Mind Performance Hacks

Hack #30. Hold a Question in Mind

One of Sir Isaac Newton's many discoveries was that often to arrive at the truth, you need only contemplate the question.

Besides discovering the principles of gravitation, Sir Isaac Newton discovered a basic principle of human thought: if you want an answer to a question, simply hold the question firmly in mind. When Newton was asked how he had discovered the laws of gravitation, he answered, "By thinking about it day and night." He also said, "If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention than to any other talent," and "I keep the subject constantly before me and wait 'till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light."¹

In his book The Laws of Form, mathematician and philosopher G. Spencer Brown writes about Newton's insight in this regard:

To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practised, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are being continually thrust ...