Knowledge is power. I'm not saying this because it's cliché. Rather, because it is a truth and a fact.
Scientists say that we use less than 10% of our brain. Some scientists think it's less than 5%. Whether it's 10% or 5%, I still find myself getting tired when I study intensely for a few hours. Elan said we're tired because of "information overload".
Some brainy facts:
-Our brain can hold 10 libraries.
-It is about 125,500 GB.
-Information are transmitted from neuron to neuron at 120 m/s which is equivalent to 432 km/h.
The more we use or exercise our brain, the more something is reinforced in our brain. For example, when we learn how to use a new handphone, we make a connection in our brain. The more we use the handphone, the better we are at it because we actually reinforce the way the handphone works in our brain. I guess that's why practice makes perfect.
Studies have shown that the more your brain exercises the more it changes. Guess that's why during exam period, my capability for thinking actually expands and I think more.
Motivational/inspirational speakers would say or love to destroy the notion that "No one is born stupid. We are not born stupid." However, we are also not born smart/intelligent. We are born with the POTENTIAL to be intelligent. Every time we study, learn and think, we make a new brain connection and open up a new pathway. In other words, we understand more and think faster. Thus, intelligence is a result of thinking. The more we use our brain, the more intelligent we become. There is no such thing as we are born stupid. If we are stupid it's because we are not using our brain.
On the point on "If we are stupid, it's because we are not using our brain", it may take 1 second for your friends to understand a joke; it may take you 5 minutes later to laugh at the same joke. It's not because you are stupid. Your brain just connects (thoughts) slower. I guess that's why AD, KC and Von can crack jokes so well. Because they always exercise that part of the brain that cracks jokes. And that's why those who scheme/plot and lie can do it so well because that's all their brains do.
The grey matter up there is the most powerful weapon humans are endowed with. Even without an arm or a leg, our brain is the most powerful tool. Successful people are so because of their brain. It's the way they think. You can strip them of their assets but they'll bounce back. They use their brain and they make their millions again. I've always subscribed to the belief that education is the way out of poverty.
Although intelligence is the result of thinking, thinking is NOT a result of intelligence. It's because I study, therefore I become more intelligent. Thinking leads to intelligence. The reverse is however, untrue. Intelligence doesn't lead to thinking. The worst form of laziness is the laziness of the mind. It thus gives that the people at the top echelons of society/corporate ladder are great thinkers. Yes, knowledge is power. And power can be phenomenal/destructive depending on how you wield it. Everything is a double-edged sword. People who have knowledge are powerful because they can make use of that knowledge for the betterment/destruction of themselves, the people around them or the country/society on a larger scale. Didn't Descartes say "I think, therefore I am"? Ah, yes, the power of thinking.
Old people always say that they are forgetful because they are old. It has nothing to do with age. Lee Kuan Yew is old but he is still very sharp. So our mind must never retire! Haha. So I must keep having my mental challenges and verbal sparring with Elan to keep those sparks of life in my brain alive! Haha.
A scientist/researcher did a study. There were 2 groups of children-brain damaged children and normal children. He taught the brain damaged children how to read. He found out later that the group of brain damaged children of 3, 4, 5 years old could read several languages better than the normal children who didn't have the opportunity to read. Those normal children were either baby-sat or put in front of the TV by their parents and so didn't have the opportunity to read.
In another experiment, some rats were put in a darkened environment and others were put in a sensory environment (normal environment). All rats were later put in a maze with food. Rats that were in the sensory environment could find food easily. When the brains were cut, those rats that were in the sensory environment had more developed/mature brains than those in the sensory-deprived environment which had smaller and less developed brains. The point is our brain develop with use.
Use it or lose it. It's like how we lose touch with a language if we don't use it.
The moment we step out of school, it's perilous. Because we need a lot more self-discipline to think/learn. The moment you stop thinking, it's your decline and downfall. That's why China lagged behind other countries when the rest of the world was industrialising. Information was expanding and China/Mao Zedong had closed itself/China off from the rest of the world with the intention to be self-sufficient. Part of the reason why the Great Leap Forward became a Great Leap Backwards was because of the lack of the influx of knowledge when China shut itself off from the rest of the world.
The Man Upstairs is a genius because he's knowledgeable. Since knowledge is power, it gives that since he knows all, he's omniscient and therefore, omnipotent.
Elan refutes the ideas of "No one is born stupid" and "Intelligence is a result of thinking" on a totally unemotional/unfeeling and purely rational level. Elan said that the 2 statements are inaccurate. They are subjective. "Stupid" is subjective because it connotes a negative thinking/feeling. It is deterministic, judgmental and fatalistic. So it is not objective. "Intelligence" itself has a positive connotation and is not objective either. One form of objectivity will be through Intelligence Quotient tests in which we use to measure a person's intelligence. But we cannot use "stupid" or "intelligence" as an objective ruler to measure a person's intelligence. Motivational/inspirational speakers appeal to our emotions when they use words like "stupid" or "intelligence". First, they take away the negative feeling-"no one is born stupid". Then they add the plus feeling-"if you think more, you'll become intelligent". It's all very feel-good stuff, very inspiring/inspirational but logically/rationally, the statements are inaccurate. "Stupid" is an emotional and negative way of describing someone. "Low intelligence" is a more rational and unemotional way of describing the same person. If you say "no one is born stupid", you give the person's morale a boost and motivate him but logically speaking, if you use the IQ test to measure intelligence, there ARE some who fare exceptionally high. Those are the "intelligent" ones. There is the average. There are the ones who measure below below average, that is, those of lower intelligence. So one cannot say that "no one is born stupid" or that no one is of low intelligence because it is a fact that there ARE people of low intelligence. Or what we usually call "stupid".
I can relate to both the emotional appeal of motivational/inspirational speakers/speeches and the rational side of Elan's logic. Whatever it is, I do and still believe that knowledge is power. The wise ones would agree.
