Opinions

Do you ever feel like you are expected to have an opinion on everything?  Like "I don't know" isn't an acceptable answer.  The admission that you don't know something is often seen as a weakness.  The more people know something that you don't, the more you are made to feel like an idiot.

Intelligence is something that is hard to quantify.  The original aim of IQ tests were to derive an intelligence quotient; this quotient was a measure of your mental age compared to your physical age.  Your mental age was charted against that of your peers.  The average would return a 100 point IQ anything less was deemed to be underdeveloped, and anything more was deemed to be overdeveloped.  The aspiration was to have an IQ above 100.

The trouble with these tests both then and now is that intelligence is hard to actually measure.  Knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing.  Just because you know a lot does not make you smart.  Knowing pi to 5,000 places does not make you smart, it just means you have a good memory or you are using a mnemonic to help you.

So, what does make you intelligent?  If we return to the world of computing and programming as I so often do in these posts, and return to the study of artificial intelligence, then we can look at the definition used there.  In this context intelligence is marked by the ability to adapt to a new situation to achieve a goal.  It can also include defining that goal where it has not been specified.  If we apply that to humans then intelligence needs to be measured by placing people in a new situation and observing their behaviour.  Give them a task they have never done before and evaluate their performance.

In this context, previous experience, although may be beneficial, does not imply a higher level of intelligence.  Likewise all irrelevant knowledge no matter how abundant would also have no bearing.  So if that's the case why do we still feel like an idiot when we don't know something, or why do other people try to make you feel that way?

Lack of knowledge and lack of an opinion should not constitute idiocy, nor should lake of experience imply incompetence.  When you think about this in regards to employment, the traditional model of job description, application form, interview, offer and acceptance, are not at all suited to finding the ideal candidate.  In reality the ideal model would be one that incorporated a practical element, where the candidate actually tries the work and is assessed based on their performance.