[ email | Criticism/analysis of society | Travelling | Projects | Goncharenko centre: Talks/discussions » Talk/discussion: Goncharenko centre 2025-7-20: Books: "Flowers for Algernon" & "7 habits of highly effective people" ]
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The book "Flowers for Algernon was interesting, but not a good book. I will go over a few things that I link to it. in particular this book is about transformation and seeing situations from 2 sides which is a theme you can also find in the books I mention below ("Schachnovelle" and "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance"):
Do you think you would be happier if you were more intelligent?
Didn't get round to ask: Do you feel intelligent?
Didn't get round to ask: Do you feel more or less intelligent than other people?
Have you ever had that you read what you wrote yourself, then didn't recognise it and it took time to understand certain reasoning, or something wasn't clear? Some said yes...
Didn't get round to ask: The naivete of Charlie goes away with the rise in his intelligence, but do you think that there may be more to it? Can very intelligent people be naive?
Answer: Yes, because of a positive attitude and a desire to look at positive things, interpret things, situations in a positive way. Those who are idealistic can be oppressors or naive to the reality of people's real wishes and views in life. In a way I have this and I quickly realise reality but still to me it felt way too slow afterwards, and I realise that that happened because I had a positive view about a person...
There is more. I will add all or part of my analysis at a later date.
My rating of the book: 4/10.
We started about Covey's "7 habits of highly effective people". 1 of the attendees was smart and listened to an audiobook the day before which takes less effort than reading :) (though it was abridged, 2 hours, so that took even less time. I don't know what was left out nor how it was summarised) The others were slackers and hadn't prepared...
I asked whether there were things she noticed that might be problematic. Yes, for example that you should get along with everyone, work together and I said and she felt this too, that that is impossible. So, really it shows looking to the ideals (and exceptions that are portrayed as "this always works") rather than reality. [ What he should have dealt with in the book is: What you can realistically expect in various situations and how to deal with people whom you don't like or with whom you can't even get along. ]
About making lists that Covey advocates: Is it useful? I asked whether people could guess what happened with my lists. None guessed but 1 person was close (that similar matters got done but not those matters on the list): The lists only got longer and almost nothing got done. This is because the really important things are not things I wrote down, but they are always on your mind and they do get done. 1 person said she made lists for the day, week, month, but only of the list for the day, things really got done or mostly done. This makes sense, as it is hard to predict the future, even for yourself, and thus also what is still really useful or interesting, after weeks or months. What is important will show itself automatically, no need for a list. [ The items on a long term list tend to be not important or not of interest after a while ]
One of the attendees wanted more intelligence to be able to discuss various topics. I don't see the need. If you find something interesting, read more about it, but why do you need to have more intelligence for that?
[ This makes me think of speed reading. I watched a bit of a video but never gave it a try. There is a scene in the comedy horror film "Fright night 2" where Charley Brewster's girlfriend reads a book extremely quickly and he is amazed by that. Does it really work? Good idea for the next meeting to try? ]
I mentioned that it is possible that I consider someone stupid while that person has a high IQ, namely that happens with autists. There is a reason for this, which is not understanding other people, not having normal emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is essential for proper intelligence. The first time I really discussed something with such a person was in relation to case sensitivity in programming languages, and I thought "That guy is retarded!", but then immediately I thought "But he can't be, he seems to be good at programming...". So different views are also possible about someone's intelligence. [ this comes from ability/skill vs. actual intelligence. I consider what autists do more as a skill, not intelligence. Having a high IQ is not the same as having a high intelligence. You need both IQ and emotional intelligence for actual intelligence. ] I mentioned that autists are rule followers. They do this to get a grip on life, because they can't handle complexity. One of the attendees mentioned a TV series in which this was shown, that they have rules for interactions, for where to place objects (which is then a sort of a compulsion), and so on. [ Note that I did not read about any of that, nor watched any videos/TV series about such people, I deduced everything myself from interactions with such people and from analysing behaviour from principles. ]
Something else that influences how well you do, is your attitude, your personality. Someone mentioned this and this is correct. With the right attitude you can achieve a lot (this is of course a point made in the book). But I would also say that many people can do much more than they think themselves and that intelligence is rarely really important in what people achieve.
[ addition 2025-7-26: Another possibly interesting story is about the result of a test called CITO in primary school when I was 10 or 11. It gave a completely wrong picture of my intelligence... This was because of the type of school, which was a Jena plan school (where pupils can choose themselves most of the time what task they do and when), which didn't work for me in primary school. I usually did what I liked, not what was supposed to be done... I have a report card from that time with a teacher making a remark that I should be doing some work :) I did far better with standard education with a teacher teaching each class. This test is partly about standard knowledge, and when I got talking about this test several years ago with a relative, she mentioned the contents of a bucket. I didn't know what that was, there is a standard size? Well, apparently you should know that a standard bucket contains about 10 litres. I didn't know that at the time of that test, I didn't know when we talked about it... ;-) This has nothing to do with ability/intelligence... (Well, the more intelligent the more you pick up on things that are not directly relevant but this is something that is of no interest at all so 'picking up on general information' will definitely not work for me in this case). ]
Then to "Flowers for Algernon".
Did attendees want to be more intelligent?: No, generally not, though it could be useful in a few situations. It can change how you see life, it need not make you happy. It can make you less happy...
I asked whether the person who suggested reading this book, had noticed the issues in the book. Well, she remarked for example that the operation on a mouse is not possible, and yes, but that is part of the make-belief, imagining that it is possible so I don't see that as a problem [ Addition 2025-7-21: there is always a balance of real and make belief in stories, sometimes the balance is wrong which causes issues in believing the story, i.e. in immersing yourself in the story. I had this for example with an old science fiction film When worlds collide (1951). The catastrophic event shown affects the world as a whole but it hasn't happened (and at the time it was shown wasn't something that happened or was about to happen) and so the whole premise is unbelievable (unless for example it is set in the future). This is different in say a film like Star wars, which plays in "a galaxy far far away"... ]. In future it may be possible to have such brain operations, but more importantly there will remain the issues about the writer's description of real things that are wrong. I wanted to see whether she noticed the issue of sentences that don't make sense for a person of low ability. The spelling is purposely bad of what Charlie writes, but, that is not everything that shows the difference between low IQ and normal and above. The issue is that the sentences are too long and complex for someone with a quite low IQ, and so not realistic. If you let Charlie write only very short sentences and not much in explanations/complexity, then it would be a problem to tell the story at the start, but I had thought about that and already written a way around that in my analysis, and so I stated that the story should have been written differently, which is: As reports from the researchers + reports from Charlie. Then as Charlie got more intelligent his reports would become longer and could supplant in the book the reports from the researchers. I think the writer just didn't have the required knowledge to properly write the book such that it made actual sense.
About sentence length: I mentioned that this is an issue when others read what you wrote if you write long sentences (or if you read what you wrote yourself a year or so later). I tend to write far too long sentences, and those then often have explanations or links to other issues in brackets, sometimes nested, which is just not a good idea. It is better to keep sentences shorter and explanations/links in a separate sentence.
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