Human Thinking Is Nonlinear
To communicate with each other, we often put our ideas in a linear form. (But not always. In fact, most of human communication is nonverbal.) Words are strings of letters. Sentences are strings of words. Books are strings of sentences. This seems natural - till we remember our struggles to express ourselves. I am not talking about times when we are making a small talk. Yet, the challenge is practically inevitable in situations when we try to grasp and share with others our thoughts on any complex issues.
As a writer, I know this battle all too well. When I think about what I want to put on a page, ideas seem so beautifully intertwined. They lead to each other, they make sense. And then I try to translate them into words, connect words into sentences, etc... Ugh! What is going on?? The result is so far from what I have envisioned. So many things that I was going to say had to be left out because I simply don't know how to fit them all together. To be honest, first I thought that something is wrong with my ideas, with my writing skills - perhaps, even with me.
But there is nothing wrong. This is just how things are - because human thinking is nonlinear. It happens through associations running between partially formed ideas and mental images. That's why we can get a random idea about something without fully comprehending how we got there. Our brains work in truly mysterious ways.
Paradoxically, human beings crave linear narratives, same as they crave order in general. Many people may not even notice that their thinking is nonlinear because they focus so much on turning the nonsequential thoughts into a coherent string or words. And we do hate being confronted by a mess of tangled ideas, which may be the reason why hypertext books are not particularly popular.
About this project: Start page
As a writer, I know this battle all too well. When I think about what I want to put on a page, ideas seem so beautifully intertwined. They lead to each other, they make sense. And then I try to translate them into words, connect words into sentences, etc... Ugh! What is going on?? The result is so far from what I have envisioned. So many things that I was going to say had to be left out because I simply don't know how to fit them all together. To be honest, first I thought that something is wrong with my ideas, with my writing skills - perhaps, even with me.
But there is nothing wrong. This is just how things are - because human thinking is nonlinear. It happens through associations running between partially formed ideas and mental images. That's why we can get a random idea about something without fully comprehending how we got there. Our brains work in truly mysterious ways.
Paradoxically, human beings crave linear narratives, same as they crave order in general. Many people may not even notice that their thinking is nonlinear because they focus so much on turning the nonsequential thoughts into a coherent string or words. And we do hate being confronted by a mess of tangled ideas, which may be the reason why hypertext books are not particularly popular.
About this project: Start page
