Can We Become Smarter?
We are now in a special 49-day period, recreating the journey of the Jewish people over 3000 years ago, as they left Egypt on their way to Sinai. At Sinai – the greatest event in history – we received the Torah: A blueprint for life, which manifests the Divine wisdom and will, teaching us how to broaden our horizons and unite our lives with the immortal.
In the coming weeks, as we prepare to relive Sinai on the holiday of Shavuot (less than three weeks from now), this column will focus on the nature of intelligence, the nature of the human experience as a whole, and how we can expand its boundaries. This week’s column is the first of a two-part series. [This was originally published as part 22 of a series of essays on the classic discourse called Samach-Vav].
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What is the secret to intelligence? Is it smart genes, hard work, experience, literacy, maturity or something else?
Wisdom is obviously shaped by many factors. It’s not enough, for instance, to be born with a good mind if the mind is not used. Laziness can undermine the benefits of brain power. A weaker mind that exerts itself can surpass a languid brilliant mind.
A mind must also be cultivated and nourished through education and scholarship; sharpened through challenges. Finally, experience is the ultimate teacher.
But, what is the true nature of intelligence? How much is hereditary and how much is acquired? How, exactly, does education and experience affect the mind? And above all: Is there a way to become more intelligent? Can wisdom be nurtured? Study and scholarship broaden your knowledge base quantitatively. But is there a way to qualitatively enhance brain power, to sharpen your mind and think differently, to open the mind’s creative channels?
In discussing the nature of intelligence we also must define what “smart” means. “Book smart” is not the same thing as “street smart.” We find geniuses with the highest IQ’s but no common sense. Conversely, some people are very intuitive and have, what author Daniel Goleman has coined, “emotional intelligence,” though they may be academically challenged. Intelligence, some argue, is also related to language. A great mind will be compromised without adequate tools to express itself. Some people may be highly intelligent yet, due to shyness or even a handicap, their abilities can be severely limited.
Our discussion today concerns balanced intelligence: not extreme in one way or another, but a synthesis of knowledge, methodology and common sense. We refer to the overall wise man or woman who has a good mix of all the features of intelligence: Information, intuition, brainpower and practicality.
Is there anything we can do to become more intelligent? Not more knowledgeable, which is aquired through reading and scholarship, but the intelligence that tells us how to use our knowledge in productive ways?
To answer to this question requires a review of how the mind works. Where do ideas come from? You’re standing in the shower or strolling down the street, and suddenly an idea pops into your mind. From where did this idea originate?
Try to trace an idea to its source. You’ll come to a dead end. You can never remember the moment before you became conscious of the idea. Why? Because memory can only recall conscious thoughts, not the unconscious state that precedes it.
No wonder ideas are compared to flashing light bulbs. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new idea flashes into your mind like a light bulb bursting on when you flick the switch.
So, where do new ideas come from? What creates these flashes?
Kabbalah maps out the mind in the following fashion: The conscious mind, which consists of three stages: first an idea (chochma), then its development (binah), finally its conclusion (daat), originates from an unconscious state of hidden wisdom. This hidden state – the collective unconscious – is like a reservoir of water, a quantum-like state which contains the potential, and has the power to generate, an infinite amount of wisdom.
The cognitive process, thus, works likes this: The unconscious mind releases, drop by drop, ideas into the conscious mind. An idea, therefore, feels like a flash – a spark released from a larger flame. Our conscious mind feels as though the idea came from nowhere – from “thin air.” In truth, it is being released from a body of unconscious wisdom that contains the potential for infinite ideas, allowing us mere drops from its wide ocean.
In between the unconscious “reservoir” and the “conscious” thoughts a “valve-like” force – a type of filter – regulates the flow from the unlimited source to the limited containers. Should the “faucet” break down and stop controlling the flow of thoughts from the unconscious to the conscious, the conscious mind would become flooded to the point of causing madness. Which explains the thin line between madness and genius: Genius is a “valve” open to capacity, allowing in a steady flow of imagination, bordering on the edge of being flooded. Should the flow intensify just a bit more, the mind would go mad, overwhelmed by the deluge of ideas as they come pouring into the conscious mind without a chance to be absorbed and compartmentalized.
According to this theory of consciousness, the entire concept of human awareness is turned on its head: Ostensibly, one could argue, that madness is being out of touch with reality, while sober consciousness is being in touch. The truth, however, is the other way around: Not only is sanity a limited state of awareness, it actually is a form of blindness. Should we be completely aware of the truths of the collective unconscious we would be unable to contain them. The only way for us to remain intact is through limiting and filtering the flow, allowing us to experience only a drop at a time, like raindrops that fall slowly so that they can be absorbed by the earth, instead of flooding it. Insanity, in a fascinating ironic twist, is actually closer to reality than sanity.
Yet, for us to survive and function “normally” in our defined and narrow world, the essential truth must be suppressed and filtered; our perception must be limited, our vision myopic, lest the pure awareness overload our circuits.
William Blake, who was deeply influenced by the Bible and mysticism, described it well:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”
However, our perception is not locked in an airtight chamber. We have many reminders that offer us a glimpse into a higher state of being. There are doors and channels that connect us with the hidden unconscious.
Intelligence – and for that matter, the entire human journey – is about recognizing our limited perception and reaching, yearning for transcendence, to expand our horizons, see beyond and experience the infinite.
Intelligence is not merely the ability to understand that which is obvious – that does not require any special level of wisdom. Rather, intelligence is defined by its capacity to recognize and perceive that which is invisible to the naked eye, to go beyond the doors of perception and access the inner states of reality, to expand and broaden the channels (“valve”) that connect the unconscious and the conscious.
Someone born with natural intelligence has broad containers and an “open faucet,” that allows in an ample flow of ideas and creativity. (Obviously, there are many variations of intelligence; a wide array of “smarts”). But, even a great mind, deprived of effort and nourishment, will stagnate and atrophy. A mind must be fed – with knowledge, education and inspiration. A mind must be exercised – challenged, pushed and cajoled.
So how do we open or expand these channels? How can we reach deeper into the subterranean caverns of the unconscious and draw its power into our consciousness?
The most obvious way, most of us would reply, is through education and scholarship. By acquiring knowledge, through reading, listening, probing, we expand our minds and broaden our horizons.
However, upon further thought, is this really true? Acquiring new information, even profound and radical ideas, only expands our minds quantitatively. Our consciousness has not shifted to another dimension of understanding. We begin our lives with a very limited scope; as we integrate more information, our perspectives broaden. Qualitatively, however, nothing has necessarily really changed. Our perception may still be just as limited, albeit wider but not deeper.
What allows some people to actually “think out of the box” and discover a qualitative paradigm shift – new dimensions of experience? How do we become lateral thinkers instead of vertical ones? Solving a problem requires stepping outside of the problem, as Einstein said, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created” (or “the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”). But how do we step outside of the problem, when we (and our existence) are so much part of it?
How do we access our imagination, which is “more important than knowledge” (as Einstein also said)?
Based on the statement in the Ethics of the Fathers, “turn it and turn it for everything is in it,” Samach-Vav explains that there are two primary ways to “turn it” (hence the double “turn it and turn it”) – to twist and extract deeper levels of the unconscious and expand the channels of consciousness:
The first “turn it” is through exertion. The second and even deeper “turn it” is through humility.
Next week, in part two of this essay, we will discuss the nature of these two methods.
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Question of the Week: How is it possible to “think out of the box” when we are all “in the box?” Have you ever met anyone that actually “thinks out of the box,” or is it a nice cliche?
I would have to drill a hole in the box. with out a glimice of what is awaiting me , I would never or could never have the mind to expand in growth.
Hi Rabbi Jacobson,
Just finished Turbulent Souls. Dont know if you were the Simon Jacobson with whom the author conferred and consulted. Great book. Outside the box? Dont really know about this. Have had some strange experiences since worshipping with a reform congregation though, even though not Jewish, nor a member. Easiest fast of my life on Yom Kippur this past fall – first Yom Kippur fast ever. Had previously fasted as a Christian with much, much difficulty..???? Several weeks prior to Pesach went on a cleaning, organizing spree in my household. I threw away stuff that had been in my closets, cabinets for years. Could not figure out where all the energy and discipline to clean and organize was coming from. We didnt even observe Pesach this year (had done so in Messianic Jewish congregations in years past, but did not feel comfortable going to the synagogue for Pesach this year yet, maybe next year). After Pesach, it was like somebody let the air out of the balloon as far as my cleaning, organizing binge. I am just wondering if, somehow, with Yom Kippur and Pesach and everything, have I tapped into some sort of Jewish collective? It makes me wonder. It feels like a fairly safe place to be…for now. And just makes me very, very cautious about the many, many other collectives into which I could unwittingly be drawn. I must be very careful.
So just whose box is it that you want to think outside of?
The visual perception given when you say we are all in the box suggest that there is only one box, while in truth there a many boxes inside the box. We create the boxes along with our socially intelligent labels for each of the boxes. The box defines the space you can socially or academically move in. However people who think outside of the box add passion to the box that they are working with, which gives the appearance of working outside the box, when in reality they have just expanded that box.
Before I finished reading the question, I thought of a guy in my congregation and his father whom I have met at holdays. This is a young man with a PhD in some combination of neurophysiology and usable water for arid countries of the world. (!)
He heads up his own non-profit, travels the world, studies water supplies and sources in the most remote places and finds funding to bring water, toilets, pumps, etc., to these people. I think of him as a limit-less person. He does not go around talking about: there are no problems, there are opportunities, yada yada. He just gets in and starts working.
In talking with his father, I see that he is a chip off the old block. He is another creative imaginitive person, who has developed software systems that actually benefit people.
And my ex-husband, a theoretical astrophysicist. He thinks outside the box, and sometimes it got him in trouble with the establishment. And in that field there is truly a pecking order to be feared.
You know, I, too, think outside the box. Many times I have a job to do, and do not have the exact tool with which to do it. My dad usually ran to the hardware store and bought the tool he needed. I dont know if men just like to buy tools, or if they require the exact tool to do the job right, but I find women in general much more creative in making an existing tool work in a non-traditional way.
Call it common sense. Call it imagination, problem solving, or whatever. But I do it all the time. My ex-husband, an astrophysicist, was often surprised at the ease with which I found a tool to make-do. He really respected my creativity in those situations.
I find more and more people are so stuck its unbelievable. How many times in a week do I hear from someone I never thought about that. I wonder what they DO think about!?!! So few people are aware of their own confines, or those who are, PREFER their confines, and dont want to think beyond that. I find extremely few people I can share my thinking with. And yes, I try to OFTEN think outside the box,and I encourage my children to do so. But they find that is not common, and certainly not cool. The idea in this culture is to fit in, have lots of friends and admirers, based on doing the in thing (as in in the box). I still press on, finding myself outside the box quite often. Its nice when I have company out there, but it doesnt always happen. And having company or not doesnt keep me from going there…
We can access the infinite wellspring of wisdom through meditative states, hyponosis or simply getting ourselves out of the way and asking What does God want of me? The answers come through in silence. Once we turn off the mind chatter of our intelligence, and our limited ability to figure out the answers, we can access the Infinite for creative solutions. Here we access our inner divine guidance and the wisdom of our souls. Hashem blessed me with this understanding several years ago and with it I have been able to transform my life and move to Israel. I have met challenges and found solutions I never would have arrived at on my own. I now live a life of expansiveness in the holy city of Jerusalem aligning myself to Hashems Will.
Well, the first step out of the box, is to know that there is out-of-the-box. In my experiences, in my own life or meeting others, this is the challenge. once you can see passed the borders, its a whole lot easier to broaden ourselves – whether it be mindsets, outlooks, etc.
Heres a thought with a type of box in mind…tefillin boxes that is. Yes, perhaps we are all inside the box in that contained therin are words of Torah. Certainly we are all there are we not? Perhaps when thinking of this fact at all we are thinking outside the box.The challenge seems to be recognizing that the inside is out and vis a versa….then proceeding accordingly.
I have actually met and dealt with at least two people who routinely think out-of-the-box.
Here is one recent example:
A man had been in prison for several years for (white collar) theft / fraud.
While in there, with much time on his hands, he – – like many others – – came to know the Lord.
Subsequently he studied the Bible regularly and frequently.
Upon his release from prison I was privileged to meet and chat with him.
Here is an example of (his) out-of-the-box thinking:
He stated that the authors / translators of the Bible have misled all of us.
By example he specifically referred to Exodus 20 – –
which you and I know by its sub-heading as The Ten Commandments.
He stated that they are NOT commandments at all, but are instead prophesies.
His thinking is that the Lord was saying (meant) when he talked to Moses:
If you invite me into your life, and thus
you behave according to my way of doing things,
then:
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything
in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
. . . . .
You shall not misuse the name of
Remember the Sabbath
Honor your father and mother
You shall not murder
and so on through the ten prophesies.
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Simon, how do you see it?
Is that out-of-the-box thinking?
I certainly see it that way,
and I find no argument with his approach to this issue.
In fact it makes me wonder how many other places
(in the Bible and a host of other books / documents as well)
have our thought processes been biased by whoever
authored or published or re-printed almost anything we pick up.
Also look at any publication is which there are pictures, photos, sketches, etc.
Below or nearby the visual is a caption, written by someone
who sees the visual in some way and because of their visualization
we are led to see it the same way – –
wherein otherwise we may have seen it entirely differently.
Looking forward to your thoughtful comments.
A chasidishe couple came to their Rabbi asking for advice on a problem theyre having. The wife gave birth to a baby girl. The father wanted to put her date of birth a day earlier, the wife insisted they put the date of birth a day later than it is. They cant resolve this conflict.
The wise Rabbi asked Why cant you put the date of birth the exact date the baby was born?
The couple looked at each other and said We never thought of it.
Who was thinking about of the box?
Simon:
Should we be completely aware of the truths of the collective unconscious we would be unable to contain them.
A profoundly interesting thought. The question that immediately arises is why should this be so. The answer undoubtedly has to do with what you perceive, or certainly suggest, to be the nature of the unabridged truths of the collective unconscious. If the content is an infinite series of effectively incomprehensible divine rules of the game, then surely the human mind would explode – literally and figuratively – in an effort to assimilate and comprehend such a body of work.
But the question remains – what exactly are the first elements shared in a collective unconscious? And, moreover, can a collective unconscious be consciously accessed? Or are we simply passive recipients of the output of the dripping valve of insight?
Obviuously, you hint at the conclusion of your writing that there are certain divine/human inteventions/practices which facilitate the inspirational process. Rather that scoop you – something one should not do to ones Rabbi – Id like to offer a glimpse of a path that, I sense, you will not travel in your next installment.
The Hindu notion of consciousness incorporates two states of being/creation and four mental states. Creation is divided into prakriti – which is to say all things which are differentiated, whether existing in the physical or mental sphere – and the Atman, which is the singular/collective G-d/soul at the heart of every discrete human personality, and one with the Brahman, or the externalized vision of the divine. The four mental states include awakeness, dreaming sleep, dreamless sleep and tatriya – simply translated as the fourth state and available only through meditation. The Upansihads tell us that the goal of all human existance, and the source of the greatest possible human happiness, is to discover and experience the Atman from the perspective of the fourth state. This can only occur – if it is to occur, and its occurance will vary largely from person to person – through regular, deep meditation. The Upansihads go on to state that through closer and regular contact with the Atman, the veil of prakriti is gradually removed and a human recognizes G-ds creation for what it truly is – an undifferentiated marvel. (Talk about anticipating super string theory!) Since our bodies live within time and space, we are hard wired to make only temporary forays into the fourth state, always drawn back to the prakriti. But with repetitive trips we will increasingly remember what we saw on the other side and gradually incorporate this knowledge into every aspect of our daily lives.
Clearly then, from a Hindu perspective, what we might call inspiration and genius are evidence that a mind is getting past the illusionary restrictions of prakriti and accessing the infinite number of unrestricted associations that exist in the unidifferentiated real world of G-ds creation. And heres the real kicker, at least from a Hindu perspective: You cant overload on this knowledge. The reason is that increased exposure to the source of this knowledge is itself a source of infinite serenity. To put it another way, the Atman within each of us is more than capable of dealing with every possible permutation of creation.
So what accounts for mad geniuses? The Rishis (4000-year-old-curry-eating Rabbis) would suggest that the individuals ego is such that it refuses accept the true source of the constantly incoming inspiration. Yes, some people can connect the dots of undifferentiated creation in a spontantous, non-meditative state. However, in continually attempting to experience what is essentially Atman-esque in a purely prakriti environment, the individual corrupts his/her accidental encounter with the divine and, ultimately experiences the equivalent of a massive spiritual anurism. Enter madness.
Looking forward anxiously to your next installation.
Best,
Richard///
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Hi Richard,
Thank you for your very insightful and well written piece. I find the parallels fascinating — only affirming the universal, unifying truths that connect us all. To avoid getting too dense, my article didnt go into further detail outlining the kabbalistic system of shedding our ego-consciousness and entering the world of higher consciousness — a system that consists of many steps, as we climb the ladder.
Best,
Simon
But, even a great mind, deprived of effort and nourishment, will stagnate and atrophy. I would add to Rabbi Simons words… But, even a great mind, deprived of effort and nourishment when unconditional love has not been experienced, will stagnate and atrophy unexpectedly.
To think out of the box requires a tapping into the infinite, possibly at an unconscious level, where you are free and open to imagine the unimaginable.
BSD
as friend mimi notik wrote
we are in a box, but some of us have em with wings
http://livefromthehilltop.blogspot.com/2008/06/box-with-wings.html