Recent attention has been turned to the evolution of education and the new nature of information. For the first time in the history of the world there is actually an over-abundance of information: it is easy to suffer information overload. With a simple Google search or a trip to the Wikipedia most questions of fact can be quickly and simply answered. However, while the knowledge-base of society is going to grow to sizes never before known, the distinction between knowledge and intelligence – between information and Truth – is going to become simultaneously clearer and more muddling.
It will become clearer in that they are not the same. In older ages of the world information was scarce (as accorded the “book” model of information translations mentioned in a previous post). In those times, it was primarily the intelligent who went to the trouble and difficulty to learn to read, to acquire books, and to bother to understand; in many circles it was neither expected nor encouraged. This is not to say that only the well-read were intelligent; but if you wanted to find an intelligent person, looking to those with “knowledge” would probably lead you to them.
Today, then, we are forced to draw the distinction. In America the literacy rate is 99% (a fact, by the way, produced by a quick Wiki search). This is unprecedented in the history of this world. And yet, opinions of the intelligence of the population are probably the same as they were during the Bronze Age. With the abundance of knowledge available to even the most ignorant hand, the need to distinguish between intelligence and knowledge is going to be greater than ever before.
We have all heard of Straight-A students who have committed atrocities of violence or downright stupidity; people who can answer the questions but not the situations. We are probably equally familiar with those who have not done well in school and yet demonstrate admirable, even remarkable, wisdom and ability.
In the book Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand makes a clear distinction between those who think and those who do not. She is violent in her attacks on the unthinking, which included the ranks of those coming out of the colleges and running the collapsing nation. By Thinkers she meant those who were not afraid to make decisions; who were capable of reasoning things out and had the courage to stand with their conclusions rather than looking around for someone “who ought to know” rather than trust their own reasoning. According to Rand, Thought is the highest quality in man and the source of all achievement. She would classify a person’s ability to think as his intelligence.
Revealed scripture is very interested in intelligence. It states that it is the Glory of God; that it is Truth and Light; and that principles of intelligence are the key thing that will rise with us after this life.
If you mind is like mine, you have too little drawn the line of distinction between knowledge and intelligence. Plotting the education of ourselves and our children in an age where the one is no longer a paired good with the other, we need to come to a clear understanding before we can have faith in the future we want.
What is intelligence, and what is it not?