Where Do Ideas come From?

Updated on May 24, 2024

Thinking 101 Report: What role does intelligence play?

Have you ever come up with an idea for an invention, contrivance or marketing convenience that could be of significant value to others? You never envisioned or heard about this idea until it suddenly came to you in a flash of brilliant insight. This is your original idea for sure. You get excited and start investigating. What you find, however, is others have come out with the same idea as yours, perhaps multiple times.

Why is that? Did others read your mind and beat you to the conceptualization stage? Or was your idea already out there in a vague, amorphous state ready to be plucked out of the blue and developed into a workable concept. Opinions by experts vary. Many believe the idea lies dormant in one’s conscious or sub-conscious mind until a certain intellectual spark  leads to the payoff, when the idea goes from the abstract to the concrete.

The Role of Intelligence

In its simplest definition, intelligence is the ability to learn. It’s a combination of perceiving and comprehending. The capacity to increase intelligence from birth throughout one’s lifetime is limited by genetic factors. There’s little doubt that intelligence weighs heavily in the transference of physical experiences to thought to final action. Memory, the ability to reason, solve problems and making decisions is a reflection of one’s innate intelligence. The general concept of intelligence has broadened dramatically over the last 50 years to include emotional intelligence, social intelligence, musical talents, language and communication skills. If you bundle them all up, you have an assemblage of variables that all influence human behavior.

Emotions Play a Major Part in decision Making

Some psychologists infer that 90% of decisions are influenced by emotions. Science advocates dislike that because they see emotions as interfering with logical decision making. However, emotions are a driving force behind individual and group behavior. If it weren’t for emotions, we would become placid and be pushed around like unsettled gelatin on a slippery desert plate.  At the other end, high intensity emotions can impair our ability to make rational decisions. The key is to become mindful when emotions are causing  judgment to become clouded. Self-awareness will help sort out facts from feelings when making tough decisions.

There are many types of thought, disciplined and undisciplined. Yes, there’s a place for that too. Let your mind run wild, pick out the thought that grips you and go to work. Creative thinking leads to more thinking; follow where the trail leads. What is most missing in today’s world of thought, it “critical thinking”. It’s plaguing our country from business to politics to education and planning for the future. People in key positions are not using their God-given reasoning abilities to think problems through from all sides. They jump at the first conclusion, and even worse, base decisions on an ingrained belief system or past history.

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William Frederick
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William Frederick resides in Red Bank, NJ.  William offers expert help writing ads, articles, blogs, sales letters, and publicity releases. Low, flat fees. E-mail: wmfdrick@Icloud.com.