The human mind’s ability to construct an ad-hoc interpretation of the world around it is the basis for consciousness. I got this idea from a book I’m currently rereading called “The Mind is Flat” by Nick Chater. Recommended. It’s possible and popular to think that a smart person is better at understanding the world. Which may be true to an extent, but they are also better at deluding themselves.
When a scientist tells you about science, they may know more than you. When a scientist tells you about what’s good and right, they are probably more deluded than the average person because their brain is overly filled and concerned with facts instead of wisdom.
[Rationality] privileges the probable over the possible and the certain over the true.
– Maria Popova
I once read that being smart is like having a 4x4 - you still get stuck but just in more exotic places!
Maybe wisdom is knowing that you don’t know what you don’t know.
Also, maybe wisdom comes from making mistakes. So if you’re not very smart and make lots of mistakes - but are able to pay attention - maybe you become wiser than smart people who make fewer ‘mistakes’? Newton was almost certainly a lot wiser post his losses.
Also, the audacity to believe you can might be the common trait that enabled him to conceive of his laws of motion AND continue to chase alchemy.
Or perhaps a part of wisdom is not letting assumptions blind us to evidence? Letting go of the idea that answers must precede action, that we must deduce before we decide? Taking a beat before we jump to a conclusion?
I just saw a nice statement of what propels the plot in the Coen brothers movie Blood Simple: nobody knows what’s going on, even though everybody thinks that they do. It’s true: every crazy plot twist (and there are many!) could have been avoided if the characters involved had just taken a beat at that moment, thought twice about whether they might be wrong in what they’re assuming.
I keep going back to that passing reference Keats made to a quality
which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason …
Sometimes I think a universe of life lessons is contained in that grain of sand. One thing I think it says: thinking I know what’s going on can easily blind me to what’s actually going on. Suddenly I see clearly all the evidence that supports the conclusion I jumped to, while evidence to the contrary fades into the background.
It’s hard for me to resist the urge to be the smartest guy in the room, to have the blinding insight first, to solve the puzzle before anyone else does. More often I have to settle for immediately questioning my assessment, beating it back. Sometimes that clears my vision just enough that I can see what doesn’t fit.
Making mistakes is the one of the “best” if also painful ways to gain wisdom, becoming aware of where you lack skill, knowledge, emotional intelligence, etc. For example, if you had uncommunicative, unloving parents, you may not realize you are uncommunicative, or do not show love easily or in ways others can receive. When you are first learning something new, like day trading, a second language, cooking, etc there are so many things you don’t know, and wind up making mistakes to find out.
As the quote says “So if you’re not very smart and make lots of mistakes - but are able to pay attention - maybe you become wiser” Paying attention is shorthand for a lot of different things that have to happen, to grow from the mistake. Certainly awareness that you made a mistake is number one. Being able to see other options that might have turned out better isn’t that easy in a lot of fields. Raising children for example. Gifting them toys, private classes, cars might ultimately be mistakes. But when do you become aware of it? Will you be able to see other options that would have worked out better? So many fields don’t yield to the scientific method, right? You don’t always get another chance to try something different. Other things get in the way of learning from a mistake, like shame, pride, getting away with it, etc.
So, is knowledge that different from wisdom really? And if you are more intelligent, you learn faster and easier, acquire knowledge easier. So, like the adage says the more you know, the more you don’t know, where your knowledge fills the balloon and the surface area of the unknown grows.