4 ms·
The very premise that 'smartness' is easily quantifiable is also flawed. Attempting to rank all human minds on some hierarchical scale is going to run into the
by photochemsyn 4y ago
The very premise that 'smartness' is easily quantifiable is also flawed. Attempting to rank all human minds on some hierarchical scale is going to run into the same problems as with human bodies. Is it better to be able to run the fastest, or to lift the heaviest weights, or to have the best hand-eye coordination when it comes to throwing and catching objects? Will specialization in one area of mental skill inevitably create weaknesses in other areas of mental skill (e.g. the strongest weightlifters are never the fastest runners over long distances)?
Not only that, there's the whole cult of intelligence issue, which attracts people who are very skilled at presenting themselves as uber-intelligent even if their greatest talents like in the realm of social engineering and bureaucratic manipulation (many highly successful academics fall into this category). This is a kind of 'smartness', but not necessarily the kind that helps one grasp complex maths.
What we call 'smartness', or 'actual skill' is the product of some degree of native intelligence and the amound of time and energy spent developing that intelligence in a particular area via diligent effort.
- cevn 4y agoExactly, 'smartness' is meaningless. You can accomplish x task with y practice, applies to any task.
- lliamander 4y agoExcept that smart people need less y to learn almost any x, which is part of what it means to be smart.
- arethuza 4y agoI would add that some of the stupidest things I've seen people do were actually done by people who were, by any objective measure, extremely smart - either from hubris or general otherworldliness....
- lliamander 4y agoYour anecdote doesn't really prove anything. "Intelligent" doesn't mean "free of character flaws" or "happy" or "wealthy". Meanwhile, intelligence research continues to be one of the more fruitful (and reliable) fields of the social sciences
- photochemsyn 4y agoThat's also a trainable skill, learning how to learn new concepts quickly. Here is where many people report LLMs like ChatGPT are a huge time-saving boost. This might also be an either-or situation - i.e. some people specialize in the ability to quickly grasp a wide variety of knowledge at a relatively shallow level, others specialize in in-depth knowledge of a particular subject, and it's impossible to be really good at both.
- lliamander 4y ago> That's also a trainable skill, learning how to learn new concepts quickly Maybe to a limited extent, but most of the difference is likely natural ability.
- zikduruqe 4y agoSmart is knowing botanically a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
- wcedmisten 4y agoSmart is knowing that Frankenstein isn't the monster. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is the monster.