What is wisdom?
meagloth
Member Posts: 3,806
So, as some of you know (and no doubt many of you have tried to forget) I am trying to make an alignment/character test, and at this point it's mostly done, except for the wisdom and intelligence questions. Intelligence is being difficult, but what's even worse is wisdom. I don't even know where to start here, what am I even testing? So I've turned to you guys. What would you want "wisdom" to represent in a real-life ability score test? It could be critical thinking skills, some personality trait stuck in between intelligence and charisma, devotion to a principle or religion, or just personal discipline. Big-decision making, or traditional wisdom, I guess, is impossible to test, especially with multiple choice. Critical thinking would be nearly the same thing as wisdom. Devotion/religious discipline would leave any atheist/agnostic with low wisdom, and that certainly isn't correct. If it's "force of personality" or whatever, that doesn't really answer my question. So, if you guys have any idea of what you would want this to look like, or any question suggestions, please comment. (or if you just want me to shut up about my alignment test that's ok too :P)
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And, about "what are you testing" bit. By doing DnD tests over the internet, you essentialy tests nothing. Really. These tests are made by fans for fun. They are not backed up by scientific knowledge and theories, much less any normalized standards. In short, they are not meant to show real-you in DnD. If you do them, simply do them for fun, otherwise is pointless.
Now back to the thread...
Intelligence, wisdom and charisma, to me, are mental abilities, just as strength, dexterity and constitution are physical abilities and attributes.
Charisma is mental power or Strength. The force of your personality as it were. Your ability to persuade others. To force others to like you / do your bidding / give information without them realising it.
Like strength it is an ability that people use without really thinking about it. For example, can I open that jam jar? No... I'll get Dave to do it... *Jam jar is opened* (Strength failure. Charisma saved!)
Intelligence is your mental dexterity. How many spells can you remember, what sums can you carry out or patterns you can see and or what knowledge you can recall to a given situation quickly.
Like dexterity, You definitely know you are using your intelligence. Dexterity, is how well you can dodge paintballs. Intelligence is spotting that everyone is firing paintballs at that gal dodging them, I'll sneak round the back...
Wisdom is your mental constitution. Your ability to hold firm in a belief or an idea. Your ability to recognise how you feel about a situation and how others around you feel, and the ability to react to it.
You do not think about Wisdom and Constitution, they just happen. As this is the main topic of this thread, I will give examples of strong wisdom.
You feel tired, close to exhaustion, but mentally you keep your feet plodding onwards.
You are scorned that you believe Boo is a giant space hamster. You believe he is a giant space hamster and that in fact he is your father.
You recognise that two of your friends have feelings for each other. You leave so they can say they hate each other in private.
So to summarise. Not saying that I am 100% correct...
Strength is how hard you hit. Charisma is how big a hit with other people you are.
Strength is how powerful you are. Charisma is how powerful your personality is.
Dexterity is how fast you can dodge a hit. Intelligence is figuring out how hard the hit would be.
Dexterity is how fast your body can react to a situation. Intelligence is how fast you can interpret reality.
Constitution is how hard a hit you can take. Wisdom is how hard a hit to your faith/self belief you can take.
Constitution is how hard your body is to carry on. Wisdom is how hard you believe in a truth and to keep on carrying it.
...
All experience garnered in my 6000 year life. I'll gladly share more if you like.
Wisdom noun the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.
You are spot on with intelligence indeed. How good the mind is "on its feet" as it were. Mechanical things, like math, puzzles, etc. It does appear to parallel dexterity quite well.
Intelligence is operations of the mind in the short term sense.
Wisdom is operations of the mind in the long term sense. When you have time to evaluate information over a longer period of time. The mark of wisdom allows for minds to be changed (if its high enough) with the advent of new information. Thus, "Wisdom is how hard you believe in a truth and keep carrying it" does not make one wise if they fail to accept new information that contradicts their current belief. This is where ignorance replaces wisdom.
I think a statement more like, "Wisdom is how readily you evaluate new information to come to the right decision" hits a little closer to home. "Right decision" being what is most beneficial at the time.
An example:
Agreeing that the earth is flat to avoid being burned at the stake, when you know the earth is round, would be a feat of wisdom. Not only did you assess the information that brought you to the conclusion of the earth being round, but you also factored in the response people may have, and it's possible outcomes.
Religion would end if people just relied on what they could see, hear, touch and taste. Belief is a most stubborn trait and it is inherently linked to the wisdom stat in D&D through its important to Clerics, Druids and other divine spell casters.
Your example made me giggle. It would be intelligent to avoid being burnt at the stake (your mind has nimbly interpreted the reality of the situation). However, your wisdom, that the earth is round is unshakable, and you will not be daunted by the authorities saying the world is flat, even when they threaten you with death. Perhaps flaunt your knowledge at a better time...
Okay. I twisted your example. But then, I agree with your post as well. How can this be?
Well, you have taken the meaning of my post too literally. @meagloth is making an alignment / character test. He needs wisdom reduced to a stat, a number. This means you need to take wisdom, a qualified attribute and literally quantify it so it has meaning in a D&D game. This is what I have tried to do. I don't believe wisdom in the real world fits neatly to what wisdom in D&D means. You are right, wisdom is in part insightfulness... But insight also requires a degree of analysis, which is intelligence, and continuing this theme, how does the ability for invention and ideas mesh with wisdom and intelligence... It just doesn't in the D&D world because it is unquantifiable.
As for high wisdom explaining how you came to a right decision? No. In the game your character can have an exceptional high wisdom. It will not make the player make all the right moves, because the player is in control. And players, dungeon masters and mummies are all capable of mistakes, no matter what their wisdom score is. Because, no one, is controlled by the wisdom they posses. Most people know it is unwise to do drugs... Still doesn't stop people doing them.
And how many wise / unwise decisions are down to luck? Who can say...
It is probably wise for me to go to bed... But I will find that Broccoflower... I will...
*Anduin gazes wisely at the screen... why is this wise? Because it would be bloody stupid to try and type without looking at the screen FOOL!*
You describe the exact *opposite* of what I consider wisdom. I would call "wisdom" as you have defined it, *foolishness*. Utter madness. The willingness to cling to an irrational belief despite all evidence to the contrary. I think real life religion sometimes calls that "faith". I don't believe that has anything to do with a D&D game, since in D&D, the gods demonstrably exist, as evidenced by their provision of spells to their priests.
Why do the D&D gods require "wisdom" of their priests? Well, I would say that "wisdom" is a form of mental discipline, just as is "intelligence". "Wisdom" is the ability to concentrate and focus for long periods of time in a contemplative state of mind that clears away the random ebb and flow of mortal life. It is the ability to discipline the mind and the self into quietness, in order to connect with the core "reality" that transcends the self and sensory perception.
The Eastern religions call the practice of wisdom "meditation". There are also strains of the Western religions that interpret "prayer" as meditation. The Catholic tradition is especially rich in meditative practices, as with, for example, the use of prayer beads to complete numeric rotations of Hail Mary or Our Father prayers.
I don't mean to derail this into a discussion of real life religion, though.
Your definition of "wisdom" as what I would call "foolishness" or "insanity", does not generate questions that might measure the trait on a psychological instrument, either.
In D&D, the gods are imagined to draw their power from the aggregated worship of their followers, which they are imagined to return to their followers in the form of spells, in a symbiotic relationship where both "god" and worshippers are mutually strengthened by the "worship".
The longer the cleric spends in prayer, the more divine energy is received by the god, and the stronger the spells become that can be received by the cleric in return for his or her devotional practice.
So, how can we measure D&D "wisdom" as meditative ability? I can think of quite a few questions along those lines. (Plus and minus one from base 10 for each response.)"
"Do you pray or meditate regularly, either as a practice of a religion, or as a means to calm and center yourself?"
"Do you see any benefit of sitting in a quiet space by yourself for an hour or two simply focusing on your breathing?"
"Has any loved one, friend, or teacher, ever accused you of 'having your head in the clouds', or 'not seeing the forest for the trees', or of being too detail-oriented?"
"Are you in debt more than $1,000 in rotating credit card debt?"
"Have you received a citation for any traffic violation in the past 10 years?"
"Have you been arrested and convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic violation in the past ten years?"
"Would you consider yourself "obsessive-compulsive" about details?"
"You are confronted with a bad situation about which you can't seem to do anything. Do you keep attacking it until you finally succeed, no matter what the cost, or do you accept the situation and move on?"
"How long per day do you spend alone, reading, thinking, reflecting, and contemplating life? a) one hour (plus one Wisdom) b) two hours (plus two Wisdom), c) three or more hours (minus one Wisdom)
"What is your tolerance for applying yourself to a task that you hate, in return for pay, training, or other benefits?" a) eight or more hours per day (plus three Wisdom), b) four hours per day at most (plus one Wisdom), c) Two hours per day at most (minus one Wisdom), d) Get me out of this Hellhole! I quit! (minus two Wisdom)
I could go on, but that's probably enough for now. I realize that my questions bring up many highly arguable implications, especially on the details, but that was only a rough draft off the top of my head.
Bottom line: Wisdom is your ability to discipline yourself to tasks that have clear real life benefits, despite possibly being unpleasant or boring, and your ability to draw connections, think holistically, and apply common sense to real life situations.
Right. I did not mean to upset anyone! I said wisdom is mental constitution. I cannot understand how you cannot see the similarities. Your quote literally screams, mental stamina at me!
Also @FinaLfront , please read my post in the nature it was intended. Science can disprove most religous explanations. Does not stop, hinder or in anyway shape peoples belief in God. I like the analogy of carrying his light, the same as carrying that truth or idea.
If you have been lucky enough to have had a spiritual experience, then I am glad for you.
I have not. I always end up believing in people before any god. Because people are all ways there for me. Perhaps, I have a low wisdom score...
I see Intelligence as the capacity/amount of knowledge you have (about certain/specific topics) in theory and capability to learn this, while Wisdom is the ability to put this knowledge into practice in the best possible way.
So to return to my first statement: Intelligence is knowing what a tomato is and Wisdom is knowing how to use that tomato.
Can it be broadly simplified into Intelligence=IQ and Wisdom=EQ?
Look at it this way: Robert Hooke was an extreme smart man. He invented or found out certain scientific equations. He was not the wisest of all though. He was known to boast a lot about having knowledge of the principles of nature, but was not able to prove it (Gravitation). ALso, he had been known to use Plagiarism. I would not call this wise. On the other end you have Newton, who was smart as well as able to prove it and thus also had the wisdom to put his intelligence into practice.
You could apply the same to someone like the Unabomber. An extremely smart man, but (in a way) not one who was very wise, because he used his intelligence to harm people.
Intelligence is knowing that smoking is bad for you. Wisdom is not to smoke.
What I was saying was basically that no internet DnD abillity scores test can meassure your "real stats", like wisdom, in any reliable way. One of your question was: "what am I even testing?". So my answers basically was: "nothing".
Sorry if I wasn't clear before.
I do believe intuition comes into wisdom as well though, like a bugbear who uses his sense of smell to detect people, that's using wisdom. It's become a composite of at least two different concepts over the years.
I'm starting to think I like the word "intuition". I'm thinking questions like estimate the length of this pencil without measuring it; estimation. I'm also thinking executive functioning. Would be a good representation of wisdom as well.
In this particular case, you will never get a result that 100% reflects the reality, I'm afraid. I doubt even 60% will be achieveable.
I'm trying to figure out, in myself, why this issue is arousing emotions in me of being annoyed. It's not just the idea of trying to quantify a person's real-life wisdom, but rather the idea of trying to quantify a person at all, that is starting to feel wrong to me. I don't think you can reasonably or successfully do that, because human personality is too complicated. (Does it take wisdom to look at an endeavor, and say "You know, I think this may be a really bad idea."?)
This endeavor strikes me as being similar to astrology, or those new internet tests that ask you a whole bunch of (silly?) questions and then tell you what kind of food, musical instrument, or Star Wars character you are. People get really into them, and yet they are scientifically total nonsense.
Anyway, the "wise" thing for me to do, having expressed my opinion, is to politely bow out of the discussion now. I don't want to spoil anyone's fun. I don't want to beat a dead horse, either. That wouldn't be "wise."
I asked your question openly to the other teachers about what wisdom is, after all we test and asses the children in our care...
But then, we don't test or asses wisdom or intelligence. We test and assess, knowledge, skills and comprehension.
In the end it was decided that intelligence is how well you can absorb and apply information.
Wisdom is how well you can interpret information and how well you can use it to guide yourself or others.
It then descended to a talk about common sense, which is basic wisdom and how it is lacking in todays youth... Why eat soap... Why?
Anyway...
A question for intelligence could include a calculation.
A question for wisdom could be finding a common link between a series of numbers.
Perhaps.