What if the greatest limitation of human intelligence isn't what we don't know, but what our intelligence makes us incapable of questioning?

The Possibility

Perhaps intelligence doesn't simply help us understand the world. Perhaps it also makes us increasingly skilled at defending the assumptions through which we understand it.

The Reasoning

We use intelligence to construct explanations of reality.

Those explanations become the foundations on which we build new knowledge.

But what happens when one of those foundations is wrong?

A scientist might spend a lifetime answering questions that only exist because of an assumption nobody thought to challenge.

An entrepreneur might perfect a business model without questioning the problem it was designed to solve.

A coach might become exceptionally skilled at correcting a movement without discovering why that movement exists.

In each case, intelligence is working.

The reasoning may be sophisticated. The measurements may be precise. The conclusions may even be internally consistent.

But none of that guarantees the original assumption was correct.

What if becoming more intelligent within a particular way of thinking sometimes makes it harder to recognise the limitations of that thinking?

The Consequence

What if the next great leap in human understanding won't come from someone who knows more than everyone else, but from someone who questions something everyone else considers too obvious to question?

All questions