What is your idea of intelligence?

[Teadrinker11]

What defines someone as being intelligent in your opinion? A good memory, able to retain and regurgitate massive loads of information or what? Critical thinking, problem solving, what does intelligence in a person mean to you?

To me, emotional intelligence is the crown jewel of intelligence; foresight, hindsight, awareness of your own behaviour, needs, and feelings, awareness of others' needs and feelings, and the ability to recognise that actions have consequences is, collectively, the mark of a highly intelligent human being.

I don't generally think of people as intelligent or unintelligent because it's a bit of a blunt concept. I tend to think of people as being well educated / very knowledgeable about certain topics, or as being emotionally intelligent and good at soft people skills (which I don't have ), or as being good at problem solving, or having an excellent turn of phrase, or having an artistic flair, or whatever else they're good at. All of those things are types of intelligence but they're not remotely the same.

I completely agree with @TheVanguardSix - as soon as I saw the title of this thread, my immediate reaction was "AWARENESS".

There are lots of different types of intelligence and I admire them all. My current, "wow, he's really clever" is the architect from the Netflix show, Your Home, Made Perfect. The way his brain works is amazing to me.

The only way I can define intelligence is by considering the opposite - dullness. No sense of curiosity, no connections being made, no spark of creativity or willingness to figure things out.

Intelligence is everything you mention @Teadrinker11 and more. Humans generally have a range abilities. My brother didn't do terribly well academically but he's a complete wiz at DIY, fixing things and making things. I consider him one of the most intelligent people I have the pleasure of knowing.

Insight, subtlety, the ability to make connections between things.

There are lots of types — the people I like to have around me are well-informed, omnivorous readers, intellectually curious and open-minded, passionately interested in their work but not limited to it, articulate, and everything @TheVanguardSix says about emotional intelligence.

I see intelligence as the ability to think things through, to understand and learn ( but definitely not the same as being "well-educated") and I think that's applicable to anything from people, to everyday situations (I guess what you'd call commonsense) or specific things like being able to understand and acquire technical knowledge, for example, but I agree that someone can exhibit "intelligence" in one of these areas of life without being "intelligent" in others.

[[https://brill.com/view/title/39116]] is a really interesting book about the mathematical intelligence displayed by people doing menial jobs.
For example a warehouse worker who is able to stack random boxes on a pallet in the most efficient possible manner.
A problem that would need a very complex mathmatical formula to solve.
And yet many (most?) of us are able to make these complex calculations almost subconsciously if it relates to a practical task and we have enough practice.

Sorry link didn't work. The book is called Adults Mathmatics and Work

Or another example is the guys who paste up the big advertising posters. You need to be able to mentally manipulate and arrange shapes, very fast in your head. Which is one of the skills tested for in IQ tests.
In the job there's an understanding that there's a "knack" and "not everyone can do it". But I don't think anyone ever says "The guys that do this are geniuses". Even though if you tested them they might well be.

"For example a warehouse worker who is able to stack random boxes on a pallet in the most efficient possible manner.
A problem that would need a very complex mathmatical formula to solve."

Interesting. House movers can do hat too. I always thought of it more as a type of geography, being good with spatial awareness. I'm terrible at this and get lost even with a map.

The Welsh word for intelligence comes from the Welsh word for understand so I've always thought of intelligent people as ones who can understand well. It can be someone who understands something quickly or it can be someone who understands things deeply, is able to assimilate a lot of information, not because they can remember it, but because they can understand it well.

Critical thinking and emotional intelligence are both really important. The number of people who deem themselves "intelligent" then get sidetracked by conspiracy theories is unbelievable!

"The number of people who deem themselves "intelligent" then get sidetracked by conspiracy theories is unbelievable!"

Those people definitely think they're thinking critically though and intelligent people are often more disposed to conspiracies than less intelligent ones. I suppose there's also a difference between intelligence and wisdom.

I think a major part of intelligence is understanding that very few situations are black and white. And being comfortable with acknowledging that a situation has shades of grey and multiple perspectives. And I guess having a good level or articulacy so that you can clearly express yourself is important.

I think curiosity is the single unifying feature of all types of intelligence - emotional, academic, intellectual, practical. Whether it is a writer or a handyperson or a researcher or a builder or whatever someone who is curious about how things/people work and asks the question "but what if". They tend to be the most interesting people too.

There's a difference between being intelligent and being 'clever' in my mind.

Maths, recall, good working memory etc is clever, maybe even languages. But they're not necessarily intelligent to my mind.

Intelligence is, to me, someon e being open minded, curious about things outside their own experience and who knows what they don't know - it's not about knowing lots of things, but being able to reflect on what you do and don't know.

"intelligent people are often more disposed to conspiracies than less intelligent ones". I guess this highlights the original question of what true intelligence really is. It is a combination of discernment, understanding and emotional intelligence plus critical thinking. When you lose the ability to discern between fact and propaganda, is that true intelligence? Or maybe they are just lacking in certain forms of intelligence. For example, being great at algebra but vulnerable to conspiracy theories might mean you are intelligent in one area but severely lacking in another.

@Pallisers

I think curiosity is the single unifying feature of all types of intelligence - emotional, academic, intellectual, practical. Whether it is a writer or a handyperson or a researcher or a builder or whatever someone who is curious about how things/people work and asks the question "but what if". They tend to be the most interesting people too.

You can be curious and stupid though. I agree that curious people can be interesting though it depends what they're curious about.

@loloballlolo

"intelligent people are often more disposed to conspiracies than less intelligent ones". I guess this highlights the original question of what true intelligence really is. It is a combination of discernment, understanding and emotional intelligence plus critical thinking. When you lose the ability to discern between fact and propaganda, is that true intelligence? Or maybe they are just lacking in certain forms of intelligence. For example, being great at algebra but vulnerable to conspiracy theories might mean you are intelligent in one area but severely lacking in another.

The things that we generally value, thinking hard and reflecting, doing your own research, become negatives when it comes to conspiracies. I did mention the difference between intelligence and wisdom.

Lots of things. An important one is having an understanding of how much you still don't know - avoiding the dunning-kruger effect

"I think a major part of intelligence is understanding that very few situations are black and white. And being comfortable with acknowledging that a situation has shades of grey and multiple perspectives."

I've been thinking about this while reading the 'evil' thread.

To me intelligence is the ability to work things out/problem solve.

There a different types of intelligence but I think one of the most important is common sense intelligence. I have met people with incredibly high IQs and deemed to be extremely intelligent but they have absolutely no common sense whatsoever. common sense is extremely important I think.