What is Intellect?

What do you mean by the word 'intellect'? At one level our intellectual capacity may pre-dispose us with the capacity for self-awareness and self-reflection, although this cannot and should not be assumed. For example, someone who cultivates their capacity to reason to a very high level could conceivably use this capacity in a multitude of endeavours (check out Ted Bundy for one example of tragic misuse of his intellect). In fact many people commonly termed sociopaths and psychopaths by our society have incredibly high levels of 'intelligence'and intellectual development. Surely, our sense of spirituality is defined by more that just our intellect, since there are many highly intelligent people with highly developed 'intellects' who have committed heinous crimes throughout history and against their fellow human beings. When Carl Jung interviewed a certain indigeneous tribe years ago they told him that they thought through the heart. At one level this sounds weird, given that the hardware for our thinking is assumed to be located in the brain.

Paul

My definition of Intellect is simple: it is an ability to understand.

With this single ability anyone can