Differences in Intelligence, Knowledge and Thinking

Thinking is the most fundamental process of human mind. That is why we need to know how to control our mind and also how to think. You need to think before you make any plan, solve problems, take initiatives, open up opportunities and design your way forward.

Thinking is fun only if you learn how to make it so

Thinking is a skill that can be learn. But you have to want to develop the skill before you master it. In simple example, you might need to learn how to drive a car if you want to be F1 racer.

The belief that thinking and intelligence is the same has led to two unfortunate conclusion in education. First, nothing should be done for students with high intelligence because they will automatically become a good thinkers. Second is nothing can be done for students with low intelligence because they will automatically become a poor thinkers.

Thinking and intelligence are not the same. Intelligence is like a horsepower of a car while thinking is like the driver's skill. In this analogy, the knowledge act as a fuel for the car. This analogy has led us to a few conclusion:

1. 
   
   
   A less powerful car may be driven well



2. 
   
   
   A powerful car may be driven badly



3. 
   
   
   The skill of the driver determines how the power of the car is used



4. 
   
   
   The skill of the thinker determines how intelligence is used



5. 
   
   
   Therefore intelligence and thinking is not the same.

With this anology, we can change the above facts by using one simple sentence:

Skill can be taught

In the analogy of the car, the skill means the driver. If the driver's skill is good, the car will be driven well although the horsepower is low. This also means that someone who receive any training on how to train his/her mind will have some advantages in thinking. Thinking is the operating skill which use our intelligence. That is why we can develop it and improvise it.

Why do you need thinking skill?

Because a highly intelligent people can be a poor thinker and a low intelligent people can become a successful person. How? Not by reading this post of course but one of the causes is most people always fall into "intelligence trap". This intelligence trap is set up using two things, first the common sense and second is environmental factor. Common sense will give us a generalisation about people while the environmental factor will set us right to the judgment step before we consider all other factor. I'll talk about this two things later, but I hope for now you understand the true meaning of thinking and intelligence. Thanks for reading and I hope that you practice on how to think correctly or otherwise, you'll fall into intelligence trap that I wrote just now. Thank you