What are the Characteristics of Intelligence by Duane Bristow December 16, 1991 This essay assumes that test score results are a very imperfect and incomplete indicator of intelligence, that we can define intelligence in terms of its characteristics, and that intelligence is a matter of degree. A person is not either intelligent or not intelligent, but rather everyone is intelligent to some degree, although some may be said to have the intelligence of a cabbage. Now, if the reader will accept the above assumptions, what characteristics of intelligence can we identify and agree upon? 1. An intelligent person has a well developed sense of humor and irony based on an underlying sense of humility. He realizes that the sum of things he does not know is immensely greater than what he does know. He also realizes that many of the things he knows are probably wrong. He has a sense of perspective of the scale of time and space and existence such that he knows the individual, even the highly intelligent individual, is insignificant. Therefore true believers, fanatics, and terrorists cannot be very intelligent. Due to this characteristic the intelligent person may not be confident and decisive enough to be effective. (Jimmy Carter syndrome.) 2. An intelligent person does not have as much need to define himself or establish his personal identity in terms of social interaction as do others. Although man is, by nature, a social animal, more intelligent people are less so. I know several people who are very unhappy, even lost, if they are not engaged in social intercourse. The intelligent person can be happy when he is alone. He can be entertained by his own mind because of a more highly developed imagination. What does this mean about his capacity for love? What is love? (It's probably the subject for another essay.) 3. An intelligent person does not have as much need for faith and magic as do others. Many people want witch doctors not medical doctors and politicians who will promise them a free lunch and preachers who will promise them heaven. They look at processes of nature and technology as simply black boxes and are not curious about how or why they work. What does this imply about religious beliefs of the intelligent person? An intelligent person has a strong sense of curiosity, a need to know about the how and why of the world around him. From learning and knowing he develops his concept of the world and of his place in it. This is both the science of knowledge and the art of living. An intelligent person is often impatient with the limitations imposed on his intellect by time and space until he eventually gains the wisdom to accept these limitations. 4. The intelligent person tends to think in neural networks rather than by linear logic. (Right brain as well as left brain.) Each acquired fact must be assimilated into the existing body of knowledge and in doing so often the juxtaposition of two or more facts or ideas will lead to a new idea or conclusion. Thus knowledge expands exponentially. I suspect that the thought processes of many people tend to be much more linear so that there are not as many juxtapositions and comparisons, not as much imagination involved. Knowledge thus expands by increment. 5. Intelligent people seem to be fascinated by abstract thought and are usually very interested in math and language. They love to read; solve word, math, and logic puzzles; and make puns. They often want to express themselves in language, as witness this essay. This tendency to think abstractly rather than just feeling also tends to insulate them from the world about them and they become limited in experiences by the inadequacies of their languages or mathematical systems. 6. Intelligent people perceive the world around them in terms of the world concept derived from their internal body of knowledge. In walking through the woods, one man may see a mass of green vegetation and tree trunks while another may see a functioning ecosystem populated by various plant and animal species many of which he can identify and has studied. Conclusion: I suspect, after completing this essay, that I have just described the characteristics of only one type of intelligent person, what I might call the scientific type, and have missed one or many other whole groups of intelligent people who are probably the artistic or more creative types. Is that true or do the more creative types share these same characteristics and, if so, to what degree? --------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer L Niemi - NiemiJenniferL@uams.edu had these comments about this page: I disagree with your comments regarding the intelligent person and his need or desire for religion. It is true that many intelligent people, especially scientists, take the evolutionist view of the universe and the like. But the thinking person, an intelligent one who reads a lot, as another point your essay enumerates, will recognize this in reading the world's religious literature: Man did not invent the idea of God. And science inevitably will prove this. I am not a Bible- thumper. Scripture proves time and time again what archaeologists have doubted and later discovered. The truly intelligent (and humble) person recognizes that religion is a necessity for self-actualization and something that 99% of the human race lacks: HOPE. Jennifer Niemi Graphic Artist Media Services - UAMS --------------------------------------------------------------- John P. Chamberlain - tb007j@mail.rochester.edu had these comments about this page: You insult the old way of believing. High intelligence, according to antiquity, is the knowledge of fact, the understanding of a rarely comprehended concept, the fact that you understand a thing that most do not understand The people who believe this strike out at you. You, of course, believe that you are the model of intelligent human beings, that you are unique and insightful and therefore the epitomy of inelligent consideration and thought. What a load of bull shit. You have, like so many brilliant people before you, looked at a circumstance and seen it as so many have seen it as well; only you put it into articulation, you said it and defined it into words--that you thought to be, as all words should be, unbiased and unassuming. I am tired of accusations of narcisism and loonicism. A man who defines something previously undefined deserves credit and praise. Surely, intelligence has been defined before, but never in such distinct and unique characteristics as your essay puts it. Thanks and respect to you. --------------------------------------------------------------- AFFINSERV@aol.com had these comments on this page: The intelligent person hasn't the hubris to attempt a definition of intelligence. --------------------------------------------------------------- Joao Pedro, email - jpnitya@mithlond.esoterica.pt had these comments on this page: You say this is just "the characteristics of only one type of intelligent person". Many of this characteristics can be found in the most idiotic persons (i.e.sense of humor) and many antagonist characteristics can be found in the most intelligent persons. (i.e.true believers can be very intelligent persons) I was even getting a good impression of you when I read this article. After reading it I arrived at the hypotesis that you're probably an egocentrical (normal as an existencialist) conviced jerk. Why? Because you just say how you are and since you think you're very intelligent you believe any intelligent person has to be like you. Some characteristics you name are usual in intelligent persons but I disagree with the generalizations you make and the lack of vision you show. --------------------------------------------------------------- HymnWriter, email - HymnWriter@aol.com had these comments on this page: I also want to comment on that essay about Intelligence, after browsing through some more of your documents. I'm sure it's quite old, and that you've most likely forgotten most about it [?], but about the line where you questioned if that was a view shared by say, artists (etc.). I found it quite agreeable... and I do think it's a fine definition for 'intelligence', despite what field you come from.