The Senior Common Room was unusually quiet.
Outside, rain drifted lazily across the college quadrangle. Inside, Professor Quillibrace appeared to be reading. Miss Stray appeared to be thinking. Mr Blottisham appeared to be doing both with equal determination.
Eventually he lowered his newspaper.
"I've been wondering."
Professor Quillibrace looked over his spectacles.
"How alarming."
"Yesterday," said Blottisham, "we decided football was really about possibilities."
"We observed that possibility was central to football."
"And Scrabble."
"Yes."
"And chess."
"Certainly."
Blottisham frowned.
"So what does that tell us about intelligence?"
Professor Quillibrace closed his book.
"An excellent question."
Miss Stray looked mildly surprised.
"You approve?"
"I approve of questions considerably more often than answers."
Blottisham leaned forward.
"I always thought intelligence meant solving problems."
"A common view."
"It doesn't?"
"It is incomplete."
Miss Stray looked towards the rain.
"Perhaps solving a problem is only the visible part."
"What lies beneath?" asked Blottisham.
"The ability to perceive possibilities that others cannot yet see."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Consider two footballers."
"The fast one and the slow one?"
"No."
"The one with tattoos?"
"No."
"The one who keeps falling over?"
"No."
"The same footballer?"
Quillibrace ignored him.
"One player receives the ball and sees one pass."
"The obvious pass."
"Yes."
"The other sees five."
"But only plays one."
"Precisely."
"Because the others were wrong?"
"No."
"Because one preserves the richest future."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So intelligence isn't seeing the answer."
"No."
"It's seeing the landscape."
Miss Stray smiled.
"The answer is just one path through it."
There was a pause.
Rain tapped gently against the windows.
Professor Quillibrace spoke almost to himself.
"I suspect this is why experts often appear calm."
"Because they know what will happen?"
"No."
"Because they know what could happen."
Blottisham considered this.
"So expertise isn't certainty."
"No."
"It's comfort with uncertainty."
Quillibrace nodded.
"The novice experiences uncertainty as the absence of knowledge."
"And the expert?"
"The expert experiences uncertainty as the presence of possibilities."
Miss Stray stirred her tea.
"That is rather beautiful."
"I wish it weren't."
"Why?"
"Because beautiful ideas are frequently misunderstood."
Blottisham frowned.
"I still don't quite see it."
Professor Quillibrace picked up a bishop from the old chess set that permanently occupied one corner of the room.
"What is this worth?"
"Three."
"In points."
"Yes."
"In reality?"
Blottisham shrugged.
"It depends."
"On what?"
"The position."
Quillibrace smiled.
"Exactly."
He placed the bishop on an empty board.
"It has not changed."
"No."
"But its value has."
"Because..."
"Because value is not contained in the piece."
Miss Stray finished the sentence.
"It exists in the possibilities surrounding it."
Professor Quillibrace placed the bishop back in the box.
"Everything interesting seems eventually to become relational."
Silence settled again.
After several minutes Miss Stray spoke quietly.
"I wonder whether this is why genuinely creative people often look as though they are doing very little."
Blottisham laughed.
"I've met quite a few academics like that."
Quillibrace decided not to respond.
"I mean," Miss Stray continued, "a composer."
"A composer?"
"They are not choosing notes."
"No."
"They are shaping what the next note can become."
"A novelist," she continued.
"Not choosing sentences."
"No."
"Shaping the future of the story."
"A scientist."
"Not merely explaining observations."
"No."
"Creating entirely new questions."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Yes."
Blottisham looked around the room.
"So..."
he said carefully,
"...perhaps intelligence isn't about having the most knowledge."
"No."
"Or the quickest answers."
"No."
"Or even making the best decision."
Quillibrace shook his head.
"What then?"
The old professor looked towards the rain.
"When we are young," he said, "we imagine intelligence is the ability to choose correctly."
"And later?"
"We begin to suspect it is the ability to avoid choosing too early."
Miss Stray nodded slowly.
"To keep good futures alive."
Nobody spoke.
The rain continued.
At last Blottisham broke the silence.
"So the cleverest people aren't necessarily those who know the future."
"No."
"They're the ones who leave themselves able to meet whichever future arrives."
Professor Quillibrace looked quietly pleased.
"I think," he said,
"that may be the wisest thing you have ever said."
Blottisham beamed.
"I've been reading."
"We noticed."
He took another sip of tea.
"I wonder if universities encourage that sort of intelligence."
Professor Quillibrace laughed softly.
"I suspect universities are rather better at measuring answers than preserving possibilities."
Miss Stray looked out across the wet lawns.
"Perhaps education should not simply fill minds."
"No?"
"Perhaps it should enlarge the landscape in which minds can move."
Professor Quillibrace said nothing.
After a while he simply inclined his head.
The clock struck five.
Books were closed.
Cups were gathered.
Outside, the rain had almost stopped.
Mr Blottisham opened the door.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"If intelligence is about keeping futures alive..."
"Yes?"
"...does that mean we've been asking the wrong question?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"My dear Blottisham..."
he said,
"...that is usually how a genuinely interesting answer begins."
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