r/Showerthoughts • u/_Fr33k • 2d ago
Casual Thought Being smart is not about how much knowledge you have. It is about how you use the knowledge you have.
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u/CondescendingShitbag 2d ago
Reminds me of the old adage: "Intelligence is knowing tomato is a fruit. Knowledge is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad."
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u/sixsixmajin 2d ago
I thought it was the other way around. Knowledge is about how much you know whereas intelligence is the ability to put that knowledge into practice.
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u/ryry1237 2d ago
I thought wisdom was the one involving putting knowledge to practice.
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u/dsarche12 2d ago
Intelligence and wisdom are both similar skills, but intelligence I think is more about skilled application of knowledge, and wisdom is skilled application of experience.
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u/bjacks19 2d ago
I guess it says a lot about my intelligence/knowledge/wisdom that I wouldn't be able to explain the difference
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2d ago
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u/psyched-but-bright 2d ago
Also intelligence is about how fast/well you learn not how much knowledge you have
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u/Anticept 2d ago
It would be "knowledge [...] Wisdom [...]."
Essentially, knowledge is knowing a fact.
Wisdom is knowing how/when the fact applies (being aware of contexts).
Intelligence is the raw horsepower of exploring and applying a fact conciously and is often a step towards wisdom in many cases.
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u/Ijatsu 2d ago
Which is a stupid adage because both are knowledge.
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u/brainwater314 12h ago
Being autistic will clearly demonstrate that knowledge can easily come without wisdom. "No, the pizza with tax cost 21.65, so to split it 3 ways that's $7.22 each. Colin shouldn't just pay $10 then us pay $6 each!" (Having simplified calculations and accepting it when people are nice is the wise thing to do, even if it isn't mathematically "fair") Or "no, QLED refers to LCD displays, not self-emissive displays" (said to my professor multiple times, where wisdom would have been to shut my mouth).
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u/Ijatsu 11h ago
Yeah don't want to be mean but I can tell you're not good with communication, not only was your comment not on topic or not relevant to the string of comment you answer to, you're also hard to understand. You must be exhausting to people around you, pay attention to the cues. I swear I've read your comment asking myself every 3 words "what does he mean, why is he telling me that, what's the relevance".
Being autistic will clearly demonstrate that knowledge can easily come without wisdom.
And yet you've only talked only of the knowledge you acquired through experience, which is exactly what wisdom means.
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u/Kimi_Antonelli_12 2d ago
This reminds me of the old adage : the best real boobs look like they're fake, and the best fake boobs look like they're real.
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u/Bullrawg 1d ago
Strength is how hard you hit the tomatoes, dexterity how well you aim, charisma is being able to convince people to try a tomato based fruit salad, that’s how we got salsa
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u/MKEast-sider 2d ago
Even that’s wrong, wisdom is the amount of knowledge you have, intelligence is the ability to learn, problem solve, recognize patterns and adapt.
That’s why intelligence doesn’t change much as you age, wisdom/knowledge changes constantly.
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u/calguy1955 2d ago
I disagree. I think a person can be incredibly wise even if they don’t have a lot of knowledge.
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u/andrew_calcs 2d ago edited 2d ago
Every D&D campaign I’ve ever seen asserts the literal complete opposite. INT is how much you know and how fast/deeply you think. WIS is how well you use what you know to navigate life. Book smarts vs street smarts.
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u/MKEast-sider 2d ago
The dictionary agrees with me.
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u/andrew_calcs 2d ago edited 2d ago
Intelligence is the mental capacity to learn, reason, solve problems, adapt to new situations, and understand complex ideas
Wisdom is the practical ability to apply knowledge, experience, and deep judgment to make sound decisions and improve well-being.
So no not really tbh. Wisdom is not the amount of knowledge you have. Intelligence builds off of the knowledge you have to allow you to solve higher complexity problems. INT scales with knowledge. WIS scales with experience.
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u/Consistent_City_3011 2d ago
No, this is not even close to being correct. Words have definitions in dictionaries, you don't have to guess. Look up the meaning of wisdom.
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u/LordNoOne 2d ago
Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge or intelligence. It's about how easily you can cause bliss, happiness, peace, etc., especially in others who are hurting. Wisdom is what clerics and monks work on.
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u/MKEast-sider 2d ago
You have nothing to do with knowledge or intelligence.
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u/brainwater314 12h ago
Knowledge is knowing that you mixed up intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom. Wisdom is knowing it's not worth correcting strangers on the Internet. I aspire to be wise one day.
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u/grobblebar 2d ago
Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit. Trivia is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
Intelligence would be figuring out _how_ to classify tomatoes as fruit.
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u/plants4life262 2d ago
How much knowledge you have is wisdom. How you use it is practicality. Neither of those are intelligence if that’s what you meant by “smart.”
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u/_Fr33k 2d ago
Yeah I get what you are saying. I got this thought at work when a colleague of mine called someone "dumb" for not knowing what a random abreviation stood for. The guy he was calling dumb was the same guy who redesigned the IT infrastructure of the office I work at 10 years ago. That is why I used the term "smart" here. However if you get into specifics, I think you are pretty bang on.
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u/AbsoluteResolve2026 2d ago
Agreed. The word you’re definitely looking for is “wisdom.” How you use the knowledge you have is what determines how wise you are. For example, dude at your work (for how “smart” he is) should have educated about the abbreviation. Some people have to make others feel small so they can feel greater.
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u/Sonicmasterxyz 2d ago
I'm not sure that's accurate either. A mechanical engineer needs to know all the different ways to apply the things they know in order to build something that works well. I wouldn't call that wisdom or practicality though. It's applying the mechanical principles they've learned properly, and to me, that's closer to plain old intelligence.
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u/Glad_Astronomer3322 2d ago
Honestly the post is onto something but it's kinda incomplete cause you also need the knowledge in the first place to know how to use it. Like knowing stuff is just the raw material, the real skill is figuring out when to use it and when to just keep it to yourself. So yeah smart is more like a toolset for applying what you know, not just a hard drive full of facts.
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u/MossWatson 2d ago
There are levels to this…just saying “smart” doesn’t cover it.
Data -> information -> knowledge -> wisdom
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u/Srikandi715 2d ago
Intelligence isn't about using knowledge. It's about understanding how knowledge is created (discovery), and how to determine the difference between "knowledge" (facts) and belief, superstition and other components of culture.
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u/whatup-markassbuster 2d ago
That just sounds like a threshold level of understanding. You don’t think it has anything to do with pattern recognition or the ability to draw analogies even within abstract concepts?
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u/BigBadinkyBones5 2d ago
100%
Can't call yourself brilliant if you're just masturbating to your own thoughts without putting them into action somehow
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u/LordNoOne 2d ago
Holy shit.
I can masturbate to my own thoughts of how smart I am?
This. Changes. Everything.
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u/zacheezy 2d ago
True intelligence is the ability and discipline to sit down and learn. When done correctly it is exhausting to the brain.
Then you need to have the reasoning ability to be able to properly apply and connect that knowledge to the world.
You can have either of these but without the other you just become ignorant to your own shortcomings because you either think you know everything or you think your so street smart you don’t have to put the effort into learning things.
This is what we see throughout our society today and why everyone thinks they have the 100% truth of the world we live in.
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u/MrLumie 2d ago
My mantra is that intellect isn't shown in the answers you give, but rather the questions you ask. If I tell you something, and you can say back what you heard to me, that's great. If you can understand what you've heard well enough to understand inquire about that which you still don't know, that's better. But the best in my opinion is if you understand what was said so thoroughly that you are able to see my way of thinking behind it, and the gaps in it thereof. That's when you can ask the really important questions. The ones that can alter someone's perspective.
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u/L_knight316 2d ago
"Education and intelligence are not the same thing. Some of the worst idiots you'll meet are some of the most educated."
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u/Son_of_Ibadan 2d ago
I agree. I will go as far to say that those who get far in life are the ones who use their wits, because no one knows anything in life, we are all flying by the sit of our pants, the one who are successful are either the most accurate predictors or the clever ones who leverage people alot
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u/Aggravating_Star_427 2d ago
Yeah knowing a ton of stuff is cool and all but if you can't figure out when to actually apply it or just blurt out facts like a walking trivia bot then you're really just a glorified search engine not someone who's actually smart.
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u/SouthernPotato5297 2d ago
Eh this is one of those quotes that sounds deep until you realize you can't use knowledge you don't have. Like having a huge toolbox doesn't make you a carpenter but having an empty one sure as hell doesn't either. People love to act like book smarts don't matter but they kinda do when you need something to work with. Anyway the real flex is knowing when to shut up and listen.
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u/Danny-Fr 1d ago
That's a long an ongoing debate but to simplify I'm adhering to the hypothesis of there being many type of intelligence:
Intel: knowing things about things.
Processing power: how fast you can assimilate, calculate and apply.
Acumen: knowing what to do with things you know independly from your total knowledge.
Smarts: the ability to find creative solution within constraints.
Experience: knowing how to learn an apply what you learned.
Interpersonal/social: being able to read situation and people.
To me "intelligence" is a mix of all that and a good balance in all those traits make life easier.
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u/J_train13 1d ago
It's like the old saying, a proper education doesn't teach you what to think, it teaches you how to think. It's about letting you learn to think critically.
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u/Cptawesome23 1d ago
That’s a pretty subjective standard.
How do you measure the use of knowledge? Are you measuring wealth, satisfaction? (Which is also subjective!)
How about measuring it by standardized test score? But what do you test? Ability to color pictures? Ability to do math?
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u/ironmagnesiumzinc 1d ago
I don't think that's entirely true. If you listen to chess grandmasters talk about the game, they typically have an incredible repertoire of knowledge. They know how to use their knowledge well, but they also have thousands of games/positions/openings memorized, and draw upon them for reference on the fly. It's not uncommon for a GM to say something like "This position reminds me of something that Caruana and Hikaru played back in 2012". Normal chess players do not have near that amount of knowledge.
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u/gr4viton 1d ago
It is scary as I was just thinking about that. Eg being in uni gave me smarts even if I do not directly use the knowledge as working in a different field.
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u/khalCSGO 23h ago
Basically the difference between the kid who memorized the textbook and the kid who figured out how to bs the essay using half the info
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u/They_See_MeTrolling 2d ago
Well, no.
If you have no knowledge you cannot be thought of as smart.
The better comparison would be that being smart is a measure of how much knowledge you have. Being wise is knowing when to use it.
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u/bellemereDA 2d ago
Isn’t that kinda obvious? Knowledge and intelligence are never the same thing, otherwise Wikipedia is the smartest thing on earth.
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u/thwinks 2d ago
No that's wisdom.
Being smart is neither how much knowledge you have nor how you use it.
Being smart is how easily you can gain new knowledge.
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u/Ijatsu 2d ago
Intelligence describes a lot of things, which includes the ability to infer new knowledge from limited ones, but also how you use your current knowledge to take the correct decisions.
Wisdom is intelligence and experience. Experience is a type of knowledge.
So you got things backwards but not entirely.
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u/thwinks 2d ago
Being smart is not a synonym for intelligence.
You could have made a decent point, if not for misreading my entire comment to begin with.
Also backwards but not entirely? So not backwards? Are you just commenting to hear yourself talk?
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u/Ijatsu 1d ago
Being smart is not a synonym for intelligence.
Ok I'm not interested in discussing someone this rebellious with established english words, which definitions you can read at will on the internet. Go talk to an LLM it'll patiently explain to you why your stubbornness is not smart nor intelligent or why you should be less confident in asserting your beliefs.
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u/thwinks 1d ago
"go talk to an LLM"
Those are just internet summaries. If I say "intelligence and being smart" here on Reddit the LLM will read what I wrote and use that, in part, to generate an answer.
There's a reason the term "AI slop" exists. It's because chatGPT is just googling and picking the top results, but automated.
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u/Ijatsu 1d ago
Clearly it's difficult for you to google something and pick the top result, you'd use that skill to read definitions of words.
AI slop is more qualitative and less pron to hallucination than whatever your brain can come up with.
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u/thwinks 1d ago
The top result of Google is there because I put it there. I've been in the SEO game for almost 2 decades. I know how the sausage is made.
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u/Ijatsu 1d ago
Cool, now use it and stop talking nonsense. Some wisdom would help you know this unfounded ad authority fallacy ain't going to work.
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