Are you smarter than…? (pt 2)
Continuing what I started last week, I’ll begin by returning to my initial set of questions: Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Are you smarter than a Jeopardy champion? And here’s a third inquiry, more pertinent in this day and time: are you smarter than your watch or phone? Facetious? Possibly—at least before the imagined cyborg evolution goes much further. Right now these questions hit us where we live in an age when human intelligence is always measured in comparison to someone or something else. And whenever we hold up our smarts to someone else, our judgment must be further qualified by the age of that person, the education they enjoyed or missed, and the era in which he or she lived. Smarter than is a question whose answer should begin with, “well that depends upon…”
Last week I proposed three qualities or factors that I believe make anyone appear intelligent: aptitude (our ability to do something), recollection (our recall of information) and synthesis (our ability to apply and connect information and/or skills to create something new or understand how things fit or interrelate). And of these three, how we use what we know seems to be the most critically important, for it is upon our ability to synthesize that problem solving, invention and creativity so often depends. Now appearances of intelligence can be deceiving, yet when push comes to shove, appearances may be all we have in formulating our impressions. If there is any truth to what a late 20th-Century media sage, Forrest Gump, once said, “Stupid is as stupid does,” then its corollary is also valid: Smart is as smart does. In other words, when it comes to intelligence, appearances do matter.
But what about smart technologies? They do pass the litmus test on at least two of the three abilities that I’m equating with intelligence. Computers link us to others telephonically and visually, take high definition pictures, play music, and serve as platforms for countless apps. And they can even talk to us. Now that’s aptitude! These devices also possess memory enough to call up data at the stroke of a key or voice command, summoned from a seemingly inexhaustible database. By connecting us to a plethora of information we now depend upon to navigate our cars, research historical information, and compare the prices and availability of almost anything money can buy, they give us the tools to synthesize and make decisions. There’s no denying these necessities of modern life are smart, augmenting and assisting our own intelligence. But without a human to synthesize what they provide, they seem to fall short of equaling or surpassing us in intelligence—at least for now. And when they can’t connect to a network, run out of battery or crash, they turn out to be no smarter than the metal, plastic and glass in which they are made.
Returning to people, I’d like to address two questions that came to me after writing last week’s essay. First: is aptitude the same as talent? If aptitude is a measure of know how, then isn’t talent the ingredient that makes it possible for us do anything really well? For me the answer is yes and no. Who can ignore the fact that some people seem to have innate talents that set them apart from the rest of us, be it in music, physical coordination, artistic creativity, or mental acuity? Prodigies can spring up in the most unexpected places, casting doubt on the belief that everything we are or become is exclusively the product of learning. Yet talent alone rarely produces virtuosity. It takes practice, forbearance and time--yes the time to hone skills and develop those talents beyond the level of promise and potential. When I describe aptitude as a key component of intelligence, I do so accepting the role that talent and effort both play in furthering any of the aptitudes that make us unique.
And second: isn’t memory overrated, given its subjectivity and irrelevancy in this age of limitless access to information? Granted that human memory is an ever changing, highly subjective faculty, I don’t view it as overrated, not even in our current state of technological dependence. To be sure, memory has been de-emphasized in education where it long stood as a staple of learning. We no longer expect children to remember facts, formulas, spelling, vocabulary definitions or rules of grammar as we once did. Perhaps that is due to our recent contempt for rote learning and memorization. Since committing anything to memory involves tedious repetition that seems out of step with a “learning should be fun” mindset, it has been consigned to the dustbin marked “old-school.” Only athletic coaches and artistic directors continue to equate practice and rehearsal with success in performance. Besides, if Alexa and Siri can remember for us, spell for us, do our calculations and correct our writing—why make children memorize? My fear in all of this is that, in abandoning many of the disciplines that benefited so many over the years, we make ourselves dependent on devices to remember what we once expected people to know. And with Murphy’s law always in play, that’s a most precarious dependency.
I’ll bring my reflections on intelligence to a close by returning to the Howard Gardner quote that concluded last week’s essay: “It is not how smart you are that matters; what really counts is how you are smart,” His theory of multiple intelligences has made me reassess my views, both of my own intellectual capacities and those of others. Gardner himself is a poster child for verbal and mathematical brilliance, which for him translated into stellar SAT scores, National Merit Finalist recognition, and much honor for his alma mater, Wyoming Seminary (where I had the good fortune of working for 22 years). He had every right to see himself at the apex of the intellectual pyramid, yet over a long and distinguished career studying human cognition, he realized that so many others were also smart, and often in ways in which he was rather deficient.
This led to his formulation of a theory of human intelligence that included aptitudes that we customarily rank well below the verbal and mathematical criteria used in college admission. The human race includes those who, while not excelling in words and numbers, nonetheless demonstrate spatial-visual intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal (including emotional) intelligence, naturalistic and existential (philosophical) intelligence. Gardner didn’t minimize the fact that being smart with words, calculations and logic are quite important, particularly in certain fields of study and the occupations they serve. Yet he realized that these do not set the boundaries that define what makes humans successful or well-adjusted in life. We are enriched and broadened, both individually and collectively, by the realms of intelligence demonstrated by artists, athletes, poets, and philosphers. Not to be overlooked is the intelligence of those whose empathy and self-awareness make them perceptive colleagues, understanding bosses, insightful marketers, trusted partners and friends. One size fits all doesn’t work for clothing. Neither does it accurately or adequately describe human intelligence.
Are you smarter than…? Am I? In whatever area we use our talents and apply our efforts to excel, it will be our aptitude, our power of recollection, and our ability to synthesize what we know that will demonstrate how smart we are. Potential and promise may be the stuff of parental and youthful dreaming. But “doing” smart things or stupid things is where we live our lives, and meet others trying to do the same. That is as true for those we honor for their genius as it is for those who, at first glance, we may discount or overlook. But don’t take my word for it. Just look for a slow-talking man sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus, a box of chocolates on his lap. He knows.
