Hacker News Reader

Comment by teh_infallible | Hacker News Reader

You can be smart, intelligent, and educated without being wise. In fact, it’s the norm.

I agree. I would say intelligence is what you have naturally, education is what you acquire in school, and wisdom is what you acquire through experience. These are not interchangeable.

I'd say smart is what you have naturally, education is what you acquire in school, intelligence is a snapshot of what you actively remember from education plus what you've learned via recent experience, and wisdom is a scratchpad where your brain makes a note whenever it comes across something that's relevant to all of the above.

I prefer to think of it as wisdom is what you know intrinsically, education is what you have learned, intelligence is your capacity for learning

Nice summary, but I dislike the fact that education has made the default understanding of these categories to be about retaining information/knowledge rather that your ability to compute/reason/intuit.

Yes, familiarity with a field should improve skill, but I like to think that one can be smart, intelligent or wise in a situation that does not involve previous information about it.

Someone exposed to a brand new game or puzzle can be smart, intelligent or wise in solving it separately (to some degree) from having prior information.

Like the confuscious quote:

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

I like to think that intelligence is the set of questions you can solve. Wisdom is the capability to pick the right questions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com