A good analogy for brain training (and a systemic understanding of the mind-body)

[Leo Gura]

And philosophy is the squat of the mental activity.

Mind who don't do philosophy are like weightlifters who never squat.

This is why scientists are cognitively weak. Scientists don't squat. Science is like the guy who only does bicep curls, thinking it will make him strong. You can't get strong doing bicep curls.

Edited August 19 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

32 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

And philosophy is the squat of the mental activity.

Mind who don't do philosophy are like weightlifters who never squat.

This is why scientists are cognitively weak. Scientists don't squat. Science is like the guy who only does bicep curls, thinking it will make him strong. You can't get strong doing bicep curls.

I think my analogy in the original post is a bit more elegant: philosophy would be like a particular skill (e.g. playing tennis or golf), while brain training (for working memory or IQ) would be the muscles and the skeleton. Or another analogy I've used before is the car: working memory is the speed of the car while philosophy would be some of the roads you have discovered, your orienting skills, your map knowledge. Science is a particular set of roads, maybe polluted highways, while philosophy (not the calcified historical ones, but the one you do as a person) could be the mountainous and sketchy roads you see in my country, surrounded by nature and fresh air.

Edited August 19 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

Philosophy is about depth of questioning.

The depth of your questioning directly determines the power of your mind.

If you don't question deeply you will never have a buff mind.

Memory is the wrong thing to focus on when it comes to mental development. The point is not to build memory, it's to build understanding. What do you understand? That's the pivotal issue. Deep understanding requires decades of mental exercise.

You could memorize all the world's books and your mind would still be weak.

Edited August 19 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Memory is the wrong thing to focus on when it comes to mental development.

Or rather, only focusing on the speed of your car will make you drive off a cliff, certainly in mountainous terrain 

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

Or rather, only focusing on the speed of your car will make you drive off a cliff, certainly in mountainous terrain 

It's like focusing on the weight of a car. Not a very important factor for car performance.

[Behind20]

Just go to school and they will prepare you for that. I said school that are more rigid and packed . Rigorous. Theyd train you for that and you wouldn't have to do anything. 

If you wanna have a superior mind. 

Edited August 19 by Behind20

[EternalForest]

Nice post, you could also compartmentalize the brain training into different subcategories and exercises.

Intellectual: Contemplation

Visuospatial: Chess training

Relational: Fiction analysis

Etc.

[Carl-Richard]

16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's like focusing on the weight of a car. Not a very important factor for car performance.

I think you mistake working memory for long-term memory (e.g. episodic, semantic). Working memory is more like a CPU than something that is stored. Or rather, working memory has a central executive ("CPU") that processes information held in the short-term memory ("RAM") which is retrieved from the long-term memory ("hard drive"). Better working memory essentially means a faster CPU and more RAM.

Edited August 19 by Carl-Richard

[Davino]

I've been contemplating on IQ lately and I've had an interesting insight that cleared lots of confusion for me.

IQ is like horsepower in a car. It's the raw brute power a brain is able to exert, so to speak. However, skilful driving is not only determined by the car, but by its driver also.

This analogy explains why high IQ individuals may be brilliantly stupid, because they are using all that horsepower for self-deception and getting into dead ends of contemplation. At the same way, it shows how average horsepower can get into truth and high intelligence, as a skilful driver gets safely to its destination. Finally, it shows how the best minds must meet lots of horsepowers with a skilfull driver (mature ego) to actualize the full potential of the Human mind.

[Carl-Richard]

On 21.8.2025 at 11:35 AM, Davino said:

I've been contemplating on IQ lately and I've had an interesting insight that cleared lots of confusion for me.

IQ is like horsepower in a car. It's the raw brute power a brain is able to exert, so to speak. However, skilful driving is not only determined by the car, but by its driver also.

This analogy explains why high IQ individuals may be brilliantly stupid, because they are using all that horsepower for self-deception and getting into dead ends of contemplation. At the same way, it shows how average horsepower can get into truth and high intelligence, as a skilful driver gets safely to its destination. Finally, it shows how the best minds must meet lots of horsepowers with a skilfull driver (mature ego) to actualize the full potential of the Human mind.

Hanzi Freinacht contrasts IQ with cognitive complexity (building complex thinking from the ground up), symbolic code (if not speaking your own complex language, at least adopting complex language from others), state (e.g. flow, peacefulness, blissfulness), and depth (having experienced and integrated various states, be it the low or the high).

While IQ has a strong working memory component (the speed and capacity of the gears or conveyor belt of the mind), I think associative ability (being able to associate different concepts, often more loosely or creatively than others) is up there. There is also a pattern identifying ability, which is linked to being able to both see and imagine spatial relationships, drawing distinctions and seeing their relationships, logical reasoning.

Also, while IQ is more "quantitative" in nature (be it due to size, speed, amount of relationships, amount of distinctions, length of logical strings), there are more "qualitative" forms of intelligence which indeed is related to the earlier concepts by Hanzi, but also something like refinement or subtlety, precision (related to conscientiousness), intuition, richness in feeling, and wholeness. You see it more in artists, creatives, those who delve more into feminine aspects.

Edited August 22 by Carl-Richard

[Davino]

@Carl-Richard We can dissect and explain intelligence in many interesting and nuanced ways.

My insight though was in another domain. Regarding how is it possible that someone with all the traits you mentioned and even more, can still be utterly deluded and very very wrong about reality: both in the common sense and in the existential sense. This is a non obvious, non trivial question and that is exactly what my insight revealed.

I wouldn't know how to go about properly defining or understanding IQ or Intelligence. It's something still in the contemplative machine.

[Carl-Richard]

52 minutes ago, Davino said:

My insight though was in another domain. Regarding how is it possible that someone with all the traits you mentioned and even more, can still be utterly deluded and very very wrong about reality: both in the common sense and in the existential sense. This is a non obvious, non trivial question and that is exactly what my insight revealed.

Because your intelligence and knowledge is finite. Only God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.

 

52 minutes ago, Davino said:

I wouldn't know how to go about properly defining or understanding IQ or Intelligence. It's something still in the contemplative machine.

IQ is defined by the test, and it's generally about finding visual patterns and rotating shapes in your working memory while under a time constraint. So faster working memory and greater working memory capacity naturally loads bigly on IQ.

Intelligence is contact with reality. What is the level of engagement, what level of detail, of profundity of experience, are you capable of?

Edited August 22 by Carl-Richard

[Human Mint]

I find that the best way to train your 'brain power' is to do exactly the thing you want to ace head on, let me explain. For example learning a new language is almost imposible at first, but as you grind your mind will start to "make space" for new vocabulary and work on your behalf virtually all the time, something unthinkable at first. The thing is that this particular skill won't translate to or make more easy playing a new instrument. You gotta open the doors manually again to that new realm. That's why I think your approach is somehow narrow. Because the amount of new memory you unlock is directly proportional to the amount of effort you put, despite the challenge.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Human Mint said:

I find that the best way to train your 'brain power' is to do exactly the thing you want to ace head on, let me explain. For example learning a new language is almost imposible at first, but as you grind your mind will start to "make space" for new vocabulary and work on your behalf virtually all the time, something unthinkable at first. The thing is that this particular skill won't translate to or make more easy playing a new instrument. You gotta open the doors manually again to that new realm. That's why I think your approach is somehow narrow. Because the amount of new memory you unlock is directly proportional to the amount of effort you put, despite the challenge.

Yes, you become a good construction worker by working in construction and working a lot. But you can also lift heavier logs if you also do some deadlifts on the side. And only working construction, that's narrow. Deadlifts and building a bigger back translates to more things. So that's more broad. And doing both things, that is even more broad. I'm not suggesting you should only do brain training and nothing else. I do 20 minutes of brain training 3.5 times a week. That's nothing. I sit on the toilet more. Similarly, you only deadlift a few minutes a week. The thing is they give very intense training over a short period of time that seems to generalize in their effects: you become stronger in more domains for a relatively small investment.

Edited August 28 by Carl-Richard

[Human Mint]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Yes, you become a good construction worker by working in construction and working a lot. But you can also lift heavier logs if you also do some deadlifts on the side. And only working construction, that's narrow. Deadlifts and building a bigger back translates to more things. So that's more broad. And doing both things, that is even more broad. I'm not suggesting you should only do brain training and nothing else. I do 20 minutes of brain training 3.5 times a week. That's nothing. I sit on the toilet more. Similarly, you only deadlift a few minutes a week. The thing is they give very intense training over a short period of time that seems to generalize in their effects: you become stronger in more domains for a relatively small investment.

Sounds interesting, probably has some effect. Well, meditation is sort of training if you use it that way.