Third question ...

[Tom]

While it doesn't seem that Chris chose his "lifestyle" to become enlightened and wise, I did find it surprising how learned he became in this solitude with only the books from the surrounding camps available to him. The author cites studies showing how too much information can actually make us "dumber." It does seem that mulling for so long on a very finite amount of information worked in some way for Chris. He seemed pretty enlightened, however you might interpret that word. What do you think?

Oh, I'm sipping on a Elysian Contact Haze IPA, which might explain why it took so many words to ask my question. ;-)

[Tommy]

Knight likely wasn't unintelligent to begin with. He certainly mulled material from the same writers given the time he had, and the somewhat limited choices of material.
I'm not sure he was enlightened from his reading material. I think it helped him learn some things.

On the 'too much information' point - a specialist knows a lot of information about a limited scope. I enjoy the generalist in conversation. :-)

Tonight's beer is a 'lighter' choice for me and happens to be a Brooklyn Lager - from the old NYC neighborhood.

[Linda]

That's exactly what I was going to say but it took my computer a long time to get going tonight!
I feel like he was a naturally intelligent person. Someone who absorbed facts and collected ideas perhaps moreso than original thinking.