Intellectual Blocks

Another in the series of developing an understanding to the many types of blocks there are. Just as a quick reminder, we have already covered: Environmental Blocks, Cultural Blocks, Perpetual and Associative Blocks. This post will look at another aspect of the mental block structure; that of 'Intellectual Blocks'. What does this actual base its notions around? Well, there are many aspects to this form of mental blocking. Intelligence as described in the Oxford dictionary reads as such:

intelligence |ɪnˈtɛlɪdʒ(ə)ns|
noun
1 the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills

Based on this, the measure of an intelligence is the amount of this such knowledge and to what amount it can be utilized in order to make head way in a given situation. Another way to look at the definition of intelligence is that of this basic concept. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. The more intelligent, or more knowledgeable one is, then the more likely you are of completely the task of solving the given problem. Let's face it. Life, like anything else can be defined as a series of binary questions. The path by which your course takes is further extended or complicated by the initial resolution to the previous or preceding question/answer. Let's take a simple example. You wake up in the morning. The first question that could pop into your head is "Tea or Coffee?". Now, this is a real world example and doesn't relate to how clever you are. Just symbolic of possible complexities. So, understanding that, the knowledge of drinks could either stop there or be extended. So, your knowledge base could wake up and say; "Tea, coffee, orange juice, milk, water, alcohol, chocolate, etc." Hence the fact that your range has been extended by the types of drink you know. The knowledge base is greater. If you look closer then you will see that this can in fact be expanded even further by the simple fact that tea could be broken down into 'Earl Gray, lapsang souchong, Darjeeling, English Breakfast, etc.' and you can see that all these different lists each in turn develop multiple branches that can extend the knowledge.

If you see this simple analogy as a real intellect base of creativity then you can see that the more knowledge you gain, doesn't necessary make you cleverer, but does give you a base by which to work from. I do tell my students however, that there is a big difference between reading a book and understanding a book. Let's face it, it is oh so easy to sit and read some hi brow intellectual book on the inner workings of the creative mind and then chalk it up on the old book list to impress people with the as a sign of your intellectual heights. However, if you can't stand ground and debate the information contained within then there is little reason to proclaim the fact that the book was read. It would be like watching a car advert and proclaiming that you know how to build a car. One of the values I try to instill in my students when we talk of research(that fated word in the the student vocabulary) is that the information gathered means little to nothing if the person cannot place it into their own words. Now there is also a down side to all this thinking. Every coin has two sides, as they say. Being too full of knowledge can also be a problematic state. Not saying it is a negative one. However, the fact is that there is a necessary interaction required with the real world. So, having too much knowledge could even cause that analogical situation of not being able to see the wood for the trees. Many of the best resolutions that have ever occurred have resulted usually in what is simply termed, the 'Aha!' moment. This is a time when the brain is subconsciously working harder than the cognitive state and a chance occurrence of values actually bring an answer away from the normal thought process. The information is stored, but is stumbled across, not sought.

There is no real reasoning to what defines 'intelligent'. Autistic children with no common schooling with other children can show remarkable degrees of problem solving and natural ability that some scholars would find hard after years of learning. So, the understanding that intelligence is an association with education could also be argued. It is not this at all. What it is, is the way by which the brain takes in knowledge and then forms the necessary patterns by which it can then recall this information. For the relevant reasoning that it will be applied too. The block is either the transference of knowledge on either end of the scale, or it is the taking in of this information and the apparent understanding, put weakness in its translation to solve a related problem. The next block we will look at in this series will be 'Emotional Block'. Nothing much to cry about.