This abstract act has fascinated people through the centuries, so much so that scholars, philosophers, writers, scientists, artists, and such like-intellectuals have tried to define this process, or at least have attempted to do so, without ever cracking the concept.
However, I am not going to play the philosopher here, but instead would like to use tangible examples on what actually goes on in the mind of an average person, and does the person'a thought become manifested in his/her actions.
Howard Gardner proposed 7 types of human intelligence . Hence, just because that person performs poorly in one area of intelligence does not negate his intelligence completely. So, would it mean that a person who is a fool in his chosen profession means that he has chosen the wrong profession? Likely. Unless he/she was a fool to begin with. (:
While some might argue that intelligence is innate, there are certain psychological factors, as well as training that can influence the way a person react to situation.
Let's take learning martial arts, yoga or even an intricate dance-step. How does a person actually memorise all the right poses, footwork or even handwork? Firstly, there is a need to have visual-spatial intelligence, to be able to easily gauge and therefore memorise the coordinates of each position of the hand, feet and body. And there is a need to think through logically using one's bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. However, could a person who is able to think logically from one action to the next, have difficulties solving more abstract logical-mathematical problems? Highly likely, because some people with high logial-mathematical abilities are not physically coordinated (which would mean that the body does not wire so well with the brain). I myself very well understand how it is to watch a demonstration of an action and to think it either looks really easy only to realise that I am having spatial-directional problems when trying to replicate the process I have just seen. Or even find out that intricate steps, however confounding they look, actually are manageable and even easily emulated once broken down.
And then there is the matter of moving this new piece of information from short term to long term memory. How does one do that? Will do another post on this another time. (: But suffice to say for now that a quick memory does not always necessitate good comprehension. Some people who take longer to remember can remember well and long in the end, and with good comprehension as well. But having the ability to grasp information quickly and sort them out in your brain is a good skill to have, and which many people have been attending courses and reading books to master :)
I have experimented with different ways of thinking, have stumbled along the way, done really idiotic things I would not have done in my right mind e.g. doing something really silly when trying to imitate an action which I've just been shown. I sometimes have difficulties relating phonetic sounds to meaning (e.g. being unable to understand what a person is trying to tell me because of the accent or the modulation of the voice, or being unfamiliar with the sounds of a foreign language which I am trying to master), and have even tried to figure out a way to remember intricate poses for yoga and dances. (:
There are many examples in which people would sometimes do think without thinking (or at least without thinking it through). Hence, I will write about how to lose a guy in 10 days...oops I mean how to lose your brains in 10 ways. There are more, but these examples will do for now. ;)
1. Double-parking when they know they are not going to be within range of sight, or knowing that they won't be taking only a short while.
2. Trying to squeeze your vehicle into a tight spot and then cursing the stranger who knocks into it.
3. Driving in the middle of the road and then wondering why the car behind you is staring daggers.
4. Accelerating and refusing to give way when the car on your left is signalling to move right.
5. Throwing food into water dispenser, knowing full well that you will also have to suffer the consequences of blocked filters.
6. Cutting down trees without thinking how it might effect the ecosystem overall, and your comfortable, urban life in the end
7. Planning the town haphazardly (think of the recent flashfloods in KL)
8. Building roads anyway and anyhow you like, regardless of the effects on the community around you.
9. Students copying results of an experiment which they should be conducting on their own and thus obtain their own results. But they've been doing this all the while, from school to university. Hence, they never learnt to conduct an experiment, or even do anything properly. Which is why our industries and corporate world is so screwed up. Btw, this applies to the medical sector as well.
10. We follow the laws and rules that are given to us unthinkingly, because we have been brainwashed to do so since we were kids. We never thought of questioning the feasibility or even the rationality of such laws.
bonus point : Believing that reform is underway when all that is being done is to cover the subject over with tinsels and glitters. E.g. Does appointing women to a patriarchal system solve the problem of gender inequity? Well, only in terms of having female faces and bodies among the men, honey.
Go figure the rest.
