If you're reading this, chances are, you have a certain intelligent person in mind and are looking to validate their intelligence — even if that person is yourself. (Yeah, I said it.)
So, to get straight to it, the topic of intelligence arose when u/Gisgiii asked, "What is a subtle sign that someone is really intelligent?" In response, many people shared the subtle signs of intelligence that they've observed in the intelligent people they've encountered (and, keep in mind, there are various types of intelligence out there):
1. "They can ask really good questions. I'm not talking about just any questions but really good ones. I don't know how one would achieve this skill, though, I know I haven't."
2. "When they explain something, they make you feel intelligent."
3. "People who use analogies to explain concepts to others. It's a form of code-switching, and integrating concepts on the fly is a clear indicator that someone is both socially and conceptually intelligent. Not all analogies are helpful or make sense to others, so a useful analogy that creates an 'ah-ha!' moment for someone is a wonderful thing. An analogy is an association; a mental process of connecting an idea or thing to a relatable image for someone who can then 'see' and digest the initial representation.
4. "Explaining something complex in simple terms. Their knowledge is so vast that they can talk about it in the easiest way for someone else to understand."
"I once was hired by a college as a tutor for other students who were having trouble with courses they found difficult but I had absorbed pretty easily — electronics stuff mostly.
"The department head who hired me said something along the lines of, 'Pay isn't much, you won't make enough to buy more than a pizza or two a week. But, you'll learn stuff about what you teach you never realized you needed to know — you never REALLY grasp a topic until you can explain it clearly to someone else.' He was right."
5. "They spend time thinking before asking a question."
6. "They can genuinely consider an idea that opposes their worldview without necessarily accepting it."
"I've got a bone or two to pick with Aristotle, but I can vibe with his misquoted, 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought and not accept it.'"
7. "They can switch up the way they talk to match the person they're talking to without sounding condescending. They listen to how others learn and explain it in that person's language of understanding."
"The smartest professor I had in engineering school was also the most humble. She was an astounding human being. By week two, she knew everyone's (180 students) name by heart. Later, in upper division classes, people would occasionally ask some really stupid questions. It happens...you get so deep into some fluid mechanics derivation or something that you forget something really basic. People would ask a question like this, and everyone would be thinking, 'Wow, how did you even make it this far?'
"But then, she would spot the flaw in their understanding so perfectly and respond with such clarity and wisdom that the person asking the question would look less stupid, and the whole class would be enlightened."
8. "They aren't afraid to say they don't know the answer to a question."
9. "Humor. I think that truly funny people are often very smart and cognizant of the different ways an idea can be humorous on several levels. They also know their audience. I think the difference between, say, Jeff Foxworthy and Bo Burnham is their audience and their interests."
10. "They admit to changing their mind about something."
11. "They are curious about everything. To be intelligent, you need to be knowledgeable, and you cant be knowledgeable if you are never curious."
"You can memorize a bunch of random facts and repeat them. That's knowledge. But knowing what to do with that knowledge, how to apply it, how to make sense of it, is what I think real intelligence is."
12. "I think intelligent people are more willing to calmly debate or discuss rather than argue. For example, you explain to them why you disagree, and they listen to you and ask further questions about your viewpoint before offering a different perspective; as opposed to an unintelligent person, who would just resort to insults when other people disagree with them."
13. "They draw wisdom from multiple sources. That might be more wise than intelligent, but I guess those two tend to be seen together a lot."
14. "They apply knowledge from one realm into a new and relevant situation. For instance, one person described a situation where they were a new assistant in an academic research lab and fixed a snag that stumped all the senior researchers. The team was trying to video record their project using a strobe light, and their footage wasn't working. No one else made progress at diagnosing the problem, but the most junior individual spoke up and suggested that the strobe could be out of phase. They remembered that video typically records at a rate of 24 frames a second and explained that. This worked. They had a gaming hobby back in high school, had taken some video footage of that, and discovered the standard frame rate while playing around in editing software. However, they remembered that detail years later and realized it made a difference in a completely different context."
15. "They don't brag about it."
16. "Intuition. Highly intelligent individuals synthesize input from all their senses and know what is 'right' even if they cannot fully explain why they know."
17. "A fair amount of the really intelligent people I've met rarely ask questions or carry much of a conversation at all. They make mental notations of information they've digested. They then go and learn more about the concepts independently, or, if someone is struggling to keep up with their concepts, they can get bored and move on. As nice as it is to think that intelligence is backed by social skills, it's frequently not.
18. "The way they compose themselves, talk, write, think, explain, etc. What I find the most interesting is that intelligent people, in my experience, are more likely to be less fact-driven and more theoretical and creative. For example, if an intelligent person were to read a certain stat, fact, idea, etc., they are likely to have very interesting theoretical extrapolations.
"My friend qualified for the Mensa membership, and whenever we talk, his mindset always strays toward very interesting outlooks. He has certain ideas that I would never have even thought about.
"It's actually very fun to talk to intelligent people. The way they are able to absorb information like a sponge and apply that information is very eye-opening."