While at Chick-fil-a with my church's youth group, one of the middle schoolers and I had a lengthy conversation about all sorts of things. Well... perhaps conversation isn't quite the best word. It was more of a constant rolling through the beginnings of a conversation. I normally dislike people who flit and flutter between topics like a bee through a flower garden, but tonight my friend's tendency to willfully abandon every attempt at anything more than a few short sentences for each topic captivated my attention. Besides, I didn't have much else to do, and I wasn't about to go home for the night.
Despite her inclination to talk about as many subjects as possible as little as possible, I managed to stop her on two. Well... I don't think stop is a good word for this either. Perhaps stop in the sense I made her pause and think through a question, its answer, and their meaning. The first question I'll keep to myself for now. I haven't come to a point where I understand the question enough to discuss it publicly. Moreover, the second challenged her a bit more, I think. We discussed it for longer and it was our final topic before we said goodbye.
The question came after a string of subjects when our conversation (a real conversation now—at least by my standard) became something like this:
She: "My, you are so smart! I wish I was smart..."
Myself: "Well... what does it mean to be smart?"
[slight pause]
She: "You're smart when you read books."
Myself: "Really? Are you actually smart for reading books?" (Upon reflection, I should have asked her in the form of the classic Euthyphro dilemma: 'Does reading books make you smart, or do smart people read books?')
Her Father: "Yeah, because you can read a book and not grasp its meaning."
She took quite a while (for her) to respond and I think the discussion turned to what it means to learn something; nevertheless, the rest of our conversation revolved around the question: "What does it mean to be smart?" I tried to explain how I thought smartness was the ability to learn something and apply it to something else. That each person has their own unique definition of being smart—there is no truly accurate comparison between two people. As an example, I told her some of my skills I need and value are reading, math, critical thought, and logic. I use these on a daily basis and I can be successful using those skills. On the other hand, someone living without any technology would value skills related to food gathering and survival much, much higher, and would have little use for my skillset. I told her she would be considered an idiot in that culture because she wouldn't be able to last more than a few days without the knowledge of how to gather food, what plants and insects to avoid, and in general how to survive in that environment.
While I think that is a decent explanation, especially for emphasizing she can be smart in her own way and comparing herself to me or anyone else is much less meaningful than what is initially apparent, I am not yet satisfied with this definition. After all, we have IQ tests; there is a correlation between IQ and 'success'. We have theories of crystallized and fluid intelligence—which is really a fancy way to say "book smart" and "street smart", although the two aren't strictly equivalent. Then there is also the case of being exceptionally gifted (e.g. math, music) in one area and exceptionally inept in a more practical area (e.g. directions, social interaction).
I am well aware a Platonic definition is hopelessly out of reach, but I feel a more encompassing answer is still out there. Admittedly, I haven't done too much research on the issue, but from what I have read, no one has a satisfactory definition—and it very well might not exist. Wittenstein's language-game concept and Justice Potter Stewart's "I know it when I see it" leave us with the realization we can only know it from experience and never being able to nail it down to study it enough to define it completely.
References:
http://www.academia.edu/624021/The_Difference_Between_Being_Smart_Educated_and_Intelligent
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-michaelis-phd/adaptation-intelligence_b_2568827.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language-games
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