Is missing the obvious solution a sign that I'm smart or dumb?

[sleep]

This is a thing that occurs weirdly often in my life. I'll give an example of what I mean by missing the most obvious solution; today I was having lunch with my mom and she mentioned something about a power-plant, I thought she meant something like a plant on top of a little generator that converted the light absorbed from the sun into electricity and I couldn't understand what she meant by that or how it made sense. After a few seconds of this I realized what she meant. Stuff like this happens for most explanations or indications thrown at me. What's weird to me is that the solutions I come up with are always more complicated than what was said to me, so is it me making simple things complex and in a way more creative or am I just being dumb? It also makes life a bit hard tbh unu 

[Osaid]

If It doesn't make sense, or I have to come up with a scenario that doesn't make sense, I just immediately assume it is a term I don't know about and so I would ask "What's a power plant?" or "What do you mean by power plant?". Those questions should normally just naturally pop up in the conversation, I wouldn't assume a literal power plant and then keep the conversation going without asking, because that leads to misunderstanding. The weirdness or abnormality of the term "power-plant" should be an indicator to you so that you can question the term.

Otherwise, I don't think imagining a literal power-plant is bad as long as you correct the assumption.

 

[sleep]

@Osaid A bit was lost in translation but originally it wasn't an uncommon term I didn't know or wasn't aware of, I just imagined some far-fetched alternative. Maybe my example wasn't great, but one of the things I wanted to explain is that whenever I misinterpret things I don't do it for a lack of knowledge but rather a misunderstanding of what is meant. And yeah the most obvious thing would've been to communicate that I was confused but I felt like I would look dumb asking because it was a pretty common word.

 

Should've thought of this before publishing the thread but I think it would've been more appropiate to use the word "creative" rather than smart or dumb, it's probably dumb because it leads to worse outcomes than if i'd just understood the most obvious answer, but I also sometimes come up with some pretty convoluted stuff. 

[Osaid]

11 minutes ago, sleep said:

but one of the things I wanted to explain is that whenever I misinterpret things I don't do it for a lack of knowledge but rather a misunderstanding of what is meant

So basically, you genuinely thought she may have been talking about either a literal power plant as you imagined, or the energy-conserving type of power plant, and you didn't wanna ask which one cause it would look dumb? I'm having trouble reconciling the difference between "lack of knowledge" and "misunderstanding" here, so did I get that right?

[sleep]

@Osaid I thought she was talking about a literal power plant. The point I was trying to make in distinguishing between lack of knowledge and misunderstanding is in that in lack of knowledge the confusion comes about because I lack some important information, whereas misunderstanding is due to already having the information you need, but misinterpreting what is meant. Like hearing the word "cigarette" and instead of thinking about a cigarette, thinking of a female version of a cigar because of the "ette". Does that make sense? 

[Osaid]

4 minutes ago, sleep said:

I thought she was talking about a literal power plant. The point I was trying to make in distinguishing between lack of knowledge and misunderstanding is in that in lack of knowledge the confusion comes about because I lack some important information, whereas misunderstanding is due to already having the information you need, but misinterpreting what is meant. Like hearing the word "cigarette" and instead of thinking about a cigarette, thinking of a female version of a cigar because of the "ette". Does that make sense? 

So basically you're faced with a word/term that could potentially have multiple meanings, and you don't know which meaning to choose because technically more than one of them could fit in the situation? Similar to how "sprite" could refer to the soda, but it can also refer to a fairy? 

[sleep]

@Osaid Yeah, exactly. And most of the time I interpret it as the most far-fetched one, for some reason.

[Osaid]

8 minutes ago, sleep said:

Yeah, exactly. And most of the time I interpret it as the most far-fetched one, for some reason.

Do you have trouble noticing if someone is being sarcastic, or making a joke? Or maybe the latter, you can't tell when they aren't being sarcastic or not making a joke? Generally speaking, Occam's Razor should kick in and by a very quick process of elimination you should realize that the likelihood of her referring to your very literal idea of a power-plant are extremely slim. Imagining a literal power plant is one thing, but assuming that to genuinely be what is being talked about is also another thing. It seems to be a matter of being unable to read human emotions or intentions, or something of the like. I'm not sure.

Also, I just realized your original question wasn't even to get to the bottom of why this is happening with you, but rather if it makes you smart or dumb, that's pretty funny. I don't like using the terms "smart" or "dumb" in a genuine conversation like this cause those terms aren't specific enough, but it is definitely creative. Coming up with puns is creative.

[ZGROPIUS]

It's okay. Between People, This is the difference of context. It depends on how old you are in your generation, the environment you've set as reality, and the extent to which you explore the world.

If you said one word in your anima context, The fantasy world of yours. Such as Black long straight/AU/哲♂学/... These simple words. Your mom won't understand it either.

 

From ancient times through modern society, and then to the new era. The cognitive gap between people and the cost of understanding grows inexorably as time passes. 

In the past, we’re all living in the same “space”, caring about almost the SAME THING. Everything in the context that people use is not much of a big different. Through the development of technology. The world is seen through the eyes of the younger generation in a very different way. The virtual world. The Internet becomes global. People’s imagination has become stronger ever since. Young people are more focused on fantasy culture/subculture/online things rather than things in real life. This is what they’re most focused on compared to the last generation. As if we're living in the different world.

There’s a scene in “Sherlock”. Mister Holmes was lying on the couch. He questioned his assistant suspiciously: "What? the earth revolves around the sun?" He has no other knowledge of geography, yet he is a genius beyond the reach of ordinary people in the context of his be loved field. Only the different of contexts. Different perspectives. Some got held more by others as a convention. Some are not. 

 

If you wanna know other perspectives. You go learn it. Be conscious of what’s happening. These things are not inherently the truth you need to carry. Some new words? You just dont know. Be conscious not to buy into explanations. Don't blame yourself for not fitting in the conventions. Notice yourself don’t even actually know what the word “interpret” is. But peoples act as they do. What is a “Power plant”? God or nothing? The one you want to conform with doesn't have the truth. You don’t know what is a power plant. Not even “Power” or “plant”. There's no absolute answer for you to align. This is what truly authentic.

[Kamo]

Id say the straight forward answer is your mind is more creative. I mean to come up with a literal "power plant" as you described its quite a creative idea, compared to the common answer of an electrical power plant facility. You were taking the the words individually in your example, and taking the common use of those words and directly recalling the common meaning and then combining them into a thing. Your very imaginative, which doesn't mean your dumb. More of a sign that you are just younger.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Kamo