The nature of intelligence

Intelligence is considered what one knows. If one knows many things, or how to do many things well, they are considered intelligent. But as Socrates said, "All learning is recollection." If I know how to do algebra, it's because I've memorized how to do it. If I know how to drive a car, it's because I've memorized how to operate one. So why then do some consider someone who doesn't know how to do something less intelligent than someone who does? They simply haven't been taught a.k.a- they haven't memorized how to do that thing. So then, if I know how to do something, it is because I've memorized how to do it. Therefore, this intelligence is really memory. Know how=memorized (memory). So one who seems intelligent has actually just memorized many things that some consider to be more important or of more use than other things. Some people may say that stupid people, "just don't think." But what is thought? If I think of a red car, I can picture it in my head, only because I have seen one before. Thus I've memorized many pictures of red cars so that I can think of one whenever I want to. I'm thinking of how to find the diameter of a circle. I remember what I learned in math class, or in a book and I apply it. So, thought is also just memory. Intelligence could be better classified as applying the most appropriate, or useable thoughts (memories) to whatever situation one is in. If I'm taking a test and I get a good mark, it's because I've applied on that test my most applicable memories of mathematics (or whatever it's about). So what then constitutes an original thought? If all thought is memory, than it would be logical to conclude that there is no original thought. After all, if all learning is recollection, than the new thoughts created by a new thing are not my own. They are new memories built on top of old ones.

Common sense: Common sense seems to be the closest thing to an original thought. In a given moment one decides what action is best suited to the current situation. Althought the action is taken only because it seems most logical as it has proved its credibility in the past. Thus, it's a memory. Mind you one that seems original due to the quick nature of its revelation. So is one really more intelligent than another? The quick answer is no. One may seems less intelligent, but they have just not had the same time or opportunities to cultivate their thoughts the way an "intelligent" individual has. They have not yet memorized things that people would consider "intelligent thoughts." So when someone of a supposed intelligence calls another, "stupid," we can appreciate the irony in that. For it reveals a small revelation in thought to those who "know" the true nature of intelligence.

 

Actually, intelligence by definition, is the ability to think and learn.

 

I would call that knowledgeable.

 

And to think is to remember. To learn is to recollect. Thought has no ability in general. It just is. It is the individual who utilizes it.

 

Actually, you had awakened what was already present.

 

Exactly. Therefore it gives no creedence or validity to my intelligence as an individual.

 

Thinking is the capacity.

 

Agreed, there are no "special" talents.

 

Yes. I also think that there is no capacity to thought, for it is not stored or measured.

 

Ideas produced by mental activity.

 

Memories. All thought is memory. If one thinks deeply about this they'll realise it to be so.

 

Initially your original thought is the dawn of awareness, let there be light.
Consequently the original thought is the sponsoring thought to a series of sequential embellishments consistent with the original premise.
It is not meaningful to consider original thought in special or unique terms since we have already established that there are no special talents.

 

But you are separating subject from thought. "Let there be light" is the idea that there shall be light. After that one would thoughtfully indulge into the nature of light, what it will be, how it will look, what one should call it. But the recurring theme to each of those thoughts is light, as decided by the first thought, "let there be light." That first thought is not separate from the ones that follow, it simply gets hidden behind the new difinitions of what that light shall be. If you stopped at that first thought it still wouldn't be original as it is based on the older thought that something shall be. "There must be" was the thought that came before, "there shall be light" followed.

 

Mind is unbounded except that it is shared by every one. Formulaic thought is not the only kind of energetic mental impulse. All memory is living tissue. The past does not exist.

 

Perhaps you are doing that. My premise is that our original thought is our first moment of self awareness. This is not a doctrinaire, but a practical statement, What it looks like on the ground.

 

Intelligence in that case would also be considered organic then. Where it comes from is not, but where it is stored and catalogued (the brain) is. I see what you're saying. So then would it be logical to say that living man is not capable of knowing any intelligence that cannot be stored in, or lies outside of, the human brain?

 

From there I saying that all consecutive thoughts are addendum to self awareness. What we see in the world then is a reflection of those natures that are present and presented by ourselves. There is no cause for our own sanity that is outside of us.

 

My dog says otherwise.

 

A thought is the process by which we access the universal consciousness.


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Ha! Yea, how silly of me. I should have said "organic brain" rather than "human brain"