Recognizing intelligence?

[ashitaria]

Intelligence, by itself, is a very broad subject. There are so many different types of intelligences out there, and yet, people seem to know who is "smart" and who is not.

How do they recognize it?

But first, to recognize intelligence, you first have to define it. But what actually?

Is it a quick-thought out crushing comeback? Is it a clever insult? Is it the ability to adapt? Manipulate? Learn? Apply? Understand?

How can you recognize intelligence?

It seems that the people around me seem so sure. Personality tests, IQ tests, friends, family, forum members...

But I'm doubtful that intelligence can at all be recognized.

And how, I ask you, is the theory that some people are better than others, accepted?

I think what separates the 'intelligent' from the 'stupid', is not who is better than who, but who experiences more than who.

What about parents then? Do we not inherit traits from genetics?

What people fail to comprehend is that we all, ultimately, are heirs of one person, the first human. Just like how the American colony was at first but a small group of pilgrims.

No, I don't think that who your parents are affects you. A tall parent can give birth to a short child. An 'intelligent' person can give birth to a mentally retarded one.

And yet, what the answer I want is,

How can you recognize intelligence?

 

[Dormouse]

Intelligence comes in many forms. What isn't immediatly recognized lurks below the surface. Many are underappreciated not because they lack intelligence, but because theirs is fleeting and innocent, or a slower, deeper breed of thought.

If intelligence means wisdom, it is experience.
If it means smarts, it is knowledge.
If it means clever, it is an ability to adapt, a fickleness of spirit.
If it means thoughtful, then it is the slow process of contemplation.

 

[ashitaria]

Intelligence comes in many forms. What isn't immediatly recognized lurks below the surface. Many are underappreciated not because they lack intelligence, but because theirs is fleeting and innocent, or a slower, deeper breed of thought.

If intelligence means wisdom, it is experience.
If it means smarts, it is knowledge.
If it means clever, it is an ability to adapt, a fickleness of spirit.
If it means thoughtful, then it is the slow process of contemplation.

I could make up fifty of those.

If intelligence means learning, it is aptitude.
If intelligence means observing, it is analytical.
If intelligence means original, it is creativity.
If intelligence means words, it is manipulative.

Yet, the question is, how can you recognize intelligence?

 

[Dormouse]

Oh, everyone's intelligent, at some point or another. You just have to glimpse some of those moments. A gleam in the eye, grinning to oneself...

If you want someone who's fairly dependable when it comes to showing some brains, look for the curious or opiniated ones. The former won't necessarily be smart, but their tendency to get upset over everything and/or take the most extreme stances possible will be great debate fodder.

 

[citrusbreath95]

To OP, Personally I think for many people intelligence is how you present yourself. You could be a genius, but if you were clumsy, uncivilized, and had a very small vocabulary people then people would assume you weren't intelligent all the while that person may be conducting formulas to enhance the Theory of Relativity. Think of it this way, people automatically assume a person with low school grades compared to one with high school grades makes them less intelligent, when in reality it could just make them less academic. So I think people don't really have a clear definition of intelligence, as there are so many fields of intelligence. Some people may view intelligence as merely being innovative and creative, thinking outside of the box, while others imagine intelligence being able to solve complicated problems in a second in your mind, and for some intelligence merely means actually being able to support yourself, the ability to be independant. So when a person makes the accusation that someone is intelligent I think they are making their conclusions based on their view of intelligence, and observe the individual to a full analysis to see if he/she meets the criteria. For example, what makes someone a genius? Is it the strong intellect and creativity in a field of work? If someone is a musical genius but is horrible at math, does that still make them a genius? Or perhaps is a genius the ability to do everything, which is pretty much impossible (if not, I'd love to meet the person who can) Perhaps intelligence is just to have a personal opinion and have something to feel strongly for. I know many people who are smart in math, and other school subjects, but if you ask how they feel on a subject they reply with a quite apathetic mood saying "I don't know..." So, I think it is how you present yourself, stereotypes play a role, and just how your lifestyle is. In certain situations, you may or may not be presented as intelligent. If you grew up on the streets, and are guiding someone who hadn't a clue as to how they worked, you would be the intelligent one. Yet if you went with that person to a cultural party and had never before been to one, not knowing the proper rules and procedures the latter would be considered intelligent. So it depends on your audience, and what skill you are demonstrating. Hopefully I haven't babbled on too much.

 

[Devercia]

Many people see the difference between intelligence and wisdom.
Fewer see the difference between intelligence and knowledge.
Fewer still see the difference between intelligence and wit.

I can only give my subjective understanding, but it is remarkable how analogous a computer is.

Knowledge is based on experience and memory, IE the hard disk. This is what you 'know', and can recall if need be, but is often condenced into 'just the basics.'

Many people think wit is a trait of humor. I would say its merely the speed at which a person thinks. Humorous witticisms are typically most dependent on timing and less on depth or breadth. Also consider that a 'battle of wits' is not necessarily humorous, and when it is, is also reliant on speed. IE wit is the processor speed.

Intellegence is how much information a person can comprehend. Because understanding requires "the big picture", the largest prerequisite for comprehension is depth of short term memory. More intelligent creatures have larger prefrontal cortexes, which are where short term memory is stored in addition to higher brain function. They go hand in hand. IE intellegence is RAM. Have you ever had to write down and break up a math problem because it was too big? When RAM is overloaded, it uses the hard disk, literally and mechanically writing down the information because its too much to remember on the fly.(This is that loud grinding noise computers make when they run slow. Because writeing to the hard disk requires a mechanical motion as oppose to an electrical signal, the speed of the computer is limited to the speed of the writing arm. If you're useing a chisel and stone for scratch paper, that math problem will take awhile)

Wisdom is not experience. It may even be degraded by it by reliance on tradition. Wisdom is the ability to used ones mental faculties to achieve a goal, as well as evaluating and setting goals. This is something a computer cannot do (yet) and is why a human user is required. IE wisdom is the user.

 

[walfin]

To OP, Personally I think for many people intelligence is how you present yourself. You could be a genius, but if you were clumsy, uncivilized...

That's not intelligence to an INTP I should think. You're right that intelligence is subjective.

And I don't think you're unintelligent just because you didn't paragraph your response but it would help if you did .

IE intellegence is RAM

Using your analogy I have a different POV. I think intelligence is the BIOS/ROM chips.

I'm not saying that's intelligence to everyone.

 

[BigApplePi]

Intelligence for an action = The capacity for carrying out that action within a time period. The greater the carry out and the shorter the time, the greater the intelligence. Intelligence has those two dimensions.

For example if I can learn how to dive into water with a certain style in a certain time, I have kinesthetic intelligence.

Some people can't put together a Rubic Cube no matter how much time they're given. They have a limited organizational intelligence.

Some people, given enough time, can learn to knit sweaters. They have an intelligence for that skill.

So after defining it, how would you recognize it? By observing the above. If you are looking for a pre-conceived form of intelligence, your subject must be trying that out for you. If the skill is related to what you are looking for there will be a correlation. For example, verbal skills in one area mean the potential for verbal skills in another.

 

[BigApplePi]

Many people see the difference between intelligence and wisdom.
Fewer see the difference between intelligence and knowledge.
Fewer still see the difference between intelligence and wit.

I can only give my subjective understanding, but it is remarkable how analogous a computer is.

Knowledge is based on experience and memory, IE the hard disk. This is what you 'know', and can recall if need be, but is often condenced into 'just the basics.'

Many people think wit is a trait of humor. I would say its merely the speed at which a person thinks. Humorous witticisms are typically most dependent on timing and less on depth or breadth. Also consider that a 'battle of wits' is not necessarily humorous, and when it is, is also reliant on speed. IE wit is the processor speed.

Intellegence is how much information a person can comprehend. Because understanding requires "the big picture", the largest prerequisite for comprehension is depth of short term memory. More intelligent creatures have larger prefrontal cortexes, which are where short term memory is stored in addition to higher brain function. They go hand in hand. IE intellegence is RAM. Have you ever had to write down and break up a math problem because it was too big? When RAM is overloaded, it uses the hard disk, literally and mechanically writing down the information because its too much to remember on the fly.(This is that loud grinding noise computers make when they run slow. Because writeing to the hard disk requires a mechanical motion as oppose to an electrical signal, the speed of the computer is limited to the speed of the writing arm. If you're useing a chisel and stone for scratch paper, that math problem will take awhile)

Wisdom is not experience. It may even be degraded by it by reliance on tradition. Wisdom is the ability to used ones mental faculties to achieve a goal, as well as evaluating and setting goals. This is something a computer cannot do (yet) and is why a human user is required. IE wisdom is the user.

A try at a differentiation:

Intelligence = a capacity
Knowledge = how much that capacity is filled
Wisdom = a special ability to deal with life situations
Wit = a special ability to quickly convey contrast humor (needs better words) in social situations

 

[Words]

Intelligence is simply the "tree" of all sorts of brain "fruits"(using the dictionary's meaning): knowledge/experience, wit/resourcefulness, and anything else that has to do with the brain's positive sides. I find it hard to relate to your difficulty in analyzing intelligence. Its simply a name for an ability that can stem many other abilities.

Some will have greater intelligence than others but its not necessarily what makes them superior. There are several other factors: social ability, skills, resources, personality etc.

Though intelligence may play a role in this and create these "factors" in fake form, the natural has the upper-hand. Still, the non-intelligent ones have the handicap of course. But we can simply improve the software.

In conclusion, superiority is given to those with balance.

 

[ashitaria]

It's good to know that people are debating over this. But unfortunately, this debate is not of something new to me. I have it in my brain all the time. *sigh*

My view of intelligence is perhaps how fast the tank fills. I don't think intelligence is the capacity of knowledge because everyone has the capacity of knowledge. I think what intelligence is is the ability to fill that brain up. I think it is the ability to learn.

For example, everything that we do, everything that we know, our affected by our past in numerous ways. You can't learn how to be sociable without any experience, nether can you do 1+1 without first understanding and applying to real life.

What I think is intelligence is the ability to learn from our past mistakes, and the ability to learn from our environments. I don't actually think of intelligence as RAM which can be over-worked, because humans don't necessarily have that fixed RAM. I am pretty sure that if you couldn't solve a complex problem at one point, you would be able to solve that problem at another point. With problem-solving, you learn or compare the current problem to past problems, or lessons that you've learned. Once again, you can't solve x if you don't know what 1+1 is.

If I were to compare intelligence, I would perhaps compare to a hard disk, recorder or a thermometer. Hard disk meaning how well we are able to apply our past experiences. Thermometer implying how much we derive from our lessons. Recorder representing how fast we learn our lessons.

But still, I'd be real great to know who's intelligent as who's not.

 

[Da Blob]

Intelligence test have only been around for 90 years or so. Alfred Binet invented them in 1927. The human race seemed to be fine without them prior to that date, so the tests themselves cannot be that important.

I see intelligence as the ability to perceive and comprehend patterns that others cannot. I also believe that this, in itself, requires the ability to rotate one's point of view from one's own immediate Sensations to POVs that are 'imaginary' and not really one's own in the "Here and Now".

Recognizing intelligence, is indeed a very difficult thing to do, if one does not happen to be intelligent. It may indeed be a case of "it takes one to know one". I certainly believe this is the case of geniuses, or those who are extremely intelligent. I have been fortunate enough to know a number of bona fide geniuses in my lifetime. Unfortunately many seem to exist on the boundary between sanity and insanity - I think this is sad because i think that many are pushed to that kind of existence because so many in our society, when presented with a statement or idea that is incomprehensible to them, seem to prefer to judge the author of that idea as being 'crazy' instead of really, really smart. I think that after a great time of being treated as if one is crazy, is a natural outcome to eventually begin to act crazy.

 

[ashitaria]

I also believe that this, in itself, requires the ability to rotate one's point of view from one's own immediate Sensations to POVs that are 'imaginary' and not really one's own in the "Here and Now".

On other words, open-mindedness, right?

And by patterns, to mean the patterns that we notice in our everyday lives, or patterns of the supernatural, patterns of life, or the patterns of mathematics and science?

Because open-mindedness is a way of being able to comprehend patterns that others can't, and I'm pretty sure that open-mindedness is not a product of intelligence, but rather flexibility and tolerance, because of but one reason: everyone can be open-minded.

Also, everyone can comprehend patterns that no one else can, be it in sports, music, or academics. Does this mean that everyone is intelligent?

Perhaps it does.

 

[Dormouse]

I sorta wish I was crazy. I think enough quirks could make up for my lack of smarts.

That said, perceiving intelligence is partially a matter of luck. If you are an intelligent person, eventually you will draw similar-minded people to you, or will find yourself drawn to them.

The mechanics of how this comes to be are unclear... Perhaps over time you begin to recognise the signs that point towards intelligence. Though it remains incredibly difficult to recognize geniuses if they are not verbose. Sadly, a minimal ability to communicate will have somebody labelled as an idiot no matter their mental capacity.

 

[ashitaria]

I sorta wish I was crazy. I think enough quirks could make up for my lack of smarts.

That said, perceiving intelligence is partially a matter of luck. If you are an intelligent person, eventually you will draw similar-minded people to you, or will find yourself drawn to them.

The mechanics of how this comes to be are unclear... Perhaps over time you begin to recognise the signs that point towards intelligence. Though it remains incredibly difficult to recognize geniuses if they are not verbose. Sadly, a minimal ability to communicate will have somebody labelled as an idiot no matter their mental capacity.

Definitely not the case.

The people who I my friends have very different mindsets than I have, and very different hobbies. None of the friends that I have like reading the way I do, like debates the way I do, like the same subjects as I do.

One thing about me is that my friends aren't actually friends but acquaintances, and the thing about them is that except for one minor hobby that I share with them, there is not much that is common between me and them.

In fact, the only people that I can say is closest to me is another INTP Paul, and perhaps an IXTP named Charles, Matt, whose' MBTI I am ignorant of but who I enjoy being with, but they aren't as intellectually adept as the people on this forum (except perhaps Matt), and though I'm not an intelligent person, even a dumb person can find an intelligent person fascinating.

And I don't think people with lower social abilities are labeled as retarded, but perhaps that's because the people at my school are more intelligent than the average person.

 

[Dormouse]

I doubt you will ever find anybody with whom you will be able to hold a discussion comparable to any of the threads on this forum. I, for one, am not at all an intelligent person, but (I believe) I come of as at least mildly competent here.

Online, there is a time delay that allows us hours to formulate the perfect response, or we may leave, think about it, come back and finally answer. Certainly some are lightning quick, but that's hardly applicable for everyone.

Secondly, there is not one person contributing but many. It allows us to draw on others' insight for inspiration, and greatly diversifies the theories formulated. Not to mention, of course, that at any given moment we have the entire internet to search for facts to back up any argument.

As it is, many intelligent people are soft spoken or have difficulty expressing themselves. Some may be downright paranoid, or simply unwilling to share their opinions for fear of being judged.

If conversation and mental stimulation is what you're looking for, I suggest befriending the more articulate, aware of your peers. I'm not sure of your age, but eventually knowing about politics and wordly affairs, or even science, will earn you respect, and those who have built up a foundation of knowledge will begin to flaunt it.

Also, it seems to me that so far your friends have chosen you, and not the other way around. It's true, a great mind will seem exotic to many people, but this will denote at least some curiosity on their part, which seperates them from the willfully ignorant, at the very least. Eventually, perhaps in a better environment, you will begin to gravitate toward people that interest you. 'Similar-minded' was not the best choice of words... They may have a completely different view of life, and perhaps this is what will draw you together. People with the same opinions get boring after a while, anyways.

And finally, to clarify: I didn't mean those who had difficulty communicating would be considered retarded, just that they may be mentally underestimated. This includes people who think out loud, occasionally, and those who appear unconfident or waver in their opinions.

 

[citrusbreath95]

That's not intelligence to an INTP I should think. You're right that intelligence is subjective.

And I don't think you're unintelligent just because you didn't paragraph your response but it would help if you did .
quote]

Sorry about the paragraphs, but I'm not saying that I view intelligence to be how you present yourself, as I think that it is much deeper than that, I am just saying that many people believe this to be. For many people, you are unintelligent if you don't follow the social structure that most do, as they view you canno't understand it or don't see the quality is presents. But no, I don't think intelligence is appearance, I made a quick generalization

 

[Da Blob]

On other words, open-mindedness, right?

And by patterns, to mean the patterns that we notice in our everyday lives, or patterns of the supernatural, patterns of life, or the patterns of mathematics and science?

Because open-mindedness is a way of being able to comprehend patterns that others can't, and I'm pretty sure that open-mindedness is not a product of intelligence, but rather flexibility and tolerance, because of but one reason: everyone can be open-minded.

Also, everyone can comprehend patterns that no one else can, be it in sports, music, or academics. Does this mean that everyone is intelligent?

Perhaps it does.

Well, i do not believe that God makes junk and except for those that have suffered damage of some kind, everyone does have a 'talent' of some kind. A group of specialists talented in different field certainly has a better chance of survival and success that a homogenous group of any one kind or one talent. Even if that talent is what we term 'intelligence'.

Who knows for each type of pattern there may be a unique talent of pattern recognition(?)

As far as open-mindedness, that is not exactly what i had in mind, but rather more of a 'out of the body' kind of perception, so that one is not limited to think about that which is "here and Now" but can juggle components of the Past and Future mentally, with input from the Now. For example, one test of intelligence at a young age is to set a set of objects in the center of a table and then ask questions like." What object would be farthest to your right if your were sitting in the chair across from the one you're sitting in?" This requires a bit of mental gymnastics on the part of the child to be able to rotate his or her point of view and imagine being somewhere else, or seeing something from a different perspective.

 

[BigApplePi]

Dormouse within your message is a good argument for the existence of GROUP intelligence. I believe this forum stands up well.