A Hypothetical

Think Tank #130

Consider something for a moment.

What if we’re actually smartest (i.e. our brain’s processing is at its most capable) when we’re babies?

It’s possible, isn’t it? It’s pretty tough being an infant. You have to figure out a whole new nervous system, make sense of an entirely new world. Maybe our cognitive ability is constantly declining, and we just don’t realize it, because as we’re constantly gaining this knowledge, we appear smarter because we’re getting better at the immensely difficult task of living.

But what if, as we make way for all these new skills, something fundamental is lost? What if, as we create the signs and symbols that represent this world, we forget the language of the world that we came from?

Maybe this is why children are better at making art; they’re still closer to the source. Maybe this is why they can learn so readily; their bodies haven’t began to slow them down.

Perhaps, as we lose intelligence (as measured in terms of the ability to learn), we gain wisdom. Ironically, I know for sure that there’s one piece of wisdom that gets lost as we age. Once we think we’ve figured the world out, we forget that anything is possible.

A logical fallacy. We’ve experienced enough to get by, but when compared to the vastness of all there is to know, we’re scarcely more learned than the child who has just figured out abstract thought. We’ve merely memorized marginally more stuff, which makes us exponentially more foolish, because while the child knows that he knows nothing, we filter all new information through the lens of our limited worldview which we somehow think is infallible.

If we were as intelligent as we think we are, we would be looking at the world the same way as an infant: in curious, concentrated awe.

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