CURIOUS WEEKEND
Describing intelligent People, and New tagline
CURIOUS WEEKEND
Hello my readers of Busyminds newsletter. You are reading Curious weekend where I share a personal insight and urge you to do and learn something this weekend that can increase your color palette of your vision of the world. Of course, you learn best by doing. So, get your hands dirty.
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Describing Intelligent People
There are people who have facts. They know loads and loads of facts. But they are not intelligent. They are not good thinkers.
Here is something I clocked as Busyminds took a big turn into critical thinking in 2021: that increased information, and abundant information, and the easy access to this abundant information, harms our ability to detect what is true, and blunts our faculties that makes detecting truth possible, and on a grand scale, harms our social cohesion. On the last point, it is harder to reach a consensus as more notions and concepts and information are developed. It was this realization that influenced my article series Against The Illusion of Truth on Medium.
I think therefore, that I have reached a more stable description of what I mean when I (personally) call a person intelligent. I deem a person intelligent if and only if the person is interested in reasoning from first principles. It is a hard thing to discuss with people who throw books and authors at me. Not because I am allergic to facts. But because I am more concerned with developmental reasoning than swallowing assumptions from people you already respect. I revere sources. But I am far more interested in being able to build knowledge from the ground up than being fed with unchallenged assumptions. It is a natural disposition that I cannot shake off.
The Busyminds tagline has changed. It is now "Busyminds Newsletter: this is a publication for self-motivated learners; it is a map for your dilettante's journey.” I am charged with the duty to help your learning experience in a way that your formal schooling system cannot.
This picture below contains a quote from Charlie Munger that expresses a sentiment I share:
Make a curious weekend.
Jegdy.