How do you become more intelligent?

[theswitch]

I took a Behavioral Economics course in the winter, and we came across this question (although briefly). You can gain intelligence through a couple of different ways. If you want a specialized skill, you can practice it over and over again and it will take a decent amount of years to reach the "expert" level. However, once you stop practicing, that part of your brain will go back to normal and you won't have picked up any real skills.

If you want to gain all-around intelligence, you can do it through a combination of exercise and challenging yourself. Think of your brain as a bunch of little guys trying to fuse together. Exercise makes them all energetic and ready to go, and then challenging yourself, via a puzzle or just trying something new, will help those guys fuse in new and improved ways. So you can increase the amount of brain activity through exercise, and then transfer that to intelligence through trying new things. Of course, that's a really simplified way to look at it, but there's more complicated science behind it.

[oldmanspeaks]

As to knowledge, there are a couple of ways to approach. One is the medical profession way. That is intense memorization and repeating until every piece of information becomes as clear as the nose on your face. Personally I dislike that approach but it has worked reasonably well for 100s of years. The second approach is what I call the library approach or the engineering approach. In that case you simply develop a library in your head of where to look but know the basic principles quite well. As an engineer I never remembered all the stress equations or even some of the detailed heat transfer equations and that was my speciality. I simply alway knew where to look. Now I have a giant repository of places to look in my brain, on my bookshelf and on my computer. It takes me little time to reconstruct anything I need to know for a particular issue.

[KJR]

ok, so if the question is "how do you gain more generalized knowledge about the world", the best daily source is the New York Times

read it cover to cover, and if something piques your interest, google it and keep reading up on it

the single smartest person on TV these days is Fareed Zakaria

if you really want a deep understanding of foreign policy and economics, everything he says is spot on

David Brooks and Tom Friedman are two other guys worth listening to or reading

after that, there's really nobody

start with the Times, and follow up everything you read by pursuing the topic with further study

[mctyson]

For the purpose of this question, let's assume that intelligence is synonymous with knowledge. So what does it take? What should every intelligent person know as a baseline? I'd like to stay away from things like "making a conscious effort into converting learned facts into long term memory" and "paying attention more in the moment" as those I find are abstract ideals. What are the most pertinent things to know to be intelligent? How do you learn them? And how do you keep learning them?

It is very simple: practice, practice, practice.

Your brain is like a muscle.  The more you use it, the stronger it becomes, the better if functions.

So no matter what you do in life, the more you apply yourself the more your brain will work and, thus, the more intelligent you will become.

[oldmanspeaks]

I disagree totally with KJR. Reading only from the NYT will give you a distorted view of the world as will the writers he mentioned. You have to get information from many sources and seek out those that have opinions different than your own but who can explain theirs intelligently. You learn far more from those that disagree with you than you will ever learn from listening to yourself (people who agree with you). Until you can argue points from multiple sides equally well you don't understand the subject.

[clover]

I disagree totally with KJR. Reading only from the NYT will give you a distorted view of the world as will the writers he mentioned. You have to get information from many sources and seek out those that have opinions different than your own but who can explain theirs intelligently. You learn far more from those that disagree with you than you will ever learn from listening to yourself (people who agree with you). Until you can argue points from multiple sides equally well you don't understand the subject.

I'm with you on that.

[cdif911]

learn new things, become an expert in things you know, do new things, meet new people, travel, write, don't assume you can't learn things from people less "intelligent" than you.  Fail and learn from it.  Share your experiences.  Accept criticism. Don't show off.  Keep an open mind.

[oldmanspeaks]

TP to cdif911. I used to match up my young superstar engineers with my old time "turn the crank" engineers and techs. I used to tell the superstars that the experienced people may not always be right as to the theory of why something happens. However you can bet your ass that they know what they saw and you better understand what they saw. Some of my best sources of information were from supposedly uneducated untelligent folks. They typically know their own jobs quite well.

[Celtics4ever]

Hard work and exposure to stimuli and facts.   Some of it is nature but a lot is nuture in terms of development.  Never hurts to hang around your betters I have learned a lot that way.

[GreenFaith1819]

Wisdom.

[indeedproceed]

To echo mctyson a little, your brain is like a muscle. Eating right, sleeping well, and regular cardio is important as well.

I don't think you can become 'more intelligent', but you can hone the edge god gave you to as sharp as you can make it. Read books that challenge you and strive to learn what you don't so you can understand them.

[Redz]

For me nothing replaces personal hands on experience, but everyone learns in different ways.

[Redz]

learn new things, become an expert in things you know, do new things, meet new people, travel, write, don't assume you can't learn things from people less "intelligent" than you.  Fail and learn from it.  Share your experiences.  Accept criticism. Don't show off.  Keep an open mind.

I know what you're saying, but as a Special Needs teacher and parent of a couple of young kids I learn things almost every day from people "less intelligent" than me.   Perspective, humility etc...

[dark_lord]

learn new things, become an expert in things you know, do new things, meet new people, travel, write, don't assume you can't learn things from people less "intelligent" than you.  Fail and learn from it.  Share your experiences.  Accept criticism. Don't show off.  Keep an open mind.

I know what you're saying, but as a Special Needs teacher and parent of a couple of young kids I learn things almost every day from people "less intelligent" than me.   Perspective, humility etc...

tp

[rickyfan3.0...]

You can't, really.