Is It Worth Being Wise? | Hacker News Reader

Is It Worth Being Wise?

paulgraham.com

12 pointsprakash6 comments

Paul's essays are often deliberate explorations of concepts that he doesn't start off knowing the answer to. This would seem to be an example of that, and is interesting to read as a view into how Paul thinks. That said, I think he drew the wrong distinction here between smartness and wisdom.

The distinction that I would draw is that a smart person is someone who can figure out the right answer, while a wise person is someone who does the right thing. I draw the distinction this way because there are a lot of people who know what they should do, but don't do it! We generally don't think of them as wise. Conversely most of the smart people that I know are good at figuring out things in a number of different contexts, so their ability doesn't tend to be just a one-dimensional spike.

This ties to the common belief that wisdom has something to do with emotions. Because inability to align emotions and actions is a common barrier to doing what you know you should do. Note that I'm careful not to say control your emotions, because a person who keeps emotions under deliberate control is in serious trouble when those emotions slip out anyways. And they will. Instead the people I've known who I call wise are capable of finding ways to align emotions and actions in such a way that they can act in accord with their emotions yet not cause problems for them.

By contrast I tie smartness to problem solving. Someone can be really good at solving set problems yet have no clue how to handle their emotional state. Paul offers many good examples of this in his essay.

There are many useful definitions of wisdom and intelligence. Another way of looking at it was if you where able to write a book that would be transported back in time to some historical figure what would be the most powerful things to add to change the course of history? 30 years ago detailed instructions on how to manufacture a modern computer would have dramatically changed things, but 2000 years ago that would be useless. However, a basic primmer on math and collage freshman level science could have dramatically changed history.

IMO, wisdom is the ability to take the core aspects of what humanity has learned and put them into practice. Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, treat others well etc, those ideas evolve slowly over time. So, what separates them is how quickly the information becomes outdated, 60 years ago knowing how to make a high quality vacuum tube on the cheap would have been useful today it's almost worthless. Knowing how to use a light switch on the other hand seems far more basic. Or for a more complex example how to get a date has changed little in the last 60 years even as how we network with other people has.

I think my favorite explanation of wisdom versus intelligence came when reading about how D&D players should think of it: Intelligence tells you it's raining inside. Wisdom tells you to open the umbrella.

When we get to the point that we can just download all the information we want directly into our brains, it's going to be those with wisdom that will know what to do with it.

I see them differently. Intelligence is an ability which you can use, it is similar to strength, so I like to think of it as brain strength. Wisdom is your knowledge and experience. So being more intelligent gives you potential, but you have to use your intelligence wisely to gain wisdom.

The wiser I become, the less money I have.

I never understood why, in my case, they were inversely proportional.

Does anyone what that interview is from footnote 8?

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