What do you think a smart person is?

[Hacker Jack]

Problem solver?
Creative?
High IQ?
Can do what others can't?
Knowledgeable?
Abstract reasoning abilities?
what?

Or maybe the idea of "smartness" is just a human developed term that doesn't really matter or exist in reality. What is more useful is a term like "functioning" like "low functioning", the in-betweens and "high functioning"... how a person can use what they know in order to do something that goes towards a goal, one main source example being survivability, what can i do with what I know and resources to complete a task that will improve my survival chances... I don't know... what are your thought fellow humans :)

 

[mcastillo356]

Smart is the person that knows it's going to take hard work if he wants to succeed in life.
In any field of life. But... although I know it, I'm not smart. I always keep in mind Einstein's quote: "Genious is 1% talent and 99% hard work". So...I can't help.

 

[Hacker Jack]

I wonder if that quote is based on Einstein's personal experience with life and his work. It doesn't say much in common text about him being a hard worker, just that he was a genius of his time.

 

[PeroK]

I wonder if that quote is based on Einstein's personal experience with life and his work. It doesn't say much in common text about him being a hard worker, just that he was a genius of his time.

It's difficult to know what to make of that quotation. From a scientific point of view, we would need evidence that, say, the difference between physicists of various standings was almost entirely (99%) down to hard work and very little (1%) to do with natural ability. It's not entirely clear, of course, how you would measure that.

The prima facie evidence, I suggest, doesn't support that at all. It appears that in almost any field you need both the talent and the hard work to reach the top. Talent will only get you so far and there are only so many hours in each day.

In a way, it's obvious in Einstein's case, as he had a full-time job and was only looking at physics part-time. In no way could he claim that he was working harder at physics than anyone else in 1904-05.

 

[jack action]

Intelligence is the measure of imagination. The more you can 'see' things that aren't there - in present time or in the surrounding environment - the smarter you are.

I know I can say that "one dog is smarter than another one." So limiting the definition of smart to 'high IQ', or 'knowledgeable' cannot be part of a correct definition.

I also think that you don't need to be smart to be 'functioning'. Being smart is a characteristic, like being strong or being fast. One that can vary from one individual to another (human or not).

 

[hutchphd]

F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

Yep

 

[Rive]

Well, by my book 'high IQ' can still be constrained by many things, while 'creative' is kind of on the other end of scale - it is lacking the real life touch.
Problem solver is better, but 'smart' has a special taste to it - not just solving a problem, but doing it a 'smart' way.

Well, maybe: actually solving problems in a kind of new, unreastrained way: adhering only to the really important aspects, not to the previous examples or expectations.

 

[Hacker Jack]

Seems like there is no general definition for "smart" other than a oxford dictionary/google search definition... as you all have different ideas of what it is. Maybe it is just a useless term... it gets thrown around to easily and some people value themselves over how others define them as being various levels of "smart"...

I think the biggest thing that makes people think you are smart is that when you do something novel (something no one has done before) or something that someone else can't do and get many to appreciate you for it. Also it is about what you can influence others to believe rather than you just thinking that you are 'smart' and dying without anyone really noticing what was in your head. For example Einstein producing all those theories that got peer reviewed and accepted by the scientific community and years later the world knew about how "smart" he was as to even call him a "genius". I think it is very important that to be considered smart is to see how much people you can influence into thinking you are smart through a general definition. Most people see HIGH IQ as being smart because it is generally accepted and misunderstood as being something that defines how 'smart' you are.

I think I will just accept the "smart" as simply being an imperfect human defined word and that it really doesn't matter if you are called smart or not. It is what you can do and how you can produce results for a goal like surviving. Maybe once brain studies is not so young of a study and more is known about the brain, we can have more concrete definitions of what "smart" is in a general sense.

 

[Evo]

Now that the question has been answered, we can close this.