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[ENTP] For the love of Brainteasers...

AuroraBorealis

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I've noticed that a lot of you guys are really good at brainteasers. Have you always been good at logic games (brainteasers, chess, Sudoku, etc.) or do you like them enough to persevere until you get good at them?

If you went to one of those crazy Google or Microsoft interviews, how do you think you would fare? Has lateral thinking always come easily to you?
 

Fluffywolf

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I love near impossible or actual impossible puzzles, but not so much standard brain teasers.
Once upon a time I was creating compression method for binary code, ofcourse conforming to generic methods, but I also wanted to see how I could maximize its effectiveness, and ponder on possible new methods. I really loved playing around with that, constantly trying to look at it from a different angle, putting the process in reverse, looking at the code from both binary as well as a hexadecimal point of view, trying to use different compression keys to layer compress a file so much that it could potentially shrink more than any existing compression tool could!! I did manage to maximize compression quite a bit, but the process was too complex and ardious to be of much practical use, and standard methods would just be much simpler to implement. But the complete immersion of constant thought on an impossible problem, oh good times...

I'm getting nostalgic. :p
 

Such Irony

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I've noticed that a lot of you guys are really good at brainteasers. Have you always been good at logic games (brainteasers, chess, Sudoku, etc.) or do you like them enough to persevere until you get good at them?

If you went to one of those crazy Google or Microsoft interviews, how do you think you would fare? Has lateral thinking always come easily to you?

I'm good at things requiring straight logical thinking and only so-so at lateral thinking puzzles. I either solve lateral thinking puzzles immediately or not. With more logically oriented puzzles, I can be rather OCD about them, once I start, I want to solve the thing.

I've seen some of the sample questions used in Google and Microsoft Interviews and I'm sure I'd fail miserably.
 

Winds of Thor

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I get passionate with solving puzzles and really enjoy using lateral thinking to do so. In an interview or business meeting I'm sure this is noticeable.

Every interview would be different as it's a relationship between the interviewer and candidate. So don't know how one is going to fare, who the interviewer is and/or their biases. When I was an employee I just did the best I could with interviews.
 

Philosorapteuse

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I've always been good at word-based puzzles, and lateral thinking is... well, it's just how I think. Connections and fine verbal/logical distinctions are what I do. "Thinking outside the box" kind of mystifies me, because why on earth would there be a box at all? :shrug: I don't understand the invisible walls that so many other people seem to think are there. This is probably what makes me bad at following arbitrary instructions, and definitely contributes to a short attention span for simple tasks. Everything is connected to everything else! Excel faffing, logic, red pens, evolutionary psychobabble about berries... have I actually checked the last 50 entries? Bugger!

Things like chess and sudoku bore me though, along with most number-puzzles. I could sit and plan moves in advance, but why on earth would I want to? It's just arranging stuff and obeying set rules. I can't be bothered to do it properly - too much effort when I could be doing something fun. Formal logic is fun to play with, but I just lose interest when you get to QL= and up. Like maths at school, it's something I'm entirely capable of doing well, but I'm not interested enough in it to stick at it long enough.
 

AuroraBorealis

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How does one think laterally? I try to practice it, but I can't seem to stop thinking linearly.
 

Fluffywolf

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How does one think laterally? I try to practice it, but I can't seem to stop thinking linearly.

Well, you're not gonna like this answer. But it's just natural to those that do. It just happens.


I can give a lot of examples of how it works, like spotting patterns, connecting ideas, recognizing the full spectrum of what something is, rather than just the normal definition. We have a web of knowledge and all things are interconnected by many little strings, and when we think about one thing, we sense all the strings attached to it as well.

Still the truth of the matter is that it happens all by itself. Like walking through the web of our knowledge.
Well, we can ofcourse trigger it too by focusing and concentrating. But that's like driving a car through the web of our knowledge.


U think it's largely to do with how we store our knowledge in our brain. And how we then can tap into it.
 

AuroraBorealis

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Well, you're not gonna like this answer. But it's just natural to those that do. It just happens.


I can give a lot of examples of how it works, like spotting patterns, connecting ideas, recognizing the full spectrum of what something is, rather than just the normal definition. We have a web of knowledge and all things are interconnected by many little strings, and when we think about one thing, we sense all the strings attached to it as well.

Still the truth of the matter is that it happens all by itself. Like walking through the web of our knowledge.
Well, we can ofcourse trigger it too by focusing and concentrating. But that's like driving a car through the web of our knowledge.


U think it's largely to do with how we store our knowledge in our brain. And how we then can tap into it.

How are a tennis ball and the Twin towers were related? Are there any ideas to connect with that question?
 

Fluffywolf

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How are a tennis ball and the Twin towers were related? Are there any ideas to connect with that question?

Lol, random.

The point is that if we think about a subject, we can tap into everything we know that relates to that subject on a sort of unconscious level, and can therefor easily make many bridges and connections, seeing patterns to come to a better understanding of that subject.
 

AuroraBorealis

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Lol, random.

The point is that if we think about a subject, we can tap into everything we know that relates to that subject on a sort of unconscious level, and can therefor easily make many bridges and connections, seeing patterns to come to a better understanding of that subject.

I've noticed that even though someone with that ability might seem scatterbrained, they end up reaching a relevant answer in a decent period of time instead of being totally thrown off the tracks. Is there a method to the "madness"?

I guess this is why Ne isn't just "random thought".
 

Fluffywolf

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Well, I'm sure if someone would exclusively use Ne only, that entropie and chaos would no doubt ensue. Ne indiscriminately picks up on any connection or pattern, it's up to the more grounded cognative processes to assign values to the various patterns and create a proper conclusion.
 
A

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Well, I'm sure if someone would exclusively use Ne only, that entropie and chaos would no doubt ensue. Ne indiscriminately picks up on any connection or pattern, it's up to the more grounded cognative processes to assign values to the various patterns and create a proper conclusion.

Si, correct?
 

Fluffywolf

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I'm not really sure, Si if definately part of it for me, concerning value assignment. But Ti has a lot to it as well I guess. But Ti is more focused on relevance, not actual value.

For NTP's Si and Ti, for NFP's Si and Fi. I think.
 

Philosorapteuse

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We have a web of knowledge and all things are interconnected by many little strings, and when we think about one thing, we sense all the strings attached to it as well.

I'm glad it's not just me who thinks of it like that - people generally look at me as though I'm mad. :D My mum went o_O when I tried explaining this to her and said it sounded exhausting...
 

Myrtle

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How does one think laterally? I try to practice it, but I can't seem to stop thinking linearly.

Well I think you might be able to train this ability. For me it isually manifests in generating all the possible ideas for a particular problem thru Ne and them using my Ti to figure out witch ones are the most likley to work (or be plausible at all).

So when you encounter a problem of any type the next time instead of just going for the first thing that pops in your head (even though it might be the best idea) think for a minute about what are the possible alternatives. Doing this you tap into Ne.

On a side note I woulden't do that in your situation beacuse it isen't one of your main functions and it would be hard and maybe counterproductive.

I find this happens very naturally and consciously when I encounter almost anything, the ideas just flood my brain and in a conversation I just start spitting them out.
 

open-close

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I'm glad it's not just me who thinks of it like that - people generally look at me as though I'm mad. :D My mum went o_O when I tried explaining this to her and said it sounded exhausting...
This is partly why I got into personality typing - it made me feel as if it was ok to have my intp-ish "oddities." All of my family are sensors, and none are istp.

I don't know if you could train the Ne quality. I wish I could train the quality of keeping my thoughts on task!
Maybe you could try to take one thing you're really interested in and try to relate everything to that, and then relate them through that. e.g. you're interested in history? Relating Twin Towers should be easy, and go into maybe the origins of tennis and tennis balls and their construction and the industrial revolution. Eventually, I think you'd have to come across something that was similar both ways. Something like physics would be really good to relate things.
I do have a lot of fun when doing the connection with seemingly unrelated objects, and I assume that's because I'm letting that thought process play around, so I think those would be good for practice.

Anyways, original thread! I first saw it three hours ago and spent those hours going through every interview question for google/microsoft/etc I can find, if that gives you any idea. I started reading books on chess when I was 14, so I've been practicing that a whopping few years, but I love love love chess. I also like sudoku, but I've never been very good at it. I like it enough to complete a book and spend a few hours straight working on puzzles, though. I really like Rubik's cubes if I have the algorithms - my spatial reasoning is bad enough so that I find it hard to work out a logical way to do it and end up guessing and that's no fun. I also love math, although it's a weaker academic point.
Although I am essentially interested in everything - if you had asked this about literature, physics, or philosophy, my answer would have been similarly rant-y. So, depending on your purpose in asking this, you may want to take it with a grain of salt.
 
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