Beyond Smart

October 2021 If you asked people what was special about Einstein, most would say that he was really smart.

2021 年 10 月 如果你问人们爱因斯坦有什么特别之处，大多数人都会说他非常聪明。

Even the ones who tried to give you a more sophisticated-sounding answer would probably think this first.

即使是那些试图给你一个听起来更复杂的答案的人也可能会首先想到这一点。

Till a few years ago I would have given the same answer myself.

直到几年前，我自己也会给出同样的答案。

But that wasn't what was special about Einstein.

但这并不是爱因斯坦的特别之处。

What was special about him was that he had important new ideas.

他的特别之处在于他有重要的新想法。

Being very smart was a

非常聪明是一个

necessary precondition for having those ideas, but the two are not identical.

拥有这些想法的必要前提，但两者并不相同。

It may seem a hair-splitting distinction to point out that intelligence and its consequences are not identical, but it isn't.

指出智力及其后果并不完全相同，这似乎是一种令人吹毛求疵的区别，但事实并非如此。

There's a big gap between them.

他们之间有很大的差距。

Anyone who's spent time around universities and research labs knows how big.

任何在大学和研究实验室待过的人都知道它有多大。

There are a lot of genuinely smart people who don't achieve very much.

有很多真正聪明的人却没有取得多大成就。

I grew up thinking that being smart was the thing most to be desired.

我从小就认为聪明是最值得追求的事情。

Perhaps you did too.

也许你也这么做了。

But I bet it's not what you really want.

但我敢打赌这不是你真正想要的。

Imagine you had a choice between being really smart but discovering nothing new, and being less smart but discovering lots of new ideas.

想象一下，你有一个选择：要么非常聪明，但没有发现任何新东西，要么不太聪明，但发现很多新想法。

Surely you'd take the latter.

你肯定会选择后者。

I would.

我会的。

The choice makes me uncomfortable, but when you see the two options laid out explicitly like that, it's obvious which is better.

这个选择让我感到不舒服，但是当你看到这样明确列出的两个选项时，很明显哪个更好。

The reason the choice makes me uncomfortable is that being smart

这个选择让我不舒服的原因是聪明

still feels like the thing that matters, even though I know intellectually that it isn't.

仍然感觉像是最重要的事情，尽管我理智上知道它不是。

I spent so many years thinking it was.

我花了很多年的时间认为是这样。

The circumstances of childhood are a perfect storm for fostering this illusion.

童年的环境是助长这种幻想的完美风暴。

Intelligence is much easier to measure than the value of new ideas, and you're constantly being judged by it.

智力比新想法的价值更容易衡量，而且你不断地被它评判。

Whereas even the kids who will ultimately discover new things aren't usually discovering them yet.

然而，即使是那些最终会发现新事物的孩子通常也还没有发现它们。

For kids that way inclined, intelligence is

对于有这种倾向的孩子来说，智力就是

the only game in town.

城里唯一的游戏。

There are more subtle reasons too, which persist long into adulthood.

还有一些更微妙的原因，这些原因一直持续到成年。

Intelligence wins in conversation, and thus becomes the basis of the dominance hierarchy.

智力在对话中获胜，从而成为统治等级的基础。

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