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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 11:55:52 AM   
Gauge


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quote:

It is patently obvious that Lam is correct.


Funny, I thought this was an exchange of ideas. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 12:19:01 PM   
Gauge


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

I know what you mean, but intellect can be taught too. Our commonsense notion is that people are born with a certain degree of intelligence, and that's going to be their level of intelligence for the rest of their lives. It doesn't work that way. For one thing, intelligence increases or decreases as it's nourished and stimulated--or not nourished and stimulated. Also, people's intelligence can be honed through their lives and experiences. And I'm not talking about wisdom, which, I think we all agree, is not acquired EXCEPT through experience.

For example, the way we ordinarily think of Mozart is, I think, completely wrong. We tend to think of Mozart as someone who was born with extraordinary gifts and then just spent the rest of his life writing down the miraculous music that bounced around inside him. I don't think that's how it happened at all. Yes, he was born with extraordinary gifts, but he was able to write the music that he did because he trained himself, through his life and experience with music, to be able to think even more creatively as he aged. It was this whole process that produced the music he composed. I don't mean that he did all this consciously, of course; I mean that the circumstances of his family life, his desire to pursue music and the passion with which he did so--all these things together made him an even more intelligent musician than he would have been otherwise. Someone with Mozart's gifts, but without the same kind of life and values, would not have come close as a composer.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gauge

Wisdom can be taught as well, intellect cannot.



OK, but let me clear this point up a little. If intellect is a capacity for knowledge, then yes it can be honed and stimulated, but it is not something I can sit down and teach someone. I cannot impart intellect to someone, I don't know anyone that can. Intellect can be trained and knowledge can be built and in that way it can grow. We can be taught how to use and apply intellect. This is merely my opinion.

The more I sit here and read what we both have written, I am trying to figure out if we are saying the same thing just going about it differently.



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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 12:54:38 PM   
Lordandmaster


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Status: offline 		We might be saying the same thing, but I'm not sure. If I'm understanding your view, we are born with a big empty container, which we can learn to fill, to varying degrees, over the course of our lives--but the capacity of the container itself doesn't change. You can teach people things that fill their containers, but you can't improve their containers.

Anyway, if I've understood that correctly, that model doesn't fit my experiences. I really think the size of our container can increase under the right circumstances. It's not something that can be taught directly; there's no class called "improving your intellect." But I do think that a life of thinking (and I mean this very broadly, since obviously I consider Mozart's composition a form of thinking too) improves one's intellect. Reading and writing usually do too, as long as they are reading and writing of a criticial sort.

How this is distinct from wisdom is really a difficult question, because, to return to Mozart again, some of the things he learned over time are obviously things that we would classify as wisdom, not intellect: this type of arrangement doesn't work; this harmony goes well with woodwinds; whatever. But the most profound sorts of changes must have been unconscious--in other words, not "Shit, I tried that in Prague, and it was a disaster, so let's do this instead," but "Hmmm, now that's a brilliant idea--where did that come from?" So I imagine him increasing his wisdom AND his intellect all at the same time. And I also imagine that he was not consciously aware of most of what was going on.

One of the reasons why I've come to this conclusion is that I've observed this sort of transformation over and over again in writers and artists. As they work, year after year, they come up with new forms of expression that they could not even have imagined when they were first starting out. I think that has to be a sign that their intellect is, first of all, growing, and second of all, specializing.

For what it's worth, IQ studies support this too. People's IQ can increase or decrease in dramatic ways that are related entirely to their environment. (IQ tests are SUPPOSED to test pure intelligence, but they are notoriously fraught with problems.)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gauge

OK, but let me clear this point up a little. If intellect is a capacity for knowledge, then yes it can be honed and stimulated, but it is not something I can sit down and teach someone. I cannot impart intellect to someone, I don't know anyone that can. Intellect can be trained and knowledge can be built and in that way it can grow. We can be taught how to use and apply intellect. This is merely my opinion.

The more I sit here and read what we both have written, I am trying to figure out if we are saying the same thing just going about it differently.



< Message edited by Lordandmaster -- 7/24/2005 1:01:11 PM >

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 2:53:55 PM   
anthrosub


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Status: offline 		If I might suggest something, instead of a container...how about using a pipe and water flowing through it for your analogy. The diameter of the pipe is intelligence, the water is experience (from education and life events), and how fast the pipe can allow water to flow through it is the rate of information being comprehended.

Through education and experience, the diameter can be increased. The larger the size, the more information it can process (flow rate) and assimulate (volume of water in a given time frame). At the end of this pipe is your container (memory from which to draw on prior experience).

Just an idea.

anthrosub

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 3:22:26 PM   
imtempting


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quote:

ORIGINAL: pinkpleasures


Now make the assumption that both babies were born with identical "intellects". It's readilly apparent the first child, of wealthy parents, will enjoy an advantage over the second child, of a poor single mother.

pinkpleasures


Well I better go tell my friends they should be dumb because were poor.


Intelligent intellect your born with. Wisdom is learnt though experiences.


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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 3:48:05 PM   
Gauge


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quote:

We might be saying the same thing, but I'm not sure. If I'm understanding your view, we are born with a big empty container, which we can learn to fill, to varying degrees, over the course of our lives--but the capacity of the container itself doesn't change. You can teach people things that fill their containers, but you can't improve their containers.


Let us delve a little further into this, shall we?

quote:

If I'm understanding your view, we are born with a big empty container, which we can learn to fill, to varying degrees, over the course of our lives--but the capacity of the container itself doesn't change.


This is in effect correct. I believe that no matter what, we have a certain point that we have which is finite and therefore a limited capacity. I am about to introduce something into this mix that I do not wish to offend anyone with, but in order to make a point I must touch on it briefly. If our capacity was not in fact finite and limited then a mentally retarded person would be able to overcome their handicap and obtain an intellect equal to anyone else. This, sadly, is just not the case. Can we train that person to learn skills and other things? Sure we can, but that does not make their intellect any higher.

Broken down more, lets say knowledge and intellect are different as well. Knowledge is anything that we can learn by any of our senses. Intellect is the ability that we use to retain that knowledge. Our skill at using knowledge can be trained, honed and improved but that does not necessarily make intellect increase, it merely makes us more proficient using what we have learned.

Consider that we only use a very small portion of our brain, who is really to say what the capacity for intelligence is? Taking a guess now, perhaps since we do use such a small percentage of our brain, our ability to learn may be infinite and our intellect may be staggering if we used our brains to their complete ability, but I still believe that there are limits.





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I'm wearing my chicken suit and humming La Marseillaise.

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 5:21:13 PM   
Lordandmaster


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Status: offline 		It is no contradiction to hold that one's maximum possible intelligence is finite and also that one's current intelligence can always be increased. Pick any number less than 3. No matter which number you pick, there is always a larger number less than 3.

Edited to add: I've never understood this argument, as often as it's repeated:

quote:

Consider that we only use a very small portion of our brain, who is really to say what the capacity for intelligence is?


Why do we bother wasting all the energy and nutrients that we lavish on our brains if we're only using a very small portion of them? You'd think a more efficient species would have utterly outcompeted us by now.

Or else maybe it's not really true that we use a small portion of our brains.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gauge

I believe that no matter what, we have a certain point that we have which is finite and therefore a limited capacity. I am about to introduce something into this mix that I do not wish to offend anyone with, but in order to make a point I must touch on it briefly. If our capacity was not in fact finite and limited then a mentally retarded person would be able to overcome their handicap and obtain an intellect equal to anyone else. This, sadly, is just not the case.



< Message edited by Lordandmaster -- 7/24/2005 9:51:13 PM >

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 9:22:27 PM   
Mandalin


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quote:

ORIGINAL: pinkpleasures

It is patently obvious that Lam is correct. Take two babies..send one home with a two parent, wealthy family who can afford to let one parent remain at home until the child reaches 1st grade; provide the child with activities outside the home, and provide educational toys and other stimuli. Send the other child home with a single mom who already has 2 kids; sends the baby to day care at 6 weeks; day care is sub-standard and no one plays with the baby; she cannot afford to give the baby toys and she has little time for him

Now make the assumption that both babies were born with identical "intellects". It's readilly apparent the first child, of wealthy parents, will enjoy an advantage over the second child, of a poor single mother.

pinkpleasures


Yes, the first child will enjoy all the lavish things his wealthy parents can provide for him, but his intellect may not benifit from these. It may turn out, that because these things were readily available for him, prosaic developments concerning qualities in interest, imagination, and mental processes may have been effected.
While the second child, growing up with a poor single mother, who had little time for him, had to be creative with the only existing materials he could find to stimulate his mind with ingenuity, creativity, and independence.
I beleive that a persons intellect is influenced in growth by their ambitions and is limitless in the disire to achieve knowledge.

< Message edited by Mandalin -- 7/24/2005 9:23:43 PM >

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 10:12:19 PM   
blackwolf99


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Status: offline 		Intellect is taught from 'books'
Wisdom is taught from 'life'

A favorite quote of mine from Dangerous Liasons
"Like most intellectuals, he was emensely stupid."

Another favorite quote

" Experience is the hardest teacher. First it gives the test, then it gives the lesson."

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 10:20:04 PM   
Lordandmaster


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Status: offline 		I don't believe you need to read books to be intelligent. (What did people do before writing?)

quote:

ORIGINAL: blackwolf99

Intellect is taught from 'books'


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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/24/2005 10:32:48 PM   
blackwolf99


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Status: offline 		You took me too literal (hence the quotations)
Call it books, schooling, teaching, it has to do with the ability to reason and deduce

And to clear up any misunderstanding of the second line, 'life' the experiences we go though, one might even say instinctual or intuition.

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/25/2005 12:52:51 AM   
darkinshadows


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quote:

I don't believe you need to read books to be intelligent. (What did people do before writing?)


Used wisdom...

Peace and Love

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/25/2005 10:48:27 AM   
Mercnbeth


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Status: offline 		Wisdom has the ability to recognize intellect. Intellect doesn't necessarily give you the ability to recognize wisdom.

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/25/2005 1:56:52 PM   
sub4hire


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Status: offline 		We are born with intellect. Whether or not we ever use it is a whole different story. Develop it.

Wisdom comes with age and life. Wisdom is knowing something is going to happen a certain way because it has happened before that way.


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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/25/2005 3:14:47 PM   
softandshy


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Status: offline 		As i was taught it, intellect is gained through education. Education can be written or unwritten but is formal. Wisdom can only be gained from experience. It is the informal teaching of the "School of Hard Knocks" or life.

*edited to add* Have you ever wondered about the difference between dumb and stupid?

< Message edited by softandshy -- 7/25/2005 3:16:03 PM >

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/25/2005 4:19:45 PM   
sub4hire


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quote:

difference between dumb and stupid?


Kind of like stupid and ignorant? Ignorant has not been taught before. Stupid is just plain old...been taught but still haven't seen the light...dumb.

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 7/25/2005 4:38:32 PM   
MrThorns


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Status: offline 		I see intellect as an ability to store, analyze, and process information. That information can be gained from any source or experience and the information does not have to be considered useful to anybody.

My Mom is a perfect example of this. She is one of the smartest women I know when it comes to spouting off the most useless information. Color of Yak's milk? She knows. Mensa puzzles? Childs play. But can she find her car keys? nope. Her glasses? Not even when they are perched on top of her head.

Wisdom...I want to say that wisdom is gleaned from experience, but there are so many "Old souls" out there who have wisdom waaaaaay beyond their years, so I cannot really accept that wisdom comes soley from experience.

I see wisdom as an deep understanding of the world. Being able to "read" people and determine their intent, seeing motives in actions, and understanding the reality that there are things that exist in this world that are more important than themselves. I'm not talking about religion or omnipotence in any form, although I think that to experience wisdom on such a high level would be, almost certainly, spiritual.

~Thorns



< Message edited by MrThorns -- 7/25/2005 4:39:10 PM >

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 8/2/2005 7:07:29 PM   
pinkpleasures


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kk; lemme try again. The point about the poor child with ambition and drive is well-taken. Lordy; i was such a child. So intellect is not just passively acquired as the environment works its magic...but OVERALL...children in better neighborhoods and better schools have a better shot at using all their intellect (or more of it) than children in poor neighborhoods attending unsafe, poor schools without adequate funds for basic tools such as textbooks. In big cities, these kids are also subjected to "environmental racsim"; meaning the homes their parents rent are more likely to have mold or lead; the city dump and its noxious gases is nearby; big trucks rumble through their streets spewing carbon monoxide; etc.

However it's impossible to say "we should give up; these kids cannot perform to standards". It's just not true. With an infusion of monetary and human capital, poor children improve performance remarkably. It seems obvious we should do away with the property tax-based school funding mechanism and find a more equitable way to adequately fund education. Amoung other things.

As for wisdom, in my mind, it has a nexus with kindness. i had a girlfriend who was 4 inches shorter than i, whose mom kept buying my clothes, saying she had bought them for her kid but they did not fit. This allowed me to keep my dignity and also have clothing. To me, this woman was wise; she not only saw my need for clothing; she saw my need to feel like a person, not a charity case. Over the years, as i have tried to help another person, i have tried to remember the lesson i learned from her, and remember that even in the greatest distress, people need their dignity.

pinkpleasures


< Message edited by pinkpleasures -- 8/2/2005 7:08:57 PM >

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 8/2/2005 7:46:03 PM   
Pavel


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Status: offline 		I had this question as part of a phil 260 assignment once. I think I replied that intellect was being able to figure out how to program the VCR clock, and wisdom was knowing to not lick the lightpole in winter.

I got a B+ out of that class, so I think my answer might have been ok.

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RE: Intellect and Wisdom - 8/3/2005 2:27:54 AM   
darkinshadows


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quote:

I don't believe you need to read books to be intelligent.

Something I notice often that being intelligent is linked to intellect - which IMO isnt true.

Intellect is a process. You could read all the books in the world, know all the knoweldge and be intellectually minded, but that doesn't mean you are intellegent, just intellectual.

I think that being intellectual stops you from being able to see past the information gained vicariously. It has no compassion, it is cold and cannot feel or project any emotion. Intellect cannot understand emotion at all and therefore cannot utilize it. There is no intellegence other than being able to read - intellegence is not needed to be intellectual. And Intellect wishes no other subject to asist it, not even wisdom.

Wisdom is compassionate and emotional. But to use wisdom, one must also understand intellect. Wisdom is used by the intellegent because they see where intellect can fail. But the intellegence used to embrace wisdom isn't intellectual, but personal.

Peace and Love

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