The problem with intelligence

The problem with intelligent people is that they do not realize HOW intelligent they are.  This causes no end of confusion and lack of real communication.

If you consider intelligence to be: “depth to which a person can navigate a decision tree and speed with which this happens.”  Note: a decision tree is a technique from game theory to graphically organize all possible results of actions taken at different times and states.  It is basically a “flow chart” or a “graph of connections.”   In other words, intelligence is a measure of ability to process information represented by “volume of data” over “duration of time.” 

Smart people can search deeper in the decision tree faster and more accurately than their less intelligent associates.

Now, let’s consider the depth of search in a decision tree to be analogous to depth of vision in a fog.  Smarter people can see farther in the fog, while less intelligent people can’t see as far.  If you have relatively “limited vision” you can’t possible know what is beyond the scope of your vision.  If you have more restricted vision, you cannot understand what someone else with more robust vision can actually see.

If a person with deep vision sees a great anomaly beyond the range of vision of his compatriots, he would be considered “off”, or “wrong”, or “incorrect”’ or “silly.”   Only the future will prove the accuracy of his vision; but by that time it no longer matters.

This is one reason why the intelligent will always be misunderstood by the less intelligent.   There is no possible way they could be understood.  The “well crafted” and “thoughtful” arguments of average people tend to seem simplistic and obviously flawed to the most intelligent.  In fact, it is difficult to hold any deeply meaningful conversation at all between the two groups.  This is similar to high school seniors hanging out with fifth graders.  What similar understanding could they possibly have?  The conversation of the fifth graders seems repetitive and trivial.  The conversation of the high school seniors seems haughty, obscure, and irrelevant.  What commonality exists; other than the most mundane?

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An objection:  It appears that much intelligent activity in the brain is accomplished with methods other than searching a decision tree.  In fact, high speed pattern matching seems to be a component of many intelligent activities like chess playing.  Is the foregoing argument still valid if the primary methodology of intelligent activity is not “traversing a decision tree to find the best results?”

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Copyright©2015

William Schaeffer