Am I smarter than you?
I always think I am a smart guy since I was very young. Then I realized a lot of others think the same (not that I am smart, but they themselves are smart). Now, should I venture to say that almost any one on earth is thinking he/she is smarter than average, much smarter than average?
I think that bit of feeling of smartness is the source of our motivation. It is that feeling of smarter give us joy, and keep us on continuous developing or improving, to strenghen the proof that we, are in fact smarter than average, or most of the rest of the world.
Of course the equation won't add up. not more than half should be smarter than average, and certainly only a portion should be fit into the small portion of smart elites. So are we just all contantly fooling ourselves?
Not really. I have blogged on a recent article from Scientific American about the difference between experts and non-experts. The thinking power of experts, masters, and grandmasters are really, not much different than ordinary minds. If our thinking power is measure in numbers, think about the range from 998000 to 1002000. Of course there could be a lot of variance inside that range, but noone would be any better than the others. Our thinking powers are about the same. We are equally smart. Of course there would be exceptional that suffer from accidents or down syndroms that having a number of 200000 or something, but the chance of some one have a thinking power of 1500000 is 0. The evolution path is slow, it is absolutly impossible to have an exception that is way ahead of our current human species, unless, he is a result of cosmic ray exposure inside a spaceship.
When our thinking power is equal, what determines one would play better than others is really just experience (which is the point of that Scientific American article). To attain the experience of experts is hard work, 10 years as the article cites. And since there are so many fields, it is certain that any one is better than any others at many fields.
With that understanding in mind, paying respect to others is suddenly, no longer a difficult object. We disrepect others because our subconcious thinks we are smarter than the others; but really, that isn't true. The reason we knows more than the others, we are richer than others, we have better family than others, we can beat others in a game, ..., is because we had different experience than others. Given the same amount of experience, the others probably would achieve the same.
Under our thinking power, we often randomly hit a spark, and have a genious moment. Those genious moment is very joyful, albeit there is nothing to do with ourselves being smarter. Genious moments are wonderful, they propels our civilization, we should be very proud of those genious moments and enjoy the happiness it brings. Meanwhile, it happens as often in you as any others. I guess if we keep our eye open, we can spot much more genious moments in others, and enjoy them as well, and we would be much happier. After all, no one is really smarter than anyone, and those genious moments are really the sparks our mankind and deservs enjoyment for every one. -- Am I wandering my thoughts too far?
I think that bit of feeling of smartness is the source of our motivation. It is that feeling of smarter give us joy, and keep us on continuous developing or improving, to strenghen the proof that we, are in fact smarter than average, or most of the rest of the world.
Of course the equation won't add up. not more than half should be smarter than average, and certainly only a portion should be fit into the small portion of smart elites. So are we just all contantly fooling ourselves?
Not really. I have blogged on a recent article from Scientific American about the difference between experts and non-experts. The thinking power of experts, masters, and grandmasters are really, not much different than ordinary minds. If our thinking power is measure in numbers, think about the range from 998000 to 1002000. Of course there could be a lot of variance inside that range, but noone would be any better than the others. Our thinking powers are about the same. We are equally smart. Of course there would be exceptional that suffer from accidents or down syndroms that having a number of 200000 or something, but the chance of some one have a thinking power of 1500000 is 0. The evolution path is slow, it is absolutly impossible to have an exception that is way ahead of our current human species, unless, he is a result of cosmic ray exposure inside a spaceship.
When our thinking power is equal, what determines one would play better than others is really just experience (which is the point of that Scientific American article). To attain the experience of experts is hard work, 10 years as the article cites. And since there are so many fields, it is certain that any one is better than any others at many fields.
With that understanding in mind, paying respect to others is suddenly, no longer a difficult object. We disrepect others because our subconcious thinks we are smarter than the others; but really, that isn't true. The reason we knows more than the others, we are richer than others, we have better family than others, we can beat others in a game, ..., is because we had different experience than others. Given the same amount of experience, the others probably would achieve the same.
Under our thinking power, we often randomly hit a spark, and have a genious moment. Those genious moment is very joyful, albeit there is nothing to do with ourselves being smarter. Genious moments are wonderful, they propels our civilization, we should be very proud of those genious moments and enjoy the happiness it brings. Meanwhile, it happens as often in you as any others. I guess if we keep our eye open, we can spot much more genious moments in others, and enjoy them as well, and we would be much happier. After all, no one is really smarter than anyone, and those genious moments are really the sparks our mankind and deservs enjoyment for every one. -- Am I wandering my thoughts too far?
posted by Hui Zhou at 12:15 PM
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