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Location: Wandering the halls aimlessly...Hello? Is anyone there?
307 posts, read 455,330 times
Reputation: 129
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Ok, I have had the priviledge of reading many different posts over the last couple of weeks. Some excellent and some borderline idiotic. I'm of the opinion that, even though one would feel inclined to advertise that he or she has a degree, it still leaves plenty of doubt as to thier actual mental thought process and reasoning ability. So, without further ado, on to my question.....
Do you think that intelligence is measured by the length of Academic experience one has, or the length of real life experience one has?
Do you feel that "Common Sense" only goes so far in todays society?
Do you feel that there are actual "educated idiots" roaming the earth and if so, please give an example.
If nothing else, it should be fun to read some of the responses. Please no personal attacks.
My own experience....watching a well known attorney pushing and pushing on a door, uttering obscenities I wont repeat, only to have an older woman walk up to the same door and pull it open.
As briefly put as I can manage at the moment, intelligence is the ability to distill meaningful order out of relative chaos. Not necessarily on any grand scale, but on some scale. It doesn't matter how one comes by this ability.
Success in academic training is often taken as a marker for intelligence. This is because people who have intelligence are seen as generally more capable of and prone to success in an academic environment. In the same way, itching may be taken as a marker for the presence of poison ivy. It could, however, result from the presence of mosquito bites instead. These are very different things, but they express themselves in similar outward signs.
Knowledge is sometimes mistaken for intelligence. The intelligent person will certainly benefit from knowledge, and it may be that without knowledge, even great intelligence is a relatively useless thing. But it is still true that some knowledgeable people are unable to distill meaningful order from the relative chaos of their learning. These are not the intelligent people.
Neither. It is measured by the capacity to produce a comprehensive and comprehensible answer that actually addresses the question. Like I just did. An intelligent person can accomplish that with a paucity of academic and real-life experience.
It is measured by the capacity to produce with a comprehensive and comprehensible answer that actually addresses the question.
I would fear that there are comprehensive and comprehensible answers that actually address the question that are also false or misleading. Some intentionally so. I put the word "meaningful" out to stand as a guard against those, as false and misleading answers are unlikely to have valid effect or practical application, thereby lacking meaning in the sense that I intend.
Now here is a perfect example of lack of intelligence..... Don't watch the only channel with the truth....
Fox News is the home of comprehensive and comprehensible answers that actually address the question that are also false or misleading. Some intentionally so.
I remember once reading a quote where someone defined intelligence as the ability to recognize subtlety and nuance.
I have to agree. I mean retaining a large amount of information or being able to do complex math problems certainly requires a lot of brain power, but computers can do the exact same thing. I think ultimately the best way to describe human intelligence is the ability to comprehend complex situations and the ability to understand conflicting information.
Location: Wandering the halls aimlessly...Hello? Is anyone there?
307 posts, read 455,330 times
Reputation: 129
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
As briefly put as I can manage at the moment, intelligence is the ability to distill meaningful order out of relative chaos. Not necessarily on any grand scale, but on some scale. It doesn't matter how one comes by this ability.
Success in academic training is often taken as a marker for intelligence. This is because people who have intelligence are seen as generally more capable of and prone to success in an academic environment. In the same way, itching may be taken as a marker for the presence of poison ivy. It could, however, result from the presence of mosquito bites instead. These are very different things, but they express themselves in similar outward signs.
Knowledge is sometimes mistaken for intelligence. The intelligent person will certainly benefit from knowledge, and it may be that without knowledge, even great intelligence is a relatively useless thing. But it is still true that some knowledgeable people are unable to distill meaningful order from the relative chaos of their learning. These are not the intelligent people.
Ok, so you want to put that in English....for us uneducated folks....lol!
I'll get some benadryl for that itch....judging from the bumps, I'd say that aint no 'skiter bite lol. Moving on....
Success in academic training is a wonderful thing. I'll give you that much. However, I would venture to say that sometimes to much education can be detrimental as it will cause a person to "over analyze" simple and routine tasks.
Example:
Pounding a nail in wood. I have known many who come from educated backgrounds having many letters from the alphabet after their names. They can explain the theory behind why one would use the nail and explain, in detail, why one would affix the nail to the wood. Yet when it came to the actual application, I.E. the physical, common sense part, they were no more adept at driving a nail into the wood than that of a 3rd grader. It had a lot less to do with academics than one would think, yet they had difficulty with the practical application.
Having worked around aircraft for a large portion of my life I saw this over and over as the engineers would approach the seasoned laborers and ask for thier input to help resolve a potential life threatening flaw. They understood the principles, the theories, and formulas, but needed help with the simple logical stuff.
In my humble opinion. a good solid academic base is a wonderful foundation to build on, but should not be viewed as absolute. Experience will win everytime in my book.
There are those, especially in today's society, that feel that a piece of paper telling the world about thier academic prowess, is much more beneficial than that of practical, proven experience over a period of time.
Would you rather follow a green Lt. (Not even going to try to spell it) into battle, or a seasoned Sgt. Major, whos been in combat numerous times? Both have the foundation needed to lead, but one has the time in field while the other does not. Both are qualified, but one would be deemed "smarter" because of the academic background. I'm more inclined to believe that academics goes only so far, before common sense takes over.
Is one more Intelligent than the other? Makes me wonder.
I have always found this topic to be of interest and have had many debates on it. Whats your take?
It is a combination of critical thinking skills, the ability to reason, to comprehend what is read or heard, and the ability to "think on your feet". Come to think of it, that sounds like me!
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