The Difference between Rationality & Intelligence 🤔
Read the original here.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to make it up to Brisbane for a friends wedding. This wasn’t a normal wedding, but a Roora party. In short, Roora is a customary ceremony common to Shona people (predominantly native to Zimbabwe) that involves a dowry, marriage and celebration over a few days — but it particularly refers to the dowry process. Referencing our post two weeks ago, we spoke about Linguistic Relativity and how the language you learn can change your perception. I feel that after experiencing a wedding celebration that was totally different to my own traditions — that you can see how this theory could be put into practice. In this case, perhaps we can replace Linguistics with Culture (yes, they’re sort of intertwined). One thing that was constantly referenced by everyone who made a speech, and the MC who explained the traditions, was that in this custom it isn’t just a marriage, but really a joining of families. That includes all of the good things & bad things that come with each family and your own relationship. I wonder if that was the view in western marriages, whether we’d see the divorce rates we see today? Some food for thought.
Random morsels to get smarter —
This week’s curation for your enjoyment.
1,000 True Fans
This is a classic piece that is incredibly valid when it comes to business & marketing, yet so often overlooked by most developers & marketers. Recently updated for Tim Ferriss’ book launch, 1000 True Fans showcases that to really become viable as a business or small creator, you must focus on the type of individual that will buy anything you produce. If you do that, you are likely to secure a future that allows you to create anything that you wish over the course of your lifetime or career.
The Birth of Saké
A masterpiece of a documentary; having watched this on Netflix it’s made me incredibly nostalgic for my recent trip to Japan. If you enjoy investigating the extreme dedication that often comes within Japanese culture and what it takes to be world class, then please do watch this — particularly if you liked Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
The Difference between Rationality & Intelligence
A fan of Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast & Slow) for many years, this New York Times article identifies his research to show that even though you may be intelligent, you are susceptible to cognitive biases which distort your rationality. Perhaps this is the distinction we can identify between having “common sense” or “book smarts”? If this isn’t a case for improving your mental models across a wide spectrum of fields, I don’t know what is. The key distinction made, is that while intelligence is not necessarily the be all and end all, rationality may be and is something that can be improved through training. So while we begin to understand that “brain training” and other marketing ploys are not a way to improve your actual cognition, improving rationality may just be the answer. How? We’ll cover that soon enough.
Feynman’s Algorithm of Learning
Richard Feynman has to be one of my favourite indirect mentors — I own every book written about him, or by him. It was Feynman who taught me the difference between knowing something and knowing the name of something. Only Feynman could teach me the pleasure of finding things out directly after high school, or the beauty of nature not identified with our own eyes. It’s only fitting that I cover his method for learning as detailed by Shane Parrish. Simply put, any topic that you truly understand should be able to be taught to a child, reviewed & simplified.
Which morsel was your favourite?
What lessons do you want more or less of? Let us know!
Just send a tweet to @Neuralle and put #MondayMorsels in there so we can find it.
Happy reading,
Jordan & team @ neuralle.com
Neuralle is focused on Human Intelligence (H.I.) to dramatically increase the output of business owners & quality of life of high performers.
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