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KnowledgeÔëáIntelligence (Possible Intelligence revision?)

ArachDusa

She/Her
151
62
This is a topic I've wanted to discuss for a very long time, and with the recent revisions to the Regenerationn page and the Tiering System itself, this seems like a good time to finally talk about this.

Intelligence and knowledge are two different things. I doubt I need to explain that to anybody. However, this simple truism creates a big problem for the VS Battles Wiki's currently held Intelligence rankings, for a simple reason: Omniscience and Nigh-Omniscience are listed as intelligence "levels" in the page itself, and many character pages state a character's omniscience as their "intelligence" accordingly.

Omniscience by definition (and as listed in the Wiki's Intelligence page) simply means knowing everything or having all knowledge. It says nothing about intelligence - it is entirely possible to know everything and still be an idiot, and there's at least one character in this Wiki who fits that description.

So what do we do about it? It's not my job to decide. I'm not an admin or a mod (and I'm fully aware that it's very unlikely that the staff would pay attention to this blog), but I do have a few ideas that are at least worth hearing out. The first and most obvious is stop using Omniscience and Nigh-Omniscience as intelligence ratings and list them only as powers instead. I also have at least some idea for levels of actual intelligence to replace them:

Transcendent: Beings whose minds, intelligence and mental abilities are as different and superior to those of humans as the minds of humans are to animalistic characters.

Absolute: Beings who possess limitless, or infinite intelligence.

It's not much, but at least these are levels of actual intelligence rather than simply knowledge. As I said, I'm not attempting to assert my own standard of intelligence rankings in place of the existing one, I'm simply pointing to a problem and offering a possible solution in hopes of at least making the staff aware that the problem exists. Thank you.
 
Having Omniscience means you know everything which means you know how things are made and how to make them. You know all the answers to every question.

I see this as Intelligence. With this power you have higher intelligence.

Example: Character A knows how to build a car from scratch, he went to school and such.

However Character B has never touched a car and has never been to school, but does have Omniscience, he knows everything that character A knows, he knows how to build a car from scratch and he knows everything character A learned from school. Do to knowing everything, he has the same knowledge as character A and do to knowing everything, he knows the right way to do something.

So character B with Omniscience has the same Intelligence rating as character A. The same goes for tactics and other areas with Omniscience, I am just as intelligent as a doctor or scientist.
 
LordGriffin is probably correct. Being able to process and understand all information at the same time is a form of transcendental intelligence.

We also already have too many major revision projects to handle at the moment, especially given the upcoming forum move.
 
@ASKAD "Intelligence: Level of Intelligence (Given IQ (if available); Knowledge)" could be a preferred solution to show the clear differences between them better.

Knowledge = Information that backs up Intelligence, which is acquired through experience or education.

In a way, I believe Nigh-Omniscient should be separated from your actual level of Intelligence since it only applies for knowing about 1 type of knowledge rather than all forms of knowledge in general (which would usually not be infinite or in some cases, actually infinite but for that alone).

@LordGriffin Yeah, you do make somewhat of a good point in regards for Omniscience.

@The God of Procrastination In a way, yes.

@Antvasima Yeah, but then again they were born with it rather than having to learn it, so I'm neutral on that.

As for any form of awareness, those types of abilities should technically not be considered as a main factor for your level of intelligence unless there's enough evidence to prove that it should.
 
I disagree. Omniscience means being able to know, process, and understand absolutely all information, and Nigh-Omniscience to know, process, and understand almost all information.
 
From our own page:

Omniscience is the state of having all knowledge, or in other words, knowing everything.
Nowhere does it reference anything other than simple knowledge.
 
Hmm. Perhaps that description needs to be modified then.

We would need more staff input first though, and we don't have a lot of time left. You can ask some administrators to help out if you wish though.
 
Well, to know everything, you need to have a mind that is able to process the information, which is beyond even supergenius capability.
 
@The God Of Procrastination

Isn't knowing how to perform a process a type of knowledge, and therefore included in the omniscience package?
 
Yes, but they may need to develop the procedural memory to actually do that. They also have to sift through all of that knowledge to find the important parts.
 
Nigh-Omniscience & Omniscience (both being a type of knowledge) should be considered as applicable abilities when having Infinite Intelligence.

So if a character would happen to have Omniscience, then it should be mentioned like this:

  • Intelligence (Knowledge): Infinite (via Omniscience)
  • For Nigh-Omniscience, your level of intelligence may or may not be infinite in certain cases but then again, it depends on the character and what their Nigh-Omniscience does for them.
The description for the level of intelligence isn't only just for focusing the character's given IQ (if its available ofc, it does not always need to be mentioned if it isn't), not for any other form of intelligence (which that should only be mentioned in the abilities section in the description for a specific skill that it belongs to but I don't want to go into it b/c that's besides the point) but actually for focusing mainly about the character's knowledge in general, which should be made clear.
 
Well, this isn't a good time to start revisions for our fundamental wiki standards.
 
Considering Omniscience means knowing everything, which by definition includes common sense. I person who knows everything would logically know what the smartest course of action would be the instant the fight starts in every single Vs Thread they enter. If there's nothing that can be done despite knowing anything, they'd be smart enough to surrender, or they's know exactly what their enemies won't or would fall for. So, Omniscience is definitely Intelligence.

I can agree that knowledge =/= regarding Animalistic Vs Super genius characters as it's possible for the former to have more common sense in Vs debating. Since spamming the most overpowered hax vs someone who prefers to study their opponents before doing anything rash could lead to the less knowledgeable character winning. But Omniscience is on a whole different level than every other intelligence rating put together.

So in other words, I'm with Antvasima.
 
Knowing Everything is pretty NLF tbh.

Even if you really do "know everything" in your verse, that doesn't at all apply to someone from another verse, so your omniscience is absolutely useless, and you would need to rely on intelligence seperate from your omniscience.

I don't very much appreciate how NLF this all is, especially when Omnisceince is given to characters who aren't High 1-A and above.
 
By that logic, Omniscience wouldn't even be an intelligence rating and treated the same way we treat omnipotence. But it was agreed Omniscience is different. And we are aware that we don't make characters Omniscient just because their own verse states it; that's just Nigh-Omniscient. But Omniscient characters also tend to know they're fictional characters and have awareness to other works among other things.
 
@DarkDragonMedeus Pretty sure Omniscience is a type of knowledge that goes with intelligence since you can't have Intelligence without knowledge but that doesn't automatically make both of them the same thing rather it really means that they both rely on each other in order to stay relevant and the main reason why people still confuse them to be the same thing in the first place.

Like I said, there's nothing wrong with Omniscience describing your level of intelligence (which is how it's supposed to be treated anyway), it just can't be considered as a level of intelligence, which that us the problem because its not physically possible to have since you can only be either naturally being born with it or through supernatural means. Basically why "Intelligence (Knowledge): Infinite (via Omniscience)" works just fine and Omniscience can support that since its an applicable ability that supports the character's level of intelligence.

When you have Infinite intelligence, you already learned everything you need to know to get out of dangerous situations at an infinite rate and then use that infinite knowledge (that's where Omniscience comes in) to actually get yourself out of it. So no, Omniscience would still be treated as knowledge here.

I mean, learning ways of getting out of it =/= actually using the knowledge to get out of it but it doesn't mean you can't have both of them together, you just need to mention both on the Intelligence section for the character properly.

Oh yeah, that would be a good way to point out if characters are truly omniscient if they have awareness of them being fictional characters since its also considered as form of knowledge and known as breaking the...you already know.
 
Knowledge means to have acquaintance with certain facts, wherever intelligence measures measures the reasoning capabilities of someone, so having knowledge do not make someone necessary intelligence, and being intelligence just makes one easier to obtain knowledge. Since someone with Omniscience knows absolutely everything, they can't miss any information, and thus, considered to have infinite intelligence, someone with infinite intelligence means they can learn how everything works, but naturelly, they are unable to known something they are not aware.
 
@Antonio Exactly what I mean and why Omniscience is more of an applicable ability that characters with Infinite intelligence could have but they don't automatically have it.
 
@Antoniofer

So do you agree that omniscience means infinite intelligence?
 
Weird to see large intelligence revisions due to the lack of relevance the stat has in the first place and how it is basically just used to indiscriminately refer to any mental capability in the first place I would p r o b a b l y say that Omniscience = infinite intelligence, since knowledge in the first place involves somehow "understanding" that piece of knowledge, as opposed to just knowing a proposition if said proposition is justified, is true and believed in- since that stuff would lead to getting the right answer but from incorrect deductions, the fact that the deductions must be known being the entire source of the Gettier problem and whatever. So if you "know" everything its not just having the answer to any question but also having the deductions for that answer. Upon knowing something you don't just instinctively get the answer to it, you have to "intrinsically" understand it (not just having the answer to the question "what are the proofs for this answer" before somebody says something along those lines), meaning that you just being an idiot, spending ages learning the answer to everything and due to a good memory having the answer to every question and be "know" everything. Furthermore a character that starts out with infinite intelligence will always find infinite answers (which due to the way it is achieved has to involve "knowing" the thing associated with the answer in the first place) unless they divide their brain activity by 0 somehow (Usually by just dying) which would mean they would just start being mindless. If intelligence is the ability to gain and apply knowledge, so its basically just a number that's put in a formula about how much knowledge can be gained from previous knowledge then somebody with infinite intelligence could gain any piece of knowledge from any other piece of knowledge, and the only way they wouldn't gain every piece of knowledge in an infinitesimally short amount of time was by putting less effort in- no matter how much finite amount of effort they wouldn't put in they would still have that infinite intelligence unless their brain shut down entirely
 
Okay. Thank you. I suppose that no revisions are necessary then.
 
I m e a n omniscience is about knowing everything so characters above axiomical systems would be not applying to systems involving "knowing" or what is considered a "thing", essentially being trans sentient
 
Omniscience (the highest form of knowledge) pretty much backs up the character having infinite intelligence while also technically not considered as intelligence at the same time but still relies on it regardless.
 
Basically:

  • You can mention Intelligence and Knowledge together but do it properly, as in "Intelligence: Level of Intelligence (Knowledge)."
    • Example: "Intelligence: Infinite (via Omniscience)"
  • Infinite Intelligence =/= Omniscience
  • Omniscience (a type of knowledge) is an applicable ability that can be used to justify Infinite Intelligence but also remember, a character stating to have infinite intelligence does not automatically have Omniscience unless also proven to have that too.
  • Intelligence and Knowledge relies on each other but that doesn't make them the same thing, as that's the main reason why people still confuse them to be the same thing in the first place.
 
I explained why having omniscience meant you would have to possess infinite intelligence and why if you had infinite intelligence you would have to possess omniscience unless you were just dead.
 
@Tago There has been characters with infinite intelligence without having Omniscience before and you're right only for the first thing you just said.
 
Intelligence measures the reasoning capabilities of someone, not how much it knows, so even if someone have infinite intelligence (and is not proven to be an exaggeration or flowey language) it doesn't mean it knowns everything.
 
Intelligence has various definitions and aspects. For our purposes knowledge is definitely one of them.

The ratings are only suggestions which don't need to reflect a comprehensive truth about intelligence quantification, as such a thing is very difficult anyway. As long as pages discuss a character's intelligence, like they should, there are no problems.
 
I agree with DontTalk and Antoniofer.
 
What characters with infinite intelligence are you even talking about? but yeah, intelligence section is just a listing of different mental abilities, such as skill and even indiscriminate talents that don't fit into other statistics. However we do have a tiering page mainly used for "conventional intelligence" at the higher levels which I think is perfectly reasonable.
 
@Zachary I recently proposed a possible solution of how intelligence and knowledge should be properly mentioned without having to split them apart.

@Tago Those other forms of intelligence should be only described under the skill of where it belongs in the abilities section if they aren't main factors to determine your level of intelligence.
 
So, eh, what's the actual proposed change to the intelligence page are we debating?

Like, the page states that we consider descriptions of knowledge part of our intelligence stat, that the rankings are suggestions or guidelines, instead of a comprehensive gospel, and that any intelligence stat should ideally have a proper discussions in regards to which aspects of the intelligence stat the character is how advanced in.

What needs to be said beyond that?
 
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