“Mirror, mirror! On the wall, who is the most Intelligent of all?” This universal question of interest to laymen has grabbed the eyeballs of many experienced and budding researchers. Intelligence, the considered human-mind brainpower, has been analysed, explored, and studied in whichever way possible, anatomically, and psychologically, whether it is research on the most intelligent brain or studies conducted on different types of intelligence. The four published studies on Einstein’s brain, or the sudden surge of Cognitive science or the emergence of Multiple Intelligences theory, advocate my earlier statements. This ever-demanding curiosity clutched me to dive into the domain of intelligence explorations.

While browsing through different ideologies and models of intelligence, I pondered how these abilities or intelligences are put into practice in our day-to-day circumstances. Leading through a deeper thought process and taking me to my childhood days, I was reminded of a short story that I read during my school days -

The story revolves around two individuals: an academic scholar and an early school dropout. Both were travelling in the same boat across a river to reach their common destination. On the way, it started raining heavily, and lo, to their utter shock, the boat capsized, immersing both friends in the water. The person who was an early school dropout was an outstanding swimmer and managed to reach the riverbank safely. On the other hand, the academic scholar, not knowing how to swim, started struggling to save himself. Gasping for breath, he desperately started looking around. His diluted vision noticed a log of wood at his hand’s distance. With great difficulty, he somehow managed to climb on it. The rain had subsided by then. The log carrying the weary, sleepy person soon reached the riverbank.

Relating this story to my explorations on intelligences, I figured out that the employment of human intelligence in the above story takes two different paths. In the first scenario, the early dropout who could swim very well used his adaptive intelligence to come out of this disastrous situation. Adaptive intelligence is necessary for survival and adaptation. To make it simple, it is a practical application of our skills to solve problems and make decisions. These may not be just due to the human biological evolutionary process, but the cultural context contributes to this phenomenon too. Let’s understand this with an example of a tribal child staying in a forest. Now, over the years, his physiology has been developed to climb a tree either for survival or security. But the tactic of this action (climbing trees) must have been imitated or learned from his upbringing (watching his family member doing so), i.e., the social learning principle. Now, consider the second scenario in the story, the academic scholar used his theoretical knowledge to safeguard himself from the ravaging situation. This person applied his crystallised intelligence to find a solution to his problem. He knew that the log of wood was less dense than water and was going to float. So, he immediately decided to hop on the log and managed to save himself. This intelligence is acquired through education and experience and is accumulated throughout the learning years. Let's say, recalling a historic event, riding a bike, or building up on vocabulary.

In the above story, do you think that the respective intelligences we just talked about were enough for the people to safeguard themselves in such a crisis? To protect himself, shouldn’t the swimmer need to know the direction to the shore too (crystallised intelligence)? In a similar manner, shouldn’t the learned person be capable of analysing the ways to hop onto the log of wood safely (adaptive intelligence)? This story just provides references to two types of foremost intelligences used in the situations, whereas other intelligences were applied but exist in the background. Like, Intrapersonal intelligence, which helps us to analyse ourselves in a given situation, or bodily intelligence, which takes care of our bodily movements.

For decades, psychologists have located variations in human intelligence and the speculations in this arena are still going on, leading to the never-ending debate over the importance of different types of intelligence. One such argument is crystallised versus adaptive intelligence.

Coming back to the story, can we say that only Crystallised or only Adaptive Intelligence could have helped the characters in facing such a perilous situation? Not at all. Both intelligences were used in each scenario in a certain proportion to achieve the goal. It is the circumstantial needs that determine the deployment of various intelligence in appropriate fractions, and this in turn governs our problem-solving and decision-making ability.

Talking of problem-solving, be it a mathematical or scientific activity, art, music, or even sports, for that matter, in each situation, we are using our varied intelligences in some ratio or the other, and the interplay of these intelligences, if carefully planned, can aid us to achieve our targets. Say, for example, in a game of hopscotch, the child uses his intelligences based on arithmetic, spatial reasoning, analytical skills, kinesthetic competence, and many more, and this proportional blend of abilities gives him a good scope to perform his best in the game. Or, for that matter, an artist. Don’t his artworks reflect his creativity, tactile (fine motor) skills, spatial perception expertise, and so on? And yes, the appropriate blend of all his intelligences brings out his masterpiece.

Conclusively, I can opine that instead of looking at the various intelligences as contenders to our higher executive functions like planning, problem solving, reasoning, decision making etc, let us approach them as counterparts of each other in human adaptability and sustenance for meeting environmental demands. To simplify, the collective application of these abilities equitably and appropriately could help in bringing out some novel situations or come down to some rational decisions for personal, social, or human well-being.

Saying so, I would like to conclude with a small poem….

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Which is the best intelligence of all?
Not one or two, it’s the multiple intelligences of the mind
Which contributes to the human brainpower overall

.    .    .