“The smartest person I’ve ever known had a habit that, as a teenager, I found striking. After he’d prove a theorem, or solve a problem, he’d go back and continue thinking about the problem and try to figure out different proofs of the same thing. Sometimes he’d spend hours on a problem he’d already solved.”
Nabeel Quereshi
I read an excellent post by Nabeel Quereshi on intelligence and learning. He makes the argument that intelligent people simply aren’t willing to accept answers they don’t understand, and they need to prove it to themselves. This reminds me of the Richard Feynman idea: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
One of the best ways to be intellectually honest is to explain a topic to yourself with the Feynman Method, since the Feynman Method forces you to explain to understand. In addition, writing and proper note-taking are exercises in intellectual honesty, since it forces you to make information and connections explicit: The function of note-taking is to augment thinking rather than store information.
Thinking is hard — “will to think” is a cool concept from the famed physicist Enrico Fermi. Thinkers are naturally reluctant to commit themselves to the effort that tedious and precise thinking demands.
The other implication is that intelligence (as defined here, which is more of a practical/problem-solving ability intelligence rather than scientifically-measured intelligence/raw intellect) is software, not hardware. It can be augmented by practicing the right principles.