Ask HN: What are the signs that someone is intelligent? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are the signs that someone is intelligent?

18 pointsrayxi27182853 comments

Came across this thread in Reddit, alas, most of the answers were really disappointing: instead of signs of being intelligent, the answers were "good qualities dumb people can very well have, but especially nice if displayed by someone intelligent" (Examples: "Not condescending", "Make YOU feel intelligent", "Dare to say I don't know", etc.).

Wondering if I could learn from better quality answers here in HN.

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I am of the belief that there are many types of intelligence. With that said, I am most impressed with three traits of intelligence as they apply to almost any situation:

1. Knowing what you don’t know and knowing your limitations. Most people struggle with this.

2. People that ask good questions. Most people either ask no questions out of fear of being seen as dumb or ask, well, dumb questions.

3. Being able to figure things out on their own, without explicit instructions or directions. Sometimes a teacher or trainings help, but more often than not the answers are out there or can be discovered with a little bit of effort.

These traits show a good understand of one self and the situation.

Again, I don’t like to say intelligence is any one thing. The linebacker that reads the play perfectly pre-snap and shoots the gap as soon as the ball is hiked shows incredible intelligence that doesn’t translate to much these days outside of sports.

I think asking the dumb questions is important. It shows they aren't afraid to admit they may not know basic things and have desire to learn and adapt

The ability to think critically.

If my example does not fit the scenario we're discussing every time and in every case and in every variation, put your own example in place. I am not arguing about the example, it's an example. It's an e.g. not an i.e! Please understand the point of examples. It's a quick reference so we're on the same page, it is not the discussion.

If you've ever said "it's more like.." in response to someone's analogy yes I'm talking about you too haha. If I get it by making the analogy and you get it by annoyingly correcting me on which analogy I should have used.. we're good. Communication has occurred.

I guess not hyperfocusing on the conversational trimmings makes a person seem smart to me, stick to the meat and potatoes and I'll enjoy talking to you if nothing else :)

Few things that stand out for me when someone is intelligent:

1. The quality of their questions: they're able to get to heart of the matter very quickly through asking relevant questions.

2. Ability to be perceptive, seeing both something that's odd and something that's not there, such as the curious incident of the dog in the night time.

3. Ability to explain things at the right level of the audience: I'm a big fan of 'Things Explainer' for this very reason.

Everyone "is intelligent" unless they have a severe brain disorder or damage. Many species demonstrate intelligence according to the dictionary definition. You're probably asking how to tell if someone possesses higher-than-average or exceptional intelligence. That's what IQ tests supposedly measure, so you could use IQ test scores.

Without access to IQ test scores or something analogous that measures what generally gets called general intelligence or G, you have to observe how well a person solves problems, especially novel problems that require reasoning ability. That can get situational: a person may show high intelligence solving a math or programming problem, but get stuck trying to start a stalled car or frying an egg. A smart person can reason about and solve problems, so they should eventually get the car started and learn how to fry an egg using their own resources and something like scientific method (eliminate variables, simplify the problem, hypothesize, test, refine, repeat).

I generally associate curiosity with intelligence. You can see that most easily with young children. Some seem curious about everything and ask lots of questions and try new things, others seem incurious. Adults may lack curiosity due to lack of interest, or focus on something else more important to them -- curiosity seems more situational with adults because they have more experience and preferences, and more demands on their attention and time. Even so, a curious adult willing to learn something new and take some risks (even just the risk of failing or looking inept) will strike me as more intelligent than someone who shows no curiosity.

An intelligent person wants to learn. An unintelligent person either thinks they already know everything, or doesn't care to learn anything new.

Self-awareness. The ability to apprehend their own subjectivity and understand its limits is not just what separates the dumb from the smart but also man from animal. The dumb go through life never interrogating or understanding their own desires or the source of their worldview. What makes great comedians great? The ability to play with their own subjectivity, to understand the absurdity at the heart of their being while admitting that they can never really transcend their tragic humanity.

Too many people equate intelligence with thinking rationally. Actually, it’s a midwit habit to believe that rationality is achievable. The smart move is to realize the irrational source of all our preferences and prejudices without discarding them on that account, to embrace irrationality as a necessary component of human reasoning.

Depression and anxiety are signs of intelligence to me.

Ourselves and our behavior is one of the most difficult things to understand, I would lean toward agreeing with this statement

I measure intelligence by the degree of how fooled I was on the nth encounter in respect to the (n + 1)th. By "fooled" I don't mean anything connotative in nature, just how wrong I was in any respect that mattered, given I wasn't an idiot at the moment.

For example, an older man used to serve me my sub every day, at a fast food joint, and on our last encounter he handed me his book; it turns out he was a millionaire--he simply enjoyed hospitality and writing (makes sense ;).

However, one should aim to improve their ability to measure intelligence. This is done by being silent--by this I mean, stop your internal dialog (don't talk to yourself).

This is accomplished when you acknowledge you simply are not that important, however, this will socially isolate you in unexpected ways. A practical way to measure your progress is how defeated you are by someone less smart than you; when this is no longer true, then find a smarter person, and so forth.

If you manage this feat, you will notice you were merely taking inventory of your own world and no other one, your entire life (not learning from others). Here, I'm suggesting, that you must find truly intelligent humans, they rarely approach you, unless you are also smart.

All good points listed in the comments. My view is that most of these depend on the ability and practice of thinking for oneself. I once pondered if/when I had a clearly original thought that wasn't connected or influenced by something closely related. It was surprisingly difficult to come up with strong concrete examples. I did come up with a good one though--back in grade 7 long before the Tau manifesto I came to the conclusion that Pi was dumb: why make a ratio vs a diameter that's made up of 2 R's? It was an epiphany at the time (so was able to remember the actual moment in time and place when we were being shown constructing the area by adding the two semidiscs sliced in wedge ribbons). Clearly a ratio of full arc vs 1 R is more 'pure' in a sense. The fact that so many people can't even imagine Pi being so awesome and perfect today despite the Tau manifesto shows how clearly influenced they are and incapable of thinking differently from the masses (at least on this point).

Only skimmed about half of the manifesto so far (so maybe they're getting to this), but: Wouldn't one practical difficulty be that Pi somehow magically shows up in a lot of formulas that aren't (directly, to the layman [like me]) related to circles and geometry? Then that would have to become 2 Tau everywhere, and in places where it's Pi squared it's 4 Tau-squared, etc. Buggers up a lot of stuff with unnecessary constants (like 2 and 4).

Otherwise, sure.

There are many types of intelligence - many yet to be classified - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intellige...

So most answers will be half baked.

I'd reckon sense of humor to be good indicator. If you're about to tell a joke in a room full of people, some people can consistently gauge early where you're going with it. And I find that intelligent.

I’ve been thinking about that. I think it’s a good assumption that people will enjoy jokes more that they are surprised by. As a corollary, in the limit, you get absurd humor where the punchline is by definition not predictable.

AFAIK There's no good measure of inteligence.

I personally like to differentiate raw power (int), smart (usually derived from int), wise (data quality, breath) and memory. To compare to NNs:

  Int = compute
  Smart = architecture
  Wise = test data
  Memory = ?

Types of "intelligence" depend most likely on dominating architecture.

There are people that have math, social or artistic skills from my observations and each seems important to me. Depending on those different excellece niches.

Curiosity. There is an endless variety of types of intelligence, so much so that always recognizing it is impossible. But curiosity seems to be the single common feature.

- Understand second order and third order effects of a decision or action

- Varied perspectives and approaches to a given problem

- ability to ask good open-ended questions

- Understand the technical (rules or science based) and non-technical (humanities) implications

- abstract thinking ability, logical and mathematical intuition

People who listen carefully to what other people are saying and also people who are self-aware (meditation helps us understand our own minds and control what we think about).

There are multiple types and manifestations of intelligence. We would have to know what type or manifestation specifically one is looking for.

Is able to override his/her emotional part of the brain with rational decisions.

Surely without emotion, no-one would make decisions because they wouldn't care.

get the same solution/result of the others but quicker with so far more ease

They carefully consider unintended consequences of what they are doing.

Isn't that wisdom?

I would say, wisdom is when you more or less can predict which consequences there will be. But trying to evaluate them, even if you do not know for sure what happens, is IMHO a sign of intelligence.

They get what they want out of life.

LOL, no. That's not a sign of intelligence. I know babys that crying get all what they want. Also apply to people dumb as a potato but (with a protector, rich parents,...).

That’s considered optimizing. Dumb, unintelligent people don’t optimize. Babies crying to get what they want is like paying 10 cents on the dollar. What a bargain.

The harder someone works, the dumber they are. Why’s it take so much effort for one to get what they want? Learn to cry, whine, and make people do what you need for you.

What happens if everyone do that?

That’s the beauty of it, everyone won’t lol. You want to be smart, realize that and move on up.

Ah yes, the leeches in society are truly the smart ones!

How appalling

For some people, what they want is to be challenged. Here in my 6th decade, I’m teaching myself clojure.

Not because someone's making me or because it’s going to pay me a nickel more, but just because I love being mentally challenged*.

* https://explosm.net/comics/3286/

Many people prefer to be thought fools. For example I personally prefer to sit quietly and observe until the need comes for action. I find that my actions (although effective) are not understood by those who try to control me. It's quiet fun for me to watch as they meet with unanticipated difficulties... had they understood the danger they would stay away. Yet if I were to let people see who I am from the beginning they might lay better plans.

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