Can anyone cite real-life examples of low intelligence, high wisdom people?

[Donnadogsoth]

I thought this was more apropos here than in the roleplaying forum, as it's not really about roleplaying but about real life. In a thread there from some time ago, the character cited to fit my request above was Forrest Gump. I discount that because Forrest Gump is not a real person. Is there anyone you know of, or have met, who is simultaneously of low intelligence ("figure out how") and high wisdom ("realise consequences")?

[tomandtish]

Hard to say, because people who are HONESTLY* in that category tend to not rise to high levels of public awareness. So I may know a person or two like that, and you may as well, but the odds that we both know that person are slim.

And when you consider how subjective estimates of intelligence can be, it becomes even harder. There are plenty of politicians I think are low intelligence, but the people who voted for them would disagree, and they'd say the same about the ones I voted for, I'm sure (and let's not take that further).

Plenty of actors come across as low intelligence to me, but how much of that is an act?

So yeah, you probably will only get fictional examples (that you're likely to know anyway).


*Plenty of reality TV stars may duplicate it, but since so many of them are acting, it is hard to tell if that's who they legitimately are.

[Themrys]

I know a blogger who frequently describes herself as stupid, says she struggles to understand scientific theories, and might not have a very high IQ, but has loads of common sense.

So, yeah, it happens.

Relatively speaking, my own wisdom would be higher than my intelligence. I don't understand how nuclear power plants work (exactly), but I know they are not safe, and also, we don't have a safe place to put the waste.

On the other hand, many studied nuclear physicists believe that nuclear power plans are safe because they could be (with lots of money and if no one ever messes up and everyone is clever and trustworthy and honest and wants to spend lots of money, and if no earthquake happens that is worse than all previous earthquakes in that place), completely disregarding the fact that humans make mistakes all the time, try to built something cheaper all the time, and we still don't know where to put the waste. But many scientists are totally sure they will come up with a solution, eventually.

[Aedilred]

Relatively speaking, my own wisdom would be higher than my intelligence. I don't understand how nuclear power plants work (exactly), but I know they are not safe, and also, we don't have a safe place to put the waste.

Well, this is assuming that you're right about nuclear power. It might be that you're low-wisdom because you distrust them and think they're unsafe even though they are and in fact provide the only viable medium-term energy source for the planet. Maybe you don't understand them well enough; maybe your opinion of them has been swayed by the media. I don't think the issue has been sufficiently conclusively settled for someone to be able to claim victory on that score yet.

But the whole question of nuclear power is probably too political for this forum in any case.

[tomandtish]

I know a blogger who frequently describes herself as stupid, says she struggles to understand scientific theories, and might not have a very high IQ, but has loads of common sense.

So, yeah, it happens.

But is she actually, or is that her perception of herself? And are there other things she picks up on quickly? What does she blog about?

Relatively speaking, my own wisdom would be higher than my intelligence. I don't understand how nuclear power plants work (exactly), but I know they are not safe, and also, we don't have a safe place to put the waste.

Not necessarily. Don't confuse intelligence and knowledge, as they aren't the same thing. If you've never spent a lot of time studying something, not knowing how it works has nothing to do with your intelligence.

[Frozen_Feet]

Plenty of forest animals count.

You'll realize why when you think of how they can survive the winter despite not having the tools and education of humans.

[Gnomvid]

The only real life people I have encountered with noticeable low intelligence also possessed noticeable low wisdom, I do believe these go hand in hand.

[Strigon]

The only real life people I have encountered with noticeable low intelligence also possessed noticeable low wisdom, I do believe these go hand in hand.

I'd argue that's because anyone you specifically notice as not being bright has low Wisdom.
Intelligence is really more about facts and figures. If someone knows a lot, they'll tend to be very high-profile about it, whether they mean to or not. On the other hand, if someone does not know very much, the only way you'll know is if they display it - which is characteristic of low Wisdom.

Someone with high Wisdom might be a guide, a low-ranking officer in the military or police, a hunter, a bodyguard, or someone else who would need to see beyond the obvious facts of a situation.

And, regarding nuclear power, that's not a sign of Wisdom. That's a sign of being told nuclear power is bad, and believing it. Likewise, the people on the positive side have been told it's good, and they believed it. There are people with a vested interest in both removing and expanding nuclear power. The truth is, nuclear power hasn't had much of a chance; the disasters that've taken place have all been by disgusting oversights that have no reason to have happened.
Of course, it's also possible that if we expand their operations, it'll turn out that a certain percentage of them will always fail, and they were a terrible idea. We have less than 500 nuclear power plants across the globe. They haven't been running very long. A blanket statement of whether they're good or bad is not yet a responsible thing to do.
Having said that, France would suggest they can be done properly.

[Aedilred]

I think it is more because the distinction between intelligence and wisdom is very arbitrary. Decades of tabletop gaming convention have conditioned us into thinking of the two as separate but in reality they are quite hard to distinguish. It's made even harder by the way D&D has a tendency to conflate "knowledge" with "intelligence" whereas, of course, the two are actually rather different things. Usually, an intelligent person will be knowledgeable, and an unintelligent person will not, but that is not universal. I have known both intelligent people who (usually through lack of education) are relatively ignorant, and (more rarely) people who are not particularly bright but have taken the trouble to inform themselves.

In real life, "Low wisdom" often manifests itself in some form of social faux pas, but in D&D terms that would fall under Charisma. The image of the single-minded academic or the idiot savant, who can perform amazing calculations in their head but can't cross the road, is pervasive in media but most examples are fictional.

Then you have someone like David Beckham, who was for a long time ridiculed as being a bit dim. This despite the fact he clearly had an excellent intuitive understanding of the physics of a football, and made himself one of the richest sportspeople on the planet despite being by no means the most talented (i.e. Dextrous) player of his sport. He was also a terrible public speaker for most of his career, which helped with the perception of him as stupid. But that would fall under Charisma. Low-intelligence, high-wisdom, perhaps? But for much of his career he was also considered a bit of a liability in terms of bookings, not least after the incident at France '98 where he pointlessly got himself sent off. He learned, certainly, but it's hard to pin him down on the D&D attribute spectrum. And I think that's because the attributes are inadequate at representing real people, not the reverse.

Wisdom is often presented as something akin to "common sense" or "street smarts" but in real life this is often very difficult to distinguish from "intelligence", not least because it is basically just a kind of intelligence. Splitting it into two largely arbitrary categories for the sake of a game is one thing, but mapping it onto real people tends to throw up all sorts of anomalies pretty quickly.

[Mith]

As an Engineering Student, I say that a place to look for a D&D divide of High Intelligence, Low Wisdom is those with a lot of technical knowledge, but no practical application experience. IE: Plenty of green engineers in training (I count myself among that number). Over time, they learn to temper their technical skills (elements which become half remembered due to lack of use), with wisdom of experience of what works on an intuitive level. The opposite in my experience is with the tradespeople that get their trade, and can work through problems through understanding what they are doing. In this case, they could be seen as lower in Intelligence than the green Engineer, but higher in Wisdom.

As a clarifier, I do not actually consider someone low intelligent because of them being a tradesperson. Everyone has their own field of expertise. This is just the general example I can come up with for how the D&D divide can be seen in the real world.

[Xyril]

On the other hand, many studied nuclear physicists believe that nuclear power plans are safe because they could be (with lots of money and if no one ever messes up and everyone is clever and trustworthy and honest and wants to spend lots of money, and if no earthquake happens that is worse than all previous earthquakes in that place), completely disregarding the fact that humans make mistakes all the time, try to built something cheaper all the time, and we still don't know where to put the waste. But many scientists are totally sure they will come up with a solution, eventually.

Can you cite some particular examples? I ask because all of the nuclear physicists and engineers I know currently doing research are focused on "How can I make safer, cheaper, smaller scale reactors that people can invest in with slightly less temptation to cut corners" or "How to I build safeties against human negligence or natural disasters that can be routinely, cheaply, and definitively checked for functionality" or "How do I make a nuclear reactor that intrinsically fails in a shut down and not a melt down?" By this, I mean that I went on facebook and checked where the guys I knew from school are working now and that seems to be more or less what they're doing.

As for public figures, I also can't think of any scientists unreasonably pushing the narrative that all nuclear power plants--including the ones that actually ended in disaster--are safe because they can be safe. I can think of scientists who have refuted the false claims by activists that nuclear is inherently dangerous and that this can never be changed by stressing that--from an engineering standpoint--it is possible to achieve substantial levels of safety given the current level of technology. I have also seen that many of these same scientists tend to be the ones pushing for regulation to handle the areas beyond the limits of science or engineering--that is, to provide some level of oversight and enforcement to try to prevent the sort of human error or human corruption you mention.

Let us also exercise our int and wis and remember that risk isn't a choice between zero risk and unacceptable risk. We as a society have implicitly decided that we want electricity so much that we're willing to accept non-zero risks and non-zero harms. Our gut reaction is that radiation is big and scary, that people are greedy and careless, and that we thus shouldn't trust greedy, careless people to handle big scary things. However, human error presents a substantial risk even with respect to technology that you find less pants-wettingly scary--in fact, we are if anything less vigilent about rooting out human error precisely because we're less vicerally afraid of those technologies. Deepwater Horizon has arguably caused more ecological damage, and that involved fossil fuels--a power source that is apparently so very safe that we passed laws limiting liability of those operating rigs. More people are killed every year by automobiles than have ever been killed by nuclear accidents, and every so often, we suddenly find out that many of those accidents were caused by or exacerbated by defects that were left in place due to greed. Heck, a few years back milk killed a bunch of people because some guys in China came up an admittedly clever way to trade human life for some extra profit.

Also, for the record, science has in fact come up with a few proposed solutions that are not permanent, strictly speaking, but do buy us a few millennia to come up with something better. The current failure is political--nobody wants to commit to a novel, imperfect but still superior stop-gap measure, so instead we continue to rely on very short term, very risky storage options while apparently waiting on science to come up with something perfect and permanent.

[Dodom]

An example I can think of was of a young man I met. He had Down's syndrome and was upset by his poor memory and orientation. The conversation we had was about how he liked to take walks and bus rides, but used to get lost a lot, which is even worse in his case because if his social worker decided he got lost too often, he could be monitored more closely and lose his autonomy, which he valued a lot. So he trained his memory by studying a map of the city. He said he studied so hard he cried when he realised he forgot some street names, but he kept working at it. So now if he takes a wrong turn, he doesn't have to worry too much, he's always sure to find a street he knows in a short time.

So that's a man with an intellectual deficiency, who was wise enough to think about how his aptitudes could be made to match the lifestyle he wanted and commited to it. Now, liking to explore the city, that's just one aspect of his life, but that attitude probably means he can approach other problems the same way and possibly handles himself better than some people with no mental impairments.

[Capt Spanner]

I like to have tomato in my fruit salads. Does that count?

[warty goblin]

This would work a lot better if artisan skills were tied to Wisdom, which they really should be. A huge amount of making something by hand, and getting any result above completely mediocre, is observation and understanding of your tools and materials.

[Telonius]

I've known quite a few janitors, barbers and bartenders who fit the description. One in particular I remember told me: "To be a bartender, you need to be able to do two things: count, and deal with idiots." He wasn't the sharpest guy, but man was he an awesome bartender.

[Zurvan]

Someone, with a lot of experience in life but not so many academic skills.

I remember watching a movie about a guy who's grandmother knew how to heal many health problems with herbs and give great advices despite not knowing how to read or write and having problems with numbers. She also couldn’t speak hard or long worlds.

[Stryyke]

The stereotypical, low level gang-banger from the hood. I'm not saying some of them can't be intelligent, but the stereotype is that of low intelligence, high wisdom people.

[Zurvan]

The stereotypical, low level gang-banger from the hood. I'm not saying some of them can't be intelligent, but the stereotype is that of low intelligence, high wisdom people.

How is that high wisdom?

[Stryyke]

How is that high wisdom?

Most of those guys are very wise in the way of the world. Don't conflate morality with wisdom. Objectively someone could be morally devoid, but very wise.

[Scarlet Knight]

Yogi Berra.

Not very educated, and his method of speaking made people think he was stupid. However, his wisdom ( especially with people and of course , his baseball mind) was extremely high and his sayings often contained truthful paradoxes.

Every pennant winning Yankee and Mets team from 1942 to 1985 had Yogi either as a player, manager, or a coach.

He even got George Steinbrenner to come to him and apologize for his shabby treatment. That's high level people skills.

Yogi was named "Wisest Fool of the Past 50 Years" by The Economist magazine in January 2005.

[khadgar567]

Yogi Berra.

Not very educated, and his method of speaking made people think he was stupid. However, his wisdom ( especially with people and of course , his baseball mind) was extremely high and his sayings often contained truthful paradoxes.

Every pennant winning Yankee and Mets team from 1942 to 1985 had Yogi either as a player, manager, or a coach.

He even got George Steinbrenner to come to him and apologize for his shabby treatment. That's high level people skills.

Yogi was named "Wisest Fool of the Past 50 Years" by The Economist magazine in January 2005.

some show when i read the name i read as yogi bear and uphon thinking made me laugh

[Xyril]

some show when i read the name i read as yogi bear and uphon thinking made me laugh

Yogi Bear was almost certainly a deliberate play on Yogi Berra's name, though the show's lawyers vehemently insisted otherwise.

[tensai_oni]

Most of those guys are very wise in the way of the world. Don't conflate morality with wisdom. Objectively someone could be morally devoid, but very wise.

I'm not so sure about that. You tell me "gangbanger", I'll picture someone who lacks impulse control and (self) awareness, definitely not someone with high wisdom. There is a stereotype of a street savvy person who may lack education but has all the contacts and know-how, but that's a different stereotype.

Relatively speaking, my own wisdom would be higher than my intelligence. I don't understand how nuclear power plants work (exactly), but I know they are not safe, and also, we don't have a safe place to put the waste.

Being a neo-luddite has nothing to do with high wisdom, sorry.

[2D8HP]

Being a neo-luddite has nothing to do with high wisdom, sorry.

The luddites were right.

Industrialization didn't lead to higher living standards for workers until after their lifetimes.
Short-term industrial industrialization made things worse for weavers, long-term they were already dead.

(Though since bullets were used to stop their protests it could well be argued that it would have been wiser for them to have just accepted fate)

You may also look up the "land clearances".

[Donnadogsoth]

The luddites were right.

Industrialization didn't lead to higher living standards for workers until after their lifetimes.
Short-term industrial industrialization made things worse for weavers, long-term they were already dead.

(Though since bullets were used to stop their protests it could well be argued that it would have been wiser for them to have just accepted fate)

You may also look up the "land clearances".

Even if so, does that make the luddites wise? The looming effects on their industry were already clear, weren't they?

[2D8HP]

Even if so, does that make the luddites wise? The looming effects on their industry were already clear, weren't they?

Now that's a very interesting question writ large.

Does wisdom lie in having hope and struggling for your own and your loved ones welfare when the odds are against you, or in just accepting things as they are, and making your peace with fate?

[veti]

Even if so, does that make the luddites wise? The looming effects on their industry were already clear, weren't they?

Was that pun intentional? Because if so, *groan*.

Now that's a very interesting question writ large.

Does wisdom lie in having hope and struggling for your own and your loved ones welfare when the odds are against you, or in just accepting things as they are, and making your peace with fate?

Wisdom lies in recognising that change happens, and positioning yourself such that you and your family will not be steamrolled when it does. Any attempt to stop it should be recognised as no more than a delaying tactic, to give you more time to accomplish that positioning.

[Donnadogsoth]

Now that's a very interesting question writ large.

Does wisdom lie in having hope and struggling for your own and your loved ones welfare when the odds are against you, or in just accepting things as they are, and making your peace with fate?

Wisdom lies in seeking immortality. In humanistic terms, this would mean figuring out how to make a good impression on the future of mankind. The struggle for you and your loved ones are matters of practicality and morality. You and your loved ones will perish, one way or another; no principle demands mankind perish. Whether you die struggling or die praying is up to you and has nothing directly to do with immorality and so with wisdom, as far as that goes.

[Strigon]

Now that's a very interesting question writ large.

Does wisdom lie in having hope and struggling for your own and your loved ones welfare when the odds are against you, or in just accepting things as they are, and making your peace with fate?

Neither. That's a question of morality and priorities, not of wisdom.
One who is a pure pragmatist, seeking his own welfare above all else would be wise to accept what comes. One who is wholly devoted to others would be wise to fight despite the poor odds. Neither is the wiser choice; it is perfectly possible for two wise people to face the same problem, come to two opposing answers, and both be right.

Wisdom lies in seeking immortality. In humanistic terms, this would mean figuring out how to make a good impression on the future of mankind. The struggle for you and your loved ones are matters of practicality and morality. You and your loved ones will perish, one way or another; no principle demands mankind perish. Whether you die struggling or die praying is up to you and has nothing directly to do with immorality and so with wisdom, as far as that goes.

I'd have to disagree with this. If my choices are to die in agony, but be remembered forever, or spend the rest of my years in comfort but die knowing only my friends and family will remember me, I'll pick the latter every time. Unless dying would somehow save someone or something I deemed important, I have no reason to do so - I get nothing from being remembered, so why is that the wise thing to do?

[Yes_Thieves_Can]

I kind of want to say that in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Uncle Iroh is an example of low int, high wisdom. I don't think he's cripplingly stupid, or anything, but (unless I am tragically mis-remembering the series) he wasn't exactly dominating the political scene and we don't see him attempting many feats of intellect cleverness. I'd put him at (in 5e) about an 8 int (a manageable -1) with a 15 or higher wisdom.