[rooneel]

I have a similar (albeit modified) theory. Let me clarify that stupid and smart don't necessary mean the same as regular usage, but they're close enough.

If you are 'stupid' (not necessarily intellectually, but in some ways), the neurosis (psychosis is a strong word, no?) is less, you don't think about things you shouldn't (bothersome, existentially) and you have a healthy and comfortable intellectual-emotional life.

If you are very smart/smart, you can get beyond the temporary plateau of 'thoughtfulness' that also brings neurosis. You think about things that are bothersome, but you have enough mental strength to overcome and suppress them. You're high-functioning intellectually, and it doesn't take a toll on your psychosis.

If you're in the 'middle', you tend to think about things, and keep thinking till you've found reasonable solution. It is bothersome, depressing, and often not pleasant. But you have the gift of 'thinking', and you like using it. It's a stimulating albeit mentally tiring existence.

When you say you're 'dumber', I interpret it as you saying you've trained yourself not to ponder upon things that will lead to no obvious outlet. Maybe you've genuinely trained yourself to never think about certain things, maybe you've trained to control your bothersome thoughts on command. Either way, you've trained your thoughts to a 'different level'.

/armchairAnalysis

[madaxe_again]

Hm, there's another extreme that you're missing, which is that of not just thinking about a problem, but thinking about all of the problems, and just forward-projecting and forward-projecting until the cows come home, branching and branching and branching until you start to find commonalities and convergences between the outcomes of (the outcomes of the outcomes of) various ongoing situations which either provide useful strategic insight, or just satisfy curiosity. I see temporal and atemporal problems in much the same light - it's all just causation, and tracing the patterns forwards or backwards far enough to see the common causes.

I can, happily, quash general anxious negative outcome thoughts (i.e. fixation on a specific negative thought) - but just having to go through them all, even once, as part of the human path-finding algorithm still takes its toll.

Ultimately the benefit, in terms of having Seldon-esque pre-sight on many matters (although I don't hesitate to admit that I do get things wrong, as the imp of the perverse likes to roll the dice from time to time), outweighs the toll - although I do, from time to time, worry that I will end up in a straightjacket.