Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Look around you - asymmetry is so painfully obvious that even pop theories propose to split intelligence into "book smarts", "street smarts", "social smarts", etc.

I don't see the connection. Asymmetry in the relation "is smarter than" simply means that it is impossible to have both "X is smarter than Y" and "Y is smarter than X" (for X != Y).

In the context of individuals of incomparable intellect, it is inappropriate to say that either is smarter than the other -- never mind that they are both smarter than each other.



I think I was considering a looser meaning of "smart", in the common language sense of "I'm smarter than you regarding dating, you're smarter than me regrading math". That pop theory removes the intuitive asymmetry by partitioning "smart" into supposedly asymmetric subrelations - "books smarts", etc. Each part of this partition is asymmetric.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: