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Most anybody is smart enough to understand anything, they just typically aren't knowledgeable enough to grasp it quickly. Stupidity, in the other hand, is misap

Most anybody is smart enough to understand anything, they just typically aren't knowledgeable enough to grasp it quickly. Stupidity, in the other hand, is misapplied intelligence. You willfully go the opposite direction from the proper one. AI is ignorant if it hasn't been trained, stupid if it is trained but has insufficient direction. At least to my mind.

kypro 7y ago
> Most anybody is smart enough to understand anything I don't think this is true. At least for me it's not. In general I pick things up pretty quickly, at least above average. But there are certain things I know I've tried extremely hard with but I really struggle to even be competent. I also know some people which I'd consider a little slow and not from a lack of effort, but they have amazing abilities in other areas which I suck at.
- vinceguidry 7y ago
  One of the more interesting things I've read recently is that there's a certain strain in math where a concept isn't considered to be understood until it can be taught to an undergrad math class. Most anybody can make it to an undergrad level of academia. Meaning the world as a whole doesn't understand something unless there exists one person who can explain it at a level that anybody can reasonably attain. Once this happens, it's only a matter of replication. The domain of knowledge is far flatter and the role that intelligence plays is way smaller. You need to be really smart if you want to make advances in the knowledge of mankind. Not to understand what's already been discovered. If it's already been discovered and understood, then you can't fault intelligence for not providing you with the understanding. You just didn't luck into taking the right class.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "You just didn't luck into taking the right class." I disagree. A brilliant teacher is someone who can make almost everybody feel like they understand advanced concepts. For example, Richard Feynman and his book on QED. That doesn't mean even a genius can get most of them to actually understand. Mainly because of Wikipedia and its frequent lack of pandering to a lay audience for mathematical topics, I've come face to face with how impossible it is for me to understand things at a certain level. I could do undergrad calculus, but it's easy to find topics where I feel like I have a mental disability, or I'm a different species from the people who understand it. It doesn't seem like a difference of degree but of kind.
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      I submit that the topics you feel you can't learn, you only think that way because you don't have the proper insights. If someone could have given those to you, then you'd be able to understand them. And if someone truly understood those topics, then they could give you the proper insights. So either insight itself is broken, in that there are certain topics which are immune to it, in that you or anyone could never learn them given the right teacher and the right setting and the right approach, or, well, that's the only option really. The power of insight fails because some minds are patently immune to it.

kypro 7y ago

> Most anybody is smart enough to understand anything I don't think this is true. At least for me it's not. In general I pick things up pretty quickly, at least above average. But there are certain things I know I've tried extremely hard with but I really struggle to even be competent. I also know some people which I'd consider a little slow and not from a lack of effort, but they have amazing abilities in other areas which I suck at.

vinceguidry 7y ago
One of the more interesting things I've read recently is that there's a certain strain in math where a concept isn't considered to be understood until it can be taught to an undergrad math class. Most anybody can make it to an undergrad level of academia. Meaning the world as a whole doesn't understand something unless there exists one person who can explain it at a level that anybody can reasonably attain. Once this happens, it's only a matter of replication. The domain of knowledge is far flatter and the role that intelligence plays is way smaller. You need to be really smart if you want to make advances in the knowledge of mankind. Not to understand what's already been discovered. If it's already been discovered and understood, then you can't fault intelligence for not providing you with the understanding. You just didn't luck into taking the right class.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "You just didn't luck into taking the right class." I disagree. A brilliant teacher is someone who can make almost everybody feel like they understand advanced concepts. For example, Richard Feynman and his book on QED. That doesn't mean even a genius can get most of them to actually understand. Mainly because of Wikipedia and its frequent lack of pandering to a lay audience for mathematical topics, I've come face to face with how impossible it is for me to understand things at a certain level. I could do undergrad calculus, but it's easy to find topics where I feel like I have a mental disability, or I'm a different species from the people who understand it. It doesn't seem like a difference of degree but of kind.
  - vinceguidry 7y ago
    I submit that the topics you feel you can't learn, you only think that way because you don't have the proper insights. If someone could have given those to you, then you'd be able to understand them. And if someone truly understood those topics, then they could give you the proper insights. So either insight itself is broken, in that there are certain topics which are immune to it, in that you or anyone could never learn them given the right teacher and the right setting and the right approach, or, well, that's the only option really. The power of insight fails because some minds are patently immune to it.