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Comment by angst_ridden | Hacker News Reader

"Smart" is one of those nebulous things, until people give it a too-narrow definition like IQ. It's important to acknowledge that there are many kinds of intelligence, not all of which are pure logic or knowledge-gathering.

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I like this definition of intelligence

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”

I couldn't disagree more.

You must think CPU's are very intelligent

So you're saying "intelligence is the ability to eat lots of pizza" is a better definition?

Or to create change.

not "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills"?

So a thermostat is intelligent?

No because it can't protect itself from water or run away from a lion. It's extremely limited in the range of environments it can adapt to.

So is someone who is unable to move unintelligent?

I think it's a poor definition. I don't like change. I don't like going to new places, I like my routine. Change makes me uncomfortable and I'm slow to accept it. I like my usual meals and sleeping in my own bed. Does that make me unintelligent? Or does "change" need to be better defined?

i would imagine they mean a change in information not a change in routine. updating your mental model of the world based on new incoming information.

That's why I'd like the definition to be refined. There's also displays of intelligence that have nothing to do with change - being able to do complex math in your head would indicate you're intelligent, but has nothing to do with change.

Adapting and liking are two different things. Adapting to change by devising ways to keep your routine needs a minimum of intelligence. Though I make no statement on any relative or absolute scale.

I also find that far to often people think another person is not smart because they don't measure up to themselves in the same intelligence categories. I always try to describe this as the categories intelligence being disturbed across sphere where each category is a tangential line. Due to ones own perspective, another may not actually look intelligent because they're orthogonal to ones own, and they are then perceived to be "stupid".

Emotional intelligence and EQ/EIQ [1] are commonly ignored, but are just as necessary for functioning in society and achieving success.

Some people seem to be really fixated on IQ over EQ, for what I suspect are, ironically, emotional reasons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

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