Intelligence

It’s one of those words we use frequently and means different things to different people. In education, it’s about the stored-intelligence required to learn information, to have the capacity to retain and recall that information and then to regurgitate it when needed (like on exams). This is valuable and serves some highly intelligent people well. Standardized tests measure academic mastery of specific concepts and aptitudes. The people who do well “pull a lot of carts” in our culture. And those carts are full of people who benefit. Those benefits are a direct result of the efforts and achievements of the academically stored-intelligence folks.

These people understand a lot of what’s going on and their approach is reassuring, unwavering, stable and clear. They have answers to many of the problems we face in today’s world. They seem to be able to take complex problems, apply their knowledge and cut to the key issues. After reducing the issues to simpler and more manageable black-white, either-or alternatives, they’re able to find clear, conservative (this is not a political term) solutions. Their positions are, to some degree, based of course on the confirmation bias that led them to where they stand today. They function well in certainty.

But rigid thinking does not feel comfortable with new, conflicting information. It’s unsettling when it doesn’t conform to their predetermined strict views. There’s a quote often attributed to the economist, John Maynard Keynes (also to Winston Churchill): “When I receive new facts, I change my viewpoints. What do you do?”

Situations like this, situations full of brand-new data, require a different kind of intelligence. Let’s call this kind adaptive-intelligence. This is not about retain-recall-regurgitate. This is about what many refer to as “street smarts.” Those standardized tests do not measure practical abilities, abstract thinking, leadership, compassion or mechanical skills. And those qualities are exactly what’s needed to address new problems in new uncertain situations. An open mind is required. One that is comfortable leaning on intuition (accumulated sense data) and including its insights into solving new problems. These people are comfortable being in uncertainty. Comfortable in the grey areas of life. Adaptive-intelligence is connected to logical reasoning, recognizing patterns, making decisions and coming up with insights that contribute to addressing new problems. They’re not using the old, “tried and true solutions” to brand-new problems. This is not about storage of information to recall. It’s about thinking.

This isn’t meant to be about which is better. This isn’t about comparison. It IS about different kinds of intelligence. As a culture we obviously need a variety. We need doctors, plumbers, small businesspeople, automobile mechanics, attorneys, entrepreneurs, researchers, high-technology people, low-technology people, managers and support staff personnel, health care practitioners, etc.

I’m hearing a lot of concern these days about where this new technology is going. Concern about that has been around at least since Socrates feared the damage to be done to our memories and comprehension by the new written word. We’ve managed to survive that. Also, we’ve adapted to the new printing press, steam engine, industrial revolution and internet. And we will figure out how to incorporate this new AI into human progress.

Relax. There’s plenty of intelligence of all kinds. The sky isn’t falling. We’ll survive. Our grandkids will figure it out and move human progress forward.