The only factor under your control may be to realize that the only factor under your control is to obtain and use better methods and processes to think, gather information, act in the real world, generate feedback and adjust yourself.
Illustratively, no matter how innately intelligent a native English speaker might be, if he never had any experience with Japanese, he won’t be able to read and understand kanji. Is that a failure of intelligence, or a failure of knowledge and method? If you’ve never had any experience in any science, and don’t know the specialized vocabulary, then it is likely you won’t be able to understand a technical paper. Again, is that a failure of intelligence, or is it just that you’ll need some time to grow familiar with the field? A lot of intelligence and rationality is like that. Including understanding your own intelligence and capabilities to better yourself.
You’ll ned to assess where you stand now, then iteratively improve yourself. You’ll need to look outside, for information and help, to get better at it. Depending on your starting point, your incremental improvements may be slow at first, until you learn how to get better at improving yourself. You may have more terrain to cover too.
“I vow to always do my best to make my best become even better.”
Your end point may still be determined by your IQ or working memory, but the starting realization that you can ameliorate yourself, can be as simple as a few words. It’s still an external factor, but one that, depending on your sensitivity to such ideas, you could encounter regularly enough that it will eventually sink in, and start changing you. Frequenting places where such ideas are more prevalent (like here), may help bootstrap this process earlier.
The only factor under your control may be to realize that the only factor under your control is to obtain and use better methods and processes to think, gather information, act in the real world, generate feedback and adjust yourself.
Illustratively, no matter how innately intelligent a native English speaker might be, if he never had any experience with Japanese, he won’t be able to read and understand kanji. Is that a failure of intelligence, or a failure of knowledge and method? If you’ve never had any experience in any science, and don’t know the specialized vocabulary, then it is likely you won’t be able to understand a technical paper. Again, is that a failure of intelligence, or is it just that you’ll need some time to grow familiar with the field? A lot of intelligence and rationality is like that. Including understanding your own intelligence and capabilities to better yourself.
You’ll ned to assess where you stand now, then iteratively improve yourself. You’ll need to look outside, for information and help, to get better at it. Depending on your starting point, your incremental improvements may be slow at first, until you learn how to get better at improving yourself. You may have more terrain to cover too.
“I vow to always do my best to make my best become even better.”
Your end point may still be determined by your IQ or working memory, but the starting realization that you can ameliorate yourself, can be as simple as a few words. It’s still an external factor, but one that, depending on your sensitivity to such ideas, you could encounter regularly enough that it will eventually sink in, and start changing you. Frequenting places where such ideas are more prevalent (like here), may help bootstrap this process earlier.