"Intelligence is genetic."

I have had conversations on the nature of intelligence with several people in the last few months. The talks start softly, rise to animated levels and end without a climax. If I've concluded anything it's that people don't know enough to argue one way or another on the subject matter.

The first problem we stumbled upon was the definition of intelligence. What does it mean to be intelligent? Does it mean you can solve mathematical problems easily? Or that you pick up new information quickly? Are you intelligent if you have several college degrees? Or is it related to street-smarts? What about an amazing painter, is he intelligent?

I find intelligence to be extremely difficult to define. Everyone seems to have his or her own mis-definition, misconception, or bias. But no one can give me an all-encompassing definition. And don't even get me started on those so-called intelligence quotient tests.

Even though one cannot talk about how a characteristic is obtained when one cannot even define the attributes of that characteristic, we can move to the next issue of how one becomes intelligent. The idea that intelligence is inherited is too limited for me.

If intelligence is inherited, then why do we bother to push the limits? Why do we go to school and work so hard? It's all a useless endeavor to grow gray cells.

If it's something passed down from your parents, how come the world has intelligent and stupid people? Wouldn't the stupid people be weeded out by now?

The idea that you're locked into an intelligence level at birth is so depressing to me. That means, no matter how hard you try and how much you work, you can never improve your level of intelligence. Doesn't the idea make you want to cry too?

I like to believe that intelligence is a multi-threaded personality trait. It's like an octopus with lots of tentacles, each defining a different aspect of intelligence. I also like to think that we're each born with a capacity of unlimited intelligence, whatever that means, and all we have to do is water the seeds given to us.

I understand that different people have knacks for different things inherently, though even that can possibly be attributed to nurture but that's a side issue. Even if one person is quicker with addition than another, it doesn't mean that person was born more intelligent.

Maybe I'm too optimistic or naive, but I'm going to keep believing that everyone is capable of being extremely intelligent until someone can prove me otherwise. In the meantime I'm hitting the books on this subject matter. Howard Gardner seems to have written a lot on the issue. Do you know of anyone else?

Previously? Special Moments.