What is Existential Intelligence and how you can develop it?
These and many other similar questions about our existence make us wonder at some point in our lives but we seldom find answers for them, we just raise these questions, think about them for a while and then move on. But the people having philosophical thoughts not only think but also try to find answer for life’s big questions. These legends are labeled as being existentially intelligent people by American developmental psychologist and the author of the book ‘frames of minds, the theory of multiple intelligences’, Howard Gardner. According to him, this is the intelligence of big questions; individuals having this type of intelligence not only perceive big picture of others and world around them but also understand themselves very well.
Understanding the big picture involves many skills, most important of which are cognitive flexibility and meta-cognition. Cognitive flexibility is the mental ability to shift between thinking about two distinct concepts, and to ponder multiple concepts at once. Meta-cognition is one of higher order thinking skills, defined as knowing about knowing and being aware of one ‘s awareness.
While writing about big picture, Gardner illustrated it with the help of a fictional character named Jane, an entrepreneur who is responsible for overall working of the organization. Jane has to manage finances, allocate resources towards different segments of the company, build strong relationships with the customer, meet the changing requirements of the market, adapt towards the current technological trends, and finally motivate and counsel her staff from top management to lower level management. In simple words Jane sees big picture, she has to visualize the future, future demands of the customer and market, and of the organization as a whole and lead the organization towards that way. This tendency to visualize the big picture is actually the existential intelligence.
Firstly, Gardner did not include this individual capacity as intelligence because he was unsure about some kind of brain activity behind this capacity or neurological basis for it, but a dozen year after the introduction of the theory of multiple intelligences (1983), he speculated about the possibility of a 9th intelligence or existential intelligence but still it has not passed the test for being a candidate of intelligence. “some writers want to know whether “Ex I” has passed the test and is now officially an intelligence. (Answer: “Sorry, no, It’s still in limbo)”, says Gardner.
According to Gardner, this is not necessarily religious or spiritual intelligence, rather it’s the intelligence of raising and pondering big question “the candidate intelligence features the raising and pondering of big questions; these can certainly include spiritual or religious issues though they need not — pondering the universe or a grain of sand qualify as well.” In simple words, its an intelligence of pondering big questions, big questions that are far beyond our perception; concepts that cannot be perceived through our five basic senses. It’s the capability of using intuition, thoughts and meta-cognition to inquire about deep realities of the universe and our interconnectedness to this universe.
People having existential intelligence choose to be theologians, philosophers, life coaches, politicians,
counselors and even scientists. Existentialists think philosophically, this is why they are sometimes named as old souls.
Identifying individuals having existential intelligence
Existentially intelligent people have some traits that differentiate them from others including:
Insightful: Existentially intelligent people have an accurate and deep understanding about the society, world around them, whole universe and themselves. Whenever they come to know about a new development or something they did not knew before, they wish to be completely knowledgeable about it before moving further.
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