Entry 1660 — “Pracsipience”
I’ve been thinking about a new way of thinking about anthreffec-tiveness, or an individual’s over-all intelligence. It’s new for me, but I suspect it may be close to most person’s idea of it. Anyway, it’s just a different way of sorting them for me. But I’m wondering if it may have a neurophysiological basis in the existence of a cerebral basement. I like the idea so will stick a “Pracsipiceptual Awareness” into my model of the cerebrum that is be responsible for all of an individual’s “pracsipience,” or practical, day-to-day cerebreffectiveness (“cerebreffectiveness,” remember, being my word for exclusively cerebral anthreffectiveness, which is an individual’s entire effectiveness).
Frankly, I haven’t figured out how it would work. Its mission would be to guiding an individual to maximally effective choices in his day-to-day tactical activities. Making a living, keeping house, marketing, bringing up children, etc. Not writing poetry or music, and designing bridges, etc. Not, that is, strategic cerebreffectiveness, although a person using his pracsipience will often also being using his . . . cerebracip-ience, or what he needs from his mental equipment to go beyond day-to-day living into the arts, verosophy or the other higher human activities, if there are any (right now my mind’s a blank about them).
I now have divided the cerebrum into two sections: the pracsipiceptual awareness and the cerebrasipiceptual awareness. I think of them as one under the other like the cerebellum under the cerebrum, but suspect each is all over the place. My need now is to find a way for only certain “day-to-day date,” whatever that might be, to get into the pracsipiceptual awareness, and higher data into the cerebrasipiceptual awareness. With the former passing on anything that might be useful to the higher awareness to it?
The only thing so far clear to me is that all the awarenesses would be involved with both these two new awarenesses. I must think more on it.
My first interest, though, is in sorting an individual’s intelligences or competences in his pracsipience . . . and the minor and major talents i believe just about everyone has, like the ability to sing or play bridge well on up to the ability to make large-scale scientific discoveries or novels that his cerebrasipiceptual awareness oversees. All I’m saying to this point is that each individual has a pracsipience and talents, which I think is a standard way of looking at a person’s mental equipment: intelligence, and talents. Although the word, “intelligence,” is used (in my view) confusingly too often to mean only ability at academics or the like.
My guess is that a good 60% of us are pracsipient, or effective in our day-to-day lives. Another 20% are just adequately effective in our daily lives, most of them about as pracsipient as most people except for some condition that keeps them always or occasionally . . . stupid: alcoholism, for instance, or rigidnikry (i.e., what I call a theoretical mental dysfunction that makes a person excessively inflexible of mind and cerebraffectively flawed in a number of other related ways) or poor eyesight, etc. . . . or, interesting, excessive cerebrasipience!
A further guess of mine is that only 10% of us (not me!) are an order of magnitude more pracsipient than the average 60%, and another 10% an order of magnitude (or more, in the case of the truly mentally handicapped) less pracsipient than the just adequately pracsipient.
What I’m doing, it seems to me, is explaining to myself the fact that I find almost every one to be “intelligent” (every bit as “intelligent” as I), 80%, in fact, if I count the 20% whose basically effective pracsipience is flawed). I’m also trying to explain the not too common people I know or have known who seem to me gifted in . . . simply, living (but never, so far as I know, having the highest kind of cerebrasipience, genius). but not too many. Finally, I’m hypothesizing that I am right in assuming that what I call pracsipience does not really vary much. Except for those with extreme inborn defects, or who have suffered horrendous damage to the wrong organs, we’re all about as much the same in this characteristic as we are in . . . the ability to eat. Exaggeration–to give my drift.
Now, genius is the one talent that very few have, if you define it to mean something as special as I do. One in a million? Perhaps, although that would mean the USA has over 300 geniuses in it, and my sense is that we have quite a bit less: my friends–ME, needless to say–and what? maybe fourteen or fifteen others. Seriousfully, 300 may be right. But just a few would be have a genius an order of magnitude greater than the best of the others. The only American genius I’m even sorta sure is one, is Murray Gell-Mann; but I don’t understand advance theoretical physics or–and this is important–am not an expert in its history; therefore, I can’t evaluate the importance or originality (this latter being what I need to be an expert in the history of recent physics to determine) of what he’s done. All I can say is that he is definitely a minor genius, at least–a “minor genius” as opposed to a major one being most of thus in my genius class.
I feel certain intuitively that America has a few Beethovens although I’m not sure who they are. Nobody in America since Pollock doing visimagery (i.e., visual art) exclusively is for me a Pollock–but my opinion is next to worthless because I don’t know very much about what’s going on in either art–and the media certainly isn’t any help.
To finish up, the one firm belief I’m considering holding until new data invalidates it is that most everyone is intelligent and talented, which means they have both pracsipience and cerbrasipience (although, as I didn’t mention, some vary a lot in number of talents as well as quality of one or more talents), but very few have a talent I would call genius, and almost none a talent I would call major genius.
It occurs to me that intelligence may be my favorite subject to pronounce and blither about, I guess because the world I grew up in seemed to me to make more of it than of anything else. Ultimately it has to be–by my definition, which is “that which accounts for a person’s full lifetime effectiveness as a human being.” But the “intelligence” made so much of by the world in general is only a small part of that.
In any case, no doubt whatever intelligence is, I have a need to know it well so I can rate myself. But I also think I have simply been drawn to its study out of an innate proclivity to understand myself and others. That’s impossible without getting significantly into a study of whatever intelligence is.
I hope to say more about the loose ends in what I’ve said here. I hope also, as I always do, that a few people will read this with interest. I’d love to get feedback, but don’t expect any.
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