A Question I Was Recently Asked:
"What Determines Intelligence?"
My Reply:Interesting question, and one that would elicit many different responses depending on whom you asked. That said, it isn't to say all of those responses wouldn't have similar patterns to them.
The interesting thing here is that intelligent, clever, smart, savvy, wise, bright, knowledgeable - they all mean completely different things. Though 'intelligent' seems to be the go-to phrase when we mean to talk about all of them, so let's work under that assumption. What makes some intelligent? Understanding. What is understanding? This is something I mentioned briefly in my 7th Introspection about introspection:
"Introspection is important. So important, in fact, I would suggest it is the separation between intelligent human beings and - to put it sensitively - those with no desire to learn. If sentience is judged by the ability to hold an understanding of our actions within our net of the world (as oppose to acting purely based on survival as non-human animals do), then surely up that scale is the ability to reflect upon yourself, and the reviewing of your own words, beliefs, actions to the greatest understanding."
"Introspection is important. So important, in fact, I would suggest it is the separation between intelligent human beings and - to put it sensitively - those with no desire to learn. If sentience is judged by the ability to hold an understanding of our actions within our net of the world (as oppose to acting purely based on survival as non-human animals do), then surely up that scale is the ability to reflect upon yourself, and the reviewing of your own words, beliefs, actions to the greatest understanding."
That is to say, that when you learn things in certain ways - that builds to your own world view. You're able to see things in a certain way and evaluate other forms of knowledge as to their truth value depending on how well they fit into your world view. Someone who is intelligent will not only be able to reel off information about things they know, but admit what they do not know, whilst also coming to valid conclusions about those things they do not know, based on their world view. Of course the wise move after that is to do a bit of research and find out if you're right or not.
The key here is the application of the stuff that you know and being able to extend it to many situations. For example, if you learn about Pavlovian conditioning, then come across needing to train a Crocodile, you'd be a fool to think you were clever by applying that knowledge and end up trying to make the crocodile salivate for dog food. You'd need take a step back, figure out the Crocodile's stimulations, and then base your feeding and desired training around that. Applying the situation without having prior knowledge. (Crocodiles have incredibly sensitive touch to vibrations in the water, and not so in depth hearing. They wouldn't respond to commands, but systematic time based feeding could elicit certain behaviours from them, in case you were interested :P)
Think of it like this. People who do Physics are very clever at what they do. So they learn a few things in physics and they build a net of knowledge out of that, and they test all new theories against this net to see if it sticks. The problem here is all they have is a net of physics, and while it's a good net of physics, there's not much you can do with that net when you ignore certain other things like social skills, or art appreciation, or cookery. So you get two kinds of physicists like this, the ones who are arrogant because they think they know loads, then the ones who're aware that what they know is just specialist physics knowledge. Which of these do you think is more intelligent? The one who introspects.
Think of it like this. People who do Physics are very clever at what they do. So they learn a few things in physics and they build a net of knowledge out of that, and they test all new theories against this net to see if it sticks. The problem here is all they have is a net of physics, and while it's a good net of physics, there's not much you can do with that net when you ignore certain other things like social skills, or art appreciation, or cookery. So you get two kinds of physicists like this, the ones who are arrogant because they think they know loads, then the ones who're aware that what they know is just specialist physics knowledge. Which of these do you think is more intelligent? The one who introspects.
You need to be able to know that you don't know things. Your net understanding of the world needs to accurately involve yourself, understanding the consequences of your own actions and the extent of what you are. Everyone always improves, and nobody ever knows enough, even on their death bed... so intelligence can only be determined by both what someone actually knows ('knowing' is a complicated process of Epistemology on it's own. We'll ignore that for now.) and their ability to learn.
This isn't a new idea at all. Dawkins suggests that humans are separated from animals because we're capable to understanding ourselves within our net of the world. And it's as far back as Socrates who points out '...I only know that I know nothing.' Meaning the first step to being clever is to view yourself and then understand the extent of how little you know. From there, it's an upwards curve of a mostly humble desire to learn.
This isn't a new idea at all. Dawkins suggests that humans are separated from animals because we're capable to understanding ourselves within our net of the world. And it's as far back as Socrates who points out '...I only know that I know nothing.' Meaning the first step to being clever is to view yourself and then understand the extent of how little you know. From there, it's an upwards curve of a mostly humble desire to learn.
Furthermore, someone with a lot of arrogance about their knowledge is significantly less intelligent than they think they are. This is because you need to cast off your arrogance to be able to fully learn, because the second you truly think you know loads of things, you stop improving, or striving to do so.
As a final note, being intelligent isn't judged the same across the board. People are every bit their potential as they are the skills they already have. For someone young, say 16-17, it's a matter of their capability to introspect, desire to learn and potential to understand - as opposed to being judged on the things they have already learned, and their world view.
Hope this helps!
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