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Intelligence
Description
Intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria. While brawn is always helpful for fights, someone with brains may show superior. Intelligence is most often studied in humans but has also been observed in both non-human animals and in plants despite controversy as to whether some of these forms of life exhibit intelligence. Intelligence in computers or other machines is called artificial intelligence.
The word intelligence derives from the Latin nouns intelligentia or intellēctus, which in turn stem from the verb intelligere, to comprehend or perceive. In the Middle Ages, the word intellectus became the scholarly technical term for understanding, and a translation for the Greek philosophical term nous. This term, however, was strongly linked to the metaphysical and cosmological theories of teleological scholasticism, including theories of the immortality of the soul, and the concept of the active intellect (also known as the active intelligence). This approach to the study of nature was strongly rejected by the early modern philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume, all of whom preferred "understanding" (in place of "intellectus" or "intelligence") in their English philosophical works. Hobbes for example, in his Latin De Corpore, used "intellectus intelligit", translated in the English version as "the understanding understandeth", as a typical example of a logical absurdity. "Intelligence" has therefore become less common in English language philosophy, but it has later been taken up (with the scholastic theories which it now implies) in more contemporary psychology.
Intelligence Quotient
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient, his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book. Historically, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by the person's chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction (quotient) was multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score. For modern IQ tests, the raw score is transformed to a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. This results in approximately two-thirds of the population scoring between IQ 85 and IQ 115 and about 2.5 percent each above 130 and below 70.
Types
There is not a single form of intelligence, instead there are multiple types that can apply to a person. This is the following:
- Academic Intelligence: Intelligence based on a characters academics or field, the highest levels of these characters are naturally knowledgeable in many fields allowing them to use it to their advantage.
- Combat Intelligence: Intelligence based on combat, this can range from experience in different forms of martial arts, to street fighting, to knowledge on ones ability and how to use it properly.
- Street Intelligence: Intelligence based on outside influences and the world around one, these work around manipulating, convincing, etc. These characters at their best can talk people out of fighting, get info, and more.
- Intra-Personal: Intellingece based on understanding yourself, what you feel, and what you want.
- Spatial: Intelligence based on visualizing the world in 3-D.
- Naturalist: Intelligence based on understanding living things and reading nature.
- Musical: Intelligence based on discerning sounds, their pitch, tone, rhythm, and timbre.
Intelligence Levels
- Mindless: Lack a cognitive mind having them lack cognitive thought. These beings normally repeat the same word or speak in incomprehensible words and mumbles.
- Examples: Bacteria (Plague Inc.), Giygas (Earthbound)
- Animalistic: Beings, that only possess basic reasoning, awareness, and problem-solving skills.
- Examples: Pikmin (Pikmin), Gohma (The Legend of Zelda), Axolotl (The Real World)
- Mental Disability: Person below average intellects and unremarkable skills. Person normally has an IQ of 1 to 84.
- Examples: Armsy (The Forest), Soldier (Team Fortress), GIR (Invader Zim)
- Below Average: Person below average intellect. Note someone with this is more so an airhead then someone with a non-functioning brain or they are just born into the world (infant). Normally school students, kids, and babies and such are at this level.
- Average: Characters of average intelligence. While they have more developed intelligence in certain subjects, in many cases, their overall intelligence remains average. Person normally has an IQ of 85 to 114. It should be noted that Average intellect starts for a person around late high-school and onwards levels of education.
- Examples: Aki (Misao), Steven Universe (Steven Universe), Meowjima (A Hat in Time)
- Above Average: Characters that show greater cognitive ability than the norm, but do not particularly stand out in any intellectual or academic fields. Person normally has an IQ of 115 to 129.
- Gifted: Character that demonstrate high reasoning ability, can master concepts with few repetitions, and display high performance capability in intellectual, creative, or specific academic fields. Person normally has an IQ of 120 to 160. For combat users this can be defined as someone with or defeating someone with years of experience.
- Examples: Razputin Aquato (Psychonauts), Marietta Brown (Dudley and the Mysterious Tower)
- Genius: Genius level intelligence in one, or a few, areas of research. Individuals with an exceptional capacity for knowledge and intelligence, generally in one area of varying depth, often possessed by fictional scientists and strategists. An example of this level of intelligence are actual geniuses and famous intellectuals in the real world (Socrates, Stephen Hawkings, and, in lieu of better feats, should be the default intelligence category for fictional characters treated as if they have exceptional or superhuman intelligence. For Combat users this can be defined as being able to easily defeat other skilled warriors & learn techniques just from seeing them. These skilled warriors tend to have years to decades of experience. IQ is well above 160.
- Examples: Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean), Walter White (Breaking Bad), Eric Cartman (South Park)
- Extraordinary Genius: Individuals whose knowledge in a specific subject far surpasses the smartest human in that subject. For science users this would be their intelligence spreading over many fields of science and vastly surpass the intellects of the smartest humans on Earth. At this level, scientist/technology based people are capable of creating futuristic technology and battle heavy people are capable of accurately predicting the future through sheer mental calculations, or outperforming supercomputers. This is where super scientists of exceptional scientific knowledge begin to appear. Users could also have a massive experience edge to reach this intelligence, though it will always fall under a supporting reason rather then the main reason. While these are not objectively the smartest men in each field, they are famously known and are up there as the smartest men in each field, for a character on this wiki to get Extraordinary Genius in this field they would at least need to vastly surpass the people mentioned here:
- Supergenius: Possessed by those individuals with unfathomably superhuman intelligence and usually extensive mastery of most, or all, branches of science. Characters of such a scale tend to be super scientists capable of creating impossibly advanced physics-defying and reality-warping fantasy technology, and outsmarting even other extremely intelligent individuals. Supergeniuses can often easily process calculations beyond modern humanity's combined capabilities on their own, and quickly come up with extremely complex plans.
- Examples: Hat Kid (A Hat in Time), Stephen (Megami Tensei), Lucca (Chrono Trigger)
- Cosmic: The highest level of non-omniscient intellect, character knows almost everything of the cosmological settings of the universe or multiverse. These characters are capable of understanding things to the point that they have cosmic awareness through intelligence along. Beings of this calibur are so far beyond Supergenius that merely being more intelligent then a Supergenius being isn't enough to give this level of intelligence. For note, cosmic level geniuses can make higher dimensional objects that can warp reality to their pleasure, have a complete understanding of the space-time continuum to the point that they can tell when shifts in the continuum has happened without the use of machines, etcetera.
- Examples: Ness (MOTHER 2), Stephen (Megami Tensei)
- Omniscient: Character is in a state of having all knowledge, or in other words, knowing everything. They know everything that their opponent is going to do before they do it, and exactly what to do to win any fight. However, knowledge of other fictions is not a requirement for omniscience, so a character that knows everything about their own fictional franchise is considered to be omniscient in a versus thread.
Additional terms
At least
Should be used to denote the lower intelligence cap of a character, if the exact value is indeterminate. Usually listed for characters that have shown to be an intelligence level superbly casually.
At most
Should be used to denote the higher intelligence cap of a character, if the exact value is indeterminate. Usually listed for characters that have put all their effort into the intelligence feat.
Likely
Should be used to list a hypothetical intelligence level for a character, but inconclusive due to uncertainty. Probability of said hypothetical statistic should be favourable.
Possibly
Should be used to list a hypothetical intelligence level for a character, but inconclusive due to uncertainty. Probability of said hypothetical statistic should also be indeterminate.
Notes
- "Experience" is a very vague term that could not fully meet our requirements for every verse. Generally by years of experience we're assuming the person in question is a prodigy or close enough to being on a prodigy's level. An example of a character that doesn't work for this is this character from Shrek who claims to have over a thousand years of experience yet his martial arts moves are greatly lacking and he does flying headbutts. This would imply that if the thousand years of experience statement is correct, he has not trained correctly and thus can't be considered under our requirements for "experience".
Discussions (Link For Mobile Users):
| Discussion threads involving Intelligence |
