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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3853925" data-attributes="member: 4937">Hmmm.  I suppose you are one of those people that designs intelligence tests?  Or are you in human resources?Einstein defined intelligence as being the trait of being able to persist at trying to solve a boring problem long after everyone else has given up.  If you think about it, that is a rather strange definition of intelligence as well. My experience with intelligent people is that most people who are intelligent greatly overvalue thier intelligence.  In the same way, most people who are educated greatly overvalue thier education.  Of course, most people who aren't educated greatly overvalue thier ignorance, so there is that, but my point being that there is a vast difference in being trained to assess intelligence and anything you seem to be implying by stating that you are.In any event, I can very see this becoming a 'mine is bigger than yours' sort of argument.  So lets just skip the playground puffing up, shall we?Sure.  You can disbelieve.  What of it?  Whatever turns out to be true, your belief or disbelief won't change it.  I think you mean, "I challenge this claim." or "I do not agree."  But it is very much my point that you do so because you'd rather not believe, and you come up with your reasons post hoc.I'm not sure where you are going with that either since important is terribly vague in context.  What I just said could be said another way as people tend to be irrational precisely because they percieve terribly important reasons for being so, and that having done so say to themselves that they aren't being irrational.  And you might be irrational and if you are anything like the rest of us, often are.  Intelligent people generally have considered opinions in the since that they've taken sometime to formally structure what they believe.  They generally have informed opinions in the since that they've collected arguments from more people who think like they do.  They generally have elaborate opinions because they can understand elaborate arguments.  Sometimes they even have persuasive opinions in the since that formal, informed, elaborate opinions generally sound good regardless of whether they are.  But they don't necessarily hold those opinions for more rational reasons than anyone else, because being intelligent like it our not doesn't get you out of the human condition.  What intelligent people have is alot of reasons which they use to defend opinions that they initially came to hold for reasons alot like I described, and then even more strongly than normal believe based on the evidence of thier intelligence that they hold those opinions for much better reasons than everyone else does.  On matters that are actually things people argue over, this is in my experience rarely the case.I have no reason to suppose that you are not intelligent.  In fact, you are probably very intelligent.</blockquote>

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