Infinite intellectual capacity the myth that wrecks us all.

Why has the idea of infinite intellectual human ability become so accepted? I believe that the acceptance of a mind that can contain any amount of information without at any point pushing some out , has had consequences. This means that people believe that people can remember any amount of information. People also believe that if we knew how we could learn to do anything mentally and master any subject.
Has this wrecked the education system? Is the reason that some people believe there has been a decline in the UK in maths and english is because people learn so many other subjects, and this idea of infintie capacity from Tony Buzan and many other sources including David Icke have stopped people maximizing the limited capacity. To maximize it we have to accept it's limited capacity. Humans can do great things, incredible things, things that may even be thought of as superhuman: but they can only be achieved with the exectance of the raw human material we are working with.

Come to the US where the education philosophy was exactly that, Limited potential.

"In our dreams, we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning, or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, editors, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have an ample supply…The task we set before ourselves is very simple as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So we will organize our children and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the homes, in the shops and on the farm."

Equally a failure, how bout we just teach critical thinking and reasoned logic to start, see how that works out. We tried everything else.

reply to post by benrl


What I was saying is that the concept of infinite capacity stops true progress. How would an olympic athlete progress if they believed they already had infinite speed? They couldn't. They will progress through efficiency and training. The idea of infinite capacity if like trying to build a infinite car: where would you start?

The idea of us having limits allows us to true progress and push human potential further: it makes us realise that technique and efficiency are most important.

werewolf99
reply to post by benrl

 

What I was saying is that the concept of infinite capacity stops true progress. How would an olympic athlete progress if they believed they already had infinite speed? They couldn't. They will progress through efficiency and training. The idea of infinite capacity if like trying to build a infinite car: where would you start?

The idea of us having limits allows us to true progress and push human potential further: it makes us realise that technique and efficiency are most important.

Yes but you immediately tied it to the Education system, did you provide proof or sources saying that the UK education Philosophy was adopted from David Icke.

As I do not have the background to know UK's education views, I gave you what sounds like the exact opposite of what you suggested.

That people be kept in their limits and only taught that which they can "absorb" which has been a horrendous failure here in the US.

reply to post by benrl


It was more like David Icke agreed on the idea of infinite capacity mad popular by Tony Buzan. What I am trying to say is not really people should be kept within their capacity: I do belive that peope,can learn. It is more like education should be concentrated on efficiency and not the idea of infinity: infinity cannot even be proven to exist.

If a runner belived that already could move at infinite speed when they could not, then how would they improve. The idea of infiniteness is one that holds people back.

It's a good point, and I think it probably stretches further than that.

We are told we can do anything we want by society, yet, it's so quick to put us down when we fail.

its also a fact that we are often being told that normal human only use 10% of his brain, you have probably heard that already... is it true?? don't know, but that sure is a cause to this!

reply to post by translation


People fail at things there is no getting around it. There seems to be many philosophies and I sgree that keeping going helps people succeed. But there does seem to be a denial of failure: that it even exists. I do believe that humans can do incredible things. But I think that doing them is based on efficiency, knowing how and practive. Efficiency never factors into the infinite intelligence thing.

Great point, our ability to analyse information and comprehend is limited, like a house with a roof on it, you can only fill it so much. We forget that much of what we learn; we forget. There have been cases of individuals, memorising and mastering many fields, but it took, study, training, guidance and dedication... even then they did not learn or comprehend everything. Specialisation according to ones abilities is a concept which is oft forgotten..

reply to post by werewolf99


You know where you find the really lateral thinkers "skunk works" . Interesting post , out of the box thinking and always applauded , by me anyway.


It is not necessarily what I think but a thought.

From my perspective our intelligence is not contained within the body matrix but in the over soul and this uses the mind/computer brain to control the avatar/body , so given that premise we may have a certain amount of RAM in the brain computer to use and any given time , but our over soul has unlimited knowledge.

Wooops I can see the cat sneaking into the pigeon cage lol.

werewolf99
reply to post by benrl

 

What I was saying is that the concept of infinite capacity stops true progress. How would an olympic athlete progress if they believed they already had infinite speed? They couldn't. They will progress through efficiency and training. The idea of infinite capacity if like trying to build a infinite car: where would you start?

The idea of us having limits allows us to true progress and push human potential further: it makes us realise that technique and efficiency are most important.

The opposite is true.

If an Olympic sprinter thought he had a potential capacity to run faster than he currently runs, then he may practice harder to reach that higher potential. On the other hand, if he thinks his capacity is limited, and he has already reached the upper limit of that limited capacity, he may not train as hard.

It is that idea that he can always shave another fraction of a second off of his time is what keeps him training harder.


The concept here isn't "do humans think they have reached unlimited intellectual capacity?".
The concept is "is there a greater (unlimited?) intellectual capacity that humans can still strive to attain?".