What geniuses get wrong about being “smart”

It turns out that it's all too easy for us to fall into a sort of rut in our thinking

And it can feel so comfortable, so good. We can feel so certain that it's right that we can't even realize that we're stuck in a rut

Part of this is called Einstellung, this kind of effect. And that is this, you see one approach to do things and you are convinced it's right

And even if it isn't the best approach, you just can't see other approaches because you've already locked in that first approach

And to some extent, we do that in everything we do in life

Because as we grow, as we grow from infants and we're maturing, there are synoptic, we're born in kind of our earliest years, we have lots of synoptic connections

And as we don't use some of them, they just weather away and die

So even by six months of age, what happens is you've lost the ability to even hear certain sounds of other languages because you haven't actually used those circuits yourself

So what you want to do in your life is you want to try to expose yourself to novel stimuli as much as possible

I mean that doesn mean that you have to live a topsy life but try things like sitting at a different place at the dinner table or brush your teeth with the other hand

And, of course, travel is a great way of getting out of your comfort zone

One of the things that I think is very interesting is Nobel Prize winner Ramoni Cajal

had said that he's considered the father of modern neuroscience. And he'd worked with many geniuses

And he said, you know, I work with these geniuses. And he said, I am not a genius

He said, what I am is persistent and I'm flexible when I see that the data is telling me something different than I thought it should tell me

So he was able to change his mind. Now what happens with really smart people, those geniuses who Ramoni Cahal was referring to, is they're super smart

So they're used to being right and figuring things out quickly. They tend to jump to conclusions and they haven't had the experience of changing their minds when they're wrong because they haven't been wrong that often

And what that does is that makes them less flexible in the face of changing data or even

being more open to different ideas. So I think it's really important to try to keep yourself flexible, try to talk to people

of differing opinions listen to them Of course you be forming your own opinions but you be surprised if you listen carefully how you can find yourself being a more open and caring person just for the fact that you listened

My background is a little different in that I worked for several years as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers

So it was an eye-opening experience for me because it allowed me to realize how easy it is for people to get in an echo chamber

where they have no idea that there are other opinions and other ideas that are outside their own echo chamber

So I saw that on the trawlers that I worked on. There was no exposure to Western ideas and Western thoughts

And so they were convinced that all capitalists were evil, that people would, when they got

to shore, they would be kidnapped and tortured and terrible things would happen to them

And of course, that wasn't true at all. And their conceptions of the West were completely wrong

Another thing was just that they were terrified of saying the wrong thing

It was truly a totalitarian society where if you had wrong think, you were in big trouble

And to some extent, I see a little of that going on in our society today

People become very polarized because they only listen to news that relates to something that backs up the worldview that they have And so it almost a little bit like the old days when I was working with the Soviets

because there's this sort of groupthink that we're right, and also fear if you say the

wrong thing amongst your group. And this is a dangerous sort of societal situation to fall into where you're not listening or talking to one another

And I think it's important that as much as possible to maintain dialogue between different ways of thinking about things

And as far as false news comes and fake news comes about, I'm familiar with fake news from decades past, right

Because the Soviets were masters of fake news. And fake news can come from any source

And it's not just your side that's the source of the good news

It's both sides that can put out fake news. And so I think critical thinking involves not being totally vested in one side or another

but being able to step back and be dispassionate and not be quite so emotional about the things you might hear in the news that are built to push your emotional buttons

Thank you