By Timothy Alor

Do you really know something if you can’t remember it? knowledge relies almost exclusively on a person’s ability to remember what he or she has learned. Proof of knowledge comes from demonstration of knowledge; if you can’t recall a fact, then for all intents and purposes you never learned it.

Dictionary meaning of knowledge

1.The fact of knowing about something; general understanding or familiarity with a subject, place, situation etc.

2. Awareness of a particular fact or situation; a state of having been informed or made aware of something

But where does that leave intelligence?

Unlike knowledge, intelligence is better defined by process than product.

You may know a great deal, but did it take you fifty years or twenty to learn it?

You may know how to multiply large numbers, but can you do it in your head or do you need a pen and paper?

Intelligence does not require a strong memory, per se; it requires an ability to process and organize information efficiently and to make connections where it counts.

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?

Over the years, intelligence has been defined, redefined, summarized, and defined again, but still no one person has the same exact definition or idea.

The Collective Definitions of Intelligence” which include approximately seventy different definitions, or interpretations of what intelligence entails. Seventy!

Similarly, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “…the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations… the skilled use of reason…the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests).”

The gist is the more intelligent the person, the more they are able to apply what they know(knowledge) to new situations. This sounds fair, but the question remains: how does one become intelligent?

Now let me tell you, you might have knowledge about a thing but that doesn’t make you intelligent. What makes one intelligent is the process you convert your knowledge into product. Note: intelligence is about the process and not the product.

Your ability to process and organize things, fact and information efficiently and effectively and to make connections where needed is what determines how intelligent you are.