
In ‘Elastic,’ a Physicist Argues That the Mind Needs Time to Play - Semirhage
https://undark.org/article/book-review-mlodinow-elastic/
======
comboy
Very nice of the author (of the article) to mention Kahneman who has done so
much research around this stuff (if you haven't yet read Thinking Fast and
Slow I highly recommend it)

Regarding the title, I'd say choose your profession in a way that you don't
have to choose between work and play. You are reading HN so you're likely in a
position to have many options. Life's too short to be doing things that don't
feel like playing.

Especially given that everything is playing whether you realize it or not
because the universe, entropy and purpose but that's a whole another story.

But even from purely financial point of view, it's likely that you will be
better off by becoming master at what you consider to be a fun game.

~~~
eloff
Sometimes I marvel how much people are willing to pay for me to write and
debug code. I can and would do it without pay - if I could choose the problem.

The trouble is a lot of what I work on is mind-numbingly boring and definitely
feels like work, not play. But I think it's an acceptable tradeoff to achieve
financial independence and get the freedom to pick my problems.

~~~
comboy
Based on your first comment you may already have a chance to give some
problems picked by you a try.

And as far as I understand it, you will never achieve financial independence
by amassing some fixed of money. You need a cash flow and it won't just
magically appear after working hard for some time. You need to focus your
interest on this specific goal, research it and work towards it. Oops, I meant
play towards it ;)

~~~
eloff
If you amass some fixed amount of money and buy a house with it, or keep it in
the bank - yeah it won't help you.

If you amass some fixed amounts of investments, that gives you cash flow. Once
that reaches a certain point depending on what your expenses are and your
lifestyle choices are, you're free.

"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants." \-
Epictetus

If I (or more importantly my wife) had fewer wants, I'd already be financially
independent.

------
sharkweek
Oh wow, I 100% agree with this.

I absolutely _need_ at least a few hours a week of creative outlet (Right now
it's writing. In the past it has been painting, or woodworking or... to my
wife's dismay, a long list of forgotten hobbies).

It sometimes feels like I have a small child in my head, one that wants to
play, be free, and just burn off excess energy through creativity. And if I
don't do that, he throws a temper tantrum, anxieties and restlessness start
kicking up.

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AndrewKemendo
The idea that selection pressures would result in the apex-predator (humans)
spending 1/3 of it's life in a completely defenseless state, must tell us a
lot about the importance of sleep to intelligence and creativity.

After both personally experiencing and learning clinically more about how
sleep - or lack thereof - impacts cognitive, physical, creative and immune
capability I think it's a hugely important piece of the intelligence puzzle.

My hypothesis is that sleep amounts to a nightly scrimmage for the rest of our
lives. So it's where we go to practice the things that we're planning on doing
or could possibly encounter. We take the inputs from the previous days etc...
into simulating future events/outcomes.

In reinforcement learning terms sleep is where we do "exploration" in our own
personal simulation of the experienced world and real life is where we do
"exploitation."

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hyperpallium
The clever part of the wheel is the axle. Seeing a stone rolling down a hill
might lead to rolling a load on logs for transport.

Funfact: the first wheels were potter's wheels.
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-salute-to-
th...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-salute-to-the-
wheel-31805121/)

My favourite early invention is cloth. Fire's not really an "invention" in the
same sense, more like taming wolves and horses.

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jmount
If you find this sort of thinking interesting, definitely also check out "The
Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field" by Jacques Hadamard.

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spodek
I find David Allen's work most helpful here. He points out that more valuable
than time is mental freedom. You can schedule all the time in the world to
solve a problem. If something else occupies your mind, progress may never
come.

On the other hand, if your mind is not preoccupied, finding the solution may
take very little time. His practice in his book Getting Things Done helped me
practice this, not just abstractly know it.

------
gnicholas
> _Most of us have to make a concerted effort to be mindful and open to the
> unfamiliar_

Growing up, I came to believe that the word "concerted" means something like
"effortful" or "work hard to do something". I later learned that it actually
refers to a group of people working together ( _in concert_ ) to accomplish
something [1]. So technically, a person cannot make a concerted effort to do
something alone.

Seeing the word used here in this technically incorrect way leads me to wonder
how uncommon my experience is. Are we on our way to redefining this word with
a more relaxed definition?

1: [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concerted](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/concerted)

~~~
caio1982
You think it's technically incorrect usage because you didn't know other uses
of it nor its root. Technically the quoted sentence is 100% correct, concerted
also means something you tried hard, struggled with, strived to get done. The
musical concert actually derives its meaning from that, but done by a group
put together:
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/concert](https://www.etymonline.com/word/concert)

~~~
gnicholas
I have looked for but never found a definition of "concerted" like the one you
described. Can you provide one?

~~~
caio1982
Have you actually clicked on the link I put at the end of my comment?

~~~
gnicholas
Yep. It talks about the noun and verb "concert". It doesn't mention
"concerted" though, which is the word I'm interested in. These words are
obviously related, but in determining the definition of a word, one typically
looks to the explicit definition — not to the definitions of related words.

If "concerted" can also have the meaning that you describe (and that I grew up
believing in), then why isn't this meaning/usage included in any definition
for "concerted"?

~~~
pdonis
_> It doesn't mention "concerted" though_

Yes, it does. Here is the entire verb entry from that link:

1690s, "to contrive, adjust;" 1707, "to contrive and arrange mutually," from
French concerter and directly from Italian concertare "to bring into
agreement" (see concert (n.)). Related: Concerted; concerting

See it?

~~~
gnicholas
Yeah, I meant that it doesn't mention it anywhere near where it talks about
striving (which was what caio1982 had asserted was the meaning). That only
appears in the discussion of the noun "concert". I should have worded that
more clearly.

------
smilliken
A relevant classic: "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge"

[https://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf](https://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf)

------
asiniongnoi
I'm not keen on reading a book that's in any way affiliated with Deepak
Chopra. He represents one of the most intellectually bankrupt and destructive
forces on the planet. Is he just mentioned offhand or is he given real focus?

I find it baffling that a physicist who is respectable enough to write a book
with Stephen Hawking would be able to stomach writing a book with a man who
claims that quantum mechanics proves that meditation can affect one's
"quantum-mechanical body" and prevent aging.

EDIT: It seems I've misunderstood the book he wrote with Chopra. It's
structured as a debate. I still that giving Chopra anything less than open
hostility is a mistake, but it seems Mlodinow is not some new-age woo peddler.

~~~
simsla
The article seems to claim exactly that: that the interviews with Deepak et al
are anecdotal at best, and don't add much substance to the author's claims.

Seems like this is one of those countless self improvement books: built around
a premise that makes intuitive sense (here: having an outlet apart from work
improves your performance at work) and listing tons of anecdotes to ingrain
the idea further. Basically, a blog post padded with stories to make a
sellable book. I'm not the biggest fan.

