iHateWageslavery
Chronically ill.
- May 7, 2024
- 88
I think that there are different types of intelligence because if this were not the case, then many geniuses would have a very high degree of proficiency in all fields of science, art, philosophy, et cetera. I know that indeed, many geniuses have made contributions in different fields, but most of them were not as significant as the contributions they made in some specific field of human endeavor. For example, we can consider the mathematician Terence Tao, who acquired his PhD in pure mathematics at the age of 21. Tao has a very high degree of proficiency in math, which is evident by his accomplishments at an early age and his subsequent contributions to greatly complex topics of mathematics, but such contributions have not been seen in other fields of human endeavor. This would mean that indeed, there must be something which we could consider as a brain adapted for something specific.
So we could consider that there is a set of genes that characterize 'the musical brain', 'the philosophical brain', 'the physical/mathematical brain', and so on. I observe that even when these geniuses have superb intelligence, it comes to a point where their progress is not as fast as when they first started learning. What does this imply? Intelligence is not enough because if it were, then they would keep progressing as fast as they did at the start, but given that every field becomes harder and more difficult as it progresses, they all encounter a point where progressing is slow and harder, similar to when someone of average intelligence learns a subject for the first time. One could argue that in this case what is needed is even more specific intelligence, a better and more adapted brain, but here comes the question: to what point does a better brain mean faster progress? We are sure that there must be a limit to how good a brain could become since at the end of the day it is a biologically limited volume of space.
When we reach the highest point of adaptability for the brain, what is left? I argue here that in this case, we are left with our thoughts. I think that the act of thinking by itself is the key to becoming more intelligent. I think that thoughts have a lot of power, and thus consciousness is powerful, but I don't mean this in a metaphysical way because I want to keep this discussion grounded. I suspect there must be a way in which someone could improve the adaptability of their brain by improving how they think. All of this discussion directs us to what is called metacognition, the act of thinking about thinking. A conscious act, but this act by itself requires self-knowledge, self-knowledge to be able to correctly use our cognitive resources more appropriately. To be able to monitor yourself, your sensations, your thoughts, your feelings at every step of a cognitive process.
To end this discussion, I'd like to talk about thoughts. If we analyze it all from a more physical perspective, then thoughts should be just a different collection of neurons that fire together to give rise to them, so this means that different thoughts create different patterns of neural firing. Thus, what if we discovered a way of thinking that made neuron firing more efficient for something specific? Is it even possible? And what's more, it doesn't even have to be thoughts; it could just simply be the perfect routine, the perfect nutrients, a consistent meditation practice, all of these factors that optimize neural firing patterns in order to make you better at whatever you want to be.
