Intelligence or Creativity: Pick One.

[ajblaise]

If you could either have high intelligence paired with low creativity or low intelligence with high creativity, which would you pick? And why?


I couldn't decide right away, but I would choose creativity. With just intelligence you can accomplish a lot, but I believe it's easier to accomplish greatness with creativity because things innovation, uniqueness, and originality are often key to the ideas that make the biggest difference and stand out.

Also, I think high intelligence is more common than high creativity, I don't have any stats to back this up, and I'm not even sure if you can test for creativity... perhaps you could test someone's divergent thinking.

[Jeffster]

Well Duh. The second one already describes me.

[Lithium]

Avg. intelligence, high creativity.

I have above avg intelligence and creativity somewhere around avg, maybe slightly above. As far as I'm aware. So I wouldn't change them, because all I'd be doing is dumbing myself needlessly. If I had to choose though creativity is better, but it's pretty useless without a good amount of intelligence.

[Owl]

I didn't have to think much about this. Creativity trumps intelligence. If you had high intelligence but low creativity, what would you be good for? You'd be a computer--good for nothing but running other peoples' programs, crunching numbers, processing data. Booooorrrrring!

[Silently Honest]

That's a tough question.

[Uberfuhrer]

I consider high creativity to be high intelligence. But that's just my own definition of intelligence. For me, intelligence isn't about being logical, it's about coming up with ideas. In the case of creativity, I define it as the ability to envision and act on inspirations. I prefer the freedom that imagination brings as opposed to the constraints of logic.

I voted for Low Intelligence - High Creativity because I am more swayed by a creative idea than logical possibility (logic also has a way of changing). I believe that the most random, frivolous, and pointless inspirations at any given time could end up being useful in the future in one form or another.

Personally, it feels more rewarding to come up with a random idea than it does to uncover a truth through analysis.

[Cimarron]

Originally Posted by Uberfuhrer

Personally, it feels more rewarding to come up with a random idea than it does to uncover a truth through analysis.

Rewarding in what way? I would find it more "lucky" than "rewarding", since I didn't actively put effort into it. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just wondering.

[Uberfuhrer]

Originally Posted by Cimarron

Rewarding in what way? I would find it more "lucky" than "rewarding", since I didn't actively put effort into it. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just wondering.

Like perhaps I'll have a random idea, and then I'll generate another random idea, and another, and so on. Eventually I could be able to make a connection between these ideas and sort of weave them into, I dunno, maybe a novel. Or a movie. Or an amusement park attraction. A video game. Who knows?

[Cimarron]

So you mean they could "turn out to be" rewarding? I get what you're saying.

[Uberfuhrer]

Originally Posted by Cimarron

So you mean they could "turn out to be" rewarding? I get what you're saying.

Yes. But just knowing that an idea could be useful someday is also rewarding. And not only that, but the fact that something was inspired gives me a sense of self-confidence as well as enables me to occupy my mind.