Intel
We think of intelligence, and we realise that it is a fleeting thing, a will-o-wisp of conceptualisation. It has always been so, from the time of the prophet Isaiah — "Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." (Isaiah 29:14)
And in this supposedly more enlightened, more intelligent, more rational age, intelligence is still a problem: as Arthur C Clarke put it, "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." This was eleven years ago.
Just last year, another famous scientist adjusted this position. Stephen Hawking: "It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."
Why are such eminent and eminently intelligent men so leery of the value of intelligence? The point is trivial to them, and should be readily grasped by us. You can find it, for example, in the pseudonymous J Abner Peddiwell's The Saber-tooth Curriculum, published in 1939.
What is this trivial point? Quite simply put, we consider intelligence to be the ability to conceptualise and execute whatever gets us what we want. And since what we want is not always the same thing from era to era, intelligence is an illusive chimera. (Worse, sometimes it can't even get us what we want, because we have not the wit to figure out what we want.)
About 800 years after Isaiah, the apostle Paul translated him thus: "For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." (I Corinthians 1:19)
This is exactly the position humans find themselves in — all the time, in every age of mankind. What we think of as wise or intelligent may not always be so, and this is especially true of intelligence. We are prepared to give wisdom a broader and more flexible mandate, but we tend to define intelligence more narrowly.
That's why I believe that being useful is better than being smart. The former informs the latter. A smart ass can save your life, but it is still a pain. That pain is ameliorated by the utility value.
So here I am, trying desperately to be more useful every day. It is the first of my year's new resolutions.
And in this supposedly more enlightened, more intelligent, more rational age, intelligence is still a problem: as Arthur C Clarke put it, "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." This was eleven years ago.
Just last year, another famous scientist adjusted this position. Stephen Hawking: "It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."
Why are such eminent and eminently intelligent men so leery of the value of intelligence? The point is trivial to them, and should be readily grasped by us. You can find it, for example, in the pseudonymous J Abner Peddiwell's The Saber-tooth Curriculum, published in 1939.
What is this trivial point? Quite simply put, we consider intelligence to be the ability to conceptualise and execute whatever gets us what we want. And since what we want is not always the same thing from era to era, intelligence is an illusive chimera. (Worse, sometimes it can't even get us what we want, because we have not the wit to figure out what we want.)
About 800 years after Isaiah, the apostle Paul translated him thus: "For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." (I Corinthians 1:19)
This is exactly the position humans find themselves in — all the time, in every age of mankind. What we think of as wise or intelligent may not always be so, and this is especially true of intelligence. We are prepared to give wisdom a broader and more flexible mandate, but we tend to define intelligence more narrowly.
That's why I believe that being useful is better than being smart. The former informs the latter. A smart ass can save your life, but it is still a pain. That pain is ameliorated by the utility value.
So here I am, trying desperately to be more useful every day. It is the first of my year's new resolutions.
Labels: Clarke, Hawking, Intelligence, Usefulness
etched with acid at 12:40:00 am
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