thedriveintheatre

~ The following is TDIT’s reply to a thread on P Planet sharing the title of this post. ~

This is a very subjective but I suppose interesting question.

In my opinion, what makes a person intelligent is experience. This is closely linked to knowledge acquisition. Nobody is innately born knowing everything about the world. Even savants and geniuses need to undergo learning, just that they do it in different ways and a different rate.

You don’t become intelligent by sitting in a prison cell and doing nothing. Well, besides becoming very intimate with said cell and knowing every nook and cranny. You become intelligent by going out in the world. Talking to people. Trying new things. Reading books. Watching everything, from the birds singing in the morning, to some kick-*ss cop show on TV. Learning from different sources, not just taking your information from one channel. Questioning, always questioning, trying as much as possible not to accept the status quo if it could be improved.

A construction labourer can be intelligent in fixing a complex plumbing system that no white-collar office suit can. Similarly, an infant may be more intelligent in the sense that he/she is more inquisitive and straightforward than a cynical and world-weary adult. A person who lives in the African savannah may be more intelligent in gathering food and surviving in the wild than the pampered city-dweller who has everyday conveniences in the concrete jungle. A kind and loving child who grows up taking care of animals and fellow human beings is more emotionally-intelligent than a calculating and ruthless dictator who rules his country with intimidation and aggression.

Some people try to measure intelligence and pigeonhole it, but I feel that it depends on how one defines it.