...when a person with a generally accepted "low level of intellect (e.g. poor IQ / exam scores)" achieves that of a person with a generally accepted "higher level of intellect" through insight, intuition and hard work (applying ones self etc).

Discuss. How do you define it?

This is intelligence.

I don't think hard work or "overcoming" one's lesser score on an IQ test has anything to do with it. I mostly agree with your other sentiments though. You say insight, intuition, and hard work; I say insight, intuition, and reason. Reason I define as the ability to relate/critique and accept/discard facts and insights into a consistent whole.

I've never had much of a mind for factoids myself, which seemed to put me at a disadvantage in some of my high school and college classes. For example, Geography was always tough because I found it difficult (not to mention inane) to memorize, for example, the names of all the major rivers in Africa and identify which was which on a map. But in other classes where I could remember some basic elements and then reason my way to the more complex givens that other students would memorize for wrote, I could do perfectly well -- better than most of the kids, in fact. In AP physics we were generally allowed to have a formula sheet on an index card -- I never used one, I just knew the basic formulas and would string them together to move from the units I had to the units I needed. In Geometry, we began each day with a quiz consisting of 1-3 proofs, I only ever learned the basic relationships and so I did all my proofs in those terms -- I was the first one done every day of the entire semester and would very rarely lose any points. In algebra I didn't care much for using the prescribed methods if I could figure another way on my own. Calculus was difficult though -- way too many "basic" formula to memorize, because there simply wasn't enough time to be re-deriving them from the most-base ones all the time.

I think the definition of intelligence needs to be a lot more broad to be a good definition. It's a bit of a demarcation problem.

Here are some questions a good definition of intelligence should answer:

Can a computer ever be "intelligent"?
Can animals be intelligent?

What is the difference between intelligence and non-intelligence?

At the most extreme: can a single celled organism be intelligent?

What about non-biological processes, such as evolution? Is evolution "intelligent"?

Once you've got your demarcation line for intelligence drawn, what is the evidence which indicates whether something is intelligent or not?

I'll go with, "Intelligence is strategic analysis and decision-making", though there are additional modifiers like creativity, mental focus, and speed of thought. It doesn't really have anything to do with work.

...when a person with a generally accepted "low level of intellect (e.g. poor IQ / exam scores)" achieves that of a person with a generally accepted "higher level of intellect" through insight, intuition and hard work (applying ones self etc).

Discuss. How do you define it?

Pick up a dictionary. Intelligence is a well defined term, it shouldn't mean anything "to you" except what it means, this is the base of language words have to be clearly defined so we can understand each other. If you want to discuss intelligence then discuss it, but don't try to redefine the word.

Also someone's intellect is their intelligence, so it makes no sense to define intelligence in term of intellect, and even if it did, it would make no sense to say that someone who's intelligent is someone who started with a lower intellect. Overall i really don't see what you're trying to do here.

Anyway to make things simple here's the definition from the oxford dictionary : The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills:

I think the definition of intelligence needs to be a lot more broad to be a good definition. It's a bit of a demarcation problem.

Here are some questions a good definition of intelligence should answer:

Can a computer ever be "intelligent"?
Can animals be intelligent?

What is the difference between intelligence and non-intelligence?

At the most extreme: can a single celled organism be intelligent?

What about non-biological processes, such as evolution? Is evolution "intelligent"?

Once you've got your demarcation line for intelligence drawn, what is the evidence which indicates whether something is intelligent or not?

A computer can be intelligent if we make a computer that fits the definition (it doesn't mean it is conscious, that's a whole other topic).

Animals are intelligent, you can see pretty much any animal you observe, sometime even over just a few minutes, acquire new skills.

Intelligence is more of a scale, but deciding wether you're on the scale or not is simple: if you can acquire skills or knowledge and apply them, you're intelligent, if you can't, you're not, how well you can do it would be what you can measure but as soon as your skill is not 0 (absolutely unable to acquire any skill or knowledge and apply it) then you're an intelligent being.

Not that i know off, i don't think any single celled organism can "acquire skills or knowledge" and "apply it", i could be wrong there.

No process can be intelligent, a process doesn't do anything, it just is, so no a process isn't "intelligent", event if intelligence emanates from evolution that doesn't make evolution intelligent. Also i'm not sure how you'd call evolution "non-biological".

The evidence is wether that something actually ends up acquiring skills or knowledge and applying it.

Inelegance comes down to the basic ability to survive and thrive in the environment you are placed.

I've seen a construction "helper" ( high school 'dropout' ) calculate the BTUs a room needed for both cooling and heating in his head ...

I've seen an MBA engineer who did not know how to change the tire on his car ...

As far as I'm concerned, IQ "scores" are pretty meaningless and useless anyway.

In a time and day when most agree a *single number* can't even be a proper metric of the quality of a movie or a videogame, to state that it can properly measure the capacity and potential of a human brain seems laughable. The "horsepower" of my PC rig needs more measurements than that to be accurately conveyed, for crying out loud.

MBA engineer

Really? That is what they call themselves nowadays?

If you meant an Engineer with an additional MBA, okay, seen that before. Kinda pathetic that most of them got some cheap MBA's from a Indian online college where you basically buy your degree, but if it fools some HR reps, more power to them...

Anyway, OT, sorry. Intelligence = what 95% of humankind is sorely missing. Okay, I might be a chronic pessimist, but just reading the newspaper nowadays makes me even more pessimistic when it comes to the decline of human intelligence.

Further I don't think you can really connect Intelligence to IQ, or a college degree, or how successfull someone is in life.

To get a good degree you need so much more than just intelligence, you could even get it if you where severly lacking what society today calls "Intelligence"... no need to be good at maths when you're good at networking with other students and teachers, for example.

I know multiple examples of people with a very high IQ that went to university and what not, and are unemployed lazy bums since years now. If their life would depend on it they would score very high in an IQ test... but they are too lazy to get a job.

No need to come up with examples of people who are very sucessfull doing stupid things. And get rich with it. Or sucessfull people who ARE pretty dumb!

So, what Intelligence are we talking about exactly here?

MBA engineer

Really? That is what they call themselves nowadays?

If you meant an Engineer with an additional MBA, okay, seen that before. Kinda pathetic that most of them got some cheap MBA's from a Indian online college where you basically buy your degree, but if it fools some HR reps, more power to them...

I should have worded that a bit differently .. the guy's title was the "administrative engineer" - in other words the 'lead' for the project I was on.