Exactly, Humpy... There is something called "lateral thinking". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_thinking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence Think about it like this - if your goal is to get as effectively/optimized as possible from one place to a destination using a car - your intelligence is like the engine/potential of that car, while your capacity for actual thinking is your skill at driving that car - i.e the skill as a driver. There are many a Nobel laureate that know next to nothing about cleaning, cooking, handyman skills. In Venezuela all the primary schools were remodelled a few years ago in line with this view of learning - by emphasizing how to stimulate learning to "think", reasoning. So, watch out... not only beach babes training their butts from there, but now more reasoning-centred people as well... Then again - there is wisdom which is accrued through the processing of information, and very often is the arduous process of repeating the scenes of information many times over so that several levels and relations are discovered. Wisdom can in my view be represented as structured knowledge for how to react. Ethics can be thought of as the optimization of steps, reactions... Respect is the balance through consideration leaving space for them and their say or influence. Well, philosophy is very useful and fun - it serves as the "guides" for which you can apply your mind to any situation and information. Many types of philosophies are prone to conflict through judging - I think that is not as effective when you want something that can encompass "everything". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasoning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science Other things very interesting http://www.personalitypage.com/ http://www.cognitive-processes.com/ http://www.keirsey.com/ And this one is very funny to do... http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/index_surveys.shtml The "Sex of your brain" is very good, while a bit scary with the feminine/masculine preferred traits test... and the "Disgust" test is yucky... I've been doing MBTI and Keirsey since 1994 when I first discovered it while at university. It is the most popularly employed test for recruiting purposes. Ever since the first time I took the test I've been a mix of ENTJ and ENFJ with the values of E56 N100 TF0-1 J78 ... I guess that can give some ammo for someone looking to debate tougher, and understanding the personality of who you are interacting with is tremendously useful in both business and personal situations. It is really easy to get a hold on what kind of personality most other people are after just brief interaction or observation. I started recruiting for my businesses in 1995 and have always used this as an observational view on personality for various purposes. I also love learning languages and read/write/speak 8 languages fluently while I know 2 other pretty well, and the 2 others - Japanese and Finnish - I know the basics after studying Japanese 1 year while at university and also working a period in Finland as an international trainee at Nokia Telecommunications R&D. I competed with around 100 other international applicants for that position, only one that year. I do think that it is important to have a very broad field of knowledge, or at least know how to do general problem solving and develop this as a skill. Competition is good I think... although conflict is always close to the surface. Through almost 20 years of martial arts training, and half of that as an instructor - including all my uni years - I think that learning about the psychology of aggression was very useful. Hehe, well - I guess the ENTJ part gives some clues as to why my interests in any science and field remains central for me - as well as the debating of these... Martial arts, psychology and philosophy sciences all certainly helped in the area of business and gaining trust, wielding cooperation and creating efficiency. Here's the test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp And more background http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTI