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Intelligence or Creativity: Pick One.

Which would you choose?


  • Total voters
    128

nottaprettygal

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I think creativeness is very important for society to move forward...

But if we're assuming that the two are mutually exclusive, then you need to have intelligence in order to bring those ideas into fruition.

I would much rather be highly intelligent. You don't need to come up with the ideas to move society forward. You can just move another person's idea forward.
 

GinKuusouka

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High creativity and low intelligence. lol Why? I'm at least partially already there. Otherwise? I spend a lot of time in my mind already. :) Why not be able to set that loose on the unsuspecting of the world? hehe
 

Lady_X

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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.
totally agree with this...i can't imagine a highly creative person with low intelligence...i'm not sure i've ever known one.
 

ajblaise

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totally agree with this...i can't imagine a highly creative person with low intelligence...i'm not sure i've ever known one.

Can you really have one without the other?

I know some musicians and an artist who are very creative, but really not that intelligent, simple yet creative SP types. Also I know some very intelligent people who I'm sure are not very creative. ENTJ best friend in high school was like this.

I really don't think the phenomenon is that rare.
 

heart

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It's not what you got but how you use it so I'll always pick creativity over intelligence. My computer is smarter than I am, but he never gets anywhere.
 

SolitaryWalker

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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.

Intelligence and creativity are intimately intertwined because they both rely on abstract cognitive abilities which are foundational to the classical definition of intelligence. Ultimately, intelligence is the ability to solve complex problems quickly and accurately. This requires imagination or abstract perception in order to imagine complex ideas which have little grounding in what can be observed with our 5 senses. Imagine for example a complex mathematical or a philosophical problem? Surely that requires much imagination just to imagine the conditions of such a problem, even more so to solve the problem with sufficient rigor.
 

ajblaise

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Intelligence and creativity are intimately intertwined because they both rely on abstract cognitive abilities which are foundational to the classical definition of intelligence. Ultimately, intelligence is the ability to solve complex problems quickly and accurately. This requires imagination or abstract perception in order to imagine complex ideas which have little grounding in what can be observed with our 5 senses. Imagine for example a complex mathematical or a philosophical problem? Surely that requires much imagination just to imagine the conditions of such a problem, even more so to solve the problem with sufficient rigor.

Creativity is about generating new ideas/methods/ways/associations. Solving a complex math problem, for example, requires abstraction, but it doesn't necessarily require the solver to come up with new ideas, just to learn existing systems and frameworks.
 

Orangey

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Creativity is about generating new ideas/methods/ways/associations. Solving a complex math problem, for example, requires abstraction, but it doesn't necessarily require the solver to come up with new ideas, just to learn existing systems and frameworks.

But is that how we're measuring "intelligence"? By someone's ability to learn things and then apply them? Would you not say that the person who was able to invent those things (come up with new ideas/methods/ways/associations) is more intelligent than a person who is unable to do that, but who has the capacity to learn and use those ideas/methods/ways/etc...?
 

ajblaise

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But is that how we're measuring "intelligence"? By someone's ability to learn things and then apply them? Would you not say that the person who was able to invent those things (come up with new ideas/methods/ways/associations) is more intelligent than a person who is unable to do that, but who has the capacity to learn and use those ideas/methods/ways/etc...?

If a person comes up with a new idea within a math or science field for example, that will most likely require high intelligence because they would need the capacity to learn math and science in the first place, but the person who comes up with art or music or who gets a great idea and invents some new ergonomic consumer product, I don't see how that necessarily requires high intelligence.
 

Orangey

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If a person comes up with a new idea within a math or science field for example, that will most likely require high intelligence because they would need the capacity to learn math and science in the first place, but the person who comes up with art or music or who gets a great idea and invents some new ergonomic consumer product, I don't see how that necessarily requires high intelligence.

So it has to do with subject?
 

ajblaise

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So it has to do with subject?

Yeah, I think it's a reasonable distinction to make. Mastering chemistry requires one to learn a complex objective system, but with something like art, there is no real existing system which they must navigate through to "learn" and excel at creating art.
 

Orangey

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Yeah, I think it's a reasonable distinction to make. Mastering chemistry requires one to learn a complex objective system, but with something like art, there is no real existing system which they must navigate through to "learn" and excel at creating art.

How could we tell that the people who are artistically creative but not necessarily science or math majors don't actually have the capacity to learn those things? It seems like the only basis that we would have for saying that some people are creative but not intelligent is because those people don't bother themselves to learn certain subjects (namely, the ones we value like math or science). Or maybe never had the opportunity. In any case, I don't think that's a fair measure of one's capacity to learn those things. And if we can't measure one's capacity to learn those things by observing what they do or do not already know, then how do we know that there are creative and unintelligent people out there?
 

SolitaryWalker

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Creativity is about generating new ideas/methods/ways/associations. Solving a complex math problem, for example, requires abstraction, but it doesn't necessarily require the solver to come up with new ideas, just to learn existing systems and frameworks.

Mathematicians, philosophers, and professional scientists are expected to come up with new ideas about their fields. In scholarly journals you see many papers regarding new ways to think about mathematics, philosophy or the sciences and new concepts and theories in the field. Original thinking is vital in those academical enterprises. Moreover, when you're solving complex math problems you need to think of new and more efficient ways to solve them. Secondly, even if you're not solving a math problem in a novel way, you're still required to use your imagination a lot to imagine all the complexities of the problem. If you could do that, you should have no problem coming up with new ideas. As you mention coming up with new ideas requires imagination, and you need that same imagination to work out complex problems even if not concocting new ideas in the process!
 

ajblaise

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How could we tell that the people who are artistically creative but not necessarily science or math majors don't actually have the capacity to learn those things? It seems like the only basis that we would have for saying that some people are creative but not intelligent is because those people don't bother themselves to learn certain subjects (namely, the ones we value like math or science). Or maybe never had the opportunity. In any case, I don't think that's a fair measure of one's capacity to learn those things. And if we can't measure one's capacity to learn those things by observing what they do or do not already know, then how do we know that there are creative and unintelligent people out there?

The only way I can think of for finding out if high intelligence and high creativity always coincide is if a study tested IQ and equated creativity to divergent thinking, which is testable, and tested that.

On the other side, I can't think of a good argument on why a creative person must, because of that, also be intelligent.
 

Orangey

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The only way I can think of for finding out if high intelligence and high creativity always coincide is if a study tested IQ and equated creativity to divergent thinking, which is testable, and tested that.

Yeah.

On the other side, I can't think of a good argument on why a creative person must, because of that, also be intelligent.

Neither can I, but I also can't think of any good arguments to suppose that creativity can exist without intelligence.
 

ajblaise

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Mathematicians, philosophers, and professional scientists are expected to come up with new ideas about their fields. In scholarly journals you see many papers regarding new ways to think about mathematics, philosophy or the sciences and new concepts and theories in the field. Original thinking is vital in those academical enterprises. Moreover, when you're solving complex math problems you need to think of new and more efficient ways to solve them. Secondly, even if you're not solving a math problem in a novel way, you're still required to use your imagination a lot to imagine all the complexities of the problem. If you could do that, you should have no problem coming up with new ideas. As you mention coming up with new ideas requires imagination, and you need that same imagination to work out complex problems even if not concocting new ideas in the process!

Just because someone is utilizing abstraction and imagination, doesn't mean they are coming up with anything new. It's not necessarily creative.
 

ajblaise

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Neither can I, but I also can't think of any good arguments to suppose that creativity can exist without intelligence.

Well, some degree of intelligence is needed. I suppose the dispute is simply on "how much?".
 

SolitaryWalker

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Just because someone is utilizing abstraction and imagination, doesn't mean they are coming up with anything new. It's not necessarily creative.

No, but people who are able to think abstractly also have the ability to come up with something new because you need imagination to do both.
 

ajblaise

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No, but people who are able to think abstractly also have the ability to come up with something new because you need imagination to do both.

They say that creativity increases with IQ up until an IQ of 110, then above that IQ doesn't matter as much in determining creativity.

This is from something I read a while ago, I don't have a link.
 
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