Poll: What do you judge intelligence by?

[KeithA45]

Grades don't mean shit.
They are an indicator of work ethic, not intelligence.
I know a lot of idiots from High school that got good grades.

Amen to that... Some geniuses get bored in class and can get low grades. So from the school's point of view they're retards.

I think that a person is intelligent if he/she can hold a proper conversation, if he/she can get involved in a debate and things like that.

I think of that as social skills though. I know people who can talk about anything for hours.

Unless you're talking about "deep" conversations, which I think is closest to the "Perspective/Awareness of self and others" category

 

[Gooble]

I'd go for either logic or perspective/awareness of self and others. I know plenty of people who aren't intelligent in the traditional academic sense, but are still very intelligent when it comes to people and problems.

 

[defcon 1]

Logic and thinking speed.

 

[FinalGamer]

Kinda tricky, I wanna say IQ but even those with IQs of 160 don't always have common sense.

 

[countrysteaksauce]

Wouldn't intelligence really be the sum of all things?

No, not all things. But few of them, yes.

What things are to be excluded?

Grades. Being good at Math and Science, because for example Einstein was a bit worse at school in those subjects than I am, yet he's one of the greatest minds in the history of mankind. Also, memory. While I know people with great memory, they are hardly intelligent. Maybe because they usually use that memory to remember useless things from school, I don't know. The fact is, it doesn't make them more intelligent.

Sure grades can be skewed or perhaps attributed to just who has a greater work ethic. Though such willpower is an intelligence in and of itself. You can't just throw those out the window.
Still, Einstein did exceptionally well at mathematics and relatively poorly in the languages. According to your thinking, all his grades would have to be invalidated, though he clearly had a mastery of mathematics.


You still have to know facts to analyze the consequences and ascertain the possibilities, hence intelligence. Is there another way to attain these facts than through memorization? Certainly, you need one to have to other. Just think if memorization did not exist; do you think the modern world would be possible? Perhaps rote memorization is useless if not applied, but it certainly contributes to intelligence.

It's not like Einstein's ideas came to him in a dream; he had to know the facts prior to analyzing them and such.

You got it wrong.

It's one thing to have the informations. Another thing is analyzing them and processing.

That's why your computer can have a 1TB HDD, but if it's a single-cored Pentium 600 with a GeForce 2 MX, it's going to suck anyway. As it won't be able to process all those informations as fast as a new Intel Core i7 and a triple SLI GeForce 280.

How can you analyze information that you don't know?
If you hypothetical hard drive was empty there would be nothing to do with it anyway. What kind of program requires zero memory? None.

You must have one for the other. They need each other.

A hard drive would be useless with nothing to utilize its contents, as would a supercomputer with nothing to work with.

 

[Abedeus]

Kinda tricky, I wanna say IQ but even those with IQs of 160 don't always have common sense.

That's because sometimes logic and common sense isn't the same.

And like I mentioned, logic = Intelligence, common sense = Wisdom. Even D20 thinks so. And it's pretty logical and makes sense.*


* - See what I did there?

Wouldn't intelligence really be the sum of all things?

No, not all things. But few of them, yes.

What things are to be excluded?

Grades. Being good at Math and Science, because for example Einstein was a bit worse at school in those subjects than I am, yet he's one of the greatest minds in the history of mankind. Also, memory. While I know people with great memory, they are hardly intelligent. Maybe because they usually use that memory to remember useless things from school, I don't know. The fact is, it doesn't make them more intelligent.

Sure grades can be skewed or perhaps attributed to just who has a greater work ethic. Though such willpower is an intelligence in and of itself. You can't just throw those out the window.
Still, Einstein did exceptionally well at mathematics and relatively poorly in the languages. According to your thinking, all his grades would have to be invalidated, though he clearly had a mastery of mathematics.


You still have to know facts to analyze the consequences and ascertain the possibilities, hence intelligence. Is there another way to attain these facts than through memorization? Certainly, you need one to have to other. Just think if memorization did not exist; do you think the modern world would be possible? Perhaps rote memorization is useless if not applied, but it certainly contributes to intelligence.

It's not like Einstein's ideas came to him in a dream; he had to know the facts prior to analyzing them and such.

You got it wrong.

It's one thing to have the informations. Another thing is analyzing them and processing.

That's why your computer can have a 1TB HDD, but if it's a single-cored Pentium 600 with a GeForce 2 MX, it's going to suck anyway. As it won't be able to process all those informations as fast as a new Intel Core i7 and a triple SLI GeForce 280.

How can you analyze information that you don't know?
If you hypothetical hard drive was empty there would be nothing to do with it anyway. What kind of program requires zero memory? None.

You must have one for the other. They need each other.

A hard drive would be useless with nothing to utilize its contents, as would a supercomputer with nothing to work with.

Your empty HDD is nothing but a newborn baby with a great potential. That can't be utilized yet, as it's too young.

Also, if someone has a powerful PC (that is, a great intelligence), he wants to keep it busy. That's why one is trying to think a lot, do Sudoku, Rubik's Cube and so on. Because having a good rig without using it is a waste of time (you used to build/obtain the PC) and energy (because you are not spending your time well).

While intelligenct people usually have a good memory, good memory doesn't mean you are intelligent.

But we are getting a bit philosophical.

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

Pespective, perception and open-mindedness are all marks of intelligence to me. They allow for the greatest capacity to learn more.

Human beings are all pretty smart, but some people's lack of perspective, perception, and their closed-mindedness are the only things preventing them from coming off as being intelligent.

 

[countrysteaksauce]

Wouldn't intelligence really be the sum of all things?

No, not all things. But few of them, yes.

What things are to be excluded?

Grades. Being good at Math and Science, because for example Einstein was a bit worse at school in those subjects than I am, yet he's one of the greatest minds in the history of mankind. Also, memory. While I know people with great memory, they are hardly intelligent. Maybe because they usually use that memory to remember useless things from school, I don't know. The fact is, it doesn't make them more intelligent.

Sure grades can be skewed or perhaps attributed to just who has a greater work ethic. Though such willpower is an intelligence in and of itself. You can't just throw those out the window.
Still, Einstein did exceptionally well at mathematics and relatively poorly in the languages. According to your thinking, all his grades would have to be invalidated, though he clearly had a mastery of mathematics.


You still have to know facts to analyze the consequences and ascertain the possibilities, hence intelligence. Is there another way to attain these facts than through memorization? Certainly, you need one to have to other. Just think if memorization did not exist; do you think the modern world would be possible? Perhaps rote memorization is useless if not applied, but it certainly contributes to intelligence.

It's not like Einstein's ideas came to him in a dream; he had to know the facts prior to analyzing them and such.

You got it wrong.

It's one thing to have the informations. Another thing is analyzing them and processing.

That's why your computer can have a 1TB HDD, but if it's a single-cored Pentium 600 with a GeForce 2 MX, it's going to suck anyway. As it won't be able to process all those informations as fast as a new Intel Core i7 and a triple SLI GeForce 280.

How can you analyze information that you don't know?
If you hypothetical hard drive was empty there would be nothing to do with it anyway. What kind of program requires zero memory? None.

You must have one for the other. They need each other.

A hard drive would be useless with nothing to utilize its contents, as would a supercomputer with nothing to work with.

Your empty HDD is nothing but a newborn baby with a great potential. That can't be utilized yet, as it's too young.

Also, if someone has a powerful PC (that is, a great intelligence), he wants to keep it busy. That's why one is trying to think a lot, do Sudoku, Rubik's Cube and so on. Because having a good rig without using it is a waste of time (you used to build/obtain the PC) and energy (because you are not spending your time well).

While intelligenct people usually have a good memory, good memory doesn't mean you are intelligent.

But we are getting a bit philosophical.

I never said memory is equal to intelligence. I was stressing the point that you must have memory to be intelligent. It isn't something trivial. Earlier you seemed to be saying that memory has nothing to do with intelligence.

 

[goatzilla8463]

i would judge it by wit

 

[Quel0]

As a teacher I oddly never "judge" intellect... I continually hope there's a method of learning that I just have to find a way to teach.

 

[Desaari]

Reading alot or having learned things previously are not necessarily intelligence, they are knowledge.
Learning things on your courses is a display of your intelligence however, as it shows your ability to learn complex and abstract ideas, and then to apply that knowledge in the form of excercises and tests, while reading books shows the ability to process information.

In essence, the word "intelligence" is a vague term used to represent a combination of a number of different attributes like, for example: ability to learn, logic, awareness, problem solving capabilities, ablility to process and analyse information, application of your knowledge, and so on.

 

[sky14kemea]

i judge how smart someone is by how they talk/type, and if they're able to read...
sometimes you hear about teenagers that cant read very well, that's probably a bad sign

 

[Ignignoct]

Probably been said already, but:

"Adaptability, resourcefulness and problem-solving"

INT is how fast you learn and adapt.

WIS is the sum of your learning/experience, and thus your subconsciously augmented decision making ability.

 

[johnman]

Logic, i know people with high grades who dont even think about the world around them and dont know some of the most basic facts

 

[ellimist337]

I personally like the formula of one part common sense plus one part critical thinking. If you just stop and think for a minute before you do something, a person with common sense will generally be able to avoid doing something stupid more often than not. Equally as important, the critical thinker will strive for more knowledge, but think about it for himself, rather than just swallowing whatever he is given and taking if for pure fact. Prime examples of the necessity of critical thinking: Rush Limbaugh and An Inconvenient Truth.

 

[Vorpals]

A mix of Common Sense/Logic and Perspective/Awareness, because academics only dictate what info you can read and regurgitate, even though I myself am an A student.

 

[SsilverR]

by their reaction to certain situations

 

[FinalGamer]

Kinda tricky, I wanna say IQ but even those with IQs of 160 don't always have common sense.

That's because sometimes logic and common sense isn't the same.

And like I mentioned, logic = Intelligence, common sense = Wisdom. Even D20 thinks so. And it's pretty logical and makes sense.*


* - See what I did there?

.....touche good sir.

 

[Spleeni]

i judge how smart someone is by how they talk/type, and if they're able to read...
sometimes you hear about teenagers that cant read very well, that's probably a bad sign

Though, it's hard to tell if you're speaking to a non-native speaker. I've talked to a couple different people who speak English as a second and third language. I think it's a better system to judge people by what they say they've done, than by how well they can say so. I've had pretty good conversations with people who couldn't type if their lives depended on it.

Not to mention that there's always some finicky and obscure rule that you're probably breaking.