Friday, December 2, 2011

A Sign of Intelligence

A key sign of intelligence is knowing when you don't really understand something.  We live in a world where people often "fake it 'til they make it."  This act may get one mileage until he or she runs into a person who really knows her stuff.  Failure to know your knowledge boundaries will make you look all the more foolish. 

Moral: know your knowledge boundaries!       

More critical than potentially embarrassing yourself, knowing what you don't understand helps guide the learning process. When you know exactly what you don't understand, you can focus all your energy on the thing you don't understand in an efficient manner.  If you can't articulate what you don't understand, the job of figuring out what you don't know becomes harder and may not converge in a timely fashion.  Saying you don't understand the "E" in "E = MC^2" is dramatically different from saying you don't understand physics.  You'd end up doing very different actions in these two scenarios. 

And believe it or not, when you are able to articulate what you don't understand (or what you think you don't understand), you'll find that the articulation will actually help you figure out the problem!  Articulating something you don't understand forces your brain to make sense out of things that "don't make sense."  In doing so, your brain may detect a latent pattern.  If you've ever programmed you know what I mean.  Have you ever asked someone about some bug you were having, and as you were explaining, you figured out the bug?  I sure have.  

So, from here on out, do yourself a favor: know what you don't understand.      

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