“Look at him how smart he is…he got that from me,” says the child’s mum. Well, that’s not entirely true. As you will see, genetics plays only a minor role in mental capacities of the human being, regardless of the gender.
What is intelligence anyway
There are different types of it that’s for sure, but we are talking about the intellectual one here. We are talking about IQ.
Are you able to solve the problem and how much time does it take you to do it?
That’s the right question when you think about the term in the title. Being intelligent is more than having the ability to perform complex mathematical equations using only your mind.
It is more about being an effective problem solver. And what is the definition of entrepreneurship? An entrepreneur is a problem solver. The bigger the problem he solves, the more money he makes. It’s a simple equation.
Whoever tried to test his IQ saw that. No mathematics, only logical problems. Enter the number, continue the sequence, and recognize the adequate shape. Not even a single task where you have to use a calculator.
And that score has nothing to do with genetic predisposition.
So why everybody claims the merits
People don’t know. Science knows it only most recently. We were all under the presumption that it mostly depends on genetic cards received by birth. And if some youngster is obviously brighter than his folks, then he probably pulled out the gene from his grandfather who was a smart fella.
This false assumption is the number one reason why so many children never managed to reach their full potentials. They were doomed the moment someone assessed their abilities on account of their parents and family in general.
If that shit would work on that principle, how the fuck would Tesla invent AC? His folks sure as hell didn’t know anything about electricity. And he didn’t learn much from the school either.
Tesla was born in a small village in central Croatia called Smiljan. It was a cattle breeding community and no one had electricity. Hell, that small village got connected on a grid only recently, in 2002.
So how the hell he could invent something like that? How could he upgrade Alessandro Volta’s discovery?
We are inheriting the potential
What you get by birth is an empty bottle. That’s it. And that bottle can receive a case specific amount of water. But at the same time, that bottle is made of extremely flexible material. It can stretch indefinitely.
In other words, your brain (the cognitive part of it) is in a basic setup at the time you cry for the first time because that doctor spanked your ass to provoke that reaction.
From the very first day you are building up the connections between neurons. You are building synapses.
You see, you will receive a certain amount of neurons. That’s your bottle. It’s then up to your folks, school and you to fill it with water (synapses) and maybe enlarge it a bit by adding additional neurons to the network.
That’s the potential. A map with places containing only raw and rare connections between some of them. Just a basic dirt road.
How do you add more connections
Couple of years ago, scientists picked couple of dozens of animals of the same breed and same age and divided them into two separate groups. All that time they were scanning their brain activities.
One group lived in perfect conditions. Air, food, temperature, water, comfort and ease of access, practically everything to live the life as easy and simple as possible.
The other group lived a bit different. Animals had to breach through the obstacles and solve logical problems in order to get to the food and water.
After a trial period, two different images emerged: group that had everything going on for them didn’t create any additional synapses. The image of their brain showed the original amount of neurons and just basic synapses. Darkness.
But the subjects from the “tougher life” group managed to create even additional neurons. The network of synapses was glowing.
Two quite opposite brain scans of members of the same species.
The point is simple: when you reach the age of 17, you reached the 98% of your potentials. That 2% may sound small, but in reality every 0,001% is a giant leap. Think about it next time you decide to watch some dumb TV show instead of challenging your mental capacities.
What is intelligence? It’s the total number of synapses between neurons.
