I’ve just read the article “How Your Mind Really Works” over at Steve Pavlinas blog. Steve is widely known for his long and detailed articles, but this one you should read from beginning to end. Some of the points he makes are right to the point. You just know that what he writes is true.
Basically, what he wants to tell you in the article is that the smarter get smarter. You gain experience through experience. If you want to be able to solve your problems you got to go out there and gain new experiences. By doing that you activate your associative memory. It would be hard for you to solve even the simplest of problems if you have never experienced anything you can connect with it. Your brain needs background data.
If you have a problem written down in swedish, you’ll never even know that there is a problem (unless you are from Sweden or have learned the language). The fact is that you don’t have to know swedish in order to be able to solve the problem. If you know one of the related languages, danish or norwegian, your brain will have enough background data to interpret the problem. This is how associative memory works. Everything is related to something else (like links on the internet). If you never leave your house, your experience will be limited, and your ability to solve problems outside the house will probably suck.
Steve uses Leonardo da Vinci as a good example. He is considered to be a genius at many many different fields. Steve thinks that he was able to pull this of by exposing himself to a rich variety of input. I think da Vinci also was blessed with an incredible brain that was able to process this input in an extraordinary way.
I have previously written an article that points out how important it is to constantly experience new things. You can read it here: Live like you’re going to die tomorrow.
June 27th, 2007 - 1:58 am
Nothing new about what steve’s post talks about. Pretty elementary neuroscience 101 stuff. Perhaps you should expand the scope of your reading.