Is intelligence not always a good thing?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
okay so is intelligence not always a positive thing yes, actually as I said there are the words different words are used in different contexts so in the Bhagavad Gita’s context, normally when we use the word intelligence you know some person is very intelligent, so that is used as a positive quality so yes, in that sense we could say you and the say the scientists who developed the atom bombs, they are also intelligent people so intelligence as a ability to say process information intelligence as a ability to analyze to observe to see a pattern or even for that matter to memorize all this is more in the realm of information processing and that information processing capacity is a gift that we get based on our past karma some people have it more and some people have it less but more fun, but another so today when people talk about IQ, intelligence quotient they usually refer to this primarily information processing ability and then now psychologists have recognized that IQ alone is not an adequate parameter of success, so they talk also about EQ, emotional quotient how much people can have the sensitivity to understand other people’s feelings, to respond appropriately in relationships so IQ does not mean necessarily a high EQ so basically intelligence has different aspects so intelligence in terms of information processing capacity is a useful tool but far more foundational is intelligence as a resource for ethical decision making so some people may have a lot of information processing capacity but they may use it to justify their unethical activities so then in that case the intelligence becomes bad although the intelligence is there but it becomes destructively used in the Ishopanishad it is said that andham tamah pravishanti ye vidyamupasati tatobhuya ivatetamah yauvidyayamratah those who are in ignorance they will enter into darkness but those who are in so called knowledge they will enter into deeper darkness so that means those who have their intelligence yauvidyayamratah, those who have their intelligence but they use it for destructive purposes then they rationalize their wrong activities and thus they go deeper into ignorance so I often say that to be in ignorance is bad to be in ignorance of one’s ignorance is worst but then to be in ignorance of one’s ignorance and to declare knowledge to be ignorance and to conversely declare ignorance to be knowledge, that is actually the worst so in the mode of ignorance this is often what happens and that’s why intelligence does not necessarily always intelligence is not always a resource that will lead to good it is a useful resource it is a powerful resource but there is a fundamental aspect of intelligence which is the ethical decision making capacity and if that is not sound, then the information processing aspect of intelligence or other aspects of intelligence will be misused