Smartest Person

Smartest Person in the Room

A friend and I were discussing a story about someone’s declaration that a particular person was the smartest guy in the room.  No we weren’t talking about criticizing someone who thinks he or she is the smartest person in the room.  We were talking about someone’s assessment that a particular person was the smartest man in the room.  We decided that assessment may well have been correct, after all, the fellow seems to truly be very smart.

I recalled our conversation and thought about it a little.

It occurred to me that same observer stated that a certain woman was the smartest person he had ever known.  That too was quite a claim as the observer has associated with many people over a more than seventy year lifetime with a career in public service.

The two “smartest” people then must rate as remarkable people to be sure.

However, I wonder how much that observation matters to the individual observed smart person.

Each individual lives with mental capacity as a part of her or his state of being, probably not exactly part of her or his consciousness.  Do these two smart people, while thinking about something - solving a problem, making an observation, recalling a memory - consciously apply the knowledge of her of his own self-measure of smartness in everyday activities?

Maybe.

However, in my own case and admittedly not being one of these two people, I am only aware of my level of smartness when I miss stuff in making an observation or struggle to solve some problem.  It seems to me that one’s level of smartness is typically not consciously self-observed, but is simply part of one’s state of being.

I’m guessing it’s the same with these two smart people.

I conclude then that their level of smartness is, perhaps ironically, outside of their self-awareness.   They then do not consciously observe or consider their level of smartness in their personal day-to-day experience.  I then further conclude that being judged the smartest person in the room has no real everyday significance to each of these people.

That is unless this “smartest” person is attempting to be dismissive of others’ observations and problem-solving in which case being the smartest person in the room carries a significant social disadvantage.  This might also not be all that smart as choosing to deliberately ignore others’ wisdom relevant to a given situation is a form of calculated, deliberate ignorance.  Might be best, smartest, to self-assess one to be the smartest person in the room when alone in the room.

How valuable is that observation of being the smartest person in the room to each of us making it, or indeed to the “smartest person”?  Possibly no value at all.