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Education doesn't increase intelligence by making people memorize things, but by constantly reminding people that they might be wrong. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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We all know confidently incorrect people. People displaying dunning-kruger. The majority of those people have low education and without someone giving them objectively true feedback on their opinions through their developmental years, they start to believe everything they think is true even without evidence.

Memorizing facts, dates, and formulas aren't what necessarily makes someone intelligent. It's the ability to second guess yourself and have an appropriate amount of confidence relative to your knowledge that is a sign of intelligence.

I could be wrong though.

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[–] 14 points 1 year ago (9 children)

People in this thread have a hard time understanding what intelligence denotes.

Hint: it's not success or being smart.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yet again, we have difficulty having shared definitions of the most basic words.

    We really need to address this some day. So much conflict will go away once we stop arguing about the definitions of words.

    Maybe words are too imprecise, and we need something else. But on the other hand, we have precise words for lots of things. But it’s considered elitist or whatever to use them. “$10 words” are often just very precise and replace a bunch of other words in a sentence.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Definition of smart

    Cambridge:

    intelligent, or able to think quickly or intelligently in difficult situations:

    Mirriam-Webster:

    1: having or showing a high degree of mental ability : intelligent, bright

    Oxford:

    intelligent

    Could you share your definition that somehow contradicts all the major dictionaries?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    How are being smart and being intelligent not synonyms?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    To me, they certainly are.

    However, many people seem to think that you can get smarter. There's even a YT channel with a name like that, so I guess smart means something different.

    Fair enough, we can split that nebulous concept into innate intelligence which refers to your mental capacity, and being booksmart, i.e. having read many books and knowing stuff. In that sense, you can get smarter by learning more information or mastering new tools.

    Getting more intelligent happens naturally as children age, but eventually it's all downhill. You can choose to drink alcohol and and reduce your intelligence that way, but I'm not aware of any method of increasing your intelligence. Many people seem to use this term in a very different way, so I might be in the minority here.

    Either way, I would still argue that, intelligence isn’t something you can simply increase.

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