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The Difference Between Knowlege, Intelligence and Wisdom

DadBurnett

Instigator
Simply stated -
Knowledge is what I learned decades ago in school and then relearned several times since. Knowledge is (we like to think) fact based, but facts change! Why? Because they are based upon human experience, observation and perception. We cite evidence, but evidence is clearly subject to perception and perspective to say nothing of things like bias...
Intelligence is, I think, more of a process, a tool, it is about how we use the knowledge we have (or don't have).
Wisdom too is subjective, it is the stuff of what we have learned, experienced coupled with that which we call intelligence. Knowledge is the knowing that we experienced pain when we put our hand in the flame, wisdom is the intelligent use of that knowledge, preventing us from doing it again.
Methinks you left out a key question, that of understanding ...
I understand that much of life is the stuff of illusion, of personal experience and perception. In the light of understanding, I can accept the reality that facts change, that knowledge evolves and that gives me, perhaps, a bit of wisdom in how I approach the stuff of life.
 

whereismynotecard

Treasure Hunter
I think of wisdom as more of something you'd have after experiencing lots of stuff. Such as, if you are a high school student who studies all sorts of stuff and you know everything about history and math and science, but you haven't had life experiences, you are smart, but don't have as much wisdom as an older person who has lived through lots of experiences would have. Someone with lots of wisdom could give you life advice about love and relationships and how to deal with death or stress, or just life problems, because they have probably experienced the same problems, and know how to deal with them better.

Knowledge would be probably knowing facts and stuff like the high school student I was talking about earlier might have, but can also include life stuff. Like how to build a house, how to divide fractions, how to mix paint, how to cook a pizza from scratch, how to do a science experiment.

And then I think of Intelligence as more of a logic thing. Someone who is really intelligent thinks really logically. Maybe they don't know all of the presidents of the united states or all the countries in Europe. Maybe they don't know how to do really hard math or chemistry, but they are smart about solving real problems instead of written fake ones. Such as what to do if a bear is chasing you, how to cook a pizza if you don't have the right ingredients, what to do if you are trying to start a fire, but it is raining and windy. People who are intelligent will logically think about how to do stuff on the spot, while someone who is knowledgable might know how to make a fire, but wouldn't know what to do if it was raining, because they know they need dry wood, but couldn't know what to do if the ingredients weren't already there.

Those are all just the definitions I think of. I've got nothing whatsoever to support any of my claims. That's just the way I see those terms.
 

Draka

Wonder Woman
Very simply, knowledge is information that is accumulated.

Intelligence is the inherent ability to accumulate knowledge. The greater the intelligence of a person the more knowledge they may accumulate.

Wisdom is the ability to use said knowledge constructively.

A person may be very intelligent but not use that intelligence to learn anything because they are lazy or just don't have a desire to learn anymore than a certain thing/amount. Thus not every intelligent person has a lot of knowledge. They just have the ability to gather it if they so put themselves to task.

A person that is intelligent and has abundant knowledge may still not have the wisdom to effectively use that knowledge to the best outcome.

Wisdom comes from experience and common sense and rationality. Without those things even the most intelligent person can do the most stupid things.
 
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Free4all

It's all about the blood
I can answer wisdom for ya -

Prov. 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
 

ManTimeForgot

Temporally Challenged
Knowledge is anything to which no counterfactual example can be provided. Your experiences are knowledge because no one can deny you experienced what you did. The truth value of your experiences is not however validated simply because you experienced them. A drug-trip makes you hallucinate, so not everything you sense is true. Your societal instincts are knowledge but only when you consider them in the manner of probability. If someone has a bunch of logo tattoos, wears similar set of colors to those he hangs out with, and hangs out in "known" gang territory, then you know that the chances are good that this person is a gang member. You don't know that this person is in fact a gang member, but knowing probabilities such as this one is what allows people to make informed decisions about the society around them. Tautologies are a rarified body of knowledge in that no real world application is necessary to establish them as knowledge; A = A is self-evident.


Intelligence at its core is about pattern recognition. All forms of intelligence as I have seen them defined (tactile, spatial, mathematical, kinesthetic, etc etc) represent an aptitude for recognizing one set of patterns or another. Patterns, fundamentally, are associations between one thing and another (or others). Consider: Perceptive and insightful really mean that someone is able to notice qualities that are important to establishing a relationship (or noticing the relationship itself).


Wisdom at its core is about pattern application. All measures of wisdom as I have seen them represent an aptitude for applications of various patterns (aspects of human existence). Wisdom is gained from experience. It is only by learning how to apply patterns that we gain wisdom.


Creativity then is a combination of intelligence and wisdom: recognizing associations between "seemingly" disparate things and being able to come up with a way of appying that association.

MTF
 

DadBurnett

Instigator
MTF: you said, Knowledge is anything to which no counterfactual example can be provided. I agree, to a point. That point being that knowledge is relevant to time, it is "momentarily" factual, until such time as new facts are found ...
 

ManTimeForgot

Temporally Challenged
At whatever point in time that new evidence suggesting a new interpretation or explanation occurs, then it is precisely because a counterfactual example can now be provided that what was previously knowledge ceases to be.


5,000 years ago no counterfactual example could be provided for showing the earth to be not flat. We know can provide such examples. Hence it is no longer knowledge that the earth is flat.


Knowledge doesn't have to be unequivocally true. Facts have to be unequivocally true. We are talking about knowledge. Just because you can't provide a negative, doesn't mean it has to be positive. We might just not know enough yet to provide a negative.

MTF
 

methylatedghosts

Can't brain. Has dumb.
Knowledge is to know about stuff
Intelligence is being able to learn more stuff
Wisdom is the use of intelligence and the application of knowledge.
 
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