• TiredThinker
    831
    You know how sometimes you look at someone and you just know they are super smart. You see the activity in their eyes and you see the most modest confidence one can see in an expression and you wish you could know what activities are going on inside their mind? They don't even seem that concerned with their immediate surroundings as most people are.

    How often is this intuition a correct assumption of an actual intelligent person, or is it probably always too subjective to be true and they could totally be a dumbie? I assume recognizing intelligence must be evolutionarily necessary?
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    I assume recognizing intelligence must be evolutionarily necessary?TiredThinker

    There may be other factors involved but the ability to recognize intelligence could be an evolutionary process. We possibly unconsciously detect intelligence or lack of it in the same way we detect emotion, etc. on the basis of eye movement, facial expression, body language, etc.
  • TiredThinker
    831
    What I find weird is the ability of a person to be intelligent enough to possibly know when someone else is more intelligent than they are without words. Should that even be possible?
  • James Riley
    2.9k
    What I find weird is the ability of a person to be intelligent enough to possibly know when someone else is more intelligent than they are without words. Should that even be possible?TiredThinker

    I don't have that ability.
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    Usually when someone with a superior IQ is asked a question and show little to no effort in finding the correct answer, that can be an indicator of their intelligence. You should read the stories of Shannon at college in MIT or von Neumann "Johnny" at work and how effortlessly they found answers in their fields.
  • Tiberiusmoon
    139

    The thing is; dumb people make a habit of using assumptions, smart people minimises those assumptions.
    Knowledge has next to 0 meaning to the actual value of interlect, its problem solving and awareness/control of biases and the knowledge they hold.
  • SpaceDweller
    520
    Usually when someone with a superior IQ is asked a question and show little to no effort in finding the correct answer, that can be an indicator of their intelligence.Shawn

    You mean?

    Usually when someone with a superior IQ is present a problem and show little to no effort in solving the problem, that can be an indicator of their intelligence.

    Otherwise we talk about knowledge not IQ.
  • Tiberiusmoon
    139
    You mean?

    Usually when someone with a superior IQ is present a problem and show little to no effort in solving the problem, that can be an indicator of their intelligence.

    Otherwise we talk about knowledge not IQ.
    SpaceDweller

    ^this.
  • Tree
    3
    We are probably pretty bad at recognizing intelligent people. I don't think we have a any evolutionary need to spot intelligence.

    But we are really good at recognizing confident people and confident people could easily be confused with intelligent people.
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    I assume recognizing intelligence must be evolutionarily necessary?TiredThinker

    Yes that's how come dinosaurs lasted so long. Took a massive comment to wipe 'em out.
  • Nils Loc
    1.4k
    And at the collective level, a step scale upwards... we might have the intelligence of slime mold or a dinosaur. It might take a small comment from a political nut job to wipe us out. We're all the embedded cells of a non-human superorganism.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    We're all the embedded cells of a non-human superorganism.Nils Loc

    Funny thing is that superorganisms by historical example are always smarter than the component organisms. Think of cells and a fox that they make up.

    Society and corporations, other systems with human components, are more powerful, but definitely dumber than humans, with no discernible IQ.

    This is a first.
  • Nils Loc
    1.4k
    Funny thing is that superorganisms by historical example are always smarter than the component organisms.god must be atheist

    There is no way you can make this distinction. Smarter compared to what?
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    How often is this intuition a correct assumption of an actual intelligent person, or is it probably always too subjective to be true and they could totally be a dumbie? I assume recognizing intelligence must be evolutionarily necessary?TiredThinker

    I judge male humans for their intelligence beyond age 36 by looking at their forehead. If there is an accented blood vessel running through their forehead, up-and-down, then I assume they are intelligent.

    With women, if they are nicely appointed, with facial make-up and mascara, and look elegant, I assume they are highly intelligent. Unfortunately some porn on the Internet where these types of women sock and do all kind of other things, destroyed this illusion for me.

    If a man or a woman speaks with a learned British accent, I assume that they are indubitably very intelligent.

    If a person takes off his glasses, my perception of his or her IQ drops 20 points. If he or she puts the glasses back on, the perception returns to the original IQ impression.
  • BC
    13.5k
    You know how sometimes you look at someone and you just know they are super smart.TiredThinker

    Happens to me every morning when I look in the mirror.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Smarter compared to what?Nils Loc

    Foxes are smarter than any of the cells alone and singly in their bodies and brains.

    Sea mollusks are smarter than any one of the cells that make them up.

    Cells are smarter than any one of their components taken singly: cell wall, miasma, nucleus, protoplasm.

    Breast implants look smarter on a woman than any one of the molecules alone that make up the implant.
  • Tom Storm
    9k
    How often is this intuition a correct assumption of an actual intelligent person, or is it probably always too subjective to be true and they could totally be a dumbie? I assume recognizing intelligence must be evolutionarily necessary?TiredThinker

    I doubt it. I can't say I agree with your proposition. I have found it's often the reverse. People you assume to be intelligent because they appear 'alert and switched on' are often dumb as a box of hair.
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    You know how sometimes you look at someone and you just know they are super smart. You see the activity in their eyes and you see the most modest confidence one can see in an expression and you wish you could know what activities are going on inside their mind? They don't even seem that concerned with their immediate surroundings as most people are.

    How often is this intuition a correct assumption of an actual intelligent person, or is it probably always too subjective to be true and they could totally be a dumbie? I assume recognizing intelligence must be evolutionarily necessary?
    TiredThinker

    I think it depends on the situation and the nature of their intelligence. I do think observing someone can often give a qualitative sense of intelligence or lack of it, but I certainly wouldn’t assume the intelligence of someone based on their appearance or demeanour. That way leads to prejudice and ignorance, as clearly demonstrates.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    You know how sometimes you look at someone and you just know they are super smart.TiredThinker

    No!

    without words.TiredThinker

    Go on!

    I doubt itTom Storm

    Are you sure?

    it depends on the situationPossibility

    You're on to something there.
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