Do you think wisdom is something that can be acquired, or is it something you're born with?

Some people are more open to learning things well and examining subjects further.

There are questions raised about “IQ” more and more. It’s not something that’s so easily defined or measured. Knowing that, I think being able to measure or define someone’s wisdom would be difficult, as well.

It’s ”...than others”. ;)

@DrasticDreamer Yes….in many ways intelligence and IQ are the same animal…But distinctly different in other ways.

Wisdom is the application of common sense based on experience and knowledge.

I agree with @SpatzieLover some people are just more receptive than others. Some people have a lot of knowledge but no common sense. Wisdom can be acquired by anyone. No one is born with knowledge or wisdom, but people may be born with a certain orientation towards learning.

@limeaide When you say “Wisdom can be acquired by anyone” what do you mean, exactly? Intelligence at the genius level can’t be acquired by just anyone, and I think wisdom is the same.

There are different ways to interpret what wisdom is. In my opinion, wisdom is having the insight to understand specific situations and how different actions can affect these situations.

In addition, I think people are born with different capacities for different things. In myself, I see a capacity for acquiring lots of knowledge. I could probably do better in using it, though. I think wisdom is achieved when you can understand things intuitively; some people achieve this easily and instinctively, while others, like myself, try to achieve it through learning as much as possible.

You can be intelligent but lack wisdom. Never, sticking your nose out of the lab. But, also wise about the environment you are in.

Wisdom comes from life experience. Experiencing your environment, finding harmony with it.
And, it is always subjective.

Wisdom is, as others have said, very different from intelligence. The common wisdom on wisdom is that it comes with experience.

@Val123 I’d say I agree with you to an extent that maybe there is a limit to how much wisdom a person has and there are those that could have more wisdom than others. I think since there is there are 3 factors to wisdom (common sense, knowledge and experience) it levels the playing field for many. The person with the most knowledge isn’t necessarily the one with the most wisdom and so on and so forth.

@ChazMaz If just having life experience is enough to make you wise, why aren’t all old people wise? I mean, sure, all old people can dispense good advise based on experiences that they’ve had, but not all of them are wise.

I agree that wisdom comes from experience, but it’s not an automatic transfer, anymore than a scientist can prove a theory with an “n” of 1.

It’s more like lifelong applied science, gathering information, making a choice, observing the outcome, and adjusting your next choices as needed. If you’re a careful observer of the people around you, you might gain wisdom from their experiences too. Education gives you additional ways to observe and gather information. IMO, what some people call intuition is actually observational wisdom that can’t be explained.

Some of us need more life lessons to aquire wisdom than others, and some people seem to have no aptitude for it at all.

I believe you can be wise without always being intelligent. Wisdom is more about life experiences than understand things like algebra, speaking languages other than your own or having a photographic memory for things you have read in a text book. I also believe, as people have different life experiences, that wisdom is unique to each person.

For the most part I think wisdon is something you gain more and more of along the way if you are willing and able to keep and open mind where possible.

No, time and experience dictates it as far as I can tell. These exceptional’s, are those individuals who are successfully living, or lived a life adapting either to great distress or a mind altering experience and not necessarily thru drugs; they often are wiser than their years.
I love when I have the opportunity to meet these kind of young people.

@Leanne1986 Kids say some of the wisest things….and I agree that wisdom is something you gain along the way, but, just like intelligence, I think you either have the capacity for it or you don’t, to a greater or lesser degree.

@Val123 I see what you are saying there but I don’t think it’s a case of kids saying wise things, it’s more of a case of kids saying what they see. I think this is more about observation and lack of tact rather than wisdom even if it appears to be wise. Sometimes being wise is not saying anything at all which kids will rarely do in certain situations.

Of course this isn’t true in all case but as a whole I would never class a kids as wise. Observant, definately, intelligent, maybe, confident, often but not wise.

@Leanne1986 I agree with what you’re saying…but then again, maybe it it IS a wisdom but they lose it along the way, whereas a truly wise person doesn’t lose it. ?

Wisdom is the ability to combine intellect with experience to form a better perspective.

Must be acquired, through setback, failure, success, lost love, accomplishment, and loss of cynicism. The latter is the most important.

People are not born wise. Wisdom occurs when learns from one’s mistakes and applies those lessons along the way. IQ and wisdom are not necessarily related. IQ is great to have but without wisdom and common sense to back it up it is of no use.

@Val123 The possibilities are endless

I’m still hoping it can be acquired! :-)

@janbb That’s a wise thought!

@supermouse Do you think that some people are born smart? That some people are born with a higher natural ability to make associations easily and intuitively than most? I do—and it shows up really quickly while they’re small. Do you think it’s possible that in regards to wisdom, some people are just born with a higher natural ability to connect sometimes seemingly unrelated experiences and to form a core of higher thinking philosophy in regards to those experiences? Like Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Confucius, etc.

“but not all of them are wise.’

That is why I said Wisdom is subjective.

Who might not seem wise to you. Is wise to another.
If how they live or perceive life. Influences you or rubs off on you, good.

Actually, a wise man/woman is not out for any ones acceptance. It is a perception you either see or not.

There is no other way to become wise besides acquiring it. No one is born with it. Wisdom is the ability to understand many more implications of a situation than most people can understand and know how to make decisions that maximize the benefit of all involved. By all, I don’t just mean the local people, but all people who will be impacted by the ripple effect of an action.

A wise person can see both backwards and forwards accurately. By backwards, I mean they can look at current circumstances and make some very good guesses about how the situation came about. By forwards, I mean being able to make accurate predictions about the results of a wide variety of options.

A wise person has a better model of how people behave in the world than most people do. A wise person has a more nuanced understanding of both ethical and practical concerns. It’s not just intuition. It’s knowledge and understanding of how things work.

It’s also not “common sense.” A wise person can bring a lot of scientific knowledge to situations in order to make decisions. Common sense may be common, but it is often mistaken.

Wisdom is unlike intelligence in this manner. Intelligence is probably about 20% genes and 80% learning. Intelligence tests measure how much culturally appropriate knowledge you have retained. The best predictors for intelligence include wealth, parental education, and participation of parents (or parental surrogates) in the education of their children. They may be the best predictors, but there are many other factors involved, and almost all of them are environmental, or undistinguishable from genetic factors.

Wisdom is related to intelligence because it requires a lot of knowledge to make wiser decisions. Usually, wisdom is found more in older people because it takes a lot of life experience in order to gain the knowledge necessary (and to build the model that puts the knowledge together in a strongly coherent way). Book learning usually isn’t enough, because books don’t really teach you everything that happens in the real world. Only experience prepares you for wisdom. And the experience only helps if you are very reflective about what the experience means.

Wisdom is not inbred. It can only be born of experience. Experience, and reflection.

@daloon Well thought out. Thanks :)

both. and that’s from long and personal observation, of myself, my family, people in my community, and so on. and sadly, for some it’s neither.