Many Likes ≠ Quality

Thoughts on independent thinking, intelligence and living with uncertainty

I recently read the essay How to Understand Things by Nabeel S. Qureshi. It has (as of now) 20,515 likes, 140 comments and 3,925 restacks. And to be honest: I don't quite understand why. There are three major points (leaving out some minor aspects) that kept me from liking it:

1. The author draws illogical conclusions.

2. The author constantly confuses the term intelligence with knowledge.

3. The essay's conclusion — when in doubt, go closer — lacks perspective.

This is not to say that I disagree with everything. There are also valuable insights included, just to mention a few: I do think doubting things can oftentimes (with limitations, as I will discuss later) lead to a deeper understanding. I do also agree that there is a physical component to understanding and that having a "hook" to work with is important. And splitting up your learning process into smaller questions to go after is certainly also a good idea.

So, why would I take the time to write about an essay that, mind you, is already 5 years old and that even includes points I agree with? Isn't it pretty normal to read something and to agree to an extent, but to also have points to criticise? While that is definitely true, there are three main reasons why I felt like it was worth writing about this essay.

First of all, as a person with OCD I have a different perspective on the topic of doubt and questioning yourself and your work — also in an academic context — that I felt was worth sharing and thinking about.

Secondly, Nabeel‘s claims about intelligence don‘t align with scientific consensus and can actually be harmful. 1

And lastly, I think it is important to reflect what we like and why we like it. Just because this essay has 12k likes does not mean it is infallible or doesn't include errors. To be honest, I also first clicked on it because I saw the title, the cover and the number of likes (thank you, Substack algorithm) and thought, damn, that must be a good essay. And if I hadn't properly reflected on what I’d read, I might have even stuck with that notion. This is to say — very much in line with what Nabeel said in his essay — keep asking yourself what you really think about something instead of blindly following numbers.

Before I get into details of the three points mentioned above, let me point out that it would (obviously) make sense to read Nabeel's essay before this one and make up your own mind about it. And, as a disclaimer: this is not hate. Though I disagree with Nabeel on some points and promote independent thinking regardless of the number of likes, this essay is meant as one perspective in a broader discussion. Feel free to disagree with me at any time. (But please, don't rip me apart.)

Ok, let's get into it.

1. The Author Draws Illogical Conclusions

Nabeel's essay starts with the following paragraph:

The smartest person I’ve ever known had a habit that, as a teenager, I found striking. After he’d prove a theorem, or solve a problem, he’d go back and continue thinking about the problem and try to figure out different proofs of the same thing. Sometimes he’d spend hours on a problem he’d already solved. […] I concluded that what we call 'intelligence' is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about 'raw intellect’.

There are two aspects that make this conclusion illogical.

The first one: Nabeel links the behaviour of the person he describes in the first paragraph to their intelligence. That means, they are smart because of the way they behave and vice versa. But what if they were simply insecure and couldn't accept their solution, because they were incredibly perfectionistic and unable to accept their results? There is no inherent logical connection between intelligence, and finding new solutions for a problem. If this seems somewhat nitpicky to you, I'll get into why this distinction is important (to me at least) in the last section of this essay.

The second one: The conclusion that intelligence is about values such as bravery or honesty is not logically connected to what was said in the first paragraph. It uses the assumption (not logical connection) mentioned above as a basis and does not explain how exactly the described behaviour is a representation of the listed values. While I might agree with the contents of that conclusion - except the fact that I would replace intelligence with knowledge acquisition - the argumentative structure does not hold here. Of course, one could say "Well, this is only the introduction to the essay, he will get into his reasoning afterwards" and they would be correct. But, without an additional explanatory phrase, Nabeel's conclusion is not the conclusion of a well-explained thought process, but merely a statement without reasoning.

There is another example, where the author maybe doesn't necessarily draw an illogical conclusion, but he doesn't follow through with what he's come up with. In section II. he talks about - amongst other things - how intelligent people are not afraid to look stupid. (The relation between intelligence and looking stupid is also not logical, but more about that in the next section.) I do agree that to understand things it is important to not get stuck in abstract considerations, while failing to ask the very basic questions that might make you look stupid. However, Nabeel seemingly forgets his own advice when he advises readers to "go for information-dense sources with high amounts of detail and facts, and then reason up from those facts, (if you cannot experience the things directly)." This is an assumption on my part, but I would say that those kinds of texts are usually more on the abstract, complex end of sources.

So, you should ask the basic questions, but go for as elaborate sources as possible, according to Nabeel. But what if I need to read something that might make me "look stupid" before I am able to understand those kinds of texts? What if the popular science book, that according to Nabeel in section VI. makes me stupider helped me understand more complex studies as I continued with my own research? If I don't understand what a verb is for example, I will never understand a text about verb valency, and I am sure by what Nabeel said about "not being afraid of looking stupid" aligns with just that. But suggesting to mainly read "information-dense" texts with "high amounts of detail and facts" - that's a contradiction to me, at least when it's suggested as the one suits all go to approach. Read that first grade definition of an adjective, if it helps you.

2. The Author Constantly Confuses the Term Intelligence with Knowledge

Maybe the examples above seemed somewhat nitpicky to you. Maybe you think to yourself: "Okay, using a statement instead of a conclusion — what's the big deal? The most important thing is that I can follow the author's train of thought." And maybe you'd even have a point, that last section was very much focussed on smaller details in a pretty long text.

However, there is one illogical conclusion that outdoes all the ones I mentioned before and is actually problematic: the idea that intelligence equals knowledge. Throughout the text Nabeel links being smart/intelligent to knowledge acquisition and being "stupid" to a lack thereof. Let me give you an example. In section I. Nabeel states (the emphasis is mine):

Moreover, I have noticed that these ‘hardware’ traits vary greatly in the smartest people I know — some are remarkably quick thinkers, calculators, readers, whereas others are ‘slow.’ 2 The software traits, though, they all have in common — and can, with effort be learned. What this means is that you can internalize good intellectual habits that, in effect, “increase your intelligence.” ‘Intelligence’ is not fixed.

The part I want to specifically focus on is the one I highlighted in bold. Now, let me get one thing straight: I do agree with Nabeel in the sense that we shouldn‘t view intelligence as this static concept that you either have or you don‘t have. But what I strongly disagree with is that intelligence is inherently linked to knowledge, or as he phrases it “good intellectual habits.”

There are many definitions of intelligence, but to start things off let’s look at the definition by Gottfredson, 1994 (emphasis is mine):

A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings — “catching on”, “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do. 3

In this definition we already see an important aspect that is vital to the concept of intelligence: being intelligent ≠ being booksmart. The definition above is obviously not the only one that exists, there are countless attempts to define intelligence — and they are all imperfect. As de Judicibus puts it:

As you can see these claims look reasonable and acceptable — we could also say that they are mostly true — but they seem to capture only some aspects of intelligence. If we compare the intelligence of a mathematician with that of a person with a great ability to make something by hands, for instance, or compare the latter’s one with that of a great artist or musician, we realize that each of these definitions is somewhat lacking. 4

In other words: there are many different kinds of intelligence and they vary greatly. There is no single way to determine if someone is “smart” or “stupid.”

From what I understand Nabeel also agrees with this statement — but he (again) draws an inconsistent conclusion. Parts of his essay emphasise the importance of thinking for yourself, of drawing your own conclusions. 5 And yes, being able to do that is in line with the definition above.

But overall, at its core Nabeel’s essay deals with knowledge acquisition, with learning, just as its title (How To Understand Things) suggests. And mixing this skill with a cognitive human quality is problematic. Now, for some (and I do think a large part of the Substack community is part of that demographic) that are eager to learn and, let’s face it, are probably also good at it, this might be an encouraging message: Here’s how you learn things, the one and only way to increase your intelligence. You don’t have to be stupid (aka. not know certain things), you teach yourself to be smart.

But what about people who enjoy reading popular science books (that, according to Nabeel, may make them stupider)? People who are for example excellent mediators or incredibly skilled carpenters — are they hopeless cases, because they don’t enjoy learning as much, or just don’t have the resources for it the way Nabeel and his audience do?

Nabeel’s essay may mean well, but it propagates an elitist version of intelligence, that only serves a small, educated and privileged group with a very specific skill set.

3. The Essay's Conclusion — When in Doubt, Go Closer — Lacks Perspective.

Just as in the sections before, let me clarify again what I agree with: Doubt is an important driving force in personal understanding and in science. By questioning what we are trying to understand, we are forced to look at it from different angles, to ultimately come to a conclusion as close to the truth as possible. But — and this is a big but for me — the extent to which Nabeel “glorifies” doubt as the centre piece of all understanding, lacks perspective. There are important limitations to his conclusion When in doubt, go closer.

We can look at the subject from several angles. Firstly, there is obviously the personal one. We all have our personal relationship with doubt and uncertainty. For someone who is religious, for example, doubt might bring different associations with it than for someone who is not.

For me, doubt and I have a unfortunate but intimate relationship with each other. As someone with OCD, also known as the (dramatic inhale) doubt illness, I know what it’s like to doubt everything you know, you feel, you think. So when I read an essay where the author proposes a loop of asking do I really understand this? as the best approach to becoming “smarter” it does ring some alarm bells for me. 6

Saying, that Michael Faraday believed nothing, without being able to experimentally demonstrate it for himself, is not only most likely not true. 7 I have not met the man, but I am very certain he believed things without doubting them, or otherwise he would not have been able to come up with any scientific discoveries at all (“Is this really a copper halfpenny? Do I know that for certain?”). Even the person Nabeel describes as an example in the beginning of his essay: coming up with different solutions is fine, but when you never come to accepting the solutions you have, you will never move on to the next question.

Doubting has to have an aim, a purpose. And when it does, it can be extremely constructive. When it doesn’t, it can lead you down a very dark path I really wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

I am aware that I might have a somewhat tinted view onto the subject and that most people reading Nabeel’s essay, who don’t have OCD, will intuitively know that there has to be an end to doubt at some point.

But doubt is also not as unambiguous in an academic or scientific context, as it may seem in Nabeel’s essay. In fact, much about scientific work is about clearly outlining areas of doubt and areas of certainty. Anyone who had to every write an academic or scientific paper knows how much time it can take to clearly define the terms you are working with, to outline your methods and to explain limitations of your approach. And what you’re doing is nothing other than deciding on a basis of truth you build to be able to experiment with doubt.

Nabeel uses a lot of math examples to prove his point, which amused me a little, because especially in math, it is important to decide on a minimum of truth, an axiom, you build you theorem upon. 8 In the words of Kenny Easwaran (emphasis is mine):

One initially plausible story about the role of foundational axioms is that they are intuitively obvious statements that we can use to establish our theorems with epistemic certainty. Feferman quotes the Oxford English Dictionary defining an axiom in mathematics as “A self-evident proposition requiring no formal demonstration to prove its truth, but received and assented to as soon as mentioned.” 9

An axiom is your anchor of truth, your starting point. As a matter of fact, you don’t only need a reliable starting point, you want to (ideally) also have an outcome as close as possible to the factual truth. To find objective truth, that is what science is about. And that is why questions such as “Do I really believe this is true, deep down?” entirely miss the point. 10 The question should be: Can I prove, without any doubt, what X is? Science is not about feeling if something is true or not — maybe that’s your initial motivation, but if it’s your final output you took a wrong turn somewhere in your process.

Now, you might say I talk about science now, but Nabeel’s essay is about understanding things, not science. My answer to that is that science is the ultimate attempt to understanding the world around us (and within us, see psychology for example). And understanding things just for yourself, even if you are not going to write an essay or a paper about it, that is at its core — when approached systematically, as Nabeel suggests — something like “mini science.”

Let me give you one last quote to illustrate my point (emphasis is mine):

Science, which is nothing more than organized skepticism—skepticism with rules to live (decide) by—is in our opinion the imperfect but best tool available for trying to reduce uncertainty about what we do as special educators. 11

Nabeel got the first part right: the art of understanding (aka. science) needs doubt —but doubt with limitations. To understand things, you have to jump into the sea of uncertainty. And if you forget to put on your floaties of truth, sooner or later, you will drown. And you probably won’t even understand why.

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1. And to be fair, this is not something I have seen in only this essay.
2. side note: I don’t think listing “thinkers, calculators, readers” in one breath and opposing it to “slow” people is appropriate. Trust that I can read think pretty fast (not always a great quality) but don’t you think I’m a fast reader or calculator — I am not.
3. Linda Susanne Gottfredson, “Mainstream Science on Intelligence: An Editorial with 52 Signatories, History, and Bibliography,” Wall Street Journal, 1994, cited in Dario de Judicibus, “The Definition of Intelligence,” Cognitive Science 16 (2015): 107–132.
4. Dario de Judicibus, “The Definition of Intelligence,” Cognitive Science 16 (2015): 109 f.
5. Compare Section VI. for example.
6. Quote from Section II.
7. Quote from Section III.
8. Compare Section IV. for example.
9. Easwaran, Kenny. ‘The Role of Axioms in Mathematics’. Erkenntnis (1975-) 68, no. 3 (2008): 383. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40267364.
10. Quote from Section V.
11. Kauffman, James M., and Gary M. Sasso. ‘Certainty, Doubt and the Reduction of Uncertainty’. Exceptionality 14, no. 2 (2006): 117. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327035ex1402_2.