there are two kinds of cleverness -- the stuff that arises out of your natural
intelligence, and the stuff that arises out of knowledge/wisdom that you have gained over time.
to kickstart some form of intelligent thinking some learning is required, since it
is often necessary to learn the language/formalism and the tools of the trade
before one can apply the intelligence usefully to problems.
beyond a point however i think learning begins to stifle creativity, and hence
affects your intelligence. there can be many reasons for this, one possible
hypothesis is that the desire to learn outlasts the desire to think, since it
is easier to get engrossed in the knowledge pool out there and it is large enough that you can spend an entire lifetime trying to learn it. the other reason could be that the knowledge begins to affect the way you think -- it rewires your brain in some
subconscious way forcing you to think exactly the way that the sources of wisdom thought. the third reason could be that, too much knowledge can introduce some innate cynicism and scepticism regarding your own competence, you start to feel
that most of your "original" thoughts cease to be original since they would have been stated in some context or another, with high probability. and thus it ceases to incentivize original thinking.
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2 comments:
true observations. only i detect a bias in favour of "intelligence" over "knowledge". but the other view merits consideration too. often the ability to explain things de-incentivizes the need to "know" and this creates an intellectual bigotry where intelligence is sufficient and knowledge superfluous. plausible explanations are accepted as the gospel truth where information is limited or hard to obtain. if the way of knowledge cramps creativity, the way of intelligence limits accountability. it is the way of relative truths and, often, smug complacency.
the bias towards intelligence is quite imminent -- can attribute it largely to ego i guess. another potential drawback with the way of intelligence is it does not necessary do a good job at reproducibility, since things mired in intuition are hard to replicate
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