Kakos' 4th Hour

Reactions and comments from my fourth hour Honors American Literature class.

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My favorite place in the world to be is underwater. My second favorite place is the front of a classroom.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Virtue: Intelligence

In class on Wednesday we addressed whether or not we can improve our intelligence. Consider the following quotations:

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." --Albert Einstein

"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought." --Bertrand Russell

Please comment on one or both of these quotations. Feel free also to use these quotations to discuss the original question: What is intelligence, and can one work to improve one's intelligence?

5 Comments:

Blogger JeffN said...

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowlege but imagination. "~ Albert Einstein. Intelligence, according to the dictionary, is the capacity for an individual to learn and comprehend information. However, I myself, am more into imagination then reality so in my mind, Albert Einstein has made a true statement. Even though it does not entirely fit with the definition of intelligence, knowledge does not and should not entirely characterize an idividual. Someone who does not entirely have the capacity to learn all of the facts that some people do, can definately be an intelligent person, but in a different aspect of life.

11:33 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Personally, I've always thought of intelligence as education and information, not necessarily wisdom or common sense. Because of that, I think you can acquire knowledge over time because the purpose of for example, discipline is to show someone that whatever they did was wrong and not to do that. There are unnumerable things that someone can learn that have nothing to do with tangible objects, like making friends, ect. ALSO, Einstiend's quote makes sense because if someone feels really comfortable with a concept, them taking it one step further will show that they understand it. Wow I feel like a nerd... haha.

11:36 AM  
Blogger ldowns said...

Albert Einstein once said "Get smart, make art." It's true! I value my own unique imagination and imagination in general. I find that it shows more of person's wit and smarts that make them who they are and how they operate rather than an SAT or ACT test. That's just paper and questions others make to see how you meet their standards of the world's idea of "smart". Intelligence is valuable and even more when one knows how to use it to their ablilites, like imagination. That's what counts.

4:39 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

So everybody's pretty much saying that yes, it is much more important in life to know about intangible things rather than information or facts, right? But what if that was all that mattered? Is it possible to life a happy, successful life if all you every grew up knowing was facts and scientific formulas? What if there was some kind of a formula for being nice or gaining respect? Could anyone live their life that way and be satisfied?

7:36 PM  
Blogger Amanda G. said...

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination" ~Albert Einstein I believe that knowledge can be worked on. I know that in class many people had opposing views on INTELLIGENCE, but what about knowledge? Knowledge is a subcatagory of intelligence... but intelligence is NOT a subcatagory of knowledge. I think that some people confuse the two words... or get the wrong idea about what's a subcatagory of what. You can improve you knowledge, and therefor improve your intelligence... but INTELLIGENCE itself can not be improved... there are individual steps to achieve this.

12:59 PM  

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