What is intellectual process?

An intellectual process is any process that goes on in the brain, but many people directly associate it with decision-making.

Decision-making is often regarded as the mental process, or a cognitive process, that results in the selection of one course of action. The selection would have been chosen instead of one, or many other, alternative scenarios. Every decision making process will ultimately produce one final choice, and this is one of the many intellectual processes that we go through every day. The end product of the decision making process could either be an action, or even an opinion of choice.

The human performance, in terms of decisions, has for years been subject to extensive research from a number of different perspectives. From the psychological perspective, it's completely necessary for individual decisions in the context of one set of needs, to be examined. The preferences that an individual may need or seek must be examined as well.

From the cognitive perspective, the process needs to be regarded as a continuous process that is integrated in the interaction with the environment.

However, from a normative perspective, analyzing an individual decision is very much associated with the logic of decision making, as well as the rationality and invariant choice that it can lead to.

However, at another level, decision making may even be regarded as problem solving, which is ultimately terminated when a satisfactory solution has finally been reached. Hence, decision making is both a reasoning and emotional process that can be either rational or irrational, and can be based on either tacit assumptions or explicit assumptions.

For more information on thought process, intellectual processes and decision-making, there are many articles about them to be found at www.wikipedia.org. Simply type in the process you want to read about and there will be a lengthy article.

We are confronted daily with decisions that require an action, some are fairly simple but others more complex.  Regardless of their level of difficulty, they all require careful thinking on how to proceed.
More and more people rely on tools for such tasks, whether they are single-functional such as a calculator or multi-functional such as a Smart-Phone. For example, we all experience difficulties when travelling to unknown places but with our GPS or our Smart-Phone we follow directions without giving it much thought.  Without giving it any thought at all because we are required only to listen to the command when to turn. It is not necessary to look at street signs or familiar landmarks that could help us remember directions.  So, not only does this gadget do our thinking for us, but we must rely on it each time when returning to the same spot. Mathematics is another area where a decline in our analytical abilities has been noted since our dependence on gadgets.  The use of calculators is responsible even at the basic scholastic level. In certain courses the efficient use of calculators is being taught to resolve mathematical problems instead of learning the process to solve them.  So, instead of learning the intellectual process required to resolve an equation, we are trained to use the tool that will do our thinking for us.  Education is not the only area confronted with this problem.  Even in the areas of economics or computers, the calculations are performed by calculators or programs.  The use of such tools is certainly an asset in terms of accuracy but understanding the results obtained and the usefulness of an equation is closely linked to the manner in which it was achieved. This understanding can only be achieved if the results were obtained without
assistance.