I was good at math growing up but not in a "#1 in the world" way. I've been to a couple of math contest national finals. So I naturally have seen many "geniuses". Some of them when they see a problem sometimes just come up with the answer immediately. These are questions that require procedural thinking so I couldn't understand how it was possible to come up with the correct answer instantly. One day I asked him. He said he doesn't know but sometimes he can just "see" the answer. I used to think that's bullshit, but after having experienced more of life I think it is not entirely impossible.

We have no idea how brain works, so we can only make hypotheses based on experience. When someone can "see" an answer without being able to explain how he came up with that answer, regardless of how useful that skill is in the real world, that is something. Maybe sometimes all his neurons connect instantly in certain circumstances. Who knows.

Another reason I think this is possible is because sometimes I come off that way (to much lesser degree) to other people. Sometimes when I come up with a solution to a problem (not at all domain specific), people wonder how I can do that. I can't explain of course. I am not trying to say I'm a genius. I'm saying things like this happen sometimes for no reason. And "highly intelligent" people tend to have more of these than "normal" people.

Anyway, these are all just theories, yours included. So I think just saying that our brains objectively work in certain ways is not a good idea, and is probably wrong.

Im not talking about being an expert, Im talking about intelligence. Intelligent people tend to 'see the forest through the trees' on a grander scale than average or unintelligent people (you can tell Im less than intelligent by my over use of bad analogies) . They don't need to go A -> B because they already know that A -> C is correct. It's a lousy example because everyone here is looking at it like its a procedural problem being solved and it's not. It's about individuals having greater cognitive ability.

I know what you are talking about intelligence, I'm disagreeing with your description and saying it doesn't capture the advantage intelligence provides, but more accurately captured what expertise provides. Now, I'm not clear whether it's just a bad articulation of what you are trying to illustrate or if your underlying concept is wrong, but your description doesn't, IMO, accurately portray the difference that intelligence creates.

Its the most generic explanation I can use in the shortest amount of text that generally gets the point across. It is a lousy example. It's obvious when people are smart/intelligent and also obvious when the are not, I believe its largely genetic and out of people's control so discussing it or creating websites to better your 'IQ' are mostly a waste of time.

I don't think it's obvious at all, and I think people often mistake a number of other things in others (philosophical agreement, expertise in a domain, certain social skills, among others) for general intelligence.

There's also considerable evidence, IIRC, that, while the upper limit a person can reach in intelligence is genetic, that environmental factors play significant roles in both how closely that limit will ever be approached and how well/long what is achieved will be maintained.

Well we'll just agree to disagree on this one :) At the end of the day though it doesn't matter if either one of us is correct, nothing really changes either way.

This is called intuition and not analysis.