Wisdom

[arcticwolf]

Wisdom is said to be the rarest and the most precious of all mental abilities/achievements. What makes it so precious and desirable?

What is wisdom? What are its characteristics? What does it take to develop wisdom? Anything else that pertains to wisdom.

[Osprey]

Wisdom is what you think about right and wrong. And your own code to live life to the fullest.
It is only realized when you come to terms with the things happening in the world and correlate great men's sayings with what you personally think is right.

[Osprey]

Also, to cast 9th Level Priest Spells, you need 9*2 = 18 WISDOM.
It is also needed to better your reflexes and saving throws.

[Kazimiera]

I think wisdom is something you have gained with life experience.

Saw the quote a while ago: Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

Wisdom is something you cannot learn out of a book. It is knowledge which is not theoretical. We can all read books, but it does not make us wise.

I think wisdom lies in growing and evolving, learning life's lessons, discarding the bad and keeping the good.

Old people are wise. Not because they've read a book, but because they have lived one.

[Aces High]

He was the best......my favourite clip is when he tried to get in the police.

YpkPiipJZiI

[Leadchucker]

I think wisdom is something you have gained with life experience.......Old people are wise. Not because they've read a book, but because they have lived one.

Well, I won't beat my own drum in saying that I'm wise. I will say in my 60 some years on the planet, I've lived one hell of a book. I regret little and am glad I put out the extra effort to do some of the things I have been done. It's been a grand life :thumbs up

[Kazimiera]

Well, I won't beat my own drum in saying that I'm wise. I will say in my 60 some years on the planet, I've lived one hell of a book. I regret little and am glad I put out the extra effort to do some of the things I have been done. It's been a grand life :thumbs up

Then you have 40 years more wisdom than most of the posters on TA. You speak from experience, not a textbook.

[rhiannon]

Then you have 40 years more wisdom than most of the posters on TA. You speak from experience, not a textbook.
Yep. It's sad to see how youth-obsessed the Western World has become. In the Far East, elders are revered for this very thing.

[arcticwolf]

@Arcticwolf
Wisdom comes only with age i think.
There are plenty 20 year old's highly intelligent but no way can they have wisdom.
So the question i have: how does one person achieves wisdom in life? Since i agree with your statement that wisdom is extremely rare.

I personally think that only a pure great tender souls that's also highly intelligent can achieve wisdom in life.

I say tender generous souls because it takes only these type of souls that get to learn so much about human nature and life itself.
Because its only towards tender supreme souls that the ugly side of human nature exposes itself to.
That's why wisdom is rare i think, because the combination of extremely nice
and extremely intelligent and ever so patient and forgiving are so rare to be found in people.

This is a great post by Drawing-live that was an inspiration behind this thread. I copied it from a different thread because it really belongs in this one. Thanks Drawing-live!

[arcticwolf]

I think wisdom is something you have gained with life experience.

Absolutely.


Saw the quote a while ago: Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

Wisdom is something you cannot learn out of a book. It is knowledge which is not theoretical. We can all read books, but it does not make us wise.

Correct.


I think wisdom lies in growing and evolving, learning life's lessons, discarding the bad and keeping the good.

Old people are wise. Not because they've read a book, but because they have lived one.

Correct, I would say they are wiser.

[Comte Arnau]

Wise is not the same as experienced. All old people are experienced. Those who have been able to extract profitable conclusions from those experiences and get philosophical responses of some value which are usually transmitted to and/or appreciated by others can be said to have reached a level of wisdom. Some do it late, some do it earlier, some never do.

[Osprey]

I think wisdom is something you have gained with life experience.

Saw the quote a while ago: Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

Wisdom is something you cannot learn out of a book. It is knowledge which is not theoretical. We can all read books, but it does not make us wise.

I think wisdom lies in growing and evolving, learning life's lessons, discarding the bad and keeping the good.

Old people are wise. Not because they've read a book, but because they have lived one.

Quotations from a book?
Very flashy sayings, but not something striking, atleast to me.

[arcticwolf]

Wisdom is the opposite of stupidity or ignorance. Definition of wisdom is: the ability to see things exactly as they are. There are other definitions but the meaning of them all is pretty much the same. Now, what does that mean? Really, the apparent meaning is simple, but is that it? Different definition says: seeing reality the way it truly is. Meaning not it's apparent nature but its ultimate nature. I think that's enough to give us a headache. ;) That's enough about the definition, what do y'all think?

[Barreldriver]

Wisdom, that's in teeth right? Everyone seems to have as much "wisdom" as they have teeth. :p Talk on it enough and the word may just lose its meaning, if it ever had one.

[arcticwolf]

Wise is not the same as experienced. All old people are experienced. Those who have been able to extract profitable conclusions from those experiences and get philosophical responses of some value which are usually transmitted to and/or appreciated by others can be said to have reached a level of wisdom. Some do it late, some do it earlier, some never do.

Well said. Experience does not equal wisdom, that's for sure. In other words it's not what look at but how you look at it. Now, what is the right way to look?

[arcticwolf]

Quotations from a book?
Very flashy sayings, but not something striking, atleast to me.

Dude, please don't turn it into ego fight. Her post is good, it's the way she sees it. There is nothing wrong with using quotes. Let's stay on topic please.

[Comte Arnau]

Well said. Experience does not equal wisdom, that's for sure. In other words it's not what look at but how you look at it. Now, what is the right way to look?

With eyes wide open. ;)

[arcticwolf]

With eyes wide open. ;)

I agree with that! ;) I'm asking ( even though I know the answer, as a Gnostic/Buddhist mix I've studied and practiced it quite a bit ) because it is the key to understanding reality. And it's always better to be Socratic about things and let the seeker to discover the way by asking questions that lead to insight. ;) In other words one can explain things to others but one can not understand them for them. All one can do is point the way, the walking has to be done by the seeker ;)

[GeistFaust]

I think wisdom is something you have gained with life experience.

Saw the quote a while ago: Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

Wisdom is something you cannot learn out of a book. It is knowledge which is not theoretical. We can all read books, but it does not make us wise.

I think wisdom lies in growing and evolving, learning life's lessons, discarding the bad and keeping the good.

Old people are wise. Not because they've read a book, but because they have lived one.



I have to disagree with you here to a great extent, and this is such a superficial, misunderstood, and underdeveloped formation for what Wisdom is truly and authentically in its nature. I think although wisdom does derive itself from experience that it does not merely come from experience alone. I know many older people, who have operated in different environments and under different conditions to the point where you would be led to believe that the succession of time would allot them with a rich and vibrant perspective.


This could be further from the truth, and instead these people had a very stagnant and narrow vision of reality, which was fixed to the marginal boundaries of their own settings. I find this is the case with the most people, and I am deeply saddened for them due to this. I think the average person is restrained and restricted to deriving his knowledge merely on the basis of what we understand in a everyday sense.


The commonality of his knowledge will lose its theoretical uniqueness, and thus its fundamental substance, which is derived and sustained in the theoretical uniqueness of a perspective. I think that without theoretical knowledge to compliment the succession of time, our concrete applications in a real setting, and psychological/instinctual absorbing of our experience that we are merely left to a world without clear content.


Instead we are constantly in a world of confusing and contradiction where broader understandings can be separated and distinguished from more technical and specific understandings, which are so necessary to deriving and coming to synthesize and affirm the more metaphysical meanings in life. The problem is that the human person basically is determined to be determined by the operations of the brain subconsciously, and any great exertion of theoretical abstraction is not seen as a possibility, but merely a frivolous and trivial operation.


It is true that without experience, concrete application, and a logical basis operating on the modes of society and culture that theory is merely a void that expresses itself in an utterly useless and meaningless manner. I think that many confuse the actual and fixed of reality to be something which exists apriori in the mind, when it takes experience to affirm its potentiality or actuality in the mind.


That is we can not think and theorize about certain things until we experience it, and we can not experience it merely upon the grounds of thinking it without any grounds for such a "thought." Our concept of things is derived from experience, and it is upon our experience that we not only garner the material to make proper assumptions, but also we can induct and acknowledge certain things to be probably true without experiencing them.


That said what is the concept of a thing in reality if we can not understand all of its more technical details, which require some level of theoretical thought. Theoretical thought allows us to identify the attributes, predicates, and properties of the material and objects of our experience, and thus is the grounds upon which we are able to synthesize the broader framework of reason and thus attaining wisdom.


Wisdom does not merely come to us, but necessitates a combination of theory and practice, but inclining more towards a theoretical approach and depending more heavily on it. Practice merely reaffirms that which we intuitively conceived of something, and allows us to realize and validate in a concrete manner and form. If we can not apply something then of what use is our theory, and upon what grounds can it say it is viable and meaningless.


Also our theories of life improve and advance upon the distilling and advancements of the different practices and concrete applications we have made on the objects and materials of life through the mediation of self. I think with a greater deal of self-conscious and practical awareness within the confines of reality and society our theoretical understanding of the world becomes more possible, and this allows us to derive a broader, metaphysical, and wiser conclusion on the more technical and specific realities, encounters, and experiences in life.

Experience is one thing, but being aware and being aware of what we are aware of is just as important to producing wisdom in our individual person, and enhancing our perspective of life. Our wisdom hinges on the constant application and fluxing of our theoretical knowledge with our practical knowledge as it concerns concrete material and objects of the world of the senses.


All else is merely potentiality and sensibility, and ought not to be claimed as real unless naturally determined into existence through the dynamics and operations of reality or until we have verified and synthesized its existence through either affirmation by theory, practice, or a combination of both. The simplicity of life is so much more complex than it is for us, and sometimes we make it too complex for ourselves to come to realize this.


That said I don't think we should ignore, abandon, or become negligent that wisdom is more than just mere experience and the determination of the succession of time onto us as it pertains to our sense-intellect complex perception of the world around us.

[Drawing-live]

Wise is not the same as experienced..Sure it is. There's no substitute for experience.
A yong kid can read all the books in the world he still would lack the wrinkles..

[GeistFaust]

Sure it is. There's no substitute for experience.
A yong kid can read all the books in the world he still would lack the wrinkles..


I don't know how this correlates at all with any foundational or fundamental concrete expression of what qualifies something as wise.

If someone has gray hairs and wrinkles qualifies someone to be wise than there are certainly a lot of idiots out there who are "wise."

I would not claim these people as wise, but rather a person with a good and stabilized combination/conglammeration of knowledge-information-theoretical thinking and practice-experience-concrete application has the highest probability for being considered wise in at least a specific aspect.

[Drawing-live]

Geist, we've agreed that wisdom is rare therefor we do not assume that every old person is "the wise"
Take for example interviews with famous people, in most cases the interviewer is better read or well read in comparison with this whomever famous person is..
Lets take another example Steve Wynn: He never went to college so in comparison with a yong 25 year old buisnes major from harvard whos brain would you wish to pick for some buisness wisdom?
One has to live life first i think..

[Comte Arnau]

Sure it is. There's no substitute for experience.
A yong kid can read all the books in the world he still would lack the wrinkles..

Sure. But some people at 30 have experienced more things than some other at 50. It always depends on the person.

[Marina]

There are some people that have done a lot by age 30. Who have traveled and lived through different cultures and have met a lot of different people. Some elders though who are in their 50s who don't have that much of experience.

:coffee:

[Breedingvariety]

Urban dictionary is untapped source of bottomless wisdom. It's up to you what "bottomless" means.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

[Edelmann]

Does wisdom depend on experience, or is it a talent?

[Breedingvariety]

Does wisdom depend on experience, or is it a talent?
Neither. There are three types of wisdom from least to most important:
-Practical: art of living, best decisions to avoid pain or to take up only as much pain as it is necessary to fulfill biological needs.
-Philosophical: abstract understanding of truth.
-Spiritual: not wanting pleasure or pain.

[Barreldriver]

This here was a thought I had last spring, I had shared it in the epiphany thread but I reckon I shall share it here as well:

Listen carefully to those around ye and ye shall be disappointed in what ye hear. The voice of the mob is the voice of a fool. Listen carefully to the self and ye shall be disappointed in what ye hear. The voice of the self is the voice of bias. Listen carefully for the voices of wise men and ye shall hear nowt but silence.

There ain't a single one of us here who is truly wise, we're all too loud.

[LittleMermaid]

Who said wisdom is so precious? Personally, I think wisdom helps you in life or death matters, but not in actual "living".
I am 23 now, and have been called "wise beyond my years" for as long as I can remember...but I think in order for wisdom to be of any practical use, you need something else too: faith(in life, and yourself) and courage.
I almost lack both, unfortunately. True, I also lack the motivation to do anything of significance. I'm kind of a slacker.

Anyway, I also believe that wisdom doesn't have to come from direct experience, either. It most certainly can, but not always. There are people who repeat the same mistakes over and over again in their lives, because they're so blinded by their egos that they cannot see their own errors(been there).
Then, there are people who get wiser from a young age, realize that they share a lot with most everyone on the planet, and learn from watching other people's mistakes. (Been there, too.:D:D )

[el22]

Neither. There are three types of wisdom from least to most important:
-Practical: art of living, best decisions to avoid pain or to take up only as much pain as it is necessary to fulfill biological needs.
-Philosophical: abstract understanding of truth.
-Spiritual: not wanting pleasure or pain.

What you mean "neither"?
If there were no choices in life, you would need no wisdom. You would be like a train that moves in a predefined track.

I think wisdom is about the ability to filter out the worst choices, and hopefully choose one of the best choices.

Experience is like some sort of database that our reasoning system consults while making those choices.
So yes, wisdom is very much depended on experience. But it doesn't have to be a first-hand experience.

[Duży Zaganiacz]

Wisdom is the opposite of stupidity or ignorance. Definition of wisdom is: the ability to see things exactly as they are.The opposite for ignorance is awareness, which is not equal to wisdom but might be a good estimation. What you just defined is rather pragmatism, which requires the subject to be fully apprehensible. Wise people like everyone must sometimes deal with non-apprehensible things. Are they supposed to rely on faith then?

[arcticwolf]

The opposite for ignorance is awareness, which is not equal to wisdom but might be a good estimation. What you just defined is rather pragmatism, which requires the subject to be fully apprehensible. Wise people like everyone must sometimes deal with non-apprehensible things. Are they supposed to rely on faith then?

Being aware of something does not equal understanding it. The opposite of awareness is oblivion.