myself.

My TPM (thoughts per minute) = "a lot many"