Ajax Thinks

Ajax Thinks
by Muffin Man

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Logic vs. Clever

In a letter I received from a friend she said something about being logical instead of clever. This post is the dialouge and thought process that ensued. I wrote back the following:
I think it’s funny that you said you are not clever, only logical, as if a person couldn’t be both. I’d like to make the case that I am both. That cartoon can be witness of my cleverness, and as for my logic, well, I’m not one of the “them” on this campus. I think that is logical. Really, I don’t feel I need to defend my being clever or logical. So don’t let yourself get in the way of yourself by saying you aren’t clever, you can be clever and logical. Then again, you don’t have to be, it’s up to you. Maybe being clever is illogical though, maybe that’s why it is clever, because it is different, it isn’t the status quo, outside the box, so the logic people say, “oh, that’s clever” because it isn’t what they would have thought in their heuristic based frame of reference. That’s an interesting spin on the subject. Maybe clever and logical cannot coexist in the same mind. I’ll have to ponder this one some more.

Then I took the discussion to Muffin Man via e-mail:
my text hyped it up too much maybe, anyway, here's the thought:
can you be clever and logical? my initial thought was yes, then i thought, no.
here's my explanation; being clever is making people say, "whoa, i didn't see that coming." being clever is thinking outside the box. logic is heuristics, rule of thumb, status quo, inside the box. Therefore, if you are clever, you are thinking outside the box, and not logically. But, does one have to crowed out the other altogether? Can there be some cross over? Are there logic times and clever times?
Please share with me your insights.
Ajax

Muffin Man’s response:
My answer is yes.
Being clever doesn't always mean "whoa, i didn't see that coming." Being clever can also mean doing something with a twist, insight, different perspective. It's about being creative. Logic is rational, reasoning, something that makes sense, etc. I think that clever and logic are sometimes distant, but not mutually exclusive.
Example:
Einstein. Now here was a guy who managed to mix being clever and being logical together. He came up with clever theories, but those theories had to have some form of logic to them, otherwise he would have been no different than a Sci Fi writer, excuse me, SyFy writer. Same thing with a guy like Stephen Hawking. He is clever in the way he sees things, and the way he thinks. It's creative, yet balanced by logic be it big or small.
Andy Warhol. In the art world it makes sense (is logical) that art and commerce would go hand in hand, but it wasn't a real reality until Warhol came along and combined the two, and even more than that he helped redefine the term "art". Things we call art now would not have been called art 50, 60 years ago, but we look at it now (well, some of it) and it's logical to call it art.
Steven Spielberg is another example, but I won't go into that.
You can be clever. You can be logical. You can be both. The world would have fewer geniuses if there weren't people who balanced the two. I think logic can be stretched to go over the box, and the cleverness can be achieved within the box. Sometimes it boils down to time. Things that seem logical now were things that were born out of creativity (cleverness). What once was radical thought, is now common knowledge. Time evolves the outsider into the accepted.
Basically what I'm trying to say is: Yes. You can be both. Sometimes all it takes is time. Because my theory is that everything thing we use, learn about in schools, take advantage of, that make sense, are because of someone's clever idea. Clever evolves into logical.
Did any of this make sense?
-Muffin Man

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