Wisdom

A lot of people are confused about the relationship between wisdom and intelligence. Author Paul Graham was one of those confused people, until recently. But now, he says he knows the difference.

A few days ago I finally figured out something I've wondered about for 25 years: the relationship between wisdom and intelligence. Anyone can see they're not the same by the number of people who are smart, but not very wise. And yet intelligence and wisdom do seem related. How?

What is wisdom? I'd say it's knowing what to do in a lot of situations. I'm not trying to make a deep point here about the true nature of wisdom, just to figure out how we use the word. A wise person is someone who usually knows the right thing to do.

Source.

This is very similar to an Al Fin posting in July 2005:
To be wise is not a state of mind but a state of action. Wisdom is acting in the best manner given all the information at hand. Some of the information may be unconscious, out of reach of verbal consciousness. Wisdom takes account of all information available.

Paul Graham goes on to suggest that intelligence and wisdom may have more in common than most people believe:

So a wise person knows what to do in most situations, while a smart person knows what to do in situations where few others could.

....In the time of Confucius and Socrates, people seem to have regarded wisdom, learning, and intelligence as more closely related than we do. Distinguishing between "wise" and "smart" is a modern habit. [5] And the reason we do is that they've been diverging. As knowledge gets more specialized, there are more points on the curve, and the distinction between the spikes and the average becomes sharper, like a digital image rendered with more pixels.

.... Wisdom seems to come largely from curing childish qualities, and intelligence largely from cultivating them.

....The wise are all much alike in their wisdom, but very smart people tend to be smart in distinctive ways.

....The path to wisdom is through discipline, and the path to intelligence through carefully selected self-indulgence. Wisdom is universal, and intelligence idiosyncratic. And while wisdom yields calmness, intelligence much of the time leads to discontentment.

Source.

I think that Graham has pulled some important pieces of of the puzzle from the pile, and placed them near their proper places. His advice on developing intelligence is in agreement with some of the best recent research on developing mental abilities in children. Wisdom and intelligence development are indeed arrived at differently. Graham is certainly correct that modern society tends to value wisdom less highly than did ancient societies. What else would you expect from a "youth intoxicated" culture?

The ingredients most valuable for developing next level humans include innate talent (intelligence), self-discipline (character), and wisdom (experienced perspective). By learning how to develop innate talent, along with character and perspective, all of those ingredients become aims of an enlightened educational process.

Unfortunately, most modern education is geared toward the avoidance of useful real-world experience and meaningful self-discipline. Pandering to self-esteem too often takes the place of teaching mental development. The end result is a psychological neoteny that reverberates throughout the society, rendering it impotent to meet the challenges it must face.