INTELLIGENCE: MY OPINION

In my opinion, we think about intelligence the wrong way. I think we confuse intelligence with being highly knowledgeable or well-read. While being highly knowledgeable is a sign of intelligence, I think the main (or best) marker of intelligence is problem-solving ability.

Being knowledgeable or polymathic, in my opinion, doesn't count for much if the knowledge doesn't translate into innovative, pragmatic problem-solving in the real world. And I'm not talking about making scientific discoveries or technological invention; problem-solving could involve something as little as spotting a flaw in an argument and being able to prescribe a novel way of correcting that flaw or being able to find a pragmatic, conciliatory way of settling a social dispute.

Of course, much of problem-solving involves being sufficiently knowledgeable about the ontology of the problem and, maybe, even its historicity; so in a sense, intelligence is not separable from having vast knowledge. But what really counts as intelligence, it seems to me, is the ability to solve problems in a novel way with what we know. 

By extension, problem-solving is hard to separate from problem detection. The ability to perceive a problem is very often (if not always) a precursor to the ability to proffer solutions. 

This, I think, is one reason why intelligent people are better at learning than others. Because of their high problem-detection tendency, intelligent people are more likely to spot the flaws and biases in their own reasoning or the gaps in their knowledge. In turn, this puts them in a better position to correct their reasoning, look for answers where there might be or admit "I don't know." 

This is why intelligent people are more likely to be open to new information and learn more effectively. They are better learners because they're better problem solvers, and they are better problem solvers because they're better problem detectors.