flynn012

Analogies are the tiniest components of thoughts and communications. Constructing good analogies is a skill. Seeing the logic in partial analogies presented to you (i.e., where a term is missing) builds your associative intelligence, pattern recognition skills, cause and effect reasoning and your verbal acuity. Analogies are mental muscle builders. Here are several simple ones to give you a small jolt of electromagnetic and biochemical stimulation today. Enjoy them! Fill in each blank with the best possible answer . 1. Century is to __________ as dollar is to dime. 2. __________ is to bottom as up is to down. 3.Hawk is to _____________ as war is to peace. 4. Cat is to kitten as lion is to ______________. 5. Tree is to forest as star is to _____________. 6. _____________ is to stage as chemist is to laboratory. 7. Inventor is to Edison as _________________ is to Columbus. 8. China is to __________ as Canada is to North America. 9. __________ is to moon as day is to night. 10. Hand is ...

We Humans (and all sentient creatures, In-Laws included) depend upon the recognition and creation of analogies for virtually every aspect of our thinking, understanding [learning], and communications. They are the smallest common denominator of 'cause and effect' logic and sending meaningful messages to others. The only smaller Messaging Unit or Thought Particle (both quasi-Lingovations) is the singular emotionally-charged word which triggers powerful multisensorial memories with seemingly instant associations. An carefully-chosen analogy (i.e., one which clearly makes the point and which is appropriate to the probable prior experience - or context - of your audience) is one of the most efficient teaching tools. Most "Aha!" moments and "NOW I get it!" exclamations follow analogies which hit the spot . In building your brain power, you will undoubtedly want to include analogy quizzes in your Braintenance exercise regimen. In fact, I might just offer y...

It's wonderful to be creative with language. While I have never actually heard of a resident (in good standing) named Texticles ( pronounced : text' -e- kleez) living atop the famed Mt. Olympus (in the same neighborhood as Zeus and the rest of those characters of legend), it would seem to make sense. This is not actually a Lingovation -- it is a comedic mockery of the structure and sound of language. It brings to mind Hercules , Damocles , Demosthenes , but it sounds a tad racy. I don't have to say it - it is funnier when left to the imagination Speaking of these sound-alikes, I almost fell out of my seat in school when our Philosophy professor mentioned 'Balzac'. It sounded rather similar to something else. This word mimicry ("sound-alikes" seems so juvenile) is a sort of patterning behavior, usually involving the number of syllables and a certain cadence. If I could do it with a straight face, and if I delivered the message rapidly enough, I could int...

In my last post, I made some observations about the nature of intelligence, plasticity, cognition , learning and cognitive enhancement . Toward the end of that post, I left you with a group of simple (what a subjective term that is!) sequences to complete. Here they are again, with the next number (found through pattern recognition ) placed there for you in red . A) 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, ?  21 B) 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ?  21 C) 1000, 0100, 0010, 0001, 1000 ? 0100 D) 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 ? 36 E) 200, 3000, 40000, 500000, ? 6000000 F) 1, 100, 2, 99, 3, 98, 4, ? 97 G) 1.21, 2.32, 3.43, 4.54, ? 5.65 --------------------- I'll let you ponder on those answers for a day or so. If you can't figure out how we arrived at them, don't fret. Some were tough. And I will show you the pattern underlying each of these sequences of numbers. Observation : In verbal communications, we read between the lines. In numeric or alphanumeric pattern recognition, we must read between the items that comprise t...

Your mental capacity , plasticity, memory, recall and deductive reasoning are all dramatically enhanced by your ability to recognize patterns and to extrapolate (or generalize) from them. In some cerebral circles, the NICs ( nerds-in-charge ) refer to this phenomenon as "learning a rule." This notion has great applicability in the world of artificial intelligence (AI) , but it is the shining key to a means of improving our own intelligence as well as increasing the actual speed of thought . Imagine being able to think faster because you are able to make 'connections' more rapidly? This skill is valuable to cultivate. Not surprisingly, it is a skill that can be improved by simple exercise. Pattern recognition skills are involved in every aspect of gaming, athletics, problem-solving and life.  The more different (and complex) patterns that we are able to recognize from prior exposure, the easier and faster it will be for us to recognize new patterns. By the way, s...

Regardless of what we are always being told by the venerable Pantheon of pedigreed Economists out of Washington, DC , Wall Street , and academia (as well as by the seemingly cynical grumblings of self-professed "Main Street" economists -- I am one of those myself -- and I have growing misgivings regarding the utility of my undergraduate degree in Economics ) regarding the state of the our sovereign finances , most of us develop a powerful "feel" for how well the machinery of monetary and fiscal policy are working by our own personal finances . If my income is increasing, but at a lower annual rate than my ordinary living expenses (including my repayment of the debts which I incurred to either live beyond my means or to purchase investments that my neighbor (a smart fellow) said were " sure things ") are increasing, I feel a decline in my sense of well-being. My finances are continuously getting tighter. This seems to make sense (except to people who...

This article is an amended re-post. Previously, it was a combination of friendly self-promotion, news and some compost; that last ingredient is what is spontaneously generated when you try to do things in too much haste. This time, I have included hyperlinks embedded in each of the blue blog buttons (try saying that three times fast), which are hosted courtesy of CoolText, a wonderful graphics and design tool. If you think that you've seen this post before, you actually haven't -- as they used to say on every package in every supermarket when I was a mere lad, this article is " NEW and IMPROVED !" I've even added a picture to this article. The subject matter of the picture is irrelevant, but that doesn't make it any less entertaining - and entertainment, like education, is always welcome. Please visit some of my most popular blogs , and feel free to comment on articles, to link to any of them (and I will reciprocate your backlink with an inbound ...