What makes a person seem wise?(theconversation.com)
theconversation.com
What makes a person seem wise?
https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-person-seem-wise-global-study-finds-that-cultures-do-differ-but-not-as-much-as-youd-think-238808
20 comments
Reading is very important, but hardly sufficient. One problem with over reliance on books is that your world view will be molded by your reading list. You correctly pointed out the importance of reading material you disagree with, but there are often many contradictory ways to disagree with any specific world view.
Books must be mixed with a close relationship to people and the world. The world itself can be seen as the "ultimate book", thus the importance of the so-called "school of life".
I would never follow someone whose wisdom was built solely or mostly by reading books.
No education is complete, or even half complete, without a thorough and direct exposure to different cultures, countries and their people.
Books must be mixed with a close relationship to people and the world. The world itself can be seen as the "ultimate book", thus the importance of the so-called "school of life".
I would never follow someone whose wisdom was built solely or mostly by reading books.
No education is complete, or even half complete, without a thorough and direct exposure to different cultures, countries and their people.
Yes! I often put it like this: education/reading is about formation, not just information.
I think this makes sense, because, in general, wisdom requires gathering experience and reflecting on it (well in advance of any questions). Reading is an activity that promotes that.
> People often think that being booksmart is having your head filled with useless facts, but this is almost opposite from reality.
Indeed. Reading a lot of books does not mean things are retained by mind for a faithful recall. In fact, a lot of detail is lost during the course of reading and afterward. The things that stick are what relate to our experiences, beliefs or aspirations.
Indeed. Reading a lot of books does not mean things are retained by mind for a faithful recall. In fact, a lot of detail is lost during the course of reading and afterward. The things that stick are what relate to our experiences, beliefs or aspirations.
My personal hunch is that the more you read, the better your model of reality is. If you have an interest to a particular time/topic and you've read almost all you can find about it you have a better understanding of "something" from a different point of views. Like read all about a particular event in WW2 from all the sides and on different levels (military, economy, social, political). A term coined by Mortimer Adler is "Syntopical Reading", but by deeply exploring a simple concept you can build your knowledge on how the world works.
Several benefits from deeply knowing a limited subject: - when you listen people who are "well known" talking stupid shit about a topic you understand that the info you're getting is not always that high and you need to check multiple sources (if you need to make a decision) - you understand complexity better and "survival" bias - you can even bet for fun on a prediction market when you see a stupid narrative getting puffed up (I've made around 1k after the CrowdStrike bet that it wasn't a "hack")
But the biggest win is to put more knowledge on your "tree" you've grown from a simple subject to related areas. This mental skill is applicable in almost all complex situations and this might be related to "the wisdom" you're talking about.
The downside is the more you know, the more cynical you get with your sources :)
Several benefits from deeply knowing a limited subject: - when you listen people who are "well known" talking stupid shit about a topic you understand that the info you're getting is not always that high and you need to check multiple sources (if you need to make a decision) - you understand complexity better and "survival" bias - you can even bet for fun on a prediction market when you see a stupid narrative getting puffed up (I've made around 1k after the CrowdStrike bet that it wasn't a "hack")
But the biggest win is to put more knowledge on your "tree" you've grown from a simple subject to related areas. This mental skill is applicable in almost all complex situations and this might be related to "the wisdom" you're talking about.
The downside is the more you know, the more cynical you get with your sources :)
I think reading is necessary but insufficient for wisdom.
Reading lets you acquire the experiences that you personally cannot live out in your own life. It does provide leverage in that way.
However syntopical reading isn’t sufficient to produce good work. Mortimer Adler himself tried doing it (I believe the Syntopicon was a product of syntopical reading) but those works never did well and were soon forgotten.
Books encode canonical knowledge and this works in established domains but in a domains without much existing knowledge, taking action in perturbing the world actually produces more useful knowledge.
This is why in these spaces it’s important to test ideas in reality and learn from them, rather than only constructing mental models. (We should strive to do both instead of the just latter)
Action often produces more information than reading alone. Having ideas is often the easy part — executing on them is the hard part. If Mortimer Adler actually had some gauge on the market before pursuing the very ambitious multi year effort of producing the Synopticon, he might have produced something noteworthy (which he did with the much smaller experiment “How to read a book.”
To me, wisdom isn’t about thinking rightly (which is what rationalists hold) but about being able to make good decisions with good judgment.
Reading lets you acquire the experiences that you personally cannot live out in your own life. It does provide leverage in that way.
However syntopical reading isn’t sufficient to produce good work. Mortimer Adler himself tried doing it (I believe the Syntopicon was a product of syntopical reading) but those works never did well and were soon forgotten.
Books encode canonical knowledge and this works in established domains but in a domains without much existing knowledge, taking action in perturbing the world actually produces more useful knowledge.
This is why in these spaces it’s important to test ideas in reality and learn from them, rather than only constructing mental models. (We should strive to do both instead of the just latter)
Action often produces more information than reading alone. Having ideas is often the easy part — executing on them is the hard part. If Mortimer Adler actually had some gauge on the market before pursuing the very ambitious multi year effort of producing the Synopticon, he might have produced something noteworthy (which he did with the much smaller experiment “How to read a book.”
To me, wisdom isn’t about thinking rightly (which is what rationalists hold) but about being able to make good decisions with good judgment.
The methodology seems to assume what it is trying to prove with the predefined dimensions being measured.
Another methodology might be attribution: provide a number of stories and ask readers to assess whether actions were due to wisdom, enlightened self-interest, social norms, etc.
Also, stories of Socrates and others long have presented wisdom as a kind of foolishness for outing others’ ignorance or failing to assert one’s own interest in games of mutual self-interest. So a follow-on question for each story would be whether wisdom really led to the best course of action.
Another methodology might be attribution: provide a number of stories and ask readers to assess whether actions were due to wisdom, enlightened self-interest, social norms, etc.
Also, stories of Socrates and others long have presented wisdom as a kind of foolishness for outing others’ ignorance or failing to assert one’s own interest in games of mutual self-interest. So a follow-on question for each story would be whether wisdom really led to the best course of action.
I have come to find high intelligence, low wisdom a very scary combination.
Can you give some examples?
SBF was the first that popped into my mind.
SBF doesn't strike me as "highly intelligent" in the least.
You may not like it but you need to be pretty smart to pull off what he did. I don't think too many people could do what he did even if they wanted to.
I think the same counts for a certain presidential candidate. A lot of people say he is just dumb but personally I think he has to be pretty intelligent to get to where he is.
I think the same counts for a certain presidential candidate. A lot of people say he is just dumb but personally I think he has to be pretty intelligent to get to where he is.
I think it's a mistake to believe that it requires more than average intelligence to con a great number of people.
The reason the world mostly works is because we all mostly trust each other. A relative handful of assholes and bullies will easily find ways to take advantage of that trust, but that doesn't make them intelligent.
The reason the world mostly works is because we all mostly trust each other. A relative handful of assholes and bullies will easily find ways to take advantage of that trust, but that doesn't make them intelligent.
Conning people, being loud, bullshitting 100% of the time, taking massive risks to the point of getting locked up are not signs of intelligence. They just mean you have no clue about the consequences of your actions and you might get lucky to get away with it.
I am not the parent, but agree with them that SBF seems high-intelligence, low-wisdom (, and low street-smarts). Why do you think him unintelligent?
I don’t think there’s any friendly way to say this, but that might have more to do with you.
He got hired by Jane Street, that's a very high bar.
This will probably sound ridiculous, but I can't get over the fact that he was playing Dota 2 for years, thousands of games played and was still in bronze league. I consider RTS games like this a proxy for intelligence, and while it isn't a perfect proxy due to it also requiring hand dexterity / mechanical skill / some arbitrary memorization, I do still think it's a good indicator that there was something off with him mentally.
You should passively improve with the amount of games he had under his belt, even if you put no conscious thought into why it is that you're losing or what you could be doing better. He performed at a level which is what, the lowest 10% or 20% of players? Many of whom were probably new to the game because most people will climb in rank over time.
You should passively improve with the amount of games he had under his belt, even if you put no conscious thought into why it is that you're losing or what you could be doing better. He performed at a level which is what, the lowest 10% or 20% of players? Many of whom were probably new to the game because most people will climb in rank over time.
It was League, not DOTA. It's a MOBA, not an RTS. IIRC he was in the bottom 15% or so.
That said, it's totally fine to play a videogame without any desire to be good at it.
More importantly studies on chess show that a tiny amount of skill (<10%) is explained by intelligence. I see no reason that MOBAs would be much higher, as in chess they are likely mostly memorization and practice.
That said, it's totally fine to play a videogame without any desire to be good at it.
More importantly studies on chess show that a tiny amount of skill (<10%) is explained by intelligence. I see no reason that MOBAs would be much higher, as in chess they are likely mostly memorization and practice.
Nope. Some folks start bad at, say, chess and stay bad, or will regress back down to 800 ELO. Perhaps they do not care, or their bad moves have become habitual, they are just playing to fill the time. Or maybe injury, pain, or mental health problems mean stagnation or decline. Maybe they are busy thinking about other things instead? That being said, the narrative of "up and to the right" for progress is a common mythology these days. Maybe that mythology needs questioning when something does not behave the way it "should".
That could evolve into a political flamewar very fast ..
I don't think so. The political arena is dominated by those of low intelligence. Sure, they're smarter than the average person, but that's not saying much. The main skill in succeeding in the space is to be able to talk for a medium amount of time without falling into any traps. Furthering conversation on the topic at hand is never pursued.
"The main skill in succeeding in the space is to be able to talk for a medium amount of time without falling into any traps. "
And all the intrigues and backstabbing behind the scenes?
And all the intrigues and backstabbing behind the scenes?
The famous "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" line from Jurassic Park comes to mind.
My definition of wisdom (after many years of study & consideration): "Getting desirable results most of the time for themselves AND most people around them throughout their lives"
The most important aspect of wisdom to me is "making it work" in many areas, in many situations, for yourself and others - throughout your life.
The most important aspect of wisdom to me is "making it work" in many areas, in many situations, for yourself and others - throughout your life.
the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50294-0
"Dimensions of wisdom perception across twelve countries on five continents"
"Dimensions of wisdom perception across twelve countries on five continents"
It sounds like the topic is perceived wisdom (“what makes a person seem wise?”) rather than actual (practical) wisdom which is good use of knowledge and experience to make good decisions.
I say this because I know folks who seem wise (perceived as high IQ and EQ) but lack judgment, because they are working off models of the world that does not comport with reality, so their utterings do not work in real life. Wisdom isn’t about batting a thousand of course but wisdom is about always allowing reality be the teacher.
Many people who present as wise are academics and gurus and they sound really good on podcasts but don’t have much empiricism and experience doing hard things.
Ironically people who are reflective and have gone through the crucible of running a business (or doing something with a lot of headwinds) end up being actually wiser because they have to deal with world (and its flaws) as is, not as they think it should be.
Stonebraker is an opinionated figure in the database world but he has started so many companies and have dealt with the realities of how people use databases that his judgement (which could still be wrong by the way) would carry more weight than a pure database researcher who says all the right things.
I say this because I know folks who seem wise (perceived as high IQ and EQ) but lack judgment, because they are working off models of the world that does not comport with reality, so their utterings do not work in real life. Wisdom isn’t about batting a thousand of course but wisdom is about always allowing reality be the teacher.
Many people who present as wise are academics and gurus and they sound really good on podcasts but don’t have much empiricism and experience doing hard things.
Ironically people who are reflective and have gone through the crucible of running a business (or doing something with a lot of headwinds) end up being actually wiser because they have to deal with world (and its flaws) as is, not as they think it should be.
Stonebraker is an opinionated figure in the database world but he has started so many companies and have dealt with the realities of how people use databases that his judgement (which could still be wrong by the way) would carry more weight than a pure database researcher who says all the right things.
Excellent point. That's why the truly wise people use "results" in terms of judging wisdom. If your thought is coherent, when you put it to practice - it works. And if it works - the desired result is produced. Doesn't mean all thoughts that lead to practical desirable results are borne of wisdom, but empirical success is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.
Right. I read a ton of business books in my day, many of them with great ideas, but when I came across Andy Grove’s High Output Management, it just hit different. Andy Grove being former CEO of Intel spoke from experience actually doing hard things, whereas many of the other books were written by people who were peddling wisdom to sell books. Not bad wisdom, just untested and not generalizable.
Working Backwards is another book full of practical wisdom that has actually been battle tested.
Working Backwards is another book full of practical wisdom that has actually been battle tested.
I've read Grove's work, and I agree with the "output" aspect being important. But I wouldn't consider "output" the only thing that connects to wisdom. I've heard of people I consider to be "wise" criticizing many of Andy's approach as well (I tend to agree). For me - say someone like Lee Kuan Yew - was quite a wise and practical man. Highly developed intellectually, socially, both pragmatic and respecting of scholars, etc. Wisdom can be considered a cluster of qualities if you will, of which "ability to get results" is a big factor.
As a bit of introspection, based on their metrics, I am unwise. I have the bad habit of thinking/acting before I deeply think. I also tend to disregard the thoughts/feelings of others when I believe the decision to be made is one that ought to be determined by facts/logic/rationality.
These are both weaknesses that I've identified and tried to work on. I've made the most progress on the second (considering the thoughts/feelings of others). The first is a really difficult one for me since I find that hesitation is also a major problem. The balance between acting quickly and acting carefully is difficult.
However, I think a stronger take-away from this study was: "Real wisdom, according to our study, is about finding a balance between thoughtful reasoning, social understanding, and emotional awareness." I believe that the balance between things is the key to wisdom. The people I consider most unwise are those who have a one-size-fits-all approach to everything.
These are both weaknesses that I've identified and tried to work on. I've made the most progress on the second (considering the thoughts/feelings of others). The first is a really difficult one for me since I find that hesitation is also a major problem. The balance between acting quickly and acting carefully is difficult.
However, I think a stronger take-away from this study was: "Real wisdom, according to our study, is about finding a balance between thoughtful reasoning, social understanding, and emotional awareness." I believe that the balance between things is the key to wisdom. The people I consider most unwise are those who have a one-size-fits-all approach to everything.
It depends on the school of thought, but the common explanation is that wisdom is knowledge of Truth backed with experience. Not the kind of truth about irrelevant things, but the Truth about the nature of life. And it must be backed with experience, for it's one thing to know the map and a completely different thing to have trodden that path on the map.
A selfish person cannot be wise. He may know conceptually the important truth that all life is interconnected, but having never experienced that connectedness, he easily forgets this truth when his personal interests are at stake. Someone who is poisoning the river for personal gain using his power and knowledge cannot be wise because he doesn't see the whole picture in which this river returns to what he drinks and thus he is poisoning himself. Once he becomes wise, he also stops caring about himself, for that's the only rational choice in the light of wisdom.
A selfish person cannot be wise. He may know conceptually the important truth that all life is interconnected, but having never experienced that connectedness, he easily forgets this truth when his personal interests are at stake. Someone who is poisoning the river for personal gain using his power and knowledge cannot be wise because he doesn't see the whole picture in which this river returns to what he drinks and thus he is poisoning himself. Once he becomes wise, he also stops caring about himself, for that's the only rational choice in the light of wisdom.
What makes a person seem wise is less interesting than what causes a person to be wise.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/
That's an excellent article on the subject!
Seem wise? Knowing the most useful answer to a given question someone has, being right 95% of the time or more, not making statements on subjects one has no understanding of.
A great story I once heard was someone asking a wise man how they became so wise, and they answered "If someone asked me what color my socks were, I'd look at my socks before answering." E.g., taking more than the normal amount of care to give a correct answer.
Actually being wise? Much harder to tell from the outside.
A great story I once heard was someone asking a wise man how they became so wise, and they answered "If someone asked me what color my socks were, I'd look at my socks before answering." E.g., taking more than the normal amount of care to give a correct answer.
Actually being wise? Much harder to tell from the outside.
Carl Jung vindicated
Time. People who were right in retrospect seem wiser than those who were not.
Obviously this is a fallible standard but it's pretty much all we've got.
Obviously this is a fallible standard but it's pretty much all we've got.
Wisdom is taking your own advice.
Words that I’ve found easier to accept the value of than to extoll. Trying is the first step to failing I guess;)
Words that I’ve found easier to accept the value of than to extoll. Trying is the first step to failing I guess;)
I know someone of whom it is said "hen never takes anyone's advice but hens own, and it is invariably wrong".
Hen is in hens 60s and would be homeless except for the charity of his aged (and otherwise estranged) parent.
Hen is in hens 60s and would be homeless except for the charity of his aged (and otherwise estranged) parent.
>Wisdom is thinking before acting, and socio-emotional awareness
ADHD and autism got me acting unwise...
ADHD and autism got me acting unwise...
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IQ + EQ
Shocker…
Suppose that comment reflects low awareness of the HN community
Shocker…
Suppose that comment reflects low awareness of the HN community
Maybe it is stereotypical, but I would score high on IQ but abysmally low on EQ. So, I have no chance of ever being considered wise.
EQ is definitely learnable. Over twenty years I've gone from clueless to perceptive if I'm paying attention. Unfortunately, in familiar groups where I feel emotionally safe, I tend not to pay the attention as much and just enjoy myself, and then I say things without thinking through how other people might perceive them.
How does one learn to think about the emotional “room temperature” before they speak?
My mind doesn’t work that way so I’m curious. Does one pause before every sentence and play out a little scenario in their head of how people will respond?
It would do me so much good to improve in this area.
My mind doesn’t work that way so I’m curious. Does one pause before every sentence and play out a little scenario in their head of how people will respond?
It would do me so much good to improve in this area.
That's a hard question to answer, because I do it automatically, 100% of the time. For me it's probably a result of childhood trauma (and maybe a high degree of empathy).
I suspect most people learn to do it as the result of bad experiences. As with many things, that's more likely in childhood.
I suspect most people learn to do it as the result of bad experiences. As with many things, that's more likely in childhood.
simply pausing before speaking, even for a second, has done wonders for me... you can gain a little more time with a well placed "hmmm" occasionally
The good news is that EQ will go up with life experience if 1) you care about it, and 2) you pay attention.
Caring is a big part because it motivates you to pay attention and act on what you learn. (Not caring can also be beneficial -- it makes it much easier to just focus on the technical parts. As with everything, there are trade-offs.)
Caring is a big part because it motivates you to pay attention and act on what you learn. (Not caring can also be beneficial -- it makes it much easier to just focus on the technical parts. As with everything, there are trade-offs.)
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As a metaphor I'd suggest that (Wis = IQ * EQ) might be more accurate -- it is difficult for someone with low emotional awareness to make up the difference with intelligence alone, just as it is difficult for someone of low intelligence to become wise with nothing but high emotional awareness.
I like that. It's a good metaphor. But I think you can be wise without being clever (having a high IQ).
In my mind, people mostly ask different kinds of questions when they are looking for wisdom. They want to know how to make their marriage work, or how to have a happy life, not the most efficient way to sort a list. And those questions tend to benefit from both a greater EQ, and extensive life experience.
Of course, there is such a thing as a "wise old engineer", but even there, what people are usually looking for aren't the technical details, but distilled experiential wisdom -- the "how to get started with so many unknowns" or "how do I navigate the treacherous politics of" or "how can I build a career when the things I'm gaining expertise in will be irrelevant in 10 years?" questions.
In my mind, people mostly ask different kinds of questions when they are looking for wisdom. They want to know how to make their marriage work, or how to have a happy life, not the most efficient way to sort a list. And those questions tend to benefit from both a greater EQ, and extensive life experience.
Of course, there is such a thing as a "wise old engineer", but even there, what people are usually looking for aren't the technical details, but distilled experiential wisdom -- the "how to get started with so many unknowns" or "how do I navigate the treacherous politics of" or "how can I build a career when the things I'm gaining expertise in will be irrelevant in 10 years?" questions.
> I think you can be wise without being clever (having a high IQ).
I think it depends on how you define "clever". Does knowledge of things like how to sort a list correlate with cleverness?
I know wise people who don't have formal education, but I'd still consider them exceedingly clever.
I built a wood shed many years ago. I looked up the recommended roof slope and used trigonometry to calculate the angles of my cuts. The next time I made one, someone with more wisdom showed me that you could simply assemble a flat roof with joists sticking out both sides, raise one side until it seems right, and then run a circular saw vertically along the side to create a neat edge.
I think it depends on how you define "clever". Does knowledge of things like how to sort a list correlate with cleverness?
I know wise people who don't have formal education, but I'd still consider them exceedingly clever.
I built a wood shed many years ago. I looked up the recommended roof slope and used trigonometry to calculate the angles of my cuts. The next time I made one, someone with more wisdom showed me that you could simply assemble a flat roof with joists sticking out both sides, raise one side until it seems right, and then run a circular saw vertically along the side to create a neat edge.
I think of cleverness as a measure of how quickly or effectively you can solve a new-to-you problem. Which I think is utterly different from wisdom, which is mostly about reflecting and drawing inferences from experiences.
I suppose often its better to have conviction than wisdom, since sometimes you need to make a leap into the abyss.
There's value in following people with strong conviction who are decisive in certain situations. Like a battlefield, for example.
On the other hand, delusional cult leaders also have strong conviction but it doesn't pay to drink their kool aid.
On the other hand, delusional cult leaders also have strong conviction but it doesn't pay to drink their kool aid.
One must make a choice regardless. Getting a job and working for a corporation your whole life is not very different from following a cult leader insofar as it becomes the limit of your social imagination (although a good wage is more compelling). You have to make these gambles some times in your life.
Wisdom is the size of your context window. Simply: how much are you considering when you make your decisions.
I don't think that is true.
I think wisdom has a lot more with paying attention, being self-reflective, and accumulating experience, as well as caring about the questioner. A wide context window at the moment of the question doesn't help much if you haven't noticed and reflected.
I think wisdom has a lot more with paying attention, being self-reflective, and accumulating experience, as well as caring about the questioner. A wide context window at the moment of the question doesn't help much if you haven't noticed and reflected.
Yeah reflection is important but I would consider that a quality of intelligence.
TLDR; the answer is knowing how and when to use AWK ;)
I don’t think that simply grabbing people from a handful of countries somehow cancels out groupthink from the data, which is more likely to affect perceptions of wisdom. Especially when information on who to trust is constantly pushed by globalist media organizations.
Take COVID for example, the WHO was universally portrayed as wise. The world went along with their conclusions but Sweden, South Korea and large parts of the US obviously didn’t, despite having little in common culturally. My conclusion is that perceptions of wisdom are more a function of the media than they are any particular culture or nationality.
Take COVID for example, the WHO was universally portrayed as wise. The world went along with their conclusions but Sweden, South Korea and large parts of the US obviously didn’t, despite having little in common culturally. My conclusion is that perceptions of wisdom are more a function of the media than they are any particular culture or nationality.
Wisdom here is not something that is specifically outlined in discourse but pointed towards through a constellation of qualities observed by a random set of individuals
a feature of ignorance compounded by exclusive english/outglish. other languages counter insincerity with high effectiveness.
What is insincere about claiming that Wisdom cannot be described succinctly?
you're going in the wrong direction with this line of questioning. language is couched in culture. the single source of truth can be accepted or ignored, either way... sincerity of purpose and wisdom are paired.
>language is couched in culture
If that were true, then it wouldn’t be possible to translate between all languages.
There are conditions of possibility of language use that are universal, even if they do not appear in any given language. But one also expresses themselves other than in words, like in artworks, and this expression often has the same force as language: in fact, the expression itself precludes language and if words are used it is only as a means. Affective history, upon which words move, is that condition of possibility for expression.
If that were true, then it wouldn’t be possible to translate between all languages.
There are conditions of possibility of language use that are universal, even if they do not appear in any given language. But one also expresses themselves other than in words, like in artworks, and this expression often has the same force as language: in fact, the expression itself precludes language and if words are used it is only as a means. Affective history, upon which words move, is that condition of possibility for expression.
- Books require a "Goldilocks" amount of sustained, slow effort given to one topic. Not too costly to pursue that it is a bodily harm risk, but not trivial either in terms of time and attention investment. This slows down the frenetic nature of a mind that latches onto heuristics.
- By being exposed to different well-formed ideas (especially if you disagree) widens perspective in ways lived experience can't. A reader is uniquely exposed to ideas from other times in human history, from people who are long gone.
- A reader develops a practical trust in themselves, particularly in that they know they take auto didacticism seriously, and won't shy away from intellectual challenges, which the world presents constantly. As such, they make better judgements.
People often think that being booksmart is having your head filled with useless facts, but this is almost opposite from reality.