(I realize this thread is all but dead [hey, rhyming!] but you know me, I just can't resist putting my 2 cents in. [And I wasn't here when the thread first started, since I've only started coming by the debate club recently] Just be glad I replaced the rambling monstrosity of a post that I *originally* put up with this one...)
The way I see it, there are two separate but related components to what we mean when we call someone "intelligent": Knowledge, and Intelligence proper. Knowledge consists of previously memorized facts and procedures, while Intelligence is the ability to think intuitively and creatively, and to make connections between things you already know. Intelligence comes from genetics and early childhood brain development (and can probably be modified, to a lesser extent, all throughout life), while Knowledge comes only through learning (or from observation of the world itself, although the lifespan of the average human keeps this from getting very far alone). Certainly, they are both important, since Knowledge is of little use without the Intelligence to apply it, and while Intelligence may enable one to learn more quickly from observations of the world, it's unlikely to take you very far without a previously-acquired store of Knowledge on which to build (Had Einstein grown up in a small village in the middle ages, I doubt he would have come up with the theory of Relativity). And while obviously, the two are related (math, for example, involves both knowledge of basic principles and using intelligence to apply them), I believe there is enough of a difference to draw a distinction between the two for the purpose of intelligence tests and so forth. An Intelligence Quotient test should measure only intelligence, meaning it should rely on things like pattern-finding and matching, spatial relations, etc. and not require any specific Knowledge, save for basic things like what a "square" is. It's been some time since I last took an IQ test, so I honestly don't know to what extent they rely on knowing certain things ahead of time . I know for a fact that the SATs do, and if they can really be mapped to IQ scores as I've heard, that implies that perhaps IQ tests do rely too much on explicit Knowledge.
As a final note, although in some ways I prefer Intelligence, since with enough of it you can create knowledge simply by observing the world (and because people with more Intelligence than Knowledge tend to be more interesting than the reverse- to me, anyway), it's not the be-all and end-all. A reasonably Intelligent person with a large store of Knowledge on which to draw can accomplish more than a genius who knows nothing, in most cases.
As for why geniuses are so frequently so close to being insane, I think it's obvious. Like I said before, one of the salient features of intelligence is the ability to think in creative and unusual ways. At a very high level of that, you get either a genius or an insane person, with very little dividing the two in many cases.
_________________ Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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