What makes someone "intelligent?"

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I have read the whole thread, and I still don't have an idea. Someone said something sometime along with the lines "The simple most important factor that makes one a real genius is the ability to know when one makes progress with anything she/he preoccupied with." At least, it may apply to a row of scientist/inventors, Einstein, Franklin, Kepler, Newton, Marconi all suspected. It's clear that according to my view I also don't share the common definitions of intelligence, though I think having high intelligence in the sense of common definitions (all what was alluded to in the above posts) can be a huge advantage in everyday life. Nevertheless, there are several dimensions of intelligence and, for most people, you have to have an even profile in order to be successful.

As Bruce Lee once said: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." Revisions are necessary to learn. The fact that you could remember string theory after 2 years shows you are capable of remembering skills when you need them, which is the memorization I was talking about.

I should also mention that my intelligence do not always applies to things I am not interested in. If I am bored, I seem to develop a "mental block", which makes the process much harder (not impossible, but arduous enough for me to give up).

I'm very much the same way like you.

I agree with swbluto's summation of intelligence, with insight, a complex understanding, and the ability to solve problems being the most deciding factors. Since Verdandi's question was about how we perceive another to be intelligent, I can admit that my assessment is purely subjective. If someone can make me think, and inspire me creatively, I usually find them interesting and characterize them as intelligent.
I too find pesky braggarts irritating. ( I call them blowhard know-it-alls, though.) I don't have to agree with someone, or like them, to think they're smart. But a creative muse is better company.

I'm kind of critical of geniuses. I think it's a label society puts on people with an abnormal level of intelligence in a subject that can benefit the society greatly. And I don't think a genius can be as experienced in every type of skill which kind of makes the label redundant. Usually the brain has a balance of skills and in neurological disorders such as autism we have skills in maybe one or two areas but we'll have expertise in usually just one which makes us highly skilled at it but poor in other areas. I'm yet to see a mathematician who is also a creative artist or vice versa.
Even gifted people won't be good at everything in such a high skilled way.

I tried to get better at maths and physics but but deep down I'm an artist. If I focus on that I can excel rather than pine about not being able to take the workload to handle a first year course in physics. I'll still pine though.

I'm having difficulty understanding what a braggart is. Tell me, is the man is my avatar a pesky braggart?

Although now I thinking about the origin of the word 'brag' so I'm getting a bit of an idea.

I think that curiousity, objectivity and a good observation is a sign of intelligence.

That's a better way of looking at it.

Going into a conversation open-minded is a sign of intelligence to me.

All of this is very much true. I've been feeling fairly critical of the idea of "gifted/genius" for the past year - not necessarily because people don't fit those categories, but because of the assumptions they tend to come with. Like, when my IQ was tested, a high score determined that I didn't need academic help, I didn't have any real problems, etc. I also wonder how much my score was inflated by my hyperlexic vocabulary - as in, what would be my score now? I wouldn't be surprised if it's measurably lower because I no longer have what may have been a developmental spike in how I used - or more accurately, appeared to use - language.

Plus the assumption that my score reflected an even curve of potential. If I was good at this thing and that thing, I would be good at everything and this does not reflect my reality at all. I can do mental arithmetic, but I can't explain how I manage to run out of money in the middle of the month.

All that said, I think my strongest aptitudes are in writing and music, although I haven't developed the latter nearly as much as I have wanted to at times.

I hear about gifted kids burning out because of pushy parents expecting more of them. OK, I saw it on an episode of Law & Order. But I'm sure that's one thing those writers got right.

I got the opposite. People just gave up on me. In community college teachers say I didn't try hard enough. I would rather they called me stupid like everyone else did. Actually I'd rather they'd send me to an ADHD or autism specialist.

I had a hypergraphic spurt last night but today it's gone. I don't appear as intelligent today as I did yesterday. Inconsistency. You get me? Probably not because I can't explain it properly.

It would not surprise me if it were true.



Yes, this is another reason to be critical of the way IQ is used. I also wish people would stop going straight to "You're not trying hard enough." It's almost like it's an excuse for them to not try very hard to find out what the real problem is. I heard the same thing from my teachers, and I was getting frustrated to the point of meltdown with class work, and somehow it was all my fault: "You're smart, you just need to apply yourself more. You're not trying hard enough" and I am trying to throw everything into it and getting nowhere because I didn't know how to do it.

Also, I believe that calling children stupid is abusive and seriously damaging. And in this regard it does not matter what one's IQ is, telling people that they're worthless, stupid, that you have no expectations from them, is harmful. I've seen it happen to other children, it's happened to me, it doesn't do anything constructive for anyone.



I don't know that I get you exactly as you mean, but I do have the experience of appearing less intelligent on some days than others. Inconsistency is a hallmark of my effort, work, and functioning.

Trying to define "intelligence" is like trying to define "time"--all you're ever going to come up with are a bunch of incomplete and insufficient statements. This, of course, despite the fact the everyone (of sufficient intelligence?) understands precisely what these things are in an abstract sense.

I'm not trying to define it, I'm trying to understand how other people perceive it. I mean, I agree with what you're saying in principle.

In specific, I do not believe that everyone understands precisely what intelligence is in an abstract sense. I think people have a lot of differing ideas as to intelligence, and their own biases play into those ideas. Also, things like fundamental attribution error, where one action influences perception of an entire person.

I'm afraid you are inferring from my words that I'm all for pressing kids and students to be geniuses (or perform well beyond their limits), which I'm not. I'm aware that uneven IQ is characteristic of autistic people and this is why I wrote that a more even IQ would be better for living an everyday life easier. Unusual people, however, often have uneven IQs (that is, high in a narrow area and low or average at everywhere else). These people are often unacknowledged by the society due to several reasons ("half-geniuses"). They never become famous, their work eludes the attention of scientific/artistic circles. They not fit in the flow of society, their work may suffer from their unproductivity due to several factors, such as depression, anxiety, executive dysfunction, attention deficit and many other co-morbids that often come along with ASD (though I wouldn't narrow the scope only to ASD people).

As for maths vs. arts, I'm the opposite. I'm good at maths and weak at arts. However, I try to get a little better at arts, just to explore things that might be interesting and possibly make my horizon wider. So, it's quite natural and understandable that you pine for maths/physics courses...

What I'm really trying to tell is that an individual with any kind of talent and preoccupation with something that can be potentially interesting for other people (business, arts, science, anything) should feel an internal drive, one that's not only urges them to accomplish more (this, only in itself, can drive people insane), but serve as a sort of compass, guiding their efforts. A "genius" is rather a metaphor in this sense. Obviously, many of the talented people (in fact, many of us, I'd include myself in this group) are not capable of high achievements after all. My answer to it is this: That's fine. Look at what you can do (instead of what you can't), praise what you've achieved, be enthusiastic about it. And, if it turns out that you've bitten more than you can chew, well, that happens to everyone... Go with the next best.

In practice, this often means working on areas (IQ-wise: average or below average subscales) where we are NOT really good. It helps with the detrimental unevenness of our "IQ". I, for one, practicing this language (English) despite my definite weakness at languages in general. I also plan to practice more of the stuff I've learned from autism-related books. At the same time, I try to maintain my strengths, too (computer programming, databases, business software, economics, accountancy). I hope everyone finds someone and/or something in their life that helps them with all this stuff to live a more fulfilling and better life.

It varies radically from person to person. Some people may base it off of the arguments someone uses, how good they are at intellectual conversation, etc. Others, such as racists, might be influenced by skin color. Old people might be influenced by what sort of words you use, i.e. slang, internet-sepak, etc. It all depends on the person doing the perceiving.