Food for thought from a very “Smart” Goldtent Reader

Hi Fully

I read with interest an entry on your blog today regarding “smart” people
and how rigid they can be in their views. I of course also read all the
comments. I think people confuse “smart” with recall ability. I grew up
with one of the most educated men in this country (my father). Perhaps he
was even “THE” most educated person in the country – I wouldn’t know for
sure. But I do know he attended University from the age of 20 until he was
well into his 80s, and not a day went by that he wasn’t enrolled in at
least one University course during all that time. Anyone who knew him and
spoke with him said he was an incredibly “smart” man. I can say with great
confidence he was of average intelligence at best, and possessed well
below average intelligence in practical thinking. What he truly excelled
at was memory retention and recall. And when he conversed with others,
they would invariably be quite impressed with his ability to recall facts
or dates or names, etc., etc., and of course would state confidently that
they had the privilege of conversing with a very smart man. But I would
argue they were in fact conversing with a person with a mind similar to a
computer. A computer can hold vast amounts of information, but relies on
inputs for it’s ability to solve problems. A 1 year old child can be
infinitely “smarter” than a computer in certain ways.

IMHO, there are extremely few truly “smart” people in this world. There
are many people that excel (still, a minority) and can appear on the
surface to be quite “smart”. But regurgitating inputs does not infer
intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to think and reason. Having
exceptional memory and recall traits are merely advantages to attaining
above average intelligence. If combined with exceptional reasoning skills,
wisdom, curiosity, and access to information, then a person would have the
building blocks to achieving great intelligence. I personally cannot name
anyone who excels in all those areas, although I can name quite a few who
excel in 1 or 2 of those areas.

So when I read of people who exclaim they have a very “smart”
acquaintance, but that same very “smart” person is completely oblivious
and closed-minded, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Obviously, that “smart”
person is not smart at all – they are gifted with a certain exceptional
ability and nothing more. A person simply cannot be “smart”, if they
possess no ability to question, and I would argue the “smartest” members
of our society question everything, and will only assert 1 single thing;
our existence is one gigantic great unknown. If you can’t acknowledge and
admit that we know very little, and then automatically fail the “smart” test.

Rebuttals are welcome, since I admit all the above could be completely
wrong lol.

Have a good one, Fully!

Chris