Discovering Your Intelligence

Answer-Smart Brain

A sharp edge passes for intelligence. The popular notion of intelligence is that it cuts to the answer. It is answer smart. IQ tests promote this notion as do the schools with their testing, and the media are in league as they reward politicians whose answers to questions are crisp.

Very much favored is the answer-smart brain.

It’s all the better if the answer comes quick. The intellectual model imposed by the culture is the mentality of the quiz show: have the answer and have it lickety-split.

The problem in this is in the emphasis. It neglects the reality that knowing goes deeper than answers, that intelligence is a complex habit that proves itself best in the work of discovery, most notably in the work of stretched-out ingenuity where the mind begins without an answer but is superb in finding its way to an answer, perhaps even in the form of a rich wrong answer as was sometimes the case for thinkers like Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein.

A B C of Gender

At a time which now seems long ago, it was the rule in English that one would employ the masculine pronoun when he wrote a sentence where the gender was indefinite, as in the present sentence.

But then somebody pointed out, appropriately enough, that the rule was a stark instance of gender bias.

Consequently, as is eminently human, things got silly. Writers came up with two different solutions for the gender bias problem. One was a resort to reverse discrimination. It switched the bias from masculine to feminine. The writer—male or female—would apply the feminine at her every opportunity. The other solution was a resort to bad grammar. A writer would use the plural when they wrote a sentence like the present one.

The problem remains; it’s a small challenge for intelligence, and an intelligent solution readily suggests itself, as follows:

If the writer is male, he applies the masculine.
If the writer is female, she applies the feminine.

The rule is plain and it’s perfectly gender neutral. The present writer could do no better than to apply it himself.

Mystery of Creativity

The sources of an idea are mysterious as it rises from the deepest springs of your mind. You may create certain conditions, a certain readiness, for originating an idea, but you do not control the process at its source, so that if your mind does not cooperate you cannot force it to produce. There is indeed a blankness at the center of consciousness which every good thinker respects, knowing that the intellect cannot be coerced to yield anything but may only be coaxed or encouraged.

How encouraged?

You rely on the generative power of action—immersing yourself in your subject, reading about it, discussing it with others, making notes, writing out questions, trying different techniques—and at other intervals you wait, relying on the secret and deep working of incubation within your subconscious eventually to yield a surprise.

Nothing is certain, at all events, and the one who succeeds as a creative thinker will be the one who acts on trust over long periods of time. The author Judy Blume affirmed this principle as it contributed to her own success. “I don’t know how . . . the creative process works,” she said in an interview, “but I’ve come to trust it; I’ve come to trust that it will happen.”

Myths of Creativity

A book published a while back will be interesting to students of intelligence. It’s The Myths of Creativity by David Burkus. The book tells you a lot about creativity by revealing traditional beliefs about the creative process that are pretty much mistaken beliefs. There is the Eureka Myth, for example—the belief that original ideas come to the thinker by way of instant full insight. Or the Originality Myth—the notion that original ideas are wholly original and not derivative.

I particularly like it that the author discusses the Constraints Myth. It’s the belief that restrictions make it harder to be creative. In my own writing on the topic, I stress that constraints present challenges that very much stimulate creativity. David Burkus covers ten myths in all.

Fallacies Fallacy

It’s a celebrated quotation from Blaise Pascal. You admire the feat of imagination. Nevertheless, a grumpy logician would mutter that it exhibits the fallacy of hasty generalization: the conclusion is too sweeping for the evidence available to support it.

Hasty generalization, begging the question, the straw man, the fallacy of division, false cause, and the like—you know about these from studying them in school. They are classical fallacies in reasoning. Logic professors keep a list of the fallacies and ask students to locate instances of them in printed arguments. Students take tests on their skill in identifying the fallacies.

Now for the twist in this. There is consistently a fallacy that professors leave off the list. They are not even aware that the fallacy exists. It’s the Fallacies Fallacy. This is the fallacy in believing that a classroom introduction to the fallacies, beyond its value as background, will do students a measure of good when they leave the classroom and engage in reasoning of their own. The reality is that nobody—nobody—reasoning in life—avoids this or that error on the basis of remembering it to be one of the classical fallacies. The professor himself leaves the classroom for the faculty lounge where, arriving and pontificating, he registers an error in reasoning before he finishes his first lazy cup of coffee. As for the students, the adage applies that “a cat may go to a monastery, but she still remains a cat.” Studying logical fallacies does not create the will to avoid them, only the desire to pass a test on them. Logic lives in behavior, and intelligence or the lack of it resides in the will.

Hopelessly Partisan

The fellow whose political thinking is hopelessly partisan will not, of course, deserve a place in the ranks of the intelligent. But how do you conclusively decide if someone is hopelessly partisan? The quickest test is to ask him, “What is your crossover issue?” In other words, if he’s a Republican, on which issue does he cross over and agree with the position of the Democrats? Or if he’s a Democrat, on which issue does he agree with the position of the Republicans? Anyone who cannot name his issue is pretty surely a Hopeless Partisan.

Normalization of Mediocrity

Society has all sorts of ways to hide from a person’s view the mediocrity of his mind. It starts in school. A student may succeed through an entire education—achieve very highly indeed—without proving true intellectual character. Assured by his success, the student is fooled by it and prevented from realizing what is actually entailed in being a genuine thinker. Mediocrity also lurks in authority. No one in high authority thinks his mind mediocre. All the messages from society, as well as the trappings of authority, tell him otherwise.

In the more common case of your regular individual in life, the situation is not exactly the same but the result may be just the same. Here is someone, perhaps, who is articulate, who has a good memory, who has his degree, and who is safely correct in sharing the views of his friends—who, in sum, looks about him and sees nobody better than himself. Nobody bats him down, imposing a higher standard on his intelligence. So does any person become a carrier of what may be called the normalization of mediocrity.

Mere Logic

There is Smart and there is Smarter than Smart. Smart is adept at logic and relishes the game of reasoning. Smarter than Smart is rather more wary of logic, remembering that in everyday argumentation a line of logic can always be devised toward whichever and whatever the reasoner desires in the first place.

“Everything has two handles,” the proverb says, and that is why mere logic is never sufficient for proof. What is crucial toward truth is the integrity of the reasoning—its sincerity along with completeness—which depends on the integrity of the reasoner. Beyond Aristotle and the logicians and all the syllogisms, logic is a behavioral discipline and no one is wise who regards it purely as a cognitive enterprise, who overlooks the importance of character and purpose and will in applied reasoning.

By the same rule, the teaching of logic will be inadequate when it does not directly address the intellectual character of the student.

Shower Power

The blankness at the center of consciousness . . . remains blank. When you think hard for ideas and they will not come, you need to leave off—at which time one of your very best choices will be to enjoy a warm shower.

What’s this about?

It refers to an understanding of how your mind works.

A concentrated effort of thinking will sometimes be self-defeating as your mind refuses to respond to force. In contrast, you may gain ideas or enrich your ongoing idea when you allow yourself a certain absent-mindedness. It may occur naturally when you’re on a walk, for example, or when taking a shower or riding a train or lying in bed or washing the car. In activities like these, you are drawing only weakly on energy of intellect and all the while your mind, lazily aware, absents itself from effort and wanders easily, moving into thoughts normally unvisited, gaining access to resources normally unused. So it was that the poet A. E. Housman, taking leisurely walks in the afternoon, would usually return home with fresh verses in his head. By the same principle, Sir Walter Scott received his richest ideas just upon waking in the morning, in the interval before rising, and Sherlock Holmes received inspiration relaxing in his chair, smoking his “old and oily clay pipe . . . with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face.”

Yourself now in the shower, you are relaxed. You let your mind drift freely among thoughts while you feel the warm spray streaming down—while your mind gains its own mysterious energy and thought leads to thought leads to thought—and you experience ideas that would not come when you tried to coerce them sitting at your desk.

Tyranny of the Right Answer

You’ve read how it’s human nature that when you find the needle in the haystack you don’t go looking for another one. Something which is like the needle is the right answer. When you have the right answer, you don’t go looking for another one. And so it has a way of stopping thought.

School is very much about the right answer. You are schooled to be smart and when you are smart you get the right answer. And once you have the right answer, thought stops. That takes care of that. On to the next one.

So, now and always, in the regions of your mind, the idea that you have and that you certify to yourself as plainly correct may quite easily close off thought. You have it, but it rules you. This is what all very intelligent people know to be the tyranny of the right answer.

Thingamabob

Intelligence has a lot to do with naming. A Chinese proverb says that “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”

Whatchamacallit?

Consider this. Philosophy got its beginning in ancient times when a certain Greek began to speculate about the nitty-gritty. What is the basic stuff of the universe—or, basically now, very basically, what is everything made of? The Greek was Thales, who said that everything was made of water. Others had other theories. Philosophers, you should know, are like bees who attend to things in clusters, and at this early time they were all attracted by that one question, What is the basic stuff? Anaximenes said it was air. Heraclitus said it was fire. Empedocles said it was earth, air, fire, and water in various combinations.

Historians of philosophy report the whole story with a straight face even though it was all about theorizing of the silliest sort and reached the highest level of the comic in the theory of Anaximander.

Anaximander said that everything originated out of the indeterminate boundless.

Wow! The indeterminate boundless. What’s that?

Well, actually, our philosopher had no idea—that’s why he said it was indeterminate. Really, Anaximander should have just said he didn’t know what it was that was the origin of all things. Or he might have done what we all do when we don’t know. Call it the thingamabob: everything arose from the thingamabob. Or was it the thingamajig?

Wisdom: Eight Caveats for Young Men

1. Never park next to a car with no hubcaps.

2. Be careful with anyone whose signature is illegible.

3. Do not date a woman who writes papers on gender.

4. Do not talk subtleties to a man with his head in a cast.

5. Never heed a preacher with a three-car garage.

6. Never arm-wrestle a one-armed man.

7. Never walk an old rope bridge.

8. And be very careful in places frequented by pigeons.

Yes!

To produce an original idea you must earn it. There is no instant full insight: you never get your idea without earning it over time, even when the discovery seems sudden.

A plain rule operates. When (aha!) you make your breakthrough, it is earned by your prior thinking, and much of it has been thinking you have not been aware of consciously, as your mind has worked something hidden without your knowing it, in a mysterious process of incubation.

The result of this secret working of the mind may show up when you hardly expect it—when—yes!—your idea arrives like a phantom out of the blankness at the center of consciousness. In this exact fashion there arrived the grand conception which was coordinate geometry when Rene Descartes, the mathematician, dreamily lying in bed, noticed a fly . . . on the ceiling . . . near the corner . . . walking . . . from a point . . . to a point . . . to a point . . . YES!

Learn from your own experience of earning an idea how your mind develops readiness and how, with just the right prompt, it releases its surprise.

Thoughts and Advice on Thinking
and Intelligence

From the Research and Writings of Thomas Ganey

I.

How you think about thinking and intelligence will markedly influence the power of your mind . . . You can make a gigantic difference in your life depending on how you apply your intelligence . . . It’s a good thing to examine your history and ask yourself if anywhere in your schooling you learned how to think . . . In American education, the typical graduate at any level has neither a developed concept of intelligence nor the full range of mental habits required of the intelligent person.

II.

Before all else, be actively aware of the nature of your own mind . . . Possibilities for achievement emerge when you realize that your mind is almost always taxed moderately compared with its potential . . . Know that your attitude and intentions are no small part of your mindpower . . . To have a good mind is to use it well.

III.

It is a fact everywhere renewed in lively evidence that the intellect is spiderlike in nature, a connective consciousness . . . You enrich your creativity immeasurably if you act on an awareness that everything is something else besides . . . If you would perceive creatively, regard reality as an inkblot.

IV.

One who is supremely perceptive is supremely creative: the mind invents in order to discover . . . Spontaneity is the soul of creativity . . . The original mind is open to everything.

V.

The person with a closed mind has closed down his or her intelligence . . . Open-mindedness is a frame of mind you must choose . . . Every significant event in life offers a lesson in intelligence . . . Watch and appreciate how intelligent people think . . . No school accomplishes its work unless it brings the student to an appreciation of the power of the intelligent mind.

VI.

Your mind cannot produce an idea you have not prepared it to yield . . . Ally yourself with physical conditions that stimulate your mind’s productivity . . . Keep an awareness that intelligence is a habit of the whole body . . . Energize your mindpower with good sleep and physical exercise.

VII.

While many accomplished geniuses are born with tremendous capabilities, most achieve real excellence through intellectual habits they purposely develop.

VIII.

What does it mean to “discover your intelligence”? It means you learn what really makes a difference in your power to think . . . Connect, connect, connect—actively connect idea with idea, because the mind is an associative organ that flourishes in making connections . . . Mindpower is established not only in the intellect but also in the will. How you opt to use your mind is crucial.

IX.

An active awareness of your own thinking is the first requisite of a superior intelligence . . . An important step in advancing your mindpower is to question popular notions of intelligence familiar in the schools, the media, and society . . . To gain a genuine concept of intelligence, you must resist notions that equate intelligence with a superior IQ, a perfect memory, speedy thinking, winning debates, or always having the right answer, none of which alone constitutes the authentic article.

X.

The popular understanding of intelligence is deficient mainly because it is unduly influenced by the concept of IQ . . . IQ tests imply a definition of intelligence that has limited application in life . . . Your intelligence is always an open possibility—it is fluid and is not frozen at a level designated by your IQ.

XI.

The existence and use of timed tests may wrongly suggest to people that quickness is everywhere a virtue in thinking . . . In most intellectual matters, speed is the enemy of thinking things through; quick is the enemy of thorough . . . Not measured in intelligence tests is any sort of extended thinking that may demand patience, perspiration, and pains.

XII.

Within the halls of schools where memory is stressed, an implicit goal of instruction is to produce something resembling the answer-smart brain . . . A good memory does not ensure an apt mind . . . A prodigious memory is freakish in people who are otherwise foolish.

XIII.

A little-heeded attribute of intelligence is the will to pursue a thought through all its obscure passageways . . . To be an effective thinker is to suspect a hazard at every corner . . . Deciding any issue, do not ever come to a conclusion until you strictly ask yourself, “How do I know that I know?”

XIV.

Logic in everyday life is a matter of intellectual character because it depends on an honest pursuit of the whole truth . . . No judgment can really be logical that is unfair . . . The intelligent mind is fair precisely because it is objective, which is to say it considers every issue from multiple points of view . . . If you would be objective, develop the art of counterthinking . . . Correct your logic by inviting thoughts hostile to your belief.

XV.

The two rules of intelligent discussion are, “Seek truth and be cooperative” . . . A big test of your mindpower is whether you can remain objective in a discussion when others decidedly are not . . . Notice in your life how intelligence involves a considerable amount of magnanimity.

XVI.

In ordinary discussion and debate, no one is a superb reasoner who is not also eminently reasonable . . . Reasonableness is a more important attribute of intelligence than wit . . . To be reasonable in debate, dispel your eagerness to win.

XVII.

Some people would rather be told they are ugly than be told they are wrong . . . Someone may have a good moral character but a bad intellectual character . . . It is an excellent practice to qualify just about any thought you are tempted to announce as an absolute . . . By all means learn not to believe everything you think.

XVIII.

Don’t fancy yourself more intelligent than you are merely because you are said to be smart . . . The properly educated person understands why being intelligent is wider and deeper than being smart . . . Intelligence is not a single ability nor an isolated power but a range of powers combining synergetically.

XIX.

You do not understand what intelligence is unless you comprehend it as a discipline you enforce in your behavior . . . No one is intelligent who is a low-energy thinker because intelligence in life is established in acts . . . More than something you possess, intelligence is something you habitually accomplish.

XX.

When your powers of intelligence are applied constructively, they reveal themselves plainly in your habits of thinking, as in openness and objectivity and exactness . . . It is not enough to have a good mind; intelligence is established in use and is a complex habit . . . Schools and colleges need to realign their curricula to provide genuine training and exercise in the habits of intelligence . . . Applied intelligence, like English or math, should be a discipline to itself in the curriculum.

XXI.

Make the effort to discover on your own what you were not taught in school about the mind, thinking, and intelligence . . . Leverage your thinking by allying yourself with the nature of the mind itself . . . A special capability of the mind is that it may prompt itself to gain ideas it would not otherwise have . . . With discipline and ready strategies, you can excite the recessed, secretive sources of your consciousness.

XXII.

To generate the idea you need, give your mind a challenge: the popularity of puzzles is proof positive that the intellect thrives on challenges . . . Always applying target awareness, spot the hidden challenge to your thinking in every situation . . . Remember that what you see depends on what you look for . . . To see something in a different way, perhaps an entirely new way, revise the usual vocabulary others apply to it.

XXIII.

Realize the abiding wizardry of your mind as you seize opportunities to stretch its powers to the limit . . . Just by initiating mental action you can jump-start the generative power of your mind . . . Overproduce—generate more ideas than the one you need, so to discover the one that serves best.

XXIV.

A particular advantage of thinking as an activity which is never noted because it is obvious—which, still, is crucial to intelligence—is that you can think and come back to it, think and come back to it . . . until you have the very thought you require.

XXV.

When you don’t get it right the first time, consider in that circumstance the value of the rich wrong answer . . . Accidental discoveries arise when perceptive thinkers spot unexpected opportunities . . . An idea has a superb chance of prospering when the originator regards it as a continuing construction . . . Stretched-out ingenuity is the prime method of invention.

XXVI.

Ingenuity is the result of successive moments of inspiration . . . The mind creates new ideas by making connections in a sequence of progressive discovery . . . Great achievements in thought are accomplished rather more by progressive discovery than by instant full insight . . . Quick thinking never made a profound theory.

XXVII.

Inspired thinkers bring into play their own physical and mental conditions for inspiration . . . Just as the spider spins its web out of itself, genuine thinking grows entirely from within the person’s own mind . . . To say that the intelligent mind is genuine is to say that it is in every way original even when it draws an idea from somewhere else: it makes every idea its own . . . Your thinking cannot be genuine unless you trust your mind before all others.

XXVIII.

Retain your own separate attitude concerning the requirements of intelligence . . . Set a superior standard for the performance of your mind . . . Insist that your intelligence make a difference in your life . . . Keep an awareness that in your life and work few things are more valuable to you than your intelligence.

XXIX.

Remember that none of your “smarts” in isolation deserves the name of intelligence . . . The surest way to measure your intelligence is to check its positive and negative results in your life . . . As your mind becomes habitually more active through an effort of will, you are certain to enhance your effective intelligence, which is mindpower gauged by its affirmative outcomes.

XXX.

Because intelligence is not wholly a gift but is learned, you may stretch your mindpower beyond its apparent limits, enlarge it to an unexpected degree, maximize it.