What is mind? Who is a smart person?

The mind is the ability to think, the ability to find a solution to life’s problems, the ability to see and predict the consequences of one’s actions. The opposite of intelligence is stupidity, lack of intelligence is dementia.

A smart person is a person who knows how to think, uses his head (not everyone does this and not always) and has the necessary material for this (subject knowledge).

Think — understand and analyze what is happening, make adequate decisions, take into account the consequences and draw conclusions, able to actively and independently solve life or situational problems.

In the everyday sense, a smart person is someone who knows a lot. But this is not quite true, because smart is not the same as well-read or educated. In part of society, a stereotype has developed that an intelligent person must know physics, mathematics, and similar disciplines. However, if a person knows a lot, this only speaks of his good memory and, perhaps, his desire to learn something. It is more correct to call smart a person who can use his knowledge, on the basis of which he can develop his point of view on certain issues, make some logical conclusions and make decisions. Inferences can be made both stereotypically and non-trivially, but in most cases they lead to the correct result. A smart person sees beyond his nose (looks into the future), unlike most people. He is able to analyze events and distinguish the essential from the non-essential.

People don’t always use their minds; in everyday life, with varying degrees of success, it is replaced with acquired habits and automatisms, when education, and sometimes people just turn off their heads and rely on their emotions and feelings. Concrete analysis shows that most people seem to think hardly more than 10% of the time. People often do stupid things not at all because of a lack of intelligence, but because of a lack of habit to use it. Not all people like to think, it is not always accepted, and at least most women live most of the time, guided not by the mind, but by feelings. We can say that an intelligent person is one who tightly controls his consciousness on a high note of concentration at a strictly specified point.

Intelligence is not the same as education. Education enriches and sharpens the mind, but does not replace it, and among highly educated people you can sometimes meet people who are not very smart. Mind is not the same as intelligence, if intelligence is understood as the ability to quickly answer test questions, solve logical problems and puzzles. The mind is not only the ability to think (think), it is also life experience that involves the use of ready-made solutions, it is also cunning, quick wit and other ways of finding the right solution.

It is curious that a person thinks not only with his head, a person’s whole body is involved in solving life problems: once helping him, once hindering him. A smart person can be distinguished from a stupid one by the expression of his eyes, by intonation, and even by his gait. The mind is also affected by the hormonal situation in the body: an increase in the level of testosterone (male sex hormone) improves intelligence and the ability to spatial (topographical) thinking.

One of the participants in my trainings, Vera, was surprisingly smart — with a sharp, clear, very logical mind. But her voice was masculine, gooey, her manner a little masculine, and there was a black mustache on her upper lip. It was not good, and Vera went for hormonal treatment. Hormonal treatment reduced her level of male hormones, the skin of her face became smooth, clean and without mustaches, Vera’s manners became more feminine — but suddenly everyone noticed how Vera (in comparison with the former Vera) had grown stupid. Became — like everyone else …

It is certain that the mind is not only knowledge, the mind is formed by the nature of the leading activity of a person and the surrounding culture as a whole. So, B.M. Teplov wrote about the peculiarities of the mind of the commander, I.P. Pavlov — about the peculiarities of the Russian mind.

The mind is connected with the psychological characteristics of a person. You can know a lot, but with crooked beliefs, inadequate programs and positions, be a fool at the same time. In connection with the personality components, the mind can be lazy, cunning or fearful. Women in general are no smarter than men, but in business situations involving conceptual thinking and responsible decision-making, men tend to act smarter, because they are less likely to be led by emotions.

The male mind (sometimes called simply the mind) is the habit of thinking for yourself, looking for a direct solution, without evasions and cunning. The female mind is different, women, given the opportunity to choose, often prefer to turn on the trick and solve the issue in a roundabout way, and if possible without racking their own brains. Indeed, why think for yourself if you can make helpless eyes, trustingly ask for help, and men will tell me everything? It should also be taken into account that many men do not like women who are too smart, and women who understand this once choose to be not too smart in order to get married more successfully …

Intelligence is a kind of intelligence. Intelligence differs from both the male and female minds by looking for rare, non-obvious or workarounds.

The mind is only the beginning of the mind, its first step. The mind works from zero or at best from the first position of perception, it has only one (its own) point of view and one task — here is I and here is what I need. When a person develops the ability and habit to use different positions of perception, to think not only from the point of view of his own point of view, but also from the point of view of other people, as well as from the position of objective consideration, a systematic approach and the position of an Angel, his mind develops. Mastering the positions of perception, a person develops his mind to the level of reason, and by adding experience to reason, he becomes wise.

By itself, the mind does not guarantee happiness, love, money or a career. To get all this, you need to make an inventory of your beliefs and values, develop a will, build a body … — you really need a lot more. However, if an intelligent person sets himself such tasks, he will achieve success faster than others who are not so smart. Start working on yourself?

Is it possible to be smarter? How to develop your mind?

To get smart, you need to learn. But what and how? School and university contributes to the development of the mind, but does not guarantee anything: the smart one gets smarter in the process of learning, the stupid one only fills his head with unnecessary nonsense. Smart is not so much the one who knows everything, but the one who teaches himself what is necessary and knows where to apply what knowledge. The mind develops primarily in the environment of smart people and when solving life problems on their own, when life teaches a person. The mind is in many ways like the muscles of our body: it is maintained by constant training and, without training, it gradually atrophies.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​