What makes someone "intelligent?"

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I don't mean IQ scores. I mean: What is it about people that causes others to perceive them as having or lacking intelligence?

Most people judge intelligence on social intelligence, mainly. By this, I mean effectively expressed empathy and social cognition (Meaning understanding people, their intentions, etc.) along with good verbal prowess. In real life, it's also associated with 'creativity' and how much you talk (I.e., how extroverted you are).

Last edited by swbluto on 16 Dec 2011, 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

To me its the ability to use/apply knowledge or wit in a given situation. Measure of intelligence is absurd because it is relative.

How do you personally identify intelligence?



I agree with this. I find it difficult to determine if anyone is "intelligent" or "not intelligent" and tend to focus more on "interesting," "not interesting," and "irritating." There's only a couple posters here on WP whom I consider "irritating" and I usually don't reply to them, but most people I don't reply to aren't irritating. Interesting and not interesting can change from thread to thread, though.

Oh, I have a vague notion and it manifests in various forms.

There's the "You think like me" form of intelligence. Almost everyone has this definition of so-called 'intelligence', lol. Even ... people who are morans. ;P

And there's the "You're pretty insightful" form of intelligence.

And there's the "You have a pretty complex understanding" form of intelligence.

And there's the "You can solve problems quickly and accurately" form of intelligence.

And there's the "You choose usernames after mythological figures" kind of intelligence.

And then there's the wittiness kind of intelligence, though I don't personally consider that particularly valuable if not pared with one of the other forms of intelligence in a person.

True, people like agreement.



Yeah, I recalled, which is why I was hoping you'd respond to my question. I was specifically thinking of you, actually.

FWIW, I consider you "interesting" and not "irritating."

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Personally, I don't find anyone irritating. I only participate in discussions that make sense/somewhat make sense to me. If I find someone irritating it is most prolly because they are being a pesky braggart.

I can people are intelligent if they know how to listen to other, know others opinion before to come to a decision. If they are willing to accept mistakes and know how to ask for forgiveness and forgive as well. Intelligence doesn’t end up in how many mathematics problem you solved or many debates won or boards passes. It’s about how you deal in your environment all the things in it.

It is probably a safe bet that the people I'm thinking of could be described as pesky braggarts.



I know a lot of people like that who would be judged as "not intelligent" because of their IQ scores or their beliefs or whatever.

I'm not fixated on the idea of math problems or debates won. I actually have been unpacking my ideas about intelligence and find they're really incoherent and useless. Probably a side effect of growing up being told I'm intelligent and stupid all the time, and not being able to do many of the things an intelligent person should have been able to do (or so I was told).

I feel like a failure because I lack social IQ though to some extent I logically analyze social situations and understand psychology better than empathy.

I consider the ability to adapt to novel situations as a marker for intelligence. One thing that computers lack is this ability, and hence, are not considered intelligent.

I see intelligence as awareness of what's going on around combined with self-awareness. But then that's just me valuing my own kind of intelligence. I can't do maths.

This may sound lecturish, but I want to be clear I don't mean it this way. It is simply my perspective:

I can't justify feeling like a failure because of my ADHD, autism, fibromyalgia, or any other conditions I may have. I didn't choose to have them, I didn't choose their severity, and I didn't even know they were there until recently. I can't possibly be a failure because of my lack of social skills, although it does make things more difficult than they could be.



I find this definition intriguing. It too does not rely on IQ scores.



Aside from mental arithmetic, I can't do maths either. And I had serious trouble with arithmetic until the seventh or eighth grade, when something clicked. Even so, when I was asked to tutor my niece in arithmetic, I had to relearn how to do arithmetic by hand because I didn't know how to do it, I would just pull the numbers out of my brain. Kind of awkward.

Anyway, I find this intriguing too.

I believe it encompasses an individual's capability to learn, memorize and apply skills to solve problems. For some reason I am not completely aware, most people I know say I am intelligent (or nerdy) within few weeks, at most. I think it is because I learn new skills easily and have a very good memory to keep them.

As for applying my skills, that is a lot trickier. I am able to solve almost any problem when I need to, but I tend to set rules for it and stick to them without considering alternate ways. For example, if I wish to enter a locked room, I will unconsciously stablish the need for unlocking the door and rarely consider the possibility of entering through the window.

To sum it up, I meet the first two criteria better than most people, but I am very limited when it comes to the third (and arguably, most important) one.

Intelligence to me is to take the information you learn and use it for problem solving, for organisation, your relationships with people and future plans.

I'm probably not explaining myself properly because it's late.

Now I know we all have organisation and communication issues but just because we do it doesn't mean we're not intelligent. Even having a mathematics disability doesn't mean we're not.

People usually see intelligence as how much information you know, especially in mathematics and science. But lately I've been starting to think about how art has been left out. You do need the required knowledge and skills to be good at art, even someone with a natural ability like me needs to be taught it. I might sound like I'm arrogant but I have little else to be proud of. And with art there's no write and wrong answer, no set rules to follow. There are some but what you do with them is up to you. It's probably why I like it more than maths though I use both math and imagination when I do my art.

I see intelligence in personalities and what people actually do with it. Someone was boasting about their high IQ once but if you talked to him everyday you couldn't tell because he talk about anything that would make you think, nor did he talk in such a way to make one think it.

I use my artistic intelligence every time I look at something. It's not as good at problem solving as verbal thinking is but it's a good distraction and can have a calming effect.

I have motor skills issues which probably make me look slow as well as the processing issues, the emotional issues and the lack of math skills too. Still people think I'm intelligent because of what I've got to show for it.

In summary, intelligence is the ability to learn, apply what you've learnt in your daily life to form ideas and problem solve. Also, it helps to have a good memory like if I stay up much longer in the morning I will feel fatigued. To not feel as fatigued I would need breakfast, a shower, maybe some Omega 3 and light exercise. Because I've done this many times before.

My memory is poor but having a poor memory means I can do lots and lots of revision which makes me feel like I'm doing something important. I surprised myself when I could explain string theory in simple terms and I watched a video on that maybe 2 years ago. OK, maybe that was a bad example. The educational channels like to play a lot of reruns and some of it is the stuff I've watched 10,000 times before but I still watch it because of my poor memory.

I'm the type of person to go through the window. I can't be bothered with picking locks.

I'm a good problem solver but at times I first have an emotional breakdown then rationality takes over.