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I'm not a very smart person. I would say that I'am stupid, in fact. Recently, my thoughts on my bus-rides while listening to Rossini has been preoccupied by what is the world like to an intelligent person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdm8IfInaJg
When a genius gets on a bus, takes a seat and feels the texture of the seat cover, is he able to tell what material it is? The metal bars that he has to grab hold of to reach his seat so that he does not fall, does he know what type of alloy it is? He puts his earphones into his ear, is he able to describe the physics behind this phenomenon - sound travelling to his ear from his music player, in verbatim?
Based on what I have defined intelligence thus far, it's all about knowing the answers to questions. Ergo, a smart person definitely has to be curious, right? When he walks down the street, he starts to question everything that appears before his eyes. Why are leaves green? Why is the road made of this certain asphalt? Are the other types of asphalt? The light in the street lamps, how does electricity travel though wires in the ground? The colours of the cars, how do different colours appeal to different people? The fluffy white clouds in the blue sky, what determines their density or shape? Why is there a McDonald's outlet in this particular spot, and not another? Why is the sky this shade of blue?
To me, asking yourself all these things constantly must surely be exhausting mentally. But of course, I wouldn't know. Maybe a genius can have all these things running through his mind and still have enough brain power to think about more abstract things like his exact position in the Universe. In his mind, he paints a picture of this pale blue orb, spinning, and simultaneously revolving around an even bigger orange orb. But, that's not the end of it! The orange orb and all the other things that revolve around it is revolving around something else! The mental picture then zooms out, waaay out. This beautiful spiral in his mind is moving, and then he realises just how small and irrelevant he truly is.
But then, he is still content because of what he knows what precisely, is going on in his world. This vignette now just seems like someone who is able to regurgitate things that he was taught in school very well.
I don't know really, what is it like to be smart and wise. What took up Newtons and Einstein's idle thoughts? What takes up Hawking's thoughts when he isn't busy thinking about black holes and such?
I end this blog with three of my favourite quotes of Hawking.
It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
 
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Intelligence is nothing, wisdom is everything.
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I think it was Albert Einstein (I'll try to find the source), but he mentioned something interesting.
He said that it wasn't that he was smarter than anyone else when it came to solving problems. It was that the way his brain worked, he couldn't let a problem go until he solved it. Even if you are sitting at a bus stop you can work physics problems in your head. It may be a blessing or a curse though. It is a bit harder to enjoy life and be non-chalent when you constantly question everything and NEED to know the answers to them.
To give you an example, while I was in college and working on some tougher assignments or problems (engineering major), I would still be working the problems in my head trying to figure out what I was doing wrong when I was in the shower. A more freaky example was the fact that I would spend so much time doing these problems and things, that if I went to sleep with a problem in my head, I would literally work on it while I slept. I remember that I was dreaming about the stupid thing and it finally worked out right. I woke up immediately and tried to use the solution I did while I was asleep. Sure enough it worked.
Oddly enough I had a Nuclear engineering friend that admitted the same thing. Falling asleep, working it out, then waking up and it working out.
The Brain is pretty amazing though.
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Nice post. Idk why you preface it with calling yourself dumb, you seem to be an analytical person yourself. But yea, id say all it takes to be what people call "smart", is an itching curiosity and a thirst for learning and understanding about things around you in the world. You're constantly learning when you let yourself contemplate things no matter how seemingly mundane. For me learning and answering questions is an adventure. I suspect any intelligent person would agree, they teach themselves things for the sake of knowing more about the space they inhabit.
Keep learning, keep growing. Dont worry about whether or not you're a genius because truth is, intelligence is fluid, and difficult to measure. I know a lot of shit, but given the right(or wrong) variables, I can appear to be very stupid. So dont put to much value on how smart you consider yourself, or other people. That just gets in the way of learning, after all.
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I agree with your idea that intelligence isn't knowing the answers to questions, memorizing stuff isnt what seperates a genius from a regular person. Of course, how much you know is a significant factor in what you will be able to figure out. I would say that knowing is not what makes someone a genius, but rather a tool that helps them to apply their genius.
As for the rest of your questions, unfortunatly I'm not a genius. I am a reasonably intelligent physics oriented person though so maybe that counts for something. for me my curiosity and "smartness" occur unpredictably, most of the time I just do and think "normal" stuff. But sometimes I make an observation or have a thought which leads me to really investigating in my mind (and if needed with looking things up, experimenting, whatevs) until I become satisfied with my understanding. It's very focused though, maybe a genius could, but I'm not going to be figuring out secrets of the universe while busy with something else and talking to somebody.
When this does happen exhausting is the last thing I would describe it as. Exciting is the word I would chose, I think it would be incredible to be constantly in that state of understanding and learning which you predict is what it may be like to be a genius.
And here's a quote from Einstein, mr "I'm stupid":
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
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Italy12248 Posts
I think what separates "average smart" people from "holy shit that guy is a genius" is an amazing ability to rationalize and visualize extremely abstract concepts.
I am a third year physics student, i have ok grades and all, and i am left in absolute awe at what the best students can do. You can talk to them about the most abstract math and physics concepts, and they just...understand it. Immediately. You can see they have a clear and simple picture in their head of what is going on exactly, while a "normal" person will just have such a hard time understanding the same thing.
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On March 14 2012 21:19 Flameberger wrote:And here's a quote from Einstein, mr "I'm stupid": Show nested quote +Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
I guess I'm a genius when it comes to wasting time. Yay.
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Your question is really difficult to even start to answer, for a few reasons. For one, there has never been a very good definition of intelligence, nor is there only a single type of intelligence. Also, none of us has ever had the experience of existing as a person who had greater or less intelligence than ourselves, so there is no way for us to explain what the differences are. Standardized tests say that my IQ is in the 99ish percentile (which means little more than that I'm good at taking IQ tests, but let's just assume it means I have more of some kind of smart than most people), but I couldn't possibly tell you how the way I see the world differs from the way someone who would land in a lower percentile on the same test.
I can tell you my hypothesis: I think what people think of intelligence is a combination of pattern recognition and a capacity for passion.
Pattern recognition allows you to abstract away some of the complexity of the world, making it easier to comprehend very complicated things by recognizing how they are like less complicated things. It also allows you to find signals in the noise of very complex phenomena, so that you see relationships that would not be evident to someone without the same capacity for pattern recognition.
[Edited to add: ] Another really important ability when you're talking about being able to understand something at a deep level is to operate simultaneously at different levels of abstraction. So you think about the sun as a point with a given mass while you're working out the orbits of the planets, but have the ability to move to a different level of abstraction and think of it in a different way when dealing with a problem that can't be solved with the "sun as a point" abstration.
By "capacity for passion" I mean the ability to get really interested in something. I speak Japanese and German, and I learned the languages significantly faster than the people who were living in Japan and here in Germany with me at the time, but most of the reason seemed to be that I was just much more fascinated with the languages than they were, and so I could spend 8-10 hours a day reading and studying flash cards without ever getting tired of it. On the other hand, I grow bored with practicing a piece of music very quickly, so despite having played the piano for 18 some-odd years, I'm complete crap at it.
I think we are "intelligent" in the contexts in which we have both of these things. I suspect that there aren't that many people who don't have some context in which they have both a strong understanding and a passion. If you want to understand what it feels like to be a genius in some, then, I imagine you should just imagine what it feels like when you're operating in a niche in which you have those traits.
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On March 14 2012 21:10 Smoot wrote:
I think it was Albert Einstein (I'll try to find the source), but he mentioned something interesting.
He said that it wasn't that he was smarter than anyone else when it came to solving problems. It was that the way his brain worked, he couldn't let a problem go until he solved it. Even if you are sitting at a bus stop you can work physics problems in your head. It may be a blessing or a curse though. It is a bit harder to enjoy life and be non-chalent when you constantly question everything and NEED to know the answers to them.
To give you an example, while I was in college and working on some tougher assignments or problems (engineering major), I would still be working the problems in my head trying to figure out what I was doing wrong when I was in the shower. A more freaky example was the fact that I would spend so much time doing these problems and things, that if I went to sleep with a problem in my head, I would literally work on it while I slept. I remember that I was dreaming about the stupid thing and it finally worked out right. I woke up immediately and tried to use the solution I did while I was asleep. Sure enough it worked.
Oddly enough I had a Nuclear engineering friend that admitted the same thing. Falling asleep, working it out, then waking up and it working out.
The Brain is pretty amazing though.
I have this aswell, after an exam if I'm not sure if I had the right answer or if I couldn't figure it out I will keep trying to solve it in my head until I get it right. Usually 5 minutes after the exam I will be like, omfg it was so obvious and smack myself on the head for not solving it during the test haha. For some reason I am able to think much clearer when i'm not under stress. This happens to me far too often :/ Where I literally walk out of the classroom and know how to solve the problem =.=. I'm not a genius tho.
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Some things just click.
A genius doesn't have to constantly wonder about everything from physics, (how/why does electricity travel) biology (why are leaves green) and market economics (why is the McDonalds where it is).
I think it is pretty impossible to be a rennaisance man these days. Each field of science has just gone so far that committing yourself to a single discipline is already a life-time of work.
But some people are indeed better at picking up some things, or just all things in general.
All in all, people like to overestimate their own intelligence. TL often describes itself as "above average intelligence" whilst it isn't above average in any fashion.
People ascribe intelligence to external traits like being an introvert whilst the two aren't really related. People ascribe certain fields (phyiscs) as more intellectually demanding than others (sociology). A lot of it has to do with perception as well.
End of the day, never call yourself smart. You are smart when other people call you smart.
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I'm a person who grew up being told I was really smart. I got good grades, used big words, had a knack for technology and math, etc etc etc.
But I actually never really felt that smart. I often wondered what it was that made me different from somebody who was "stupid". It's actually fucked me up in life a lot, because to this day I'm not actually sure if I'm smarter than most people or not. It's true that to this day, I figure things out faster/solve problems easier than a lot of people around me.
But, it has also had the side effect, that I consider anyone with vaguely mainstream tastes to be "stupid". If you use facebook, you're stupid. If you like watching reality TV, you are stupid. If you listen to pop music, you are stupid. And it's not as if I just think low of people who don't like the same things as I do.. It's more like I've found a correlation in people I find to be dumb, after I realize it, I check their interests and hobbies and more often than not they follow the pattern. And someone I find "smart", after the fact I find they usually avoid those things too.
But what gets me is that even to this day, people get a vibe from me and go "oooh, you're a smartypants". And I still feel like nothing special. I can see other people as dumb, but never see myself as particularly smart. I don't feel dumb either.
I guess, its hard to see yourself as anything but average. After all, the only real benchmark you have to judge other people is yourself.
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On March 14 2012 21:09 blubbdavid wrote:
Intelligence is nothing, wisdom is everything.
What said this?
On March 14 2012 21:10 Smoot wrote:
I think it was Albert Einstein (I'll try to find the source), but he mentioned something interesting.
He said that it wasn't that he was smarter than anyone else when it came to solving problems. It was that the way his brain worked, he couldn't let a problem go until he solved it. Even if you are sitting at a bus stop you can work physics problems in your head. It may be a blessing or a curse though. It is a bit harder to enjoy life and be non-chalent when you constantly question everything and NEED to know the answers to them.
To give you an example, while I was in college and working on some tougher assignments or problems (engineering major), I would still be working the problems in my head trying to figure out what I was doing wrong when I was in the shower. A more freaky example was the fact that I would spend so much time doing these problems and things, that if I went to sleep with a problem in my head, I would literally work on it while I slept. I remember that I was dreaming about the stupid thing and it finally worked out right. I woke up immediately and tried to use the solution I did while I was asleep. Sure enough it worked.
Oddly enough I had a Nuclear engineering friend that admitted the same thing. Falling asleep, working it out, then waking up and it working out.
The Brain is pretty amazing though.
On March 14 2012 21:13 Sporadic44 wrote:
Nice post. Idk why you preface it with calling yourself dumb, you seem to be an analytical person yourself. But yea, id say all it takes to be what people call "smart", is an itching curiosity and a thirst for learning and understanding about things around you in the world. You're constantly learning when you let yourself contemplate things no matter how seemingly mundane. For me learning and answering questions is an adventure. I suspect any intelligent person would agree, they teach themselves things for the sake of knowing more about the space they inhabit.
Keep learning, keep growing. Dont worry about whether or not you're a genius because truth is, intelligence is fluid, and difficult to measure. I know a lot of shit, but given the right(or wrong) variables, I can appear to be very stupid. So dont put to much value on how smart you consider yourself, or other people. That just gets in the way of learning, after all.
On March 14 2012 21:19 Flameberger wrote:I agree with your idea that intelligence isn't knowing the answers to questions, memorizing stuff isnt what seperates a genius from a regular person. Of course, how much you know is a significant factor in what you will be able to figure out. I would say that knowing is not what makes someone a genius, but rather a tool that helps them to apply their genius. As for the rest of your questions, unfortunatly I'm not a genius. I am a reasonably intelligent physics oriented person though so maybe that counts for something. for me my curiosity and "smartness" occur unpredictably, most of the time I just do and think "normal" stuff. But sometimes I make an observation or have a thought which leads me to really investigating in my mind (and if needed with looking things up, experimenting, whatevs) until I become satisfied with my understanding. It's very focused though, maybe a genius could, but I'm not going to be figuring out secrets of the universe while busy with something else and talking to somebody. When this does happen exhausting is the last thing I would describe it as. Exciting is the word I would chose, I think it would be incredible to be constantly in that state of understanding and learning which you predict is what it may be like to be a genius. And here's a quote from Einstein, mr "I'm stupid": Show nested quote +Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
So would you guys say that there is a period of time where your brain is "dormant", and the intelligence of your thoughts sink to sub-50 IQ?
That is a very nice quote Flamerberger. But isn't that what we to do in our world?
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I'm pretty sure that being really smart would be quite depressing. Ignorance is bliss.
I can't remember who said it, or their exact words.....but something like....
"If you think you're smart, you're stupid. If you think you're stupid, you're smart."
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On March 14 2012 21:23 Teoita wrote:
I think what separates "average smart" people from "holy shit that guy is a genius" is an amazing ability to rationalize and visualize extremely abstract concepts.
I am a third year physics student, i have ok grades and all, and i am left in absolute awe at what the best students can do. You can talk to them about the most abstract math and physics concepts, and they just...understand it. Immediately. You can see they have a clear and simple picture in their head of what is going on exactly, while a "normal" person will just have such a hard time understanding the same thing.
Maybe it depends on how you define the word "smart" and how loosely you use the term. You say that the others are geniuses and you are average smart. What if you put it in such a way that you are stupid and they are just average?
On March 14 2012 21:28 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
Your question is really difficult to even start to answer, for a few reasons. For one, there has never been a very good definition of intelligence, nor is there only a single type of intelligence. Also, none of us has ever had the experience of existing as a person who had greater or less intelligence than ourselves, so there is no way for us to explain what the differences are. Standardized tests say that my IQ is in the 99ish percentile (which means little more than that I'm good at taking IQ tests, but let's just assume it means I have more of some kind of smart than most people), but I couldn't possibly tell you how the way I see the world differs from the way someone who would land in a lower percentile on the same test.
I can tell you my hypothesis: I think what people think of intelligence is a combination of pattern recognition and a capacity for passion.
Pattern recognition allows you to abstract away some of the complexity of the world, making it easier to comprehend very complicated things by recognizing how they are like less complicated things. It also allows you to find signals in the noise of very complex phenomena, so that you see relationships that would not be evident to someone without the same capacity for pattern recognition.
[Edited to add: ] Another really important ability when you're talking about being able to understand something at a deep level is to operate simultaneously at different levels of abstraction. So you think about the sun as a point with a given mass while you're working out the orbits of the planets, but have the ability to move to a different level of abstraction and think of it in a different way when dealing with a problem that can't be solved with the "sun as a point" abstration.
By "capacity for passion" I mean the ability to get really interested in something. I speak Japanese and German, and I learned the languages significantly faster than the people who were living in Japan and here in Germany with me at the time, but most of the reason seemed to be that I was just much more fascinated with the languages than they were, and so I could spend 8-10 hours a day reading and studying flash cards without ever getting tired of it. On the other hand, I grow bored with practicing a piece of music very quickly, so despite having played the piano for 18 some-odd years, I'm complete crap at it.
I think we are "intelligent" in the contexts in which we have both of these things. I suspect that there aren't that many people who don't have some context in which they have both a strong understanding and a passion. If you want to understand what it feels like to be a genius in some, then, I imagine you should just imagine what it feels like when you're operating in a niche in which you have those traits.
Very interesting points that you have brought up. Passion for something certainly can be the engine which drives you to a certain level of intelligence at a certain topic, but what happens when that passion dies? See, to me, when you have the passion for something, you develop some sort of ability to devour copious amounts of knowledge on this certain something. Put simply, you swallow faster than the others. In the end, it's just the same old regurgitating right?
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I thought I was smart in high school because I pretty much knew what's going to be on the test simply by going to class (and not sleeping in it). Sometime I slept and I still knew. Then I went to university and realized how wrong I was. I went from being the "genius" of the crowd to the "that funny perverted dumb guy". True story.
I think what makes you feel smart all depends on the environment. In a relatively small controlled group with inferior beings, yes, you feel smart and awesome and basically you are the answer to the world's problems. Then you actually step out in to the world and realize you are nothing. Those that are heralded in the global stage may not have the highest IQ or the largest brain capacity, but they probably feel smart because the rest of the world says so.
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On March 14 2012 21:38 zalz wrote:
Some things just click.
A genius doesn't have to constantly wonder about everything from physics, (how/why does electricity travel) biology (why are leaves green) and market economics (why is the McDonalds where it is).
I think it is pretty impossible to be a rennaisance man these days. Each field of science has just gone so far that committing yourself to a single discipline is already a life-time of work.
But some people are indeed better at picking up some things, or just all things in general.
All in all, people like to overestimate their own intelligence. TL often describes itself as "above average intelligence" whilst it isn't above average in any fashion.
People ascribe intelligence to external traits like being an introvert whilst the two aren't really related. People ascribe certain fields (phyiscs) as more intellectually demanding than others (sociology). A lot of it has to do with perception as well.
End of the day, never call yourself smart. You are smart when other people call you smart.
Why is it impossible to be a renaissance man? From my point of view, people currently are hurrying to specialise in a certain field, and because of this, there will soon be an excess of these 'specialists'. When this happens, 2 things can happen : major breakthroughs will be had in the certain field, introducing things that will be even more difficult to comprehend, maybe rendering some specialists useless (creating a constant cycle of this). The other would be as more of these specialists pop up, demands of corporations or other businesses will spike, meaning they will start looking for people with that extra factor, perhaps someone who doesn't just excel in one field, buy multiple. Not to say that there won't be any breakthroughs, but just very slight improvements, so slight that it's very easy for the specialists in the field to keep up with easily.
Don't know if anything I said made sense though. =(
On March 14 2012 21:44 darkscream wrote:
I'm a person who grew up being told I was really smart. I got good grades, used big words, had a knack for technology and math, etc etc etc.
But I actually never really felt that smart. I often wondered what it was that made me different from somebody who was "stupid". It's actually fucked me up in life a lot, because to this day I'm not actually sure if I'm smarter than most people or not. It's true that to this day, I figure things out faster/solve problems easier than a lot of people around me.
But, it has also had the side effect, that I consider anyone with vaguely mainstream tastes to be "stupid". If you use facebook, you're stupid. If you like watching reality TV, you are stupid. If you listen to pop music, you are stupid. And it's not as if I just think low of people who don't like the same things as I do.. It's more like I've found a correlation in people I find to be dumb, after I realize it, I check their interests and hobbies and more often than not they follow the pattern. And someone I find "smart", after the fact I find they usually avoid those things too.
But what gets me is that even to this day, people get a vibe from me and go "oooh, you're a smartypants". And I still feel like nothing special. I can see other people as dumb, but never see myself as particularly smart. I don't feel dumb either.
I guess, its hard to see yourself as anything but average. After all, the only real benchmark you have to judge other people is yourself.
I guess that's one of the pains of being labelled as smart I guess. You begin to question why you are why you are, why is it that you are different from others. Maybe that's where pursuing the Sciences can come in though? Genetics and all that stuff. Maybe there are actually concrete, tangible factors that makes a "genius".
One of the ways to live, as my Dad has taught me, is that you are never good. You are always average and you will never be good. If you see that you are better than other people, they are the people that are below average. You suck.
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On March 14 2012 22:00 OpticalShot wrote:
I thought I was smart in high school because I pretty much knew what's going to be on the test simply by going to class (and not sleeping in it). Sometime I slept and I still knew. Then I went to university and realized how wrong I was. I went from being the "genius" of the crowd to the "that funny perverted dumb guy". True story.
I think what makes you feel smart all depends on the environment. In a relatively small controlled group with inferior beings, yes, you feel smart and awesome and basically you are the answer to the world's problems. Then you actually step out in to the world and realize you are nothing. Those that are heralded in the global stage may not have the highest IQ or the largest brain capacity, but they probably feel smart because the rest of the world says so.
Perhaps you could elaborate more on "that funny perverted dumb guy"? ^^ Maybe even write a blog!
If you feel smart because of the small boxed up environment you are in, that is just plain wrong. That makes you an idiot in my opinion. Being smart to me is being able to view the entire world, and place yourself humbly, in the middle of the intelligence range.
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Dude, darkscream, you just described my whole life with every word you said! People used to hate me all the way to college because they thought I was a smartass, though I never intended to insult them or anything, it's just the way I am.
It is all about curiosity. It always happens to me that if there is a question that I do not know the answer to I dedicate all my mental resources to finding it. I spend ever living moment thinking about the problem, running solutions through my head until the bingo, sometimes, I can't even get sleep over it and get anxious. Life is a series of questions and answers, of problems and equations, it's not something that is counsciously thought all the time (the things you described like feeling the materials in the bus, determining what it is and such, unless, of course, you have an inclination towards that, more like figuring out everything. How does the sound get from that phone to my ears? How do the vibrations interract with my inner ear in such a way that I am able to identify the sound and its qualities, how it is produced in the first place, those are things that I asked myself and deduced the answers to)
I do not think it's about how fast you can give an answer, but more about what questions do you ask yourself, and the way you interpret things around you because veryone sees things differently.
Speed comes with practice, you don't have to be a mathematical genius to multiply 4 digit numbers in your head, you just have to practice and sure enough, you can do that (and it's freaking awesome).
Don't stop questioning, always be inquisitive and try to find out stuff.
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I really like the Einstein quote that Flameberger brought into the thread.
All of the answers to the questions in the OP can be found! There are experts who devote their lives into answering those questions and delve in deeper so they can learn even more about it. In addition, the internet provides Google! All of your questions will be answered in 0.23 seconds with 643,000,000 other results (approximately).
Instead of being a "jack of all trades," I find it more respectable, practical, and reasonable to be a master at the one thing that matters to you the most.
I should make clear that I'm not trying to discourage your curiosity - that's a good thing to have. Just wanted to point out that there's no need to belittle yourself by calling yourself stupid 
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On March 14 2012 22:15 oPPRoBe wrote:I really like the Einstein quote that Flameberger brought into the thread. All of the answers to the questions in the OP can be found! There are experts who devote their lives into answering those questions and delve in deeper so they can learn even more about it. In addition, the internet provides Google! All of your questions will be answered in 0.23 seconds with 643,000,000 other results (approximately). Instead of being a "jack of all trades," I find it more respectable, practical, and reasonable to be a master at the one thing that matters to you the most. I should make clear that I'm not trying to discourage your curiosity - that's a good thing to have. Just wanted to point out that there's no need to belittle yourself by calling yourself stupid
Why won't you belittle yourself instead of overestimating yourself?
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EPT
