Wordsmith.org: the magic of words

Wordsmith Talk

About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us  

Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 3 of 4 1 2 3 4
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
R
Pooh-Bah
Offline
Pooh-Bah
R
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
If I understand FF correctly, intellect is the ability to calculate the effect of water running into a bath-tub at one rate and out at another; intelligence is the mind-power to reason that this is a waste of water; Common (or Good, if you really must) Sense tells you to put the plug in.

(Actually, I do have some sympathy with FF's dislike of Common Sense. As wseiber suggests, it isn't really so very common and, when it does occur, it isn't always sense. Common sense told many good people, for many centuries, that the earth is flat.


Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Someone defined common sense as the set of prejudices one has developed by age twelve.


Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526

Military/espionage meanings are specialized and like any specialized meanings, they don't have to correspond to everyday meanings, or even to scientific ones. I'm guessing intelligence comes in some kind of "level."

I've heard the term "raw" intelligence, for example. Perhaps these are little bits and pieces that are acquired through disparate means. I can imagine that the great bulk of this unprocessed intelligence must be almost useless.

There could be various levels of processing of this intelligence. Ideally, you want a clear picture of what someone else is doing and thinking. This raw intelligence is a bunch of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle - except in a jigsaw puzzle, you know what you're trying to piece together. But intelligence services can only postulate what the picture looks like and then see how closely they can get the pieces they have to fit into something that looks like that. The raw information must be very spotty. I doubt the situation today is much like the situation just prior to World War II, when the Brits were intercepting Japanese diplomatic messages and we knew practically everything they were doing and thinking.

But it must be worse than this; that is, it's worse than just that some key pieces are missing - the person whose activities you are attempting to discern knows you are doing this and puts out false pieces. Also, the other people whom you rely on for intelligence put out false clues. And very possibly one's colleagues put out false clues.

You take what you have. You try to make little pictures from it. That's one level of processing. Then you try to fit the little pictures into successively bigger pictures. But all of this must be flavored by what you think the end picture already looks like. (I say "must," but that's only a guess.)

Anyway, I'm not sure of the relationship between the uses of the word intelligence in espionage vs mental capacity.

k




Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 24
R
stranger
Offline
stranger
R
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 24
Ferreting their worth in waste, I Googled for "wasted intelligence" and "wasted intellect". The count is 127 and 37 respectively. Much of the "wasted intelligence" phrase is properly used and gives an indication of intelligence present but not applied/improperly applied whereas much of wasted intellect looks like a misfit, and in most cases the writers' attempt is to express wasted application of intellect rather than the intellect itself. In brief, it's very difficult to think of how intellect can be wasted the way intelligence can be. Therefore intellect = intelligence + wisdom


Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
B
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
B
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Hmm, your wasted intelligence post reminded me of a very common expression here in Canada...brain drain.

Education in Canada is relatively inexpensive so many people get a higher education. Salaries for the "in demand" jobs requiring higher education are much lower in Canada than those in the U.S. and Europe so we experience a lot of brain drain as our graduates emigrate to get higher paying jobs.


Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
brain drain

Also common here in Zild, although a former PM once said that NZers who emigrate to Australia raise the average IQ of both countries.


Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
Offline
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
There's a plumbing company here called the Drain Brain, she offered helpfully.


Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
Offline
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Trust you USns to get things back to front ...


Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
J
veteran
Offline
veteran
J
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475

Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
R
Pooh-Bah
Offline
Pooh-Bah
R
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
I like it, jheem -


Page 3 of 4 1 2 3 4

Moderated by  Jackie 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics13,912
Posts229,271
Members9,179
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members
TRIALNERRA, befuddledmind, KILL_YOUR_SUV, Heather_Turey, Standy
9,179 Registered Users
Who's Online Now
1 members (A C Bowden), 285 guests, and 4 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days)
Top Posters
wwh 13,858
Faldage 13,803
Jackie 11,613
tsuwm 10,542
wofahulicodoc 10,502
LukeJavan8 9,915
AnnaStrophic 6,511
Wordwind 6,296
of troy 5,400
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site. Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.

Home | Today's Word | Yesterday's Word | Subscribe | FAQ | Archives | Search | Feedback
Wordsmith Talk | Wordsmith Chat

© 1994-2024 Wordsmith

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5