Intelligence.

[Cæli]

I think a good way to measure intelligence is to check how successful people are in their personal objectives
I believe someone smart will succeed or be in the way to succeed, someone dumb will not or will lower his objectives to something not really uncommon

[d00mGuArD]

1) When having to make a decision, intelligence is to come up with many possible options/solutions and their potential outcomes. Analysis of the situation and potential outcomes and results of each decision.

2) Being good/natural at math and programming of course. Although some theories say there are many different types intelligence, in my opinion intelligent people are good at math. (Disclaimer: There are exceptions of course. There are intelligent people that -for some reason- are not good at math. Maybe bad schooling or bad parents or whatever. But in most cases, it is a good indicator)

[Darsithis]

http://imgur.com/a/idsHO

http://imgur.com/a/NzY5r

http://imgur.com/a/QYt6l

These are just a couple of textbooks I could find on my PC. Both with large chapters dedicated to intelligence. I have come across far more detailed chapters that thoroughly pick apart the history of the concept of intelligence. Feel free to PM me for the full books, just in case you want to count exactly how many prominent theories you can find here.

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Well that shut em up.

He didn't ask where intelligence comes from, nor did I ever say I knew. All I said is what it is, what is defined as, which is the ability to learn and apply existing/learned skills to problems/situations.

That's it. He asked what it is, I answered with the definition of intelligence. I'm not interested in the how and why, nor am I interested in debating it. That isn't the topic or the focus.

[Shalcker]

It's impossible to arrive at a number higher than 10 with only 2 hands.

You can technically go from 0 up to 1023 if you use binary with 10 digits on two hands (0 - digit down, 1 - digit up)

[Thelxi]

He didn't ask where intelligence comes from, nor did I ever say I knew. All I said is what it is, what is defined as, which is the ability to learn and apply existing/learned skills to problems/situations.

That's it. He asked what it is, I answered with the definition of intelligence. I'm not interested in the how and why, nor am I interested in debating it. That isn't the topic or the focus.

No, what you said was that there are not many theories of intelligence. As if that wasn't bad enough, you said that intelligence is clearly defined.

[Darsithis]

No, what you said was that there are not many theories of intelligence. As if that wasn't bad enough, you said that intelligence is clearly defined.

I misspoke. I was never intending to refer to the the how and why of intelligence as I am not an expert by any means in neuroscience. I was only referring to the general definition (that I've posted twice now).

[SirCowdog]

When you start going into more broad definitions of intelligence, even things such as the way the planet earth's biosphere deals with changing conditions can be considered a form of intelligence.

But since we're limiting the scope to a human being(presumably this isn't some kind of AI fishing for answers on random videogame websites), I'd say there aren't many ways to increase raw intelligence.

At least not yet, anyway. Give us a few more decades and we'll start seeing things like computer-assisted processing linked directly to a person's brain. In a lot of ways having easy access to the internet via smart-devices(such as phones) increases available knowledge, and thereby indirectly increases your intelligence by being able to access the hive-mind of various wiki pages and forums for answers. What you do with those answers, however, is still limited by your own intelligence.

It's a sticky subject, because too often it strays into theoretical and opinion.

[Kokolums]

I go with the definition that intelligence is the ability to plan ahead. It gets really obvious when you look at the least intelligent people. They all live in the moment. Do you know why people waste their lives on drugs? Sure addiction is one factor but another is they simply cannot plan more than a couple days ahead. If you tell them what it will do their bodies over 10 years they will give you a blank stare.

[Archon14]

I am the embodiment of intelligence, and all possible amounts of intelligence among the people are simply scaled-down versions of me.