If the top philosopher is smarter than the top mathematician, then the top philosopher would be the smarter one. If the top mathematician is smarter than the top philosopher, then the top mathematician would be the smarter one.

Hope that helps.

If we were to design a test, I'd advocate for simply looking at their respective lives. Whichever one wastes less of their time on unpleasurable activities wins.

I've read a great many science books and think that I follow along pretty well mostly bec the decent writers (Brian Greene, Sean Carroll for example) have an ability to explain things to a layman like me. I read them for two reasons: I want to keep up and I like spending time running the facts, as currently understood, whizzing through my mind and trying to figure out if all of this has any meaning beyond mere facts. Is that a waste of my time in the view of many physicists? Do they think that such reflections are a waste of time?

A recent article in Sci-Am is about It from Qubit. Here's a quote:

As I said, I'm a layman, but 'code' is a heck of a word to use that can lead right down the rabbit hole and I really don't see why physicists should mock philosophers trying to make further sense of all of this then the merely physical facts so long as they accept established facts. And, for that matter, why shouldn't a philosopher like David Chalmers suggest that consciousness is what he calls a 'fundamental property?' He doesn't have the right, despite involving himself deeply in the field, to make the proposal just bec he doesn't have an advanced math degree or similar?

ETA: lol at me, should've checked wiki first bec Chalmers has A Rhodes Scholar in Pure Maths and Computer Science at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Helps to have a definition of intelligence first. Physicists and math nerds often lack intelligence outside of their fields - I.e. emotional/social intelligence etc. How do we quantify whether the scientist or philosopher is more intelligent overall? Of course I'm very biased, but I think philosophers, due to the scope of their thought, may be more intellectually well rounded. I look at the physicist as a hard hitting super intelligence in one very narrow field.

That said, some philosophy majors I know are just as socially inept and their math major counterparts.

Masters degree in philosophy: shopping bag? receipt? have a good day

You are conflating "smart" and "wise". When they say we need our best and "brightest" to cure cancer or put a man on Mars they aren't talking about your wise men.

(You yourself once put up a post which pretty well described what it means to be "smart. You were referencing those kids who could answer questions involving math they had not yet learned. They derived the necessary techniques on the fly. You pegged them at one in 30,000 if you remember.)

This is the philosophers way of dodging the question. Is there really any question?

Not dodging the question. Give a clear definition of intelligence and you'll get your answer.

Yes, at any time. When you describe an intelligent being's intelligent attributes you are answering the question.

When an authority claims control of the definition of intelligence, it is also a good time to ask.

It's never easy....because sometimes:

From black bright eyes and melted blue
I cannot choose between the two.

P.S. In this "case" I made it clear that I side with scientific club. Why?
Because I think the best of them are genuinely philosophers, anyway.
And this come from someone who is very a fond of philosophy and mysticism even that in a way he was trained as a scientist.

Of course we can talk about intelligence without having a clear cut definition first.

I debate a whole lot of stuff inside my head without having outlined perfectly every term i use. What a crime. Biologists and Philosophers debate what Life is and what something that is alive is doing and not doing and what its made of and how it looks like, but its very hard to give a definition that is totally perfect. Once you see it, you will typically know by intuition. We can discuss what intelligence is, we can discuss how to define it, we can talk about who is intelligent, how to measure it, etc. Everyone has a vague idea about what intelligence is, and most people will agree that e.g top poker players and top physicists etc have alot of it without knowing a perfect rigorous definition.

We are talking about top people in the field, so your point about social intelligence is wrong. Physics and math at that level is a highly social endeavor. It's all about explaining things clearly to, and learning stuff from, your colleagues. Correctly citing prior work (even if you recreated some or all of it) and responding properly when somebody points out your mistakes is largely required and indicates emotional and social intelligence.

I gave one.

The study set the bar at one in 30,000 by giving the SAT to 7th graders. I'm not sure if they (as a whole) would be described as having well-rounded intelligence.

Obviously, we can tilt the playing field to favor one group being discussed over the other. Personality and aptitude lead one to a career and careers shape skills (and we would only be able to test skills). Perhaps instead of whether they live a good life (approximated by the operational definition of intelligence given earlier), we could test them on other functions of overall brain health that wouldn't be confounded by their experiences in their chosen fields.

Generally, when we are looking to our "best and brightest" to solve the world's problems, we are looking at those who are a bit smart and work unreasonably hard, but have no capacity to realize that they are most likely wasting their time.

You just set the emotional/social bar right around the equivalent physical bar of "must have at least the physical prowess of Stephen Hawking."

You're just wrong. You can see how many top people in the field (Randall, Susskind, Arkani Hamed, Weinberg, Yau) can all seamlessly write popular level books, go on tv shows, get interviewed by NPR, testify before congress etc. All of which requires things well outside of their physics/math abilities. People with low emotional intelligence or even average Joes would struggle with those tasks while the people mentioned above can do it almost effortlessly.

Those are the top people in the field, not some awkward guy you know that got an A in every math class he took.

I said that the bar that you set was extremely low. Being able to set forth a logical argument is not the stuff of social/emotional intelligence - your average high-functioning autistic person is quite capable of that. Having the capacity to use the "ibid" or "et. al." in a document is not the stuff of social/emotional intelligence at all.

I don't know about physicists, but Godel and Grothendieck are a couple of counter-examples which come to mind (plus Wittgenstein from philosophy, of course). On the other hand, Von Neumann was the life and soul of the party.

No, its actually tough. Questions like "Did Person X contribute enough to be a coauthor or should they just be thanked" can get dicey and require a high degree of imagining things from Person X's perspective to get correct.

I disagree with both math examples. Godel of course had legitimate mental illnesses that maybe could be better treated today, but even still he was close friends with Einstein and its hard to imagine someone like Einstein enjoying his company if he lacked emotional intelligence, a sense of humor etc. Grothendieck had closer to the opposite problem. He left math initially because he was too interested in politics, pacifism, ecology etc. He was charismatic enough to get some followers for a political movement, which would again be hard for alot of us.

That sort of thing can be done using a checklist of precedents set by previous assignments of authorship. This sort of thing generally isn't tough for well-functioning adults. Again, the bar you are setting is low. Somewhere around the equivalent of "can breathe without assistance" in terms of athletics.

No, it can't. Its purely a judgment call. Ask anybody who publishes papers in collaborative scientific journals. I've definitely been added as a coauthor when I was just expecting a special thanks on the last page. Tons of people can testify to the opposite. Your inability to understand this definitely makes me question how well functioning you are.

Seems rather strange that you conclude that my emotional/social intelligence is somehow determinable based on my dismissal of the claim that high emotional/social intelligence is required to assign authorship.

If you've been confused as to why you've been assigned authorship in the past, perhaps you should ask. Those who expected to receive authorship who haven't been assigned authorship should also ask. I'd bet that there won't be strong evidence that high (or even average) emotional/social intelligence was required in making the determination of authorship. Try to keep in mind that making a "judgment call" doesn't require high (or even average) social/emotional intelligence.

I wasn't confused. I knew exactly what I did on the paper, I could have just been thanked and would have been fine. I was responding to your point that it was something that can be done with some sort of checklist, which you seem to have dropped completely without retraction (not something I expect from well functioning folks during a discussion). That's wrong and I explained how its a judgment call and reasonable people can disagree. I don't have the time/interest to explain every wrong thing you've said in every post.

My dickie is bigger than your dickie.