I’ve heard many different explanations of intelligence vs wisdom, and I used to think it made sense.
Like, intelligence is raw processing power while wisdom is having the advantage of experience.
Or like a smart man looks for oncoming cars before crossing a one-way street, while a wise man looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
But the more I know about the world, the less I think experienced people are necessarily wiser. They’re only wiser if they have the intelligence, clarity, and willpower to learn from their past.
So to me, it seems that wisdom is more like the area under the intelligence curve. Which would make them inexorably linked.
Wisdom is perception and intuition.
Intelligence is mental acuity, recall, reasoning.
I find it funny that the abilities are still so debated when they are explained pretty well in every DND book. I feel like it gets brought up almost once per session lol.
Intelligence is knowing tomatoes are a fruit
Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in fruit salad
Bonus: Charisma is selling tomato based fruit salad as salsa
The way that makes the most sense for me is intelligence is related to external learning (books, from others, from detailed study of things, etc) whereas wisdom comes primarily from internal observation (self-reflection, personal experience, situational awareness, etc.)
Ding ding ding! This is why sorcerers and dragons relay on wisdom, and mages relay on intelligence. One is born with a gift, the other is learned. And I think, at least older DnD, did it right to have a mage be able to do more through study than a sorcerer would be able to muster on providence.
I think it’s also ability to learn and ability to extrapolate and correctly understand the lessons learned. A fool (one lacking wisdom) may see the car going the wrong way down the one way street and conclude that it’s not a one way street or that traffic rules don’t matter, whereas the wise person sees it and concludes that sometimes people will ignore traffic rules and so they shouldn’t entrust their safety to the assumption that everyone is following them.
Wisdom is more about how to apply knowledge to practical situations. It can be gained from experience, but not always, and sometimes it could be completely intuitional. Like someone in a situation they’ve never faced before, but instinctively knew what to do without really being able to explain why.
I agree that intelligence is about processing power, but in more human terms I think it’s about being able to follow a trail of facts to their logical conclusions, and being able to extrapolate/interpolate accurately.
It’s also commonly confused with knowledge, which is really just about how many facts you know. You can know a lot of things and still be stupid, and you can know few things and still be smart. I’ve met people who have memorized a lot of facts, but were incapable of actually thinking.
Another failure to understand intellect from wisdom
I’ve heard many different explanations of intelligence vs wisdom, and I used to think it made sense.
Like, intelligence is raw processing power while wisdom is having the advantage of experience.
Or like a smart man looks for oncoming cars before crossing a one-way street, while a wise man looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
But the more I know about the world, the less I think experienced people are necessarily wiser. They’re only wiser if they have the intelligence, clarity, and willpower to learn from their past.
So to me, it seems that wisdom is more like the area under the intelligence curve. Which would make them inexorably linked.
My take: Intelligence is the rate at which you can acquire wisdom.
Wisdom is perception and intuition. Intelligence is mental acuity, recall, reasoning.
I find it funny that the abilities are still so debated when they are explained pretty well in every DND book. I feel like it gets brought up almost once per session lol.
Time to wheel out an old classic:
Intelligence is knowing tomatoes are a fruit
Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in fruit salad
Bonus: Charisma is selling tomato based fruit salad as salsa
Dammit now I want salsa but it’s time for bed
Dexterity is dodging rotten tomatoes
Strength is punching a tomato so hard that it turns into ketchup.
Then what’s agility?
Dodging the ketchup
In DnD it’s not an ability score since they use dexterity to mean agility anyway.
Dexterity is about precision, usually with your hands. It should be about more fine motor skills your stuff.
Agility is technically just being about to change directions quickly, but I feel like it applies to gross motor skills, like dodging or acrobatics.
The flights over DND definitions are endless though.
For tomatoes… Agility is dodging. Dexterity is catching without smooshing it.
Ngl i was thinking in the context of Fallout cause ive been playing way too much FNV XD
Heck yeah. I like the special system!
Constitution is winning a tomato eating contest
Ever watch Cool Hand Luke?
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Constitution is being able to digest a rotten tomato without getting sick or dying.
The way that makes the most sense for me is intelligence is related to external learning (books, from others, from detailed study of things, etc) whereas wisdom comes primarily from internal observation (self-reflection, personal experience, situational awareness, etc.)
Ding ding ding! This is why sorcerers and dragons relay on wisdom, and mages relay on intelligence. One is born with a gift, the other is learned. And I think, at least older DnD, did it right to have a mage be able to do more through study than a sorcerer would be able to muster on providence.
But lots of people take long years of reflection to gain wisdom. That’s why Clerics and Monks use wisdom.
I always thought of a hierarchy:
Data, information, knowledge, wisdom.
Intelligence being the ability to move further up that scale.
Experience is narrow.
I think wisdom is just losing the fire of youth and being able to take more time to think things over.
Wisdom is intelligence applied. Or perhaps, wisdom is the synthesis of intelligence.
Will Hunting starts out the movie with mad intelligence and little to no wisdom, and the movie is the story of him shifting from one to the other.
Wisdom is evaluated experience. Some people don’t “think”, hence never learn from their mistakes.
Others are so open to learning that they don’t even need to make the mistake first to learn to avoid it, as reading about it in a book is sufficient.
The key in either of these scenarios - negative or positive - is being willing to learn.
Intelligence is mere processing power, which meh, can help, but is neither necessary nor sufficient.
I think it’s also ability to learn and ability to extrapolate and correctly understand the lessons learned. A fool (one lacking wisdom) may see the car going the wrong way down the one way street and conclude that it’s not a one way street or that traffic rules don’t matter, whereas the wise person sees it and concludes that sometimes people will ignore traffic rules and so they shouldn’t entrust their safety to the assumption that everyone is following them.
The fool loudly proclaims that they have “arrived” at knowing something, while a wise person will always stay curious!
Fools think themselves wise, but the wise know themselves to be fools.
Wisdom is more about how to apply knowledge to practical situations. It can be gained from experience, but not always, and sometimes it could be completely intuitional. Like someone in a situation they’ve never faced before, but instinctively knew what to do without really being able to explain why.
I agree that intelligence is about processing power, but in more human terms I think it’s about being able to follow a trail of facts to their logical conclusions, and being able to extrapolate/interpolate accurately.
It’s also commonly confused with knowledge, which is really just about how many facts you know. You can know a lot of things and still be stupid, and you can know few things and still be smart. I’ve met people who have memorized a lot of facts, but were incapable of actually thinking.
Most exams are measurements of neither. They’re a test of knowledge.
You are technically correct. The best kind
My mom called this “read and regurgitate.”