Smart people learn from everything and everyone...

I may not know everything but what I don't know isn't worth knowing anyway. - Dad

I try to learn something new everyday and from new places too. I've always subscribed to the theory that minds are like parachutes, in that they both work best when they're open. I try too to not believe everything I think I know because I'm sure that some of it is flawed.
 
That quote is probably true to some extent, but people can be broken down more accurately using their level of intellectual curiosity as a barometer. The intellectually curious learn from everything and everyone. There are plenty of smart people who lack intellectual curiosity and don't want to bother thinking.

People with average or below average intelligence but with above average intellectual curiosity can achieve quite a bit. They just need to work harder, but because of their curiosity, they'll learn from everything and everyone. Without the curiosity, they may recognize their shortcomings and accept that they're not going to understand complex concepts.

It's the stupid people who think they're smart who think they know everything, which is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. They're oblivious to how much they don't know, so they think they know everything. The Dunning-Kruger affected can be quite annoying. They'll often ask you, "Why don't you just blah, blah, blah...?" even though what they're suggesting could in no way solve the problem you're addressing. If they had some background in the subject matter, they wouldn't have suggested what they did.
 
This may or may not be a quote from Socrates, but it's often attributed to him.

“Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.”

Do you agree?

It seems like "smart" people as we recognize them now are very disciplined in in-depth study on a very specific issue. The Nobel Prize is uncany in revealing this. So these people who we think are smart do not learn from everything, but learn from a very specific issue and make THAT their main source of understanding.
I think the word smart refers not only to mental gymnastics but to common sense also. Most people are curious mainly about things involved in the narrative of their personal story/narrative. Anything outside that narrative is basically a "blind spot".
I find so much philosophical BS in the over quoted Socrates' quote that it would take an essay of great length to show how that group of words is built on pompous generalizations.
 
I don't think there are any "stupid" people. There are just people we don't appreciate so we label them? ANY person can learn from ANYBODY. No labeling required. That's the beauty of learning. It can come from the most unexpected places. :giggle:
 
Intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing. That's why they're spelled and pronounced differently, I think, anyways. Then too there is what is learned and what is knowledge. We are a web of humanity, all of us, together. Smart, stupid and in between, we belong here and the smart seeming thing to do would seem to be to become more tolerant of everyone besides myself. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
 
Intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing. That's why they're spelled and pronounced differently, I think, anyways. Then too there is what is learned and what is knowledge. We are a web of humanity, all of us, together. Smart, stupid and in between, we belong here and the smart seeming thing to do would seem to be to become more tolerant of everyone besides myself. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I was going to say that because my grandma always did.
 
This may or may not be a quote from Socrates, but it's often attributed to him.

“Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.”

Do you agree?
Agree? Absolutely.

In olden days, an illiterate person blessed with wisdom and common sense could do great things.

Source of quote? Maybe a re-write of the one about conversation attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people".
 
Agree? Absolutely.

In olden days, an illiterate person blessed with wisdom and common sense could do great things.

Source of quote? Maybe a re-write of the one about conversation attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people".
So if we discussed Eleanor Roosevelt, that would make us "small minded?" :unsure:
 

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