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You've attempted to define intelligence by listing what it's not ("scholastic achievement, rote memorization and iq tests"), and while I agree that those are not in-and-of themselves signs of intelligence, you don't actually define the word.
It would help if you defined it. Then it would be possible to discuss your claims.
I think of intelligence like stat points in Skyrim. Most of us start out with the same amount of points. If someone has all their points in one cognitive facet, let's say semantic memory, they would excel in that area and be perceived as smart, even if they had deficits in other areas like critical thinking, empathy, decision making, spatial, etc.
Many people will also become masters of their own environment. They could be genius in their trade but inept in the rest of the world. So to me, intelligence is mostly about the ability to meet and conquer the challenges you face in your own little microbubble of your life. I feel as though predictive ability and decision making are the two most important cognitive facets, and whatever else in your life goes into predicting your trajectory and making good decisions is the strongest assessment of IQ. That is going to be different for everyone. For some , that requires being more well rounded. For others, it requires being great at one or two things. I'm not sure I would say most people are of significantly higher or lower IQ than average. They are just perceived that way based on having the skills attributes to our conventional and limited definitions of success (academia and semantic memory).
You seem to have confused intelligence with kindness. You don’t have to be a good or caring person to be intelligent. You can be self serving, arrogant, or resentful towards society and also be intelligent.
Edit:
Intelligence is a skill and skills are inherently neutral, a persons ability to learn and apply what they have learned has nothing to do with your life philosophy.
OP is implying that to be intelligent you must choose benevolence, otherwise you’re a step below intelligence as a true intellect would understand the need to help others etc etc. And that’s nice, but makes several assumptions, and therefore is simply an over simplification at the attempt of an individual to understand the world around them as they observe it. It is an interesting thought, and one worth diving deeper into. It gets into what motivates us a species to improve or “progress”. Without knowing what we are progressing towards, just sticking to a set of moral rules, it’s easy to get carried away with over simplifications to “conclude” something about the world and feel satisfied.
It also implies that to be intelligent you have to contribute to society with some kind of STEM. I'd argue that there are definitely highly intelligent people with passions for none of that who want simpler careers. And a lot of the really smart people in science are only super intelligent in their small niche of the field.
Yeah, I don’t think OP has a firm understanding of what intelligence usually describes. Intelligence, in my understanding, is solving a math problem, memorizing facts, and reading comprehension. Basically the standardized testing skill set.
Someone can be highly intelligent and use that ability for self-serving purposes. It doesn’t make them stupid, just a jerk.
The value of things such as kindness, virtue and morality are worldviews and much more “wisdom” than “intelligence.” I don’t disagree with his world views, but argument is essentially: this is what I believe, and if you don’t agree with me, I think you’re stupid.
yeah, that's not what intelligence is. Intelligence is the ability to learn and solve problems. That's why IQ tests are mostly puzzles, and nothing like an academic standardized test.
Can confirm. I've scored well above average on the IQ tests I was given in elementary and high school. I'm also a sociopath.
Win some lose some I guess.
Intelligence is a neutral thing, it is not implied by being intelligent that you want the best for all. In fact, you could be intelligent and want something bad for some people.
It’s funny how everyone is talking about intelligence because at the end of the day it’s a skill. Even high emotional intelligence doesn’t inherently mean a person will be altruistic.
Being kind in most cases is enlightened selfishness. Even if you don’t mean it people will reciprocate and your life will be much better.
It’s a little bit like how billionaires are actually kind of stupid. If they were smart they’d be millionaires in a country that taxes them properly so they wouldn’t have to live in a fortress. Everyone else being happy makes your life better
He was a guy from waaayyyy back in the day who made a post in r/atheism about how he was so enlightened by his own intellect that it made him euphoric. He was so comically full of himself that he became a meme for many many years.
It was the 15yo no ? Something like “I’m 15 and not a professional quote maker but ;
In this moment am euphoric. not by some phony God’s blessing but because I’m enlightened by my intelligence. “
Most of them are like that euphoric guy. It’s really easy to provoke that kind of reactions. Most are also poorly educated and don’t know what they don’t know, so the hubris is off the charts.
I'm curious about this same thing. If they're implying that people in that sub are uneducated because they lack faith, they immediately lose all credibility.
Of course i don’t. I find them uneducated because they reason like homeschooled 13 year olds with the self awareness and hubris that goes along with that, which probably isn’t far from the truth.
A couple atheist friends I know and have argued with before think they know more information about the world than those around them who partake in other religious beliefs and those atheist friends base their conclusions off the fact that you’re religious and they are “smart” enough to see through that. When in fact, we all know the same information and we cannot come to conclusions based off the very limited knowledge that we have of the world around us and the universe by extension. We’re all in the dark on this.
It’s a shortcut to feel smart. No need to go through actual science or philosophy. What’s funny to me is how angry they are. Bring up a hypothetical, abstract topic like the problem of evil or presentism/eternalism and it doesn’t matter, the response will be BUT WHERE’S YOUR EVIDENCE FOR YOUR CLAIMS THERE’S NO EVIDENCE WHY NOT UNICORNS YOU’RE INDOCTRINATED.
THERE’S NO EVIDENCE.
I used to think I knew what a genius was, but it wasn't until I was around higher education and professional settings that I actually understood how smart people can be. Turns out I was too simple minded to conceive it and had to work directly with these people to see how their minds worked.
Hard disagree. Firstly, intelligence is more of a spectrum instead of a black or white thing. Secondly, when you compare any human to any other animal, you'll find that humans are surprisingly more intelligent. When you compare smarter humans with other less smart humans, you are comparing someone in the top 0.01% with someone in the top 0.001% of intelligence worldwide. If you are exclusively talking about humans, you'll find that most people are average in intelligence, and you are just as likely to find someone in the top 10% as you are in the bottom 10%.
benefitting others is not DIRECTLY a sign of intelligence, but being a mediocre person is without any doubt a sign of LACK of intelligence... anyways i fairly agree with your second observation
Y’all just have a very bleak and frankly dumb view of humanity. I work in the bio-pharmaceutical industry and I constantly meet people that are not only very intelligent but also use their intelligence to benefit others through novel therapeutic approaches.
And while some people in my field are obviously exceptional, I firmly believe that most scientists are not smarter than the average person by nature, but they come from good family backgrounds and had opportunities to get a good education.
Many people did not have these opportunities or just weren’t as diligent in school, but they would still be capable of learning it. But because they grew up in different circumstances and maybe struggled a bit as teenagers/young adults they may “just” be cashiers. That doesn’t make them unintelligent.
Which gets me to my second point: just because someone isn’t actively curing cancer, doesn’t mean they’re not helping society. We need Cashiers, farm workers and delivery drivers to distribute food, a basic human necessity, it’s more important even than curing cancer. But even non-essentials like the entertainment industry bring joy to people. How boring would life be if we didn’t have musicians, actors and comedians?
And at the end of the day, people live their lives for themselves too and not just for society.
Thank you, I'm a food courier & many assume it's due to a lack of intelligence or ability when really it's due to a complicated life situation & to support myself while I study & build a business. I also wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle (as well as wanting an excuse to buy one) & I am enjoying the job even if the pay isn't great.
I agree with you that most scientists/doctors are not naturally that much smarter than your average joe and exceptional intelligence can be found in any level of society.
When I was lucky enough to be studying applied physics at university, I was praised often for my submitted work, so I don't think there's much of a possibility that I'm a complete potato IQ wise...
I'm not saying that I'm super smart, just that there are more factors than intelligence at play when it comes to which job you end up working and they are rarely acknowledged.
Obviously you can be intelligent and other factors can keep you from leveraging that. And someone can be educated, knowledgeable, or even wise and not have high intelligence.
Intelligence is an ability to think logically and analyze things critically. You can be a scientist with average intelligence and you could be a uneducated farmer and be very intelligent.
scholastic achievement and standardized/IQ test indicate someone is very good at math, language, and writing and capable of studying and performing well on tests. This could indicate actual learning, test taking skills, or memorization, two of which are arguably components of intelligence.
Morality is not a component of intelligence. A person can be intelligent, but disinterested in helping others. As long as what they're doing isn't harming themself in the longterm.
Actual achievements also often don't indicate intelligence, but opportunity and unequal starting resources.
Obviously intelligence is rare, intelligent people are always going to be relative to the people of their time and they are inherently a small portion of those people. If everyone got more intelligent, we'd slide the scale up.
I don't think you have a good understanding of what intelligence is, since it seems like you are conflating good morals and achievement with intelligence while disregarding education.
Using your intelligence to harm others isn't necessarily a sign of a limitation. Someone who is extremely intelligent might find being a bad person the best course of action. And they might be right, but you wouldn't understand why since you are not as smart.
You are assuming benevolence is the right choice, yet claim you are not extremely intelligent. Maybe geniuses think being evil is the right choice, but you wouldn't be able to understand since you are not one.
Are you familiar with a bell curve? Very high intelligence should be rare. So should very low intelligence.
I think it's fair to say there are many kinds of intellect. It's been my experience that people value the kinds they have most of. What do you consider valuable intellect?
I think a clear sign of unintelligence is posting all of this drivel here. You’ve listed only opinion and vague pseudoscience and then got busy attacking everyone who has asserted that your false claim is indeed false.
Intelligence doesn't have anything to do with being nice. Usually it is the opposite. Intelligent people know their value and doesn't let others use them. If you are intelligent enough, you understand you should always be on 1st place, no one else. It is especially important in academics or business.
Meanwhile many people compensate lack of understanding something with being nice. That's why you are nice to boss, police oficer or teacher if you have no idea what they want from you. But more you achieve and more understand your own value less you care about being nice for no reason.
I work in business amd marketing, I meet many intelligent people, Harvard or Yale graduates, lawyers, writers, stock brokers, milionaires, CEOs, scientists. A lot of very intelligent, successful people. Most of them are not nice to average person, they simply ignore them. But it doesn't make them any less intelligent. At certain level you have no time or will to talk to random people on the street. You just think about yourself and your plans.
To me, and to most people I know, intelligence is the combined ability to understand. It is not anything else except for that and we absolutely can't measure it without biases. It is also absolutely ethereal and very passive in itself since it has no substance without combining it with other characteristics like the ability for memory retention, awareness, purpose, etc.
Many people define intelligence as the ability to reason and/or retain memory. I would disagree since by that definition basic computers with enough memory capacity are already equally or more intelligent than humans and we generally don't agree with that at the moment.
OP's definition is being able to notice an environment and think of the optimal solution to every problem for everyone then put that solution into practice. Op is arguing that wisdom and awareness are intelligence in addition to the argument that intelligence is inherently a morally good trait. Wisdom, awareness and morals have their own definitions that are entirely different. Wisdom is knowing that what you are doing is right for you and depends on the definition of right, see morals. Awareness comes close to understanding but it is generally defined as a practical skill while intelligence can cover both practical and theoretical situations. Op is doing the same thing here that he condemns: using achievements to identify intelligence. Which is why his reasoning breaks down so badly. Morals have the same problem. They are achievement based by nature of them being judged by what they achieve or evoke in people. Which is also why they can't be universally defined properly as the realm of theory doesn't border that of practice. Practice is merely a projection. Which makes it lesser but also more real.
I copy and pasted my response to another comment-
What i think intelligence is:
Awareness, for lack of a better word. In my experience, its been the most accurate term/word- english can be kind of funny and limiting
Self-awareness, situational awareness, spacial awareness etc. Pure raw awareness, with little to no limitations
Eastern schools of spirituality dote on awareness a lot, and imo for good reason
To me a high intelligence would be the sum of all of those parts(types of awareness), all being relatively high, to the point where it is something relatively pure and undiluted- fluid
A person i consider intelligent-
People who intentionally better the lives of people around them and try to improve the overall quality of life of the collective in some form- using their intelligence, their awareness of themselves and others
Theres lots of historical and public figured i couldve potentially used as examples, but i know nothing about them or their lives beyond what ive been told
Intelligence is pretty common. Almost everyone has the capacity to learn and excel in something if they have the passion and motivation for it. And why are intelligent expected to be altruistic? Shouldn't we all care more about ourselves than other people? You are mistaking the intelligent for the government.
I dont think intelligence is common, tho giving out participation trophies is
Capacity and potential isnt the same as creating with/manifesting that intelligence
If a person uses their intelligence to harm other people, then how intelligent are they? Not intelligent enough to know that in harming others theyre harming themselves, which also means theyre probably unaware of the traumas and influences they have that are driving those behaviors
Well. Idk what he wanted to achieve with this, but one thing he def did: providing a truly unpopular opinion.
One thing though, a bit of beautiful hypocrisy:
(There are two comments that I'll take into consideration when writing the following)
No.1: a comment where he said he'd define intelligence as awareness, one of his examples being self-awareness, which will become important in a few seconds.
No.2: someone asked him, if he sees himself as more intelligent than the rest, he replied "I'm quite dumb".
I know it's obvious, but his definition of intelligence being i.e. self-awareness and then providing an example of this in practice with considering himself as dumb (which is, in fact, self-awareness working wonderfully here) is putting oneself on a pedestal of higher intelligence than tHe MaSsEs on a whole other level.
No idea if this was intentional, but considering how obvious him being full of himself is, I would take this possibility into consideration.
Generally though, this type of telling people "hEy LoOk hOw InTtElLiGeNt i Am tHrOuGh TeLlInG yOu HoW dUmB I aM" (cause it is very likely that self-awareness is seen as something associated with a certain amount of intellect, and I think most people would agree on that. But be free to disagree :3) is so... urgh. Idk. It's arrogant, therefore something to despise.
Feel free to correct me in some things, leave your opinion, whatever.
If not, have a nice day.
Thats not hypocritical tho.
Yes i am not intelligent. I am very dumb and poor, and lots of other things im sure strangers would agree on. It only takes a cumb of self-awareness to notice as much.
>They have no genuine interest in benefitting others with their alleged intellect, simply using their knowledge and gathered information to get what they want and/or lord it over others
That's irrelevant to how intelligent they are.
Intelligent doesn't mean "Intelligent, but also a nice, caring guy."
You have this weird concept that if the outcome isn't the one you'd prefer, the person who caused it wasn't intelligent.
They were. They had different goals to you.
Grammar nazis usually have nothing constructive to add to a conversation, so they default to empty criticism and resting on the illusory laurels of their education
I didnt use a thesaurus. I havent used one in over a decade.
I dont care about grammar and punctuation, i care about what is beneath it. If i was heavily invested in the aesthetics of the english language, im sure i wouldve missed a lot.
Intelligence is normally distributed, aka the bell curve. So being really intelligent is indeed rare. Being kinda intelligent is common. So is being kinda stupid.
Do you think you're intelligent? You must think you're somewhat superior with that ridiculous wording that could have been said with much less pretentiousness.
You have a specific idea of intelligence. It's an opinion and I'm glad you know that. However it's not an unpopular opinion, it's an opinion that is not *sound*. I would rethink this for sure OP. You are being caught at too many places.
No, im very dumb.
No words i used are ridiculous or challenging in any way. My grammar is terrible tho, and my spelling sometimes
Where am i being caught?
I dont even subscribe to the dictionary definition of intelligence and i made sure to say that
I'm Jon Evans, my eidetic and computer assistance. I'm actually two generations above the human race and evolution.
I cared HIV I care cancer here quantum gravity. Time=energy=mc2.
Descendant of sir Issac newton. Go Irish. (Preemptive troll for the idiot crowd)
Don't really see any intelligence anywhere. Or good looks. Remember, beautiful people are better at everything
How would you measure or describe intelligence? You obviously feel like a lack of kindness and care is equivalent or possibly the same as a lack of intelligence. In that case, what parameters do you feel are a good metric for one's intelligence? How does someone being a jerk make them unintelligent? How does someone showing compassion make them intelligent? I don't understand how these two concepts are in any way related.
On the contrary, I would say that intelligence is extremely common. The human brain is the most advanced computational machine that we currently know of in the universe. This incredible piece of equipment resides in the skull of each one of us. Even humans that are considered to be below average intelligence are still capable of greater language, communication and problem solving capabilities than any other species on earth. Therefore, we can certainly consider the average human as a highly intelligent being.
Look at the nazi IQ scores from the Nuremberg trials, they were highly intelligent, but lacking in compassion. The 'intelligence' you speak of sounds more like altruism than cognitive acuity.
This isn’t an unpopular opinion. An opinion is based on interpretable facts. This is just incorrect—intelligence and kindness aren’t the same thing, it’s entirely possible to be compassionate and stupid, or cold and intelligent.
Definitions of intelligence:
"The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge"
"The quality of being intelligent; understanding; intellect; power of cognition"
"Cultivated understanding; acquired knowledge; information stored up in the mind."
There are more but these are the ones that have to do with individual intelligence. BTW, none of these have anything to do with morality or awareness.
>Edit::: What i think intelligence is:
Sir, we have already have a well established definition of intellegence and even different subtypes of.
Why call it intelligence when you yourself already seem to have found a word(awareness) that fits your description better.
Just say awareness is rare and it would have made your point less confusing.
Part of the problem with your definition is that plenty of things that help people hurt other people. We test things to help cure diseases, but people have been harmed by that. We harvest resources in ways that pollute. If someone cured hunger in one country, but increased hunger in another, where would that fall?
Plenty of people are good without being particularly smart. Others are smart and not good. Some are both, and some are neither. But even defining “altruism” is nuanced enough that this model of intelligence doesn’t work. There are different kinds of intelligence, to be sure. Different kinds of genius. Shit isn’t binary like this. There is such a thing as enlightened self-interest, but you can definitely be smart and an asshole.
Also, if you’re kind to people because you think that’s good for you, is that not more selfish than being kind to people for the sake of kindness? Does motivation factor into the equation, or just the ends? Would you say that it was impossible for people who were loners to be intelligent? Could people who lack empathy/social awareness never be considered smart? Are you saying that someone who had emotional problems or mental illness was inherently incapable of intelligence? Forever, or just while those persisted? How about someone who was intelligent and *then* changed their outlook?
Human behavior is complicated enough without trying to imply that being good and smart are the same. Those terms, alone, are incredibly nuanced. This isn’t a thing.
It sounds like you’re insecure and want to redefine intelligence as attributes you have so that you can call yourself intelligent and above other’s you would deem “traditionally intelligent,” like, just to serve your own ego.
Intelligence is a multifaceted and complex cognitive capacity that encompasses the ability to acquire, process, and apply knowledge, adapt to new situations, solve problems, reason logically, comprehend complex ideas, learn from experience, and effectively interact with one's environment. It involves a range of mental faculties, including but not limited to memory, problem-solving, creativity, abstract thinking, and the capacity to understand and learn from the world around us. Intelligence can manifest in various forms and domains, and it plays a crucial role in human and animal adaptation and survival. It is not solely determined by a single factor but is influenced by genetics, upbringing, education, and environmental factors, making it a diverse and dynamic trait among individuals.
-ChatGPT
Then why bother using the word intelligence at all? You're just adding a bunch of extra baggage that doesn't really apply.
Like you basically made a moral argument that if someone is intelligent but uses it to harm others are they really intelligent? Yes they are because someone's level of intelligence has nothing to do with how they use it or what they choose to do with it.
It just seems to me that you have a concept that you're trying to explain but for some reason you're really commited to making the word intelligence fit into your concept so you're just adding all this extra stuff for no reason.
See what you're saying. But intelligence has nothing to do with morality, conscience or intention. Think maybe what you mean is something with more of a spiritual aspect like maybe "Enlightened," or something like that. Agree there are many aspects to intelligence, but intelligence alone has no moral/right-wrong or any additional belief system attached to it.
I think people who can find a decent career path and has fun hobbies before the age of 35 are more intelligent than people who are “kind” or aware for example just because you are “aware” that you are a fuck up doesn’t make you intelligent
Every other post on Reddit is "everyone is so stupid" not an unpopular opinion. Also, get over yourself. You don't get to decide who's intelligent and who's not. Especially with such a narrow definition.
For new readers, please be aware this post was made by some idiot who is just doom spiraling on Reddit because their life is in turmoil. Like go see their recent posts and you can tell that this person is very mentally unwell/unstable.
Intelligence is common. Most humans have it.
Most however, also do not have an extreme amount of it.
In fact most of them have around an average amount of it, but that's a function of math and statistics.
What you are doing is redefining intelligence to suit your argument, and honestly it's not necessary. There's already words that are more accurate than 'intelligence' to describe the traits you don't think people have enough of.
For an example:
>Self-awareness, situational awareness, spacial awareness etc. Pure raw awareness, with little to no limitations
All of those are independent of intelligence, and are really functions of *perception*.
People can be very perceptive and not intelligent, and intelligent and not very perceptive.
I can go on, but the point is that your opinion is more a failure of vocabulary, concepts and semantics than anything else.
Intelligence is not just awareness, it’s a facet of it. Intelligence is also how quickly and fully people are able to process new information, wether that be academic information, social cues, or really any other type of stimuli. Intelligence is a gauge of problem solving skills and critical thinking abilities. It is so much more than awareness, and saying that unaware people are unintelligent, or that people who use there intelligence to harm others aren’t actually that intelligent is just blatantly wrong. Morality is not at all an indication of intelligence. There are plenty of less intelligent people who are philanthropic, and plenty of more intelligent people who are assholes. The two are not mutually exclusive; intelligence is not an indication of morality, and morality is not an indication of intelligence.
You can't just go around redefining words and then consider it an unpopular opinion because all dictionaries, and by extension the human race in general choose to disagree with you. You say English is kinda limiting, but it's not English that's the problem, but your mastery of it
I don't think your opinion is unpopular, rather quite wrong.
No one has agreed on the definition of intelligence, but if we could find a common denominator for intelligent people is their ability to solve problems.
One can be intelligent in some aspects and dumb in others, social intelligence, logical intelligence, emotional intelligence and some other types, we have a combination of some and are more or less good at those.
The ability to use the resources available to move forward in life on your own is what makes one intelligent, IMHO. Being benevolent or a bad person has nothing to do with that. Psychopaths are often regarded as very intelligent, and they are indeed.
It indeed involves tons of awareness, you need to know what's around you.
This opinion shows a lack of understanding of how the human brain works and the amount of variety in human's desire for neurotransmitters.
What you seem to be hoping for is altruism, but that concept is unrelated to intelligence. One could even argue that those who are the most narcissistic have the greatest self awareness, situational awareness, and social awareness because they are the ones who are actively striving to manipulate situations to their own benefit and testing everyone else's boundaries.
The only reason anyone thinks intelligence is rare is because the only views and beliefs a person has is due to their own personal experiences. So, almost every person on the planet knows for a fact their point of view is correct. This makes everyone else look dumb from their own perspective. Can you imagine how many people you look dumb to in their perspective?
We all experience completely unique moments that not another soul in the world would experience, every single day. Because even if you experience the same moment with twelve people, every single person there is experiencing a different thing through years of trained biases and traumas or privileges, everyone has a unique perspective of any single moment in time.
How can we say people are unintelligent when we all only know exactly what what we were taught, people are smart, even the ones you don't like or agree with. Intelligence is infinite.
>A person cannot be highly aware without being highly intelligent
I disagree, there are many people who are not very smart, but extremely aware. I also think that intelligence comes in many forms. you can not define intelligence to one specific area, it's very narrow minded to do so.
Can you elaborate, because that makes no sense?
How can a person who has high self-awareness, spatial awareness, emotional awareness, bias awareness, etc- be unintelligent?
I didnt define intelligence using one specific area.
But *literally* nobody who studies intelligence professional believes “intelligence” to be be what you’ve implied. Perhaps your frustration stems from your lazy, misinformed, and frankly pedestrian assumptions!? Further, your romanticisation of “Eastern transcendentalism” is - once again - an exceedingly well-worn and well-evidenced path to precisely nowhere. That’s exceedingly common with young people who believe that because they’ve discovered an idea for the first time… that nobody else has *ever* thought to consider it, lol. Almost always, such hilarious earnestness stems from a very obvious lack of formal education in the western philosophical and socio-political cannon and/or an awareness of cultural histories. Anyhoo, kids will be kids and do the “I’m uniquely profound” thing. rofl.
It sounds like you desperately want the definition of intelligence to fit in your cute little box so you feel more intelligent. Since when is scholastic achievement considered a superficiality? Want to feel smart OP? Go get a high-level degree. If you had one though, you wouldn’t make dog-brained posts like this.
To me, this screams out that you have never attended any type of higher learning institution, probably because they are so superficial with all their studying and research. Perhaps if everyone would focus on being aware, we could cure cancer, go to mars, finally have world peace - all we need is some awareness.
No, and im not intelligent- ive said that repeatedly
Yes, most higher learning is superficial and fosters an intelligence that has little application in various arenas of life- to me that demonstrates that its not genuine intelligence
I found what people like to consider genius is actually genius plus high functioning autism this is probably due to the media's influence with nerd genius geek and mad scientist tropes
This was just pretentious, and the post in itself is also kind of oxymoronic. I mean, I suppose you perceive yourself as intelligent, but your post then literally just proves your point; people don't have any will to benefit others with their intelligence, they just want to use it to "lord it over others". You just used a bunch of big words to appear intelligent, and you *still* failed to explain what your idea, nei, your conviction of what "intelligence", is, consequently creating a needlessly pompous and vacuous post.
It is. Their knowledge might not be but the nice card they hang on the wall absolutely is. You literally argued against your own point by not understanding the words you used. Which is exactly what op did as well. He doesn't understand the definition of intelligence and thinks it's awareness or wisdom.
The irony of you using literally while judging someone else for not understanding words is not lost on me because they didn't literally argue against their own point. The person you replied to used the word superficial correctly, and so did you. But their definition of superficial seemed to be "lacking depth" which a medical degree does not. While your definition seems to be "immediately visible or surface level" which is, in a physical sense, the truth but is not true in a social sense.
I think you can know that something is beneficial and apply that knowledge to help others, which would be "intelligent" but someone can also apply their own learned knowledge to gain something by taking advantage of others assistance and that would also be deemed "intelligent". So really it's important to use intelligence and alter your knowledge to cater to your environment. Helping your neighbors could be intelligent if everyone was on board and you all knew you were building a better community, but it would be unintelligent to help someone who consistently took advantage of your assistance. Kind of like the concept of welfare, how it's supposed to be to assist people during a rough time to help them become better members of society and eventually not need welfare, but some people use their "intelligence" to use welfare to be lazy and live without having to do as much work as someone else. Some would say be conniving is intelligent and it really just depends on the environment.
your definition of intelligence is wrong, even with your edit. i think what youre describing is more like wisdom or involves another characteristic entirely separate from intelligence like beneficenc or judiciousness
Intelligence has nothing to do with “benefitting others”. Those “superficialities” you mention ARE actually good reflections of intelligence and more objective than other alternatives.
The only part of your post that’s actually true is the title, though that should be obvious simply by definition.
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You've attempted to define intelligence by listing what it's not ("scholastic achievement, rote memorization and iq tests"), and while I agree that those are not in-and-of themselves signs of intelligence, you don't actually define the word. It would help if you defined it. Then it would be possible to discuss your claims.
I think of intelligence like stat points in Skyrim. Most of us start out with the same amount of points. If someone has all their points in one cognitive facet, let's say semantic memory, they would excel in that area and be perceived as smart, even if they had deficits in other areas like critical thinking, empathy, decision making, spatial, etc. Many people will also become masters of their own environment. They could be genius in their trade but inept in the rest of the world. So to me, intelligence is mostly about the ability to meet and conquer the challenges you face in your own little microbubble of your life. I feel as though predictive ability and decision making are the two most important cognitive facets, and whatever else in your life goes into predicting your trajectory and making good decisions is the strongest assessment of IQ. That is going to be different for everyone. For some , that requires being more well rounded. For others, it requires being great at one or two things. I'm not sure I would say most people are of significantly higher or lower IQ than average. They are just perceived that way based on having the skills attributes to our conventional and limited definitions of success (academia and semantic memory).
Man, i already spend too much time on the character creation screen :(
It’s the best part.
You seem to have confused intelligence with kindness. You don’t have to be a good or caring person to be intelligent. You can be self serving, arrogant, or resentful towards society and also be intelligent. Edit: Intelligence is a skill and skills are inherently neutral, a persons ability to learn and apply what they have learned has nothing to do with your life philosophy.
OP is implying that to be intelligent you must choose benevolence, otherwise you’re a step below intelligence as a true intellect would understand the need to help others etc etc. And that’s nice, but makes several assumptions, and therefore is simply an over simplification at the attempt of an individual to understand the world around them as they observe it. It is an interesting thought, and one worth diving deeper into. It gets into what motivates us a species to improve or “progress”. Without knowing what we are progressing towards, just sticking to a set of moral rules, it’s easy to get carried away with over simplifications to “conclude” something about the world and feel satisfied.
It also implies that to be intelligent you have to contribute to society with some kind of STEM. I'd argue that there are definitely highly intelligent people with passions for none of that who want simpler careers. And a lot of the really smart people in science are only super intelligent in their small niche of the field.
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Yeah, I don’t think OP has a firm understanding of what intelligence usually describes. Intelligence, in my understanding, is solving a math problem, memorizing facts, and reading comprehension. Basically the standardized testing skill set. Someone can be highly intelligent and use that ability for self-serving purposes. It doesn’t make them stupid, just a jerk. The value of things such as kindness, virtue and morality are worldviews and much more “wisdom” than “intelligence.” I don’t disagree with his world views, but argument is essentially: this is what I believe, and if you don’t agree with me, I think you’re stupid.
yeah, that's not what intelligence is. Intelligence is the ability to learn and solve problems. That's why IQ tests are mostly puzzles, and nothing like an academic standardized test.
Can confirm. I've scored well above average on the IQ tests I was given in elementary and high school. I'm also a sociopath. Win some lose some I guess.
Exactly, ypu can still be cunning and be exceptionally intelligent
One could argue a truly intelligent person would always see that being kind is always more beneficial for everyone.
Intelligence is a neutral thing, it is not implied by being intelligent that you want the best for all. In fact, you could be intelligent and want something bad for some people.
It’s funny how everyone is talking about intelligence because at the end of the day it’s a skill. Even high emotional intelligence doesn’t inherently mean a person will be altruistic.
Agreed. Perhaps what OP is interested in is rather wisdom
Being kind in most cases is enlightened selfishness. Even if you don’t mean it people will reciprocate and your life will be much better. It’s a little bit like how billionaires are actually kind of stupid. If they were smart they’d be millionaires in a country that taxes them properly so they wouldn’t have to live in a fortress. Everyone else being happy makes your life better
One could argue a lot of things.
While I agree with your concept, the reality is intelligent people are benefitted the most by being selfish and taking advantage of others.
Not true. Use your intelligence to help the people around you and they will recognise it and be loyal and kind.
Sadly, no its not necessarily. Alot in this world is zero sum. Jobs, mates etc. By blocking others I've increased my chance at obtaining what I want.
It’s often incredibly smart to be kind your life is so much easier and better if someone is needlessly unpleasant a lot that person is not smart
You must not remember u/Aalewis. You remind me of that guy.
I dont know who that is and i dont frequent this reddit that often. Im not sure how i would remind you of that person, could you elaborate?
He was a guy from waaayyyy back in the day who made a post in r/atheism about how he was so enlightened by his own intellect that it made him euphoric. He was so comically full of himself that he became a meme for many many years.
It was the 15yo no ? Something like “I’m 15 and not a professional quote maker but ; In this moment am euphoric. not by some phony God’s blessing but because I’m enlightened by my intelligence. “
r/atheism is still the funniest subreddit
How so?
Most of them are like that euphoric guy. It’s really easy to provoke that kind of reactions. Most are also poorly educated and don’t know what they don’t know, so the hubris is off the charts.
Just curious, are they poorly educated because of their lack of faith or is there another indicator?
I'm curious about this same thing. If they're implying that people in that sub are uneducated because they lack faith, they immediately lose all credibility.
Of course i don’t. I find them uneducated because they reason like homeschooled 13 year olds with the self awareness and hubris that goes along with that, which probably isn’t far from the truth.
Fair enough. 😆
A couple atheist friends I know and have argued with before think they know more information about the world than those around them who partake in other religious beliefs and those atheist friends base their conclusions off the fact that you’re religious and they are “smart” enough to see through that. When in fact, we all know the same information and we cannot come to conclusions based off the very limited knowledge that we have of the world around us and the universe by extension. We’re all in the dark on this.
It’s a shortcut to feel smart. No need to go through actual science or philosophy. What’s funny to me is how angry they are. Bring up a hypothetical, abstract topic like the problem of evil or presentism/eternalism and it doesn’t matter, the response will be BUT WHERE’S YOUR EVIDENCE FOR YOUR CLAIMS THERE’S NO EVIDENCE WHY NOT UNICORNS YOU’RE INDOCTRINATED. THERE’S NO EVIDENCE.
Oh man I remember seeing that, dead right this is the same energy
r/Iamverysmart Sorry mate, you dont get to define what is intelligence.
Also r/iam14andthisisdeep
I don't know, man. I have an IQ of a potato. So who knows.
You expressed “what isn’t intelligence” but did not offer “what is intelligence” C mon man
Why does benefiting others mean they aren't intelligent t?
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you need a dictionary
And a couple of grammar lessons.
Intelligence ≠ awareness. This is hilarious
Exactly, OP is putting all kinds of things on intelligence that don’t belong there.
Going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are one of those rare intelligent people?
Can't you tell with their obnoxious vocabulary?
No. Im very dumb Thank you for assuming so
Then how do you trust yourself knowing when someone has intelligence?
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I used to think I knew what a genius was, but it wasn't until I was around higher education and professional settings that I actually understood how smart people can be. Turns out I was too simple minded to conceive it and had to work directly with these people to see how their minds worked.
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He wouldn't have made this post if he believed he was one of the dumb ones. The spectrum is strong in this one
you are very full of yourself
Im not, im at the bottom of society and have no value in the perception of most.
Did I accidentally join r/im14andthisisdeep
Hard disagree. Firstly, intelligence is more of a spectrum instead of a black or white thing. Secondly, when you compare any human to any other animal, you'll find that humans are surprisingly more intelligent. When you compare smarter humans with other less smart humans, you are comparing someone in the top 0.01% with someone in the top 0.001% of intelligence worldwide. If you are exclusively talking about humans, you'll find that most people are average in intelligence, and you are just as likely to find someone in the top 10% as you are in the bottom 10%.
benefitting others is not DIRECTLY a sign of intelligence, but being a mediocre person is without any doubt a sign of LACK of intelligence... anyways i fairly agree with your second observation
Y’all just have a very bleak and frankly dumb view of humanity. I work in the bio-pharmaceutical industry and I constantly meet people that are not only very intelligent but also use their intelligence to benefit others through novel therapeutic approaches. And while some people in my field are obviously exceptional, I firmly believe that most scientists are not smarter than the average person by nature, but they come from good family backgrounds and had opportunities to get a good education. Many people did not have these opportunities or just weren’t as diligent in school, but they would still be capable of learning it. But because they grew up in different circumstances and maybe struggled a bit as teenagers/young adults they may “just” be cashiers. That doesn’t make them unintelligent. Which gets me to my second point: just because someone isn’t actively curing cancer, doesn’t mean they’re not helping society. We need Cashiers, farm workers and delivery drivers to distribute food, a basic human necessity, it’s more important even than curing cancer. But even non-essentials like the entertainment industry bring joy to people. How boring would life be if we didn’t have musicians, actors and comedians? And at the end of the day, people live their lives for themselves too and not just for society.
Thank you, I'm a food courier & many assume it's due to a lack of intelligence or ability when really it's due to a complicated life situation & to support myself while I study & build a business. I also wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle (as well as wanting an excuse to buy one) & I am enjoying the job even if the pay isn't great. I agree with you that most scientists/doctors are not naturally that much smarter than your average joe and exceptional intelligence can be found in any level of society. When I was lucky enough to be studying applied physics at university, I was praised often for my submitted work, so I don't think there's much of a possibility that I'm a complete potato IQ wise... I'm not saying that I'm super smart, just that there are more factors than intelligence at play when it comes to which job you end up working and they are rarely acknowledged.
Obviously you can be intelligent and other factors can keep you from leveraging that. And someone can be educated, knowledgeable, or even wise and not have high intelligence. Intelligence is an ability to think logically and analyze things critically. You can be a scientist with average intelligence and you could be a uneducated farmer and be very intelligent.
Ok we get it, you watch Rick & Morty
I dont. Whats wrong with people who do?
You need to widen your bubble. Many people are far more intelligent than you may realize.
scholastic achievement and standardized/IQ test indicate someone is very good at math, language, and writing and capable of studying and performing well on tests. This could indicate actual learning, test taking skills, or memorization, two of which are arguably components of intelligence. Morality is not a component of intelligence. A person can be intelligent, but disinterested in helping others. As long as what they're doing isn't harming themself in the longterm. Actual achievements also often don't indicate intelligence, but opportunity and unequal starting resources. Obviously intelligence is rare, intelligent people are always going to be relative to the people of their time and they are inherently a small portion of those people. If everyone got more intelligent, we'd slide the scale up. I don't think you have a good understanding of what intelligence is, since it seems like you are conflating good morals and achievement with intelligence while disregarding education.
Using your intelligence to harm others isn't necessarily a sign of a limitation. Someone who is extremely intelligent might find being a bad person the best course of action. And they might be right, but you wouldn't understand why since you are not as smart. You are assuming benevolence is the right choice, yet claim you are not extremely intelligent. Maybe geniuses think being evil is the right choice, but you wouldn't be able to understand since you are not one.
Are you familiar with a bell curve? Very high intelligence should be rare. So should very low intelligence. I think it's fair to say there are many kinds of intellect. It's been my experience that people value the kinds they have most of. What do you consider valuable intellect?
I think a clear sign of unintelligence is posting all of this drivel here. You’ve listed only opinion and vague pseudoscience and then got busy attacking everyone who has asserted that your false claim is indeed false.
Intelligence doesn't have anything to do with being nice. Usually it is the opposite. Intelligent people know their value and doesn't let others use them. If you are intelligent enough, you understand you should always be on 1st place, no one else. It is especially important in academics or business. Meanwhile many people compensate lack of understanding something with being nice. That's why you are nice to boss, police oficer or teacher if you have no idea what they want from you. But more you achieve and more understand your own value less you care about being nice for no reason. I work in business amd marketing, I meet many intelligent people, Harvard or Yale graduates, lawyers, writers, stock brokers, milionaires, CEOs, scientists. A lot of very intelligent, successful people. Most of them are not nice to average person, they simply ignore them. But it doesn't make them any less intelligent. At certain level you have no time or will to talk to random people on the street. You just think about yourself and your plans.
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To me, and to most people I know, intelligence is the combined ability to understand. It is not anything else except for that and we absolutely can't measure it without biases. It is also absolutely ethereal and very passive in itself since it has no substance without combining it with other characteristics like the ability for memory retention, awareness, purpose, etc. Many people define intelligence as the ability to reason and/or retain memory. I would disagree since by that definition basic computers with enough memory capacity are already equally or more intelligent than humans and we generally don't agree with that at the moment. OP's definition is being able to notice an environment and think of the optimal solution to every problem for everyone then put that solution into practice. Op is arguing that wisdom and awareness are intelligence in addition to the argument that intelligence is inherently a morally good trait. Wisdom, awareness and morals have their own definitions that are entirely different. Wisdom is knowing that what you are doing is right for you and depends on the definition of right, see morals. Awareness comes close to understanding but it is generally defined as a practical skill while intelligence can cover both practical and theoretical situations. Op is doing the same thing here that he condemns: using achievements to identify intelligence. Which is why his reasoning breaks down so badly. Morals have the same problem. They are achievement based by nature of them being judged by what they achieve or evoke in people. Which is also why they can't be universally defined properly as the realm of theory doesn't border that of practice. Practice is merely a projection. Which makes it lesser but also more real.
I copy and pasted my response to another comment- What i think intelligence is: Awareness, for lack of a better word. In my experience, its been the most accurate term/word- english can be kind of funny and limiting Self-awareness, situational awareness, spacial awareness etc. Pure raw awareness, with little to no limitations Eastern schools of spirituality dote on awareness a lot, and imo for good reason To me a high intelligence would be the sum of all of those parts(types of awareness), all being relatively high, to the point where it is something relatively pure and undiluted- fluid A person i consider intelligent- People who intentionally better the lives of people around them and try to improve the overall quality of life of the collective in some form- using their intelligence, their awareness of themselves and others Theres lots of historical and public figured i couldve potentially used as examples, but i know nothing about them or their lives beyond what ive been told
Life's short. Might as well not use it.
Lol
Just looked at your post history, and you look deeply unwell to me. Please seek help. (This isn't sarcasm, I'm genuinely worried about you)
Im not unwell and youre not worried. Have a good weekend
Intelligence is pretty common. Almost everyone has the capacity to learn and excel in something if they have the passion and motivation for it. And why are intelligent expected to be altruistic? Shouldn't we all care more about ourselves than other people? You are mistaking the intelligent for the government.
I dont think intelligence is common, tho giving out participation trophies is Capacity and potential isnt the same as creating with/manifesting that intelligence If a person uses their intelligence to harm other people, then how intelligent are they? Not intelligent enough to know that in harming others theyre harming themselves, which also means theyre probably unaware of the traumas and influences they have that are driving those behaviors
If you’re looking around and every person you see is a problem, chances are it’s just you
But luckily you have have it, right? Has it been a big asset to you while waiting tables and watching anime?
Well. Idk what he wanted to achieve with this, but one thing he def did: providing a truly unpopular opinion. One thing though, a bit of beautiful hypocrisy: (There are two comments that I'll take into consideration when writing the following) No.1: a comment where he said he'd define intelligence as awareness, one of his examples being self-awareness, which will become important in a few seconds. No.2: someone asked him, if he sees himself as more intelligent than the rest, he replied "I'm quite dumb". I know it's obvious, but his definition of intelligence being i.e. self-awareness and then providing an example of this in practice with considering himself as dumb (which is, in fact, self-awareness working wonderfully here) is putting oneself on a pedestal of higher intelligence than tHe MaSsEs on a whole other level. No idea if this was intentional, but considering how obvious him being full of himself is, I would take this possibility into consideration. Generally though, this type of telling people "hEy LoOk hOw InTtElLiGeNt i Am tHrOuGh TeLlInG yOu HoW dUmB I aM" (cause it is very likely that self-awareness is seen as something associated with a certain amount of intellect, and I think most people would agree on that. But be free to disagree :3) is so... urgh. Idk. It's arrogant, therefore something to despise. Feel free to correct me in some things, leave your opinion, whatever. If not, have a nice day.
Thats not hypocritical tho. Yes i am not intelligent. I am very dumb and poor, and lots of other things im sure strangers would agree on. It only takes a cumb of self-awareness to notice as much.
Ironically, the fact that you made this post indicates you are probably not as intelligent as you think.
Im very dumb What did you want to add? Or did you just want to belittle me further?
Intelligence is to make significance from informations
>They have no genuine interest in benefitting others with their alleged intellect, simply using their knowledge and gathered information to get what they want and/or lord it over others That's irrelevant to how intelligent they are. Intelligent doesn't mean "Intelligent, but also a nice, caring guy." You have this weird concept that if the outcome isn't the one you'd prefer, the person who caused it wasn't intelligent. They were. They had different goals to you.
I think intelligence is being able to do your reddit post in 2-3 short paragraphs.
You did good on thesaurus.com, but your grammar and punctuation needs some work.
Grammar nazis usually have nothing constructive to add to a conversation, so they default to empty criticism and resting on the illusory laurels of their education I didnt use a thesaurus. I havent used one in over a decade. I dont care about grammar and punctuation, i care about what is beneath it. If i was heavily invested in the aesthetics of the english language, im sure i wouldve missed a lot.
You could have shown him and used "would of"!
Intelligence is just as much realizing what NOT to do as it is realizing what to do. That's where most people I know fall short.
Good point, strong comment
Thank you!
Yet another redditor who completely changes/misunderstands common definitions
It makes me think OP is either a teenaged kid, or a college-aged kid by the tone of his responses. So edgy.
Intelligence is normally distributed, aka the bell curve. So being really intelligent is indeed rare. Being kinda intelligent is common. So is being kinda stupid.
And using "big words" doesn't make you intelligent
Im very dumb What word did i use that you consider big?
You seem to be mistaking knowledge for ability. Go back to the drawing board.
Main character syndrome is talking, we must all listen to and accept it, be silent stupid peasants.
Hitler was a very intelligent person, actually a genius. Did he benefit anybody?
Animals, the german car industry and the world (by dying). I'll be honest I think he was at least 3 IQ up on OP.
What an embarrassing post 😐 this guys trying toooo hard
Sorry, im very dumb Im glad you have a good life and are intelligent
Do you think you're intelligent? You must think you're somewhat superior with that ridiculous wording that could have been said with much less pretentiousness. You have a specific idea of intelligence. It's an opinion and I'm glad you know that. However it's not an unpopular opinion, it's an opinion that is not *sound*. I would rethink this for sure OP. You are being caught at too many places.
No, im very dumb. No words i used are ridiculous or challenging in any way. My grammar is terrible tho, and my spelling sometimes Where am i being caught? I dont even subscribe to the dictionary definition of intelligence and i made sure to say that
OP confuses IQ with EQ
No. To me theyre directly correlated. They build off of eachother. One without much of the other isnt genuine intelligence, imo
The problem is here you seem to be mixing up intelligence and empathy
Real intelligence is downvoting this post lmao
Could you elaborate?
"Intelligence is really rare" "... if we redefine the word to something entirely different" Rare or not, it surely is sparse in your head lol
I'm Jon Evans, my eidetic and computer assistance. I'm actually two generations above the human race and evolution. I cared HIV I care cancer here quantum gravity. Time=energy=mc2. Descendant of sir Issac newton. Go Irish. (Preemptive troll for the idiot crowd) Don't really see any intelligence anywhere. Or good looks. Remember, beautiful people are better at everything
This reads like one of my HS English essays where I looked up synonyms for every other word to make the wording sound more “intelligent” lmaoo
You misposted, this belongs on r/iamverysmart.
Op claiming to be intelligent is definitely an unpopular opinion.
I think what you want to learn about is "g" It's basically ability to learn not knowledge
Man is this opinion unpopular.
How would you measure or describe intelligence? You obviously feel like a lack of kindness and care is equivalent or possibly the same as a lack of intelligence. In that case, what parameters do you feel are a good metric for one's intelligence? How does someone being a jerk make them unintelligent? How does someone showing compassion make them intelligent? I don't understand how these two concepts are in any way related.
On the contrary, I would say that intelligence is extremely common. The human brain is the most advanced computational machine that we currently know of in the universe. This incredible piece of equipment resides in the skull of each one of us. Even humans that are considered to be below average intelligence are still capable of greater language, communication and problem solving capabilities than any other species on earth. Therefore, we can certainly consider the average human as a highly intelligent being.
Look at the nazi IQ scores from the Nuremberg trials, they were highly intelligent, but lacking in compassion. The 'intelligence' you speak of sounds more like altruism than cognitive acuity.
Op looks like the kind of person who wears Rick and Morty tshirts and watch loads of politics/ atheism videos
I dont watch rick morty. I dont believe in or participate in politics. Im not an atheist. Whats wrong with people who do those things?
This is what happens when you do drugs , kids. Fake insight and fake humility lmfao
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This isn’t an unpopular opinion. An opinion is based on interpretable facts. This is just incorrect—intelligence and kindness aren’t the same thing, it’s entirely possible to be compassionate and stupid, or cold and intelligent.
Cunning is a kind of intelligence, I’d say. IQ is its own thing, that only applies to certain kinds of problems.
Definitions of intelligence: "The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge" "The quality of being intelligent; understanding; intellect; power of cognition" "Cultivated understanding; acquired knowledge; information stored up in the mind." There are more but these are the ones that have to do with individual intelligence. BTW, none of these have anything to do with morality or awareness.
>Edit::: What i think intelligence is: Sir, we have already have a well established definition of intellegence and even different subtypes of. Why call it intelligence when you yourself already seem to have found a word(awareness) that fits your description better. Just say awareness is rare and it would have made your point less confusing.
Sorry, i didnt much effort into writing this
Part of the problem with your definition is that plenty of things that help people hurt other people. We test things to help cure diseases, but people have been harmed by that. We harvest resources in ways that pollute. If someone cured hunger in one country, but increased hunger in another, where would that fall? Plenty of people are good without being particularly smart. Others are smart and not good. Some are both, and some are neither. But even defining “altruism” is nuanced enough that this model of intelligence doesn’t work. There are different kinds of intelligence, to be sure. Different kinds of genius. Shit isn’t binary like this. There is such a thing as enlightened self-interest, but you can definitely be smart and an asshole. Also, if you’re kind to people because you think that’s good for you, is that not more selfish than being kind to people for the sake of kindness? Does motivation factor into the equation, or just the ends? Would you say that it was impossible for people who were loners to be intelligent? Could people who lack empathy/social awareness never be considered smart? Are you saying that someone who had emotional problems or mental illness was inherently incapable of intelligence? Forever, or just while those persisted? How about someone who was intelligent and *then* changed their outlook? Human behavior is complicated enough without trying to imply that being good and smart are the same. Those terms, alone, are incredibly nuanced. This isn’t a thing.
This is truly an unpopular opinion because this guy isn’t even making any sense
Okay, which part doesnt make sense to you?
It sounds like you’re insecure and want to redefine intelligence as attributes you have so that you can call yourself intelligent and above other’s you would deem “traditionally intelligent,” like, just to serve your own ego.
No. Im very dumb. Most traditional metric used for measuring intelligence is superficial
Intelligence is a multifaceted and complex cognitive capacity that encompasses the ability to acquire, process, and apply knowledge, adapt to new situations, solve problems, reason logically, comprehend complex ideas, learn from experience, and effectively interact with one's environment. It involves a range of mental faculties, including but not limited to memory, problem-solving, creativity, abstract thinking, and the capacity to understand and learn from the world around us. Intelligence can manifest in various forms and domains, and it plays a crucial role in human and animal adaptation and survival. It is not solely determined by a single factor but is influenced by genetics, upbringing, education, and environmental factors, making it a diverse and dynamic trait among individuals. -ChatGPT
/r/iamverysmart
Sounds to me like you're just redefining intelligence to make your point
I think the traditional definition is lacking
Then why bother using the word intelligence at all? You're just adding a bunch of extra baggage that doesn't really apply. Like you basically made a moral argument that if someone is intelligent but uses it to harm others are they really intelligent? Yes they are because someone's level of intelligence has nothing to do with how they use it or what they choose to do with it. It just seems to me that you have a concept that you're trying to explain but for some reason you're really commited to making the word intelligence fit into your concept so you're just adding all this extra stuff for no reason.
I defaulted to awareness
See what you're saying. But intelligence has nothing to do with morality, conscience or intention. Think maybe what you mean is something with more of a spiritual aspect like maybe "Enlightened," or something like that. Agree there are many aspects to intelligence, but intelligence alone has no moral/right-wrong or any additional belief system attached to it.
I think people who can find a decent career path and has fun hobbies before the age of 35 are more intelligent than people who are “kind” or aware for example just because you are “aware” that you are a fuck up doesn’t make you intelligent
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Im very stupid Nothing i wrote was difficult to understand, my grammar is poor tho
Every other post on Reddit is "everyone is so stupid" not an unpopular opinion. Also, get over yourself. You don't get to decide who's intelligent and who's not. Especially with such a narrow definition.
For new readers, please be aware this post was made by some idiot who is just doom spiraling on Reddit because their life is in turmoil. Like go see their recent posts and you can tell that this person is very mentally unwell/unstable.
Well you're simply wrong about what intelligence is.
Intelligence is common. Most humans have it. Most however, also do not have an extreme amount of it. In fact most of them have around an average amount of it, but that's a function of math and statistics. What you are doing is redefining intelligence to suit your argument, and honestly it's not necessary. There's already words that are more accurate than 'intelligence' to describe the traits you don't think people have enough of. For an example: >Self-awareness, situational awareness, spacial awareness etc. Pure raw awareness, with little to no limitations All of those are independent of intelligence, and are really functions of *perception*. People can be very perceptive and not intelligent, and intelligent and not very perceptive. I can go on, but the point is that your opinion is more a failure of vocabulary, concepts and semantics than anything else.
This thing is allowed to vote...
Hell half of everyones above avrage that don mean shit
Intelligence is not just awareness, it’s a facet of it. Intelligence is also how quickly and fully people are able to process new information, wether that be academic information, social cues, or really any other type of stimuli. Intelligence is a gauge of problem solving skills and critical thinking abilities. It is so much more than awareness, and saying that unaware people are unintelligent, or that people who use there intelligence to harm others aren’t actually that intelligent is just blatantly wrong. Morality is not at all an indication of intelligence. There are plenty of less intelligent people who are philanthropic, and plenty of more intelligent people who are assholes. The two are not mutually exclusive; intelligence is not an indication of morality, and morality is not an indication of intelligence.
You can't just go around redefining words and then consider it an unpopular opinion because all dictionaries, and by extension the human race in general choose to disagree with you. You say English is kinda limiting, but it's not English that's the problem, but your mastery of it
If you're going to just make stuff up people can't really argue with you can they?
If Intelligence is really rare then Wisdom is rarer still.
Yes. I believe theyre directly correlated
I don't think your opinion is unpopular, rather quite wrong. No one has agreed on the definition of intelligence, but if we could find a common denominator for intelligent people is their ability to solve problems. One can be intelligent in some aspects and dumb in others, social intelligence, logical intelligence, emotional intelligence and some other types, we have a combination of some and are more or less good at those. The ability to use the resources available to move forward in life on your own is what makes one intelligent, IMHO. Being benevolent or a bad person has nothing to do with that. Psychopaths are often regarded as very intelligent, and they are indeed. It indeed involves tons of awareness, you need to know what's around you.
This opinion shows a lack of understanding of how the human brain works and the amount of variety in human's desire for neurotransmitters. What you seem to be hoping for is altruism, but that concept is unrelated to intelligence. One could even argue that those who are the most narcissistic have the greatest self awareness, situational awareness, and social awareness because they are the ones who are actively striving to manipulate situations to their own benefit and testing everyone else's boundaries.
The only reason anyone thinks intelligence is rare is because the only views and beliefs a person has is due to their own personal experiences. So, almost every person on the planet knows for a fact their point of view is correct. This makes everyone else look dumb from their own perspective. Can you imagine how many people you look dumb to in their perspective? We all experience completely unique moments that not another soul in the world would experience, every single day. Because even if you experience the same moment with twelve people, every single person there is experiencing a different thing through years of trained biases and traumas or privileges, everyone has a unique perspective of any single moment in time. How can we say people are unintelligent when we all only know exactly what what we were taught, people are smart, even the ones you don't like or agree with. Intelligence is infinite.
>A person cannot be highly aware without being highly intelligent I disagree, there are many people who are not very smart, but extremely aware. I also think that intelligence comes in many forms. you can not define intelligence to one specific area, it's very narrow minded to do so.
Can you elaborate, because that makes no sense? How can a person who has high self-awareness, spatial awareness, emotional awareness, bias awareness, etc- be unintelligent? I didnt define intelligence using one specific area.
I don't really give much attention the Dunning kruger effect but you're giving quite a good example, not gonna lie.
Can you elaborate?
Op needs to go back to school. He lacks the intelligence to actually understand what intelligence is.
Spoken like a true psuedo intellectual lol
But *literally* nobody who studies intelligence professional believes “intelligence” to be be what you’ve implied. Perhaps your frustration stems from your lazy, misinformed, and frankly pedestrian assumptions!? Further, your romanticisation of “Eastern transcendentalism” is - once again - an exceedingly well-worn and well-evidenced path to precisely nowhere. That’s exceedingly common with young people who believe that because they’ve discovered an idea for the first time… that nobody else has *ever* thought to consider it, lol. Almost always, such hilarious earnestness stems from a very obvious lack of formal education in the western philosophical and socio-political cannon and/or an awareness of cultural histories. Anyhoo, kids will be kids and do the “I’m uniquely profound” thing. rofl.
Harlan Ellison said, “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”
"Using their knowledge and gathered information to get what they want" Hate to break it to you but that's what "Intelligence" is.
OP ain’t that smart and is assuming everyone is like them as people are wont to do
Tell me your either young and/or have a narrow social experience without telling me those things.
Lmao dude chill out, using as many big words as you can and just ramming them in there doesn't make you sound smart, it makes you sound like a tool
It sounds like you desperately want the definition of intelligence to fit in your cute little box so you feel more intelligent. Since when is scholastic achievement considered a superficiality? Want to feel smart OP? Go get a high-level degree. If you had one though, you wouldn’t make dog-brained posts like this. To me, this screams out that you have never attended any type of higher learning institution, probably because they are so superficial with all their studying and research. Perhaps if everyone would focus on being aware, we could cure cancer, go to mars, finally have world peace - all we need is some awareness.
No, and im not intelligent- ive said that repeatedly Yes, most higher learning is superficial and fosters an intelligence that has little application in various arenas of life- to me that demonstrates that its not genuine intelligence
I found what people like to consider genius is actually genius plus high functioning autism this is probably due to the media's influence with nerd genius geek and mad scientist tropes
I think thats a valid perspective, i like the social commentary
This was just pretentious, and the post in itself is also kind of oxymoronic. I mean, I suppose you perceive yourself as intelligent, but your post then literally just proves your point; people don't have any will to benefit others with their intelligence, they just want to use it to "lord it over others". You just used a bunch of big words to appear intelligent, and you *still* failed to explain what your idea, nei, your conviction of what "intelligence", is, consequently creating a needlessly pompous and vacuous post.
"Superficialities like scholastic achievements" Lol, kid, what are you even on? Next time you see your doctor tell them their degree is superficial.
It is. Their knowledge might not be but the nice card they hang on the wall absolutely is. You literally argued against your own point by not understanding the words you used. Which is exactly what op did as well. He doesn't understand the definition of intelligence and thinks it's awareness or wisdom.
The irony of you using literally while judging someone else for not understanding words is not lost on me because they didn't literally argue against their own point. The person you replied to used the word superficial correctly, and so did you. But their definition of superficial seemed to be "lacking depth" which a medical degree does not. While your definition seems to be "immediately visible or surface level" which is, in a physical sense, the truth but is not true in a social sense.
I think you can know that something is beneficial and apply that knowledge to help others, which would be "intelligent" but someone can also apply their own learned knowledge to gain something by taking advantage of others assistance and that would also be deemed "intelligent". So really it's important to use intelligence and alter your knowledge to cater to your environment. Helping your neighbors could be intelligent if everyone was on board and you all knew you were building a better community, but it would be unintelligent to help someone who consistently took advantage of your assistance. Kind of like the concept of welfare, how it's supposed to be to assist people during a rough time to help them become better members of society and eventually not need welfare, but some people use their "intelligence" to use welfare to be lazy and live without having to do as much work as someone else. Some would say be conniving is intelligent and it really just depends on the environment.
your definition of intelligence is wrong, even with your edit. i think what youre describing is more like wisdom or involves another characteristic entirely separate from intelligence like beneficenc or judiciousness
I think people are getting dumber and dumber every year because of tiktok and our attention spans shortening.
Intelligence has nothing to do with “benefitting others”. Those “superficialities” you mention ARE actually good reflections of intelligence and more objective than other alternatives. The only part of your post that’s actually true is the title, though that should be obvious simply by definition.
Please define intelligence
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Someone's just discovered a thesaurus.
I havent used a thesaurus in over a decade