Does this type of overthinking happen with everyone?

[Avichal]

I sometimes, actually very frequently find myself over-thinking to the point where I have to stop everything and close my eyes.
As an example, just recently I was studying about data science and my brain goes like - What is data? How do you define data? What is science? When did the word "science" change its meaning from natural science to the more broader meaning it has now. How does brain develop new concepts like data science? How does my brain know what is data science and what is not? How does my brain classify information? And it goes on ...
All sorts of questions mainly related to psychology come to my mind. After one point, so much is going in my head that I just take a break and close my eyes.
All the questions are interesting but lately they have been too frequent and frankly a bit irritating.

 

[Doug Huffman]

You need a personal solution to the much larger Problem of Demarcation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem

Karl Popper addresses it at length in his Logic of Scientific Discovery, about 800 pages as I recall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem#Falsifiability

 

[DennisN]

Hi Avichal, what you are thinking about sounds pretty human to me , but the questions you ask yourself span a number of large fields of study and some of your questions are very difficult indeed... (the wikilinks I provide below are general and only meant as examples).

As an example, just recently I was studying about data science and my brain goes like - What is data? How do you define data?

I'm not sure exactly where you are in your studies, but I'd like to mention Information Theory, if you don't know about it already.

What is science? When did the word "science" change its meaning from natural science to the more broader meaning it has now.

Studies of history of science will definitely be of help here .

How does brain develop new concepts like data science? How does my brain know what is data science and what is not? How does my brain classify information?

Much more difficult questions (to me at least), this is part of neuroscience, which is interdisciplinary, and AFAIK there are many open questions here... and future work to be done .

Edit: By the way, I'm sorry I did not answer your original question "Does this type of overthinking happen with everyone?". My answer: from time to time, yes, maybe. But actually I don't really know .

 

[Avichal]

That was just an example. I was just trying to say that, I am thinking a lot about questions that do not have answers yet. It's fascinating to think about them but as I said sometimes it just piles up and I give up.
Well, I'll just have to convince myself by saying that the world is too complicated and I can't know everything.

 

[Siv]

I think that curiosity and the hunger for knowledge are wonderful aspects of human nature
They have made us discover so many fascinating things about ourselves and our universe.

I sometimes wonder why people need so many myths in life, reality is so much more fascinating !