Intelligence Vs Wisdom.

[Trodorne]

This topic is more to see what you would value more. intelligence would show case the more scientific and logical aspects of life, and with intelligence can come more advancements.

but on the other hand, there is wisdom, the common sense, the personal convictions of what you feel is right or wrong. intelligence maybe fine and all but its the common senses or gut feelings that balance a person off.

so what do you see more important, intelligence or wisdom. and here would be an example of a subject.
a person travels many miles to go see an elder living in a temple in the mountains, the tired person asked the elder for advice, and they said " go and rest."

was that intelligence or wisdom. let me know what you think is better or something else you want to post similar to this.

[OnOneRyder]

I think the two are very similar even though one might perceive them as being different. Intelligence doesn't necessarily mean acquired knowledge, it's the ability to acquire knowledge. You can teach an animal an action that you could also teach a small child, however the small child is more than likely pick it up at a faster rate...that's intelligence. It could be how adaptable you are to situations, how well your mind processes situations and how well you learn to not make similar mistakes or to do something correctly again. Your comprehension of life is just as important as knowing how to react to it when similar occurrences come up again but wisdom can't always be adapted to new situations so I have to go with intelligence.

[Jin]

but on the other hand, there is wisdom, the common sense, the personal convictions of what you feel is right or wrong. intelligence maybe fine and all but its the common senses or gut feelings that balance a person off.

I'm going to have to disagree with your definition of wisdom. Common sense is the very antithesis of wisdom. In my opinion, for one to be wise, he or she has to transcend common sense and be able to see it for what it is. Common sense is a sociocultural construction. We gain individual common sense via our experiences (if I touch fire, it hurts), but we also appropriate sociocultural norms into our common sense (dresses are for girls; propaganda is bad). A crude example is our culture's obsession with empiricism and that which is quantifiable. We take these concepts as givens and form opinions about our world based on these assumptions. There are many more. Discourses of gender, race, class, religion, culture, etc, etc. To be wise is to see these discourses for what they really are. Whether that's more important than one's ability to learn is debatable. One could argue you need the latter to achieve the former, but I don't think they're necessarily proportionate.

[Treize]

I think that they are both important. Intelligence is the ability to collect knowledge, and wisdom is the ability to use it. You have to have both for them to be any good. If you are only intelligent, you won't be able to apply the things that you have learned to a given situation. If you are only wise, you won't have the knowledge to know what to do in the first place.

[Furore]

I have always considered Wisdom to be most important. Seeing things for what they are or could be is a part of wisdom and too many intellectuals fall into the trap of believing knowledge introduced to them by various media without testing things themselves. It might be 'obviously correct' to them and naysayers might be idiots, but if they haven't tested what they're going on about themselves, are they really any better?

[Ragtime]

Well inteligence is really important because it helps us make the decisions which will lead to a safe and secure life. Without intelligence, we are pretty much doomed to failing in life because we would tend to make bad life decisions. However, if we wish to pursue a happy, but not ecessarily succesful life, we need wisdom. We may have to sacrifice or defy the logical solution if we believe that following our hearts and gut instincts is the necessary route.

So I think we need a healthy ballance of Inteligence (For success) and Wisdom (For happiness)

[Heartless Angel]

Sort of an old thread, but meh. I must once again throw out my own definition of the two terms.

I see intelligence simply as the knowledge aspect of thinking. If you pound information into someone's skull long enough, anybody can become intelligent. Much like a math student who's bad with numbers. They may never have any clue what the hell they're doing, but you can teach them the process to answer the question and pass the class.

Wisdom however is more than simply knowing the answer or how to get it, but udnerstanding the process of getting that answer, and understanding what it means once you have it.

My favorite quote regarding wisdom vs knowledge...

"Knowledge speaks, Wisdom listens." ~Jimi Hendrix~

And it's absolutely true. Knwledge simply finds the answer and presents it. Wisdom listens, and learns what that answer means, and how to use it. Wisdom is by far the more important.

[Jin]

But intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing either, I would argue. The way I see it, it's like a computer system. Knowledge is the information that is stored in one's proverbial hard drive. Intelligence is more akin to one's ram, or perhaps one's processing power; it processes the knowledge one has. Someone can know a lot about math, but still be terrible at learning and understanding in general. I would call this person knowledgeable, but relatively unintelligent.

Wisdom, on the other hand, transcends both of those things by contextualizing one's knowledge and intelligence. Not just to understand how to do something, but to understand why it's done the way it is, the limitations of said way and its meaning in the grander scope of things. Wisdom is also important in realizing what one does not know. It doesn't fit completely into the computer analogy, but it would be somewhat equivalent to the computer gaining sentience. A computer that is relatively weak (ie unintelligent) can still potentially be sentient to a degree (ie be wise), while a relatively powerful computer can have very little information stored on it (ie a lack of knowledge).

Forgive the disjointed nature of this post. I haven't had my coffee yet.

[Heartless Angel]

I can agree with your computer analogy on intelligence vs. knowledge without distorting my own views , no problem there. Intelligence is the capacity for information, knowledge is the information itself, I can give you that.

You basically just expanded on my definition of wisdom, so once again I agree completely. I must also agree that it's hard to use a computer analogy to describe wisdom, but that was close enough for my tastes.

[Pete]

I hate to make this such a short post, but my view on this is quite simplistic.

Firstly, I think we're confusing Intelligence and Intellect. Think of your mind as a blank book. Intelligence would be your writing utensil. The more refined it is, the more you'll be able to fill. Intellect is what you can fill it with. Wisdom is knowing when to cite from it.

Intelligence is being able to know, and wisdom is being able to know what to do with what you do know.

Jin is right about common sense. It's more of a construct of social norms and easily ascertained knowledge. However, you can be brilliant and have no common sense, a moron and street smart, or any combination.

[Myst]

I personally value wisdom more then intelligence. I'm not saying that I would forgo intelligence all together to have ultimate wisdom. A person should have a balance, but I think having more wisdom is probably better then more intelligence.

I personally am not really sure what wisdom is. Is it simply how a person reacts to a emotional situation? I mean you can say "Wise old man" or you can say "Intelligent old man" but which is better? I'd say people who are wise are smart. They may not know rocket science but I bet they would have the capability to learn it if they had more of a interest in it. <- So if wisdom is a person's base intelligence and their capability to learn, then I would say wisdom is indeed more important.

^Actually I just read the post above me. Thanks for clearing that up. But once again I would say people who are wise probably have the ability to learn. So ya. yay.