This was very interesting. I enjoyed reading it too.

My initial thought about the difference between wisdom and intelligence, argued in Is it worth being wise? is that they're just compartments of the same thing. Words. Probably found in the same paragraph in any thesaurus. Splitting hairs.

Smart vs wise.

I agree with your take on wisdom, @hr1 . Wisdom is distilled knowledge, born from experience. After spending a lot of time with much older people, I learned that time doesn't equal wisdom. Plenty of dumb old people. Reading 'wisdom' memes doesn't imbibe you with wisdom either. I'd add that wisdom isn't always about making the right choice. It can be about considering and understanding, not necessarily linked to actions or choices. Not necessarily with a goal in mind.

Smarts or intelligence: if you look at 'street smart' this is about distilled knowledge and experience applied to real life.

Whereas a few years ago I read an interview with a mathematician who said that most nights he went to bed discontented, feeling he hadn't made enough progress. … Is the mathematician a small man because he's discontented? No; he's just doing a kind of work that wasn't very common in Confucius's day.

This sounds more like neurosis to me. I don't think it's to do with variations in employment.

I disagree with Paul Graham about the path to wisdom being through discipline. I think you distill information, store it. When new or conflicting info comes along, you consider it alongside all the stuff you've stored. Then you calibrate everything as a whole. This is continuous.

Half of his physicists are on Prozac. Lol. Half of everybody's on Prozac! Them's the times we're in. Big Pharma's eating everyone.

Thanks. It was interesting to chew over these matters.

PS I know I'm late to the party but it was just too juicy to not say anything. Thanks for posting it.