What is intelligence?

[Mitera Nikkou]

I'll just go with it being how you use what you know. A good example of how someone in my part of the country would use it:

"Hey, ya'll, watch this." <-- (I'm not with this guy. XD)

Famous last words. <.<;

[DarkMonk]

I agree 100%

(Reclessness will often get you killed thats why those words are so famous T_T)

[SweetSophia]

Frankly, there are sometimes big differences between intelligence, knowledge and wisdom depending on who you ask.

[Celestial_Samurai]

To me those three things are different.

Knowledge = How much you know.

Intelligence = How you use Knowledge

Wisdom = Common Sense

[Maku]

Intelligence is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing better than to put one in a fruit salad.

[Kalm]

For a long time, I've been thinking of intelligence as something more like how quickly it takes for someone to understand things. Knowledge is how much somebody knows, and I've not ever really had a definition for wisdom.

[Alyta]

I tend to go with the scientific definition of intelligence - "a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do." Source

Yay for the ability to quote someone more literate than I for a good explaination. ^^

[Christina Anikari]

Alyta seems to have the best definition of what intelligence is in a very general sense. What is much more interesting is what makes intelligence is in a more specific sense. Is it really just incredible heaps of calculations on top of each other? Can it truly just be the ability to react meaningfully to your surroundings? Are physical acts part of the thinking process? Noone knows and noone can make a good theory or argument for why it is like they say it is. Intelligence is one of the terms that are the hardest to pinpoint, something i believe just might be because we are approaching it in the wrong way or have defined it wrong. Perhaps that which we call intelligence is really many different things that only seem like they are related.

[Ijuin]

On the difference between Knowledge, Intelligence, and Wisdom:

A Knowledgeable man can build a weapon.

An Intelligent man knows how to use the weapon.

A Wise man knows when to use and when NOT to use the weapon.

[Duck]

You could be book smart out the rear, but not intelligent.

To quote a wise man.. or at least paraphrase "a wise man knows when not to talk"

[Temet nosce]

Terra has I think described the problem. As you can see here when you ask different people what intelligence is you recieve various responses. Some would argue intelligence is simply your logical reasoning capability such as what an IQ test measures. However upon closer examiniation this seems to lump together several different but related abilities while ignoring other things which have an impact upon the way people think such as memory, comprehension, and creativity or planning. In the end the only conclusion I have come to is that as far as I can tell we require more information to determine precisely what the concept of intelligence represents.