Levels of "Wisdom"

[stargroup100]

Let's have some fun talking about this.

I put "wisdom" in quotes because it's not really the dictionary definition of wisdom. Rather, I am merely putting into different levels a particular metric of intelligence.

Hopefully I'm not going to get the comments I'm expecting to get. I'll assume you guys are smart enough to know that I'm not assuming this describes the general intelligence of a person.

The particular metric I will be attempting to classify is the ability to understand the reasoning and thinking of others and apply it to a realistic interpretation of the world and reality, a kind of logical or rational empathy. I'm aware this is a very informal definition, but it's difficult for me. Hopefully, after explaining more in detail, someone might be able to help me refine this definition.

Just to give this particular metric an arbitrary name for reference, let's just call it "PR-wisdom" until someone comes up with a better term. Honestly I have no idea what the PR stands for. Personal relations, practical rationality, psychological response, you make up whatever you want.


Tier 1: Blissful Ignorance

The people at this tier do not really have the mental capacity (or choose to not use it) to examine social issues and process arguments, and as a result, cannot say much even if they wanted to. They tend to keep to themselves and strong opinions are emotionally based as a result. Not being able to answer and being in this tier is not a result of lack of knowledge or interest, but rather the ability to process rational ideas in the first place.

Traits:

• generally do not have strong opinions unless emotionally based
• poor or nonexistent rational discourse
• usually blissfully content

Tier 2: Natural Idiosyncrasy

The peculiar name comes from the basic idea that when people in this tier do anything "strange" or "irrational", they tend to be easily explained or predicted by psychological/sociological/etc phenomena. It's "natural" because even if you don't agree with them, you can at least understand how they came to their conclusions based on their experiences.

The people who begin to take awareness in more social and philosophical issues. They are aware of their existence and can process basic ideas. While most people in this area are humble and normal, their limited mental faculties in these ways makes them prone to logical fallacies, emotional biases, etc. This makes them more prone to delusions, and those that are deluded and possess other strengths/talents tend to be very influential among subsets of other people in this tier.

Traits:

• can have strong opinions
• tend to have gaps in reasoning and thinking
• consistently affected by biases and emotional reaction
• usually very normal, typical people
• atypical people here are usually deluded
• actively avoid paradigm shift

Example notable people:

• Ray Comfort - In this video, he attempts to address false arguments by equating statements that are not equivalent ("atheists believe something came from nothing"). He cares about "meaningless" issues purely for idealistic reasons (how the universe came to be is important to me). And these are just a couple of things that put him in this tier.
• Eric Hovind - In this video, he does not understand the concept that a question can have an answer other than yes or no. The basis of what he preaches comes from the idea that without god, knowledge of anything is impossible.

Really wish I had more examples of people who are not so disagreeable, as this kind of makes this tier look bad, but that isn't the defining characteristic or point.


Tier 3: Psuedo-intellectual

These people tend to have very rational minds and can explain their ideas logically. What separates this group from higher tiers is their impaired ability to understand things that are outside of problem solving techniques they are used to or involve systems they are not familiar with and don't realize the impact of them. They characterize arguments across the scope they know, and sometimes fail to acknowledge impacts outside of that scope.

The name does not imply that the people here are not actually intelligent, but simply that they do not always apply their intelligence well in reality. This is the border tier that tends to separate the intelligent from the wise. Physicists and philosophers deeply involved in more complex fields tend to be criticized of this. Physicists may lose track of the difference because plausibility and real world application, and philosophers may regress so far into rational thought that its real world significance and relevance starts to diminish.

Traits:

• usually academically gifted
• tend to be overly arrogant among people they know are not as intelligent
• prone to more obscure biases and particular issues such as not understanding a point because it wasn't worded a certain way
• usually passionate and agreeable
• sometimes get emotional when against irrational opposition

Example notable people:

• The Amazing Athiest - In this video, he addresses an article expressing concern that liberals will never stop pushing the envelope and push it too far. He takes the agreeable point of view that this opinion is a slippery slope coming from an unrealistic fear, and begins to mock the person as well as the writers of the less informed comments below. He fails to consider or address any valid points the article may have made (and I do believe there are a couple) and would rather discard the entire article simply because he doesn't want others to adopt his generally unrealistic views in order to push liberal freedom. Although it's a channel that has an element of entertainment in its purpose, (I believe) it closely represents how he actually feels about the issue, which classifies him in this tier.
• Michio Kaku - In this video, Kaku states that fusion is 20 years away. As a physicist, he is absolutely brilliant and his ambitious and creative mind is what drives him to do great work. However, from a practical standpoint this is unrealistic. Not only is the construction time of a nuclear plant anywhere between 5-8 years alone, this doesn't count planning and licensing, and considering the differences between a fusion and fission plant as well as other social issues and obstacles, it is just not plausible. He forgets that there is a massive gap between the physical obstacles of fusion and real world implementation of fusion energy. He is so focused on his own areas of expertise he doesn't factor in systems outside of them. And yet he is highly respected and his arguments are very agreeable, as noted by the like/dislike ratio on the video.

Tier 4: Primitive Sage

Interestingly enough, those in this tier tend to be less focused on academic pursuits than the previous tier. This is because these are the people that still relate to commoners while having the faculties to rationally process ideas. These people also tend to spend more time understanding how others think, and their insight comes from experience and frequent thinking relating to these matters.

The people at this tier are capable of taking issues and looking at them from different angles, able to think outside the box a little bit, can find the valid points within each argument and weigh their validity in context.

Traits:

• smart, but usually not extremely gifted academically
• more level-headed
• realistic expectations of reality
• is more forgiving and understanding of most people

Example notable people:

• Matt Dillahunty - In this video, one example of his demonstration of insight and his understanding of context is his addressing of the "intuition pump" usage in debates. He also anticipates the complexity of the opposing party, hoping it wouldn't be what he expects, and despite being disappointed, still manages to clearly communicate and elaborate his points humbly. Being someone who used to be a fundamentalist Christian and frequently engages in discussion with other people regarding many issues, he spends a lot of time considering both sides of issues, allowing him to easily understand and relate to people. This greatly helps him achieve his goals, one of them being to reach out to [certain] people and deter them from false and potentially harmful teachings.

Tier 5+: Philosophical Guru

The people here are not only able to deeply understand many social issues and logical arguments, but is capable of complex problem solving due to a sufficiently broad range of knowledge and usually deep knowledge in certain subjects. These people are extremely rare, as these people combine two different paradigms of mental processes which naturally try to pull each other apart. It is basically a combination of the strengths of the previous two tiers and applying them to a deeper understanding.

Unfortunately, since I acknowledge and know that the people of this tier are well beyond me, there is not much else I can confidently describe meaningfully.

Traits:

• smart and down-to-earth
• very mature
• deep understanding of reality and the real world
• tend to be optimistic about human nature, as they can understand how to best utilize human resources

Example notable people:

• Confucius - Even as early as 500 BC, this Chinese philosopher came to realize many fundamentally important concepts that were not only relevant well after his death, but also just as relevant today. He understood the value of human life, endorsed the Golden Rule ("Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you."), emphasized the importance of education for all people, and was able to apply the concept of moderation and balance to virtually all aspects of life. His teachings carry an impressive legacy rivaled by few others in history.

(There are probably many other historically recognized brilliant minds that I could list, but at the moment I have not done much research to confirm others.)



The "Why?" Test

One method I think would work in differentiating people of these tiers is what I call the "Why?" test. Start by discussing an issue, and when they make a point that can be broken down in terms of reasoning, ask "Why?". Then once they give you an answer, ask "Why? again, and repeat this ad nauseum.

The ones that merely shrug off the question and don't really care to answer it probably belong to tier 1. Those that attempt to answer the question and very quickly get stuck tend to belong to tier 2. Those that manage to actually break down their reasoning to basic axioms/ideas and are generally logically consistent throughout will belong to tier 3 or above. Anything higher is more difficult to differentiate, as it depends on the issue being discussed and acknowledgment of deep insight into a particular issue. For instance, someone that interrupts the chain of "Why?"'s and can explain clearly why the chain is misleading probably belongs to tier 4 and above.

In summary:
Tier 1: Cannot form a coherent idea
Tier 2: Basic answers, difficulty supporting them
Tier 3: Can support answers fairly well, but often misses deeper details (context, other systems), slightly narrow-minded
Tier 4: Able to view issues from many different perspectives and can give credit to each in proper context
Tier 5: Can do what tier 4 people do but with deep insight and very strong problem solving

Here is an example of what you might hear from the different tiers in a "Why?" test:

Topic: Should gay marriage be legalized?


Tier 1:
"Naw dude, that's wrong."
Why?
"Cause people gotta be people, you know?"

The person at tier 1 simply can't answer any further, or will say something almost completely incoherent.


Tier 2:
"No, marriage should be between a man and a woman."
Why?
"The bible tells us that."
Why?
"The bible is the word of God."
Why?
[Here is where the person may fail to explain why the bible's teachings here are relevant.]

The person at tier 2 could not go very far down the chain before being unable to rationalize their arguments. His basic principles are rooted emotionally from experience and surroundings. If he were to continue down the chain, he would probably mistakenly resort to common logical fallacies.


Tier 3:
"Of course it should be legal!"
Why?
"Gays deserve the same rights as anyone else."
Why?
"There is no justification to treat someone unfairly. This unfair treatment would be immoral."
Why?
"All people are morally equal."
Why?
"Equal moral treatment of all humans is beneficial to societal health and development, and in addition alleviates suffering in many ways."

This person manages to break down his argument into many basic rational principles that are generally very agreeable and are generally valid. However, he may latch onto this logical progression to dismiss most counterarguments in various contexts because he doesn't believe they are worth addressing given this reasoning.
In addition, we can see this "Why?" chain going much further, in danger of going into infinite regression, which will likely be tangled by muddy arguments and definitions, going off-topic, and/or detachment from real world relevance.


Tier 4:
"Sort of. We should give them marriage-like rights, but call it something else and give it a different legal definition."
Why?
"This pleases the conservatives who want to preserve the sanctity of marriage while giving gay couples the rights they deserve and avoids potential legal loopholes that could be exploited."

The person here understands all of the basic ideas the person at tier 3 understands, but factors in various other systems (legal), in addition to using problem solving to attempt to please as many people as much as possible. Despite the fact that the argument of the guy at tier 3 is more favorable to the argument of the guy at tier 2, this person still understands where the tier 2 person's argument is valid, and attempts to give credit where it is due.


Tier 5:
I honestly have no idea what someone at this tier would say because I'm not smart enough to imagine what people smarter than me would say. lol



One common misconception that most people have reading this, is that they think each tier addresses the way they approach particular issues, rather than intellectual capacity. To demonstrate what I mean, here is an example:

"I honestly don't care if gay marriage is legal or not."
Why?
"I'm not gay so it doesn't affect me."

This person would not be tier 1 simply because they do not care about the issue, but rather tier 2 and possibly tier 3 because they can rationalize to some degree why they don't care, indicating that they do have some capacity to think. Since no further explanation is given here, depending on the context of the reply, this could put the person at either tier 2 or tier 3. Assuming the context of intellectual discussion, this person is probably not tier 4+. Someone at tier 4 would more likely be able to formulate a more contextual opinion, so they wouldn't phrase their response in this way.



Any comments or criticisms? Any examples to share?