Death Note – A good manga for practicing rational thinking

When I was reading, I tried to think like the characters, tried to understand their arguments and evidences. I put myself into their situation, of both sides. And by trying to thinking like that, I intended to practice my brain logical thinking and study from the characters.

Some actions that I think characters used to drive them to success:

  • Get other people’s  help.
  • Gain as much information, knowledge as possible.
  • Hide information to enemy. Provide false information.
  • Find patterns among events. Finding patters is a good starting point. After finding something, you will have information to get further.
  • If information stream is stuck, try to action to make information appear: make enemy action, make allies action…
  • If yourself need to take action, try to hide as much information as possible in your actions.
  • Give assumptions. And try to confirm or negate it.
  • Predict what could happen future, guess that would the enemy do, and get ready for them.
  • Thinking about thinking about thinking. Planning about a plan about a plan.
  • Keep mind calm in every situations. Minimize effect of feelings.
  • Never think that you are right. Never think that you win.
  • Behave in the way that you feel most comfortable while not disturbing others.

Characters in this manga have some specific ways to keep them concentrate that I think might be helpful:

  • Eat sweet foods to provide energy to your brain. But keep thinking while/after eating in order to not get fat.
  • Be in any style you feel most comfortable: squat, sit in the floor…
  • Do anything that make your mind feel most relaxing, productive: eat, play toys, walk…

These are personalized behaviors. Do not try if you do not feel definitely comfortable with them.

The manga also taught me to put aside feelings when trying to solve hard problems. Feelings can make you think in a personal, inappropriate, and wrong way. Feelings can make you find evidences to prove what you feel, but not finding conclusion from strong evidences. These are two opposite processes. Feelings sometimes help somebody finding correct answers of some problems. But with really hard problems at most of the time, it will drive people far wrong away. Feelings are different from intuition.

Every important thing need a detail plan, with predefined alternatives to make it go to success. The result is defined before combat begin. That is the power of planning. But do not underestimate the meaning of execution. Bad execution can destroy good plan. And good execution can contribute to not-so-good plan.

Somebody think this manga is a story about combat. But I think this manga is about ideals, philosophy, intelligence, and how to think.

A recommend manga for anybody who are interested in blowing your mind. For those extremely intelligence, this manga is for relaxing.

If you think you are not smart enough, keep practicing. Brain is trainable, intelligence is gainable.