What is Intelligence?

Intelligence means many things to many people. Is wisdom intelligence? I suppose so, but not necessarily to a high degree - though it implies a certain amount of rationality. Wisdom is being sensible, a quality that is based on experience, but nevertheless subjective for all that – it's as much a quality of emotional intelligence as anything. Intelligence and wisdom seem not to be mutually exclusive - there seem to be a good number of intelligent people doing pretty stupid things. Undoubtedly the ability to work out maths problems quickly and accurately is a form of intelligence - a kind of intelligence that can be measured and difficult to dispute. I think many of us would agree that an ability to quickly grasp the reality of a situation is an important feature of intelligence - but of course, that assumes that there is a consensus on what that reality actually is. Another feature of intelligence might be the ability to extrapolate already known facts to infer conclusions to new or similar problems.
Surely intelligence isn't just about quick thinking - it's also about depth and breadth of thinking and the awareness of the many possible ramifications of a certain course of action or idea.
The power of reasoning is a sort of over-arching, all encompassing quality many of us might ascribe to intelligence - but paradoxically, intelligence can be combined with irrational behaviour.
What do we mean by rationality? The dictionary provides us with a definition of two strands: 1. logical thought processes. 2. sensible thoughts. Surely these two definitions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Logic is about reasoning; but surely reasoning can be faulty and therefore not necessarily sensible.
We need to accept that the views of someone whose beliefs are opposed to (or even hostile to) our own are nevertheless often well thought out and therefore, in that sense, rational. For example, the more ‘tender-hearted’ among us will tend have more liberal and socially aware and compassionate answers to both global and domestic problems: Those of the tougher, more hawkish disposition, will see life as a Darwinian fight for survival of the fittest and expect the less fortunate among us to ‘pull ourselves together’. I think it's worth noting here, however, that the scientist and admirer of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, seems very much opposed to Darwinian natural selection or 'Social Darwinism' being applied as a 'business model' for humankind.
Maybe these tougher minded, perhaps more adventurous, people actually enjoy a state of confrontation and conflict in their world. Maybe the world is like that. For example, maybe the neo-cons are quite happy, untroubled and unrepentant over their intervention in Iraq and the state of affairs they have brought about there or exacerbated.
Maybe your interpretation of logic depends on your empathy with and threshold of sensitivity to feelings and needs of other beings.
I’m being a ‘Devil’s Advocate’ here – Personally, I naturally lean toward the need for a more compassionate view of life.
The trouble is, ‘rationality’ it seems to me, is a highly subjective definition.
Anyway, within the framework of everyday life, the general idea of irrationality i.e. of being silly, stupid and without logic, is still supported by a broad consensus.
I’m not sure to what degree rationality can be taught. However, I certainly think that we can and should be taught more about how our logic is often skewed by our negative emotions like greed. Our logic is also skewed, I think, by delusions caused by our various insecurities. Then, last but not least, is the stress and overwork factor which prevents us from stepping back and examining our lives and getting in touch with our true selves.
We just need to observe the behaviour and decisions of some of our global corporations and political leaders, their aides and think-tanks, to see what close bed fellows intelligence and irrationality can be.