I is for Intelligent

I think Intelligence is actually a very misunderstood virtue. Intelligence is not the same thing as smart.
Let me explain.

The word smart has the nuance of witty, intelligent, and maybe even a little bit snarky. It is like being called a smarty-pants.  People say: "Don't be smart with me!" But are never heard saying "Don't be intelligent with me!"

Intelligence, according to Wikipedia includes "one's capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving. It can also be more generally described as the ability to perceive and/or retain knowledge or information and apply it to itself or other instances of knowledge or information creating referable understanding models of any size, density, or complexity, due to any conscious or subconscious imposed will or instruction to do so."

Often people talk about computers becoming intelligent...but that kind of freaks me out. I mean, how many movies have been made where the computer was 'intelligent' yet attacked just about everyone in the film?

Uh...

2001: A Space Odyssey
I, Robot
Terminator
Eagle Eye
The Matrix
Battlestar Galactica
Blade Runner

To name a few...

Intelligence is not just problem solving, which is what most people mean when they talk about intelligent computers. It isn't even just logic or recognizing patterns. I had this scanner, for example, that had 'intelligent' programming allowing it to recognize patterns in images it scanned. It looked for words, faces, and what could be landscape. The problem with it was that it tended to crop things I wanted scanned whole. If I was scanning in a photograph or artwork with a lot of negative space - something crucial to the art - the computer would just crop around the face. I had to go to drastic measures (such as writing in the far margins around the picture) to make it stop. The fact is, I don't trust any machine to think because they don't really have judgment, which is crucial to real intelligence (That was a key point in I, Robot, by the way). In other words:

"To Err is Human.

To really screw things up takes a computer."

But I digress.

Real intelligence is something of an effort. Seeking knowledge. Studying things out. Thinking. And yes, using Logic. But also recognizing patterns where logic may have no understanding. And best, accepting correction by those who know better. This is intelligence.

The opposite of intelligence is Ignorance. It isn't just a lack of knowledge. It is sitting about doing nothing but remaining the same in knowledge. Repeating what has been repeated without testing if it is true. Accepting whatever without study. It is inert brain function.

According to Wikipedia, ignorance "is often used as an insult to describe individuals who deliberately ignore or disregard important information or facts."

I believe intelligence is acquired by degrees. Some people are born with more logical brains, capable of high knowledge gathering, whereas others struggle with adding things up in the same way but have another kind of intelligence when it comes to patterns, or people. That is to say, a person can be intelligent in one matter, yet ignorant in another. Take a computer programmer and a farmer. A computer programmer may know C ++ and the like, but he would have no clue how to cultivate permaculture. And the reverse is also true. A farmer embroiled in plants and life cycles may struggle with getting his email. Then again, a computer programmer could learn permaculture  (there's a great website for it), and a farmer could take classes in computers and programming. No one is stuck when practicing the virtue of intelligence.

How is this a Godly trait?

I realize the debate about Intelligent Design and Evolution rages on in the world. But if you believe in God, then it only logically concludes that He'd have to be one really smart dude to have done what He has done. After all, what does it take to create a world? A sun? A solar system?

I is for Intelligence