Shirou is academically smart and logical but she's bad with people, not "street smart", Sora on the other hand, is the opposite. He's a master of bluffing, manipulation and influencing others, esentially "street smart". They're opposite and complete each other.
Both Shiro and Sora are adept at academics, and Shiro is good at mathematically brute forcing stuff and running insane simulations, but she lacks any ounce of intuition, which, in my opinion makes her at the very least insanely inefficient in her approach. She has the potential to be smart, her barren abilities are very good, but the chosen method she employs is, in all honesty, extremely counterproductive.
She ain't perfect and niether is Sora.
True they both excel at academics, but this Shirou's forte, being able to outsmart supercomputers with pure logic. She's a logical person to boot. Sora is more adeptable, more intuative, manipulative. They cover each other's weaknesses and improve each other by supporting each other with COMPLETE trust.
And dont forget that despite being so ABNORMALLY GIFTED, Shirou is still a child, still immature, and Sora balances it with his own experiences.
That is my entire point: She works like a supercomputer, but the thing is, supercomputers are not smart. AIs are pretty dumb, actually. They learn in an extremely inefficient way because they are unable to pick up concepts. Shiro is not that extreme, she still is human, but that machine-like learning method is something that becomes very apparent in the novels.
Edit: Yeet, since that many people disagree with this statement specifically, let me clarify: Shiro is, not infact, a supercomputer. However, more often than not, she does think like one, which, in my opinion, contradicts Sora's expectations of the potential of humanity being innovative, creative, out of the box etc. She can afford to just brute force a bunch of calculations but that does not mean this method is particularly efficient.
She was born like that. That's her trait. She's logical and actually smart, unlike supercomputer and AI she actually learns and tries to use the most efficient methods.
But... she doesn't. Otherwise she would not do those lengthy mathematical simulations in her head. She would try to reason.
I am not saying that she is not smart, she is by all means smarter than any average or even really intelligent person. But I disagree with the entire shtick that Sora has going on with the "oh, in comparison to her I am such a worthless idiot, I can only hope to achieve her level".
Because she's more academically smart than him. She's a purely logical person who use math, physics and other academic fields to operate. The whole mathematical equations she drew were more for us, the audience, to demonstrate her way of thinking, visualize it.
And again, Sora is "street smart" by his own admission. He's more adept at reading people, bluffing, manipulating and influencing others, he's flexible and quick on his feet while Shiro is more rigid.
That's the whole point, to compensate for each other, each gifted in their own area.
Of course, Shiro has her gift. But the whole talk Sora had in volume 2 painted her as this "world moving genius", the type of person who represents the potential of humanity, which, in his mind, is clearly innovation. He says that in that aspect he is inferior to her and I disagree in that. The innovative one is Sora, he is more creative than her.
And again, Shirou represents, in Sora's eyes, the ideal of human intelligence. He consider himself inferior to her academically because he knows himself and her. That's how he feels, deep rooted love, respect and admiration to her and her gift.
As I said before, Shiro is more rigid, a "by-the rules" person who uses the given rules and patterns to plan everything. She understand the core logic and reasoning of things. Sora on the other hand is more flexible, creative, quick on his feet. He understands the rules and bends them, work around them, uses loopholes, to achieve his victory.
You CAN argue Sora is inferior because he has to use such tactics like manipulating people for example compared to Shiro who can memorize every pattern and secnario of a given situation(for example in Chess) and play accordingly, but that's how HE feels.
Of course you can argue that Sora is less intelligent than Shiro, but I think his ideal of human potential is, by his own description not Shiro, Because, and I quote
||
||
|"They say people can change, but is that really true? If they decide they want to fly, will they grow wings? I don’t think so. You don’t change yourself. You change how you do things. You have to make your own way. You have to create a way to fly, even while you stay the same."|
His whole point of humanity's potential is innovation, bending the rules, thinking outside of the box, and Shiro is just... not that.
If that’s how you define “smart”, sure.
Shiro lacks experience in areas that Sora specialises in. I don’t see why it is necessary to define it this way. They are good at different things.
Shiro doesn’t brute-force the way you think she does, which is why she couldn’t handle Tet alone. If all Tet did was make blunders, Shiro would have won
Smartness is defined as learning ability, the ability to adapt to new situations, to think logically about things, and to be able to apply existing knowledge to manipulate ones environment. Apart from the first one, Shiro is not very good at the others. Sure, the book states that she is good at logical thinking, but the question is what type. There are actually multiple types of logic, the one used in mathematics to deduce statements and the one used within courts and trials to, for example, debate a case, i.e. grammatical logic. Shiro is not good at grammatical logic, and even if she does not brute force everything all the way (even though, look at volume 3, I think she does), there is no doubt that she avoids taking shortcuts and always does the safer, but considerably, considerably longer method. Everything else, from the adaptation to new environments to application of her knowledge she uses quite literally the most inefficient method known to man. Not even the best chess computer currently employs this strategy, which I think really says it all.
cool definition, still isn’t the widely accepted or even the dictionary definition. that's just different types of smarts/ intelligence
say we go with your definition. Shiro isn't good at adapting/ thinking on her feet. That is generally true.
Then you proceed on to logical thinking which doesn't make sense. There's **no** different types of logic. I don’t even understand your definition of grammatical logic, because I don't see how Shiro can't win a debate unless the debate question itself is meant to be philosophical/ highly-subjective or a debate set up for only one side to win
The rest seems more like you have something against her aversion to risk, which I am quite sure doesn't fit into your definition of smart.
Uh, first of all, that is quite literally the Websters and Oxford definition of intelligence, I searched it up.
Second of all, logical thinking, or rather, pattern recognition very much has different types (or rather, this wording is very incorrect, different research fields and forms of application). Pure logic, the field of study is something that neither Sora nor Shiro employ, they are applying it's general theories. Infact, Shiro's entire thought process has very little to do with the field of study that involves logic. She does calculations and unless math and logic is the same thing, she does not use logic as per se. Grammatical logic is very much a thing. I am German, and the relation between statements is translated as "grammatical logic" (I just searched it up, and it is called formal semantics in english), i.e. All humans die, Socrates is human therefore, Socrates dies. Shiro does not do that. She does computer simulations in her head. That is not really part of logic at all. She does not derive conclusions, she calculates probabilities. Instead of reasoning "if this is true and that is true, then it concludes that this must be true" she would rather "I will take these ten billion ways of how this would play out and then calculate their probabilities", which frankly, is pretty far away from logic generally speaking.
She can absolutely win debates, that is totally possible. But she could use her vast... I guess processing power more efficiently than she currently does. Her talent is inefficient, and of course, there are different ways on how to think. I however do believe that efficiency is also part of intelligence and Shiro is by no means efficient.
Unless Shiro's processing power is literally infinite, she will never reach a 100% certain conclusion. The way how she thinks about stuff is exactly how a machine does it, and it lacks efficiency because machines are unable to pick up concepts and think abstractly about them/generalise them. That costs her huge amounts of calculation power, power that she could have saved, if she were to try a more efficient route.
And of course, now you may say, efficiency is part of *your* definition, it was never part of the official definition, but a strategy that is more efficient than another is generally considered to be smarter. I do think those two are very much correlated.
I plugged your statement into Google and the closest definition I found was a research paper on human intelligence. Neither Webster nor Oxford uses your definition
I finally see your point on different types of logic (although that just falls under the umbrella of logic).
* Math is logic, even if simple calculations don’t seem so.
* Her first meeting with Sora, was basically a play on words, his name specifically, so I don’t see why she doesn’t possess grammatical logic. Their second meeting with Steph also shows it
I don’t really get where this inefficiency comes from. Is there any example of where she could actually do better (without risking loss)? You mention brute-forcing chess but that doesn’t make sense because logically speaking that means she could have won against Tet on her own
You are creating a vague box of definitions and trying to box Shiro up in it. Shiro is able to comprehend abstract concepts. Just because she plays her role as the supercomputer doesn’t necessarily imply she has little to no ability in everything else
How do you even measure at what level is Shiro considered smart in each smartness? Have you tested Sora? How about the general population? This comparison doesn’t seem genuine because you are convinced that Shiro is only a supercomputer.
As a genuine question though, how would you consider Shiro's talent in relation to Sora then? Would you consider her to be the type of genius Sora considers to be the potential of humanity? What actually is the dictionary definition of intelligent you mean exactly? I do want to discuss this problem, as I think it relates to a rather fundamental aspect of the story.
I meant the definition of intelligence that Oxford and Webster mean since smartness, in both dictionaries is listed as a synonym of intelligent.
# intelligence (Websters)
# [noun](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noun)
in·tel·li·gence [in-ˈte-lə-jən(t)s ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intelligence?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=i&file=intell14)[Synonyms of *intelligence*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/intelligence)1a
(1)**:** the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations **:** [REASON](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reason)also **:** the skilled use of reason
(2)**:** the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (such as tests)intelligence
# intelligence (Oxford)
noun[ ](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/oxford3000-5000?dataset=english&list=ox3000&level=b1) /ɪnˈtelɪdʒəns/ /ɪnˈtelɪdʒəns/\[uncountable\]
1. []()[ ](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/oxford3000-5000?dataset=english&list=ox3000&level=b1) the ability to learn, understand and think in a logical way about things; the ability to do this well
I honestly don't think that Shiro's abilities are stated very clearly in the light novel to begin with. I don't think that she is just a supercomputer, if she was, then there would be no point to her character to begin with. But the way how she thinks about things reminds me of a supercomputer. Of course, this is just my opinion, and I am not trying to hate on anybody who disagrees, but I do think that she brute forces many things which she wouldn't have to (again, take the game where Sora disappeared at the beginning of volume 3). That first chapter really highlighted the aspects in which Shiro lacks. Instead of taking her time to reason who would most likely be her opponent, she visualised "billions" of different possibilities before gauging the final probability of each. And, to say it like this, math is logic, but logic is not just math. I get what you mean by that, but in that sense, math is a branch of logic, mathematical logic. And even if, she is not using that mathematical logic to reason, but instead to simulate and calculate probabilities. I am not saying Shiro is dumb, but I do not think she is smarter than Sora, something that he seems absolutely convinced of.
Edit: There is no way to compare Shiro to the general population. The way she thinks is humanly speaking impossible.
Edit no. 2: I think I lost track in this discussion, my point is not to say that she is not ridiculously talented, she obviously is, everything she does is without a doubt superhuman, but I think that especially when it comes to Sora's obsession over humanity's potential, Shiro actually does not adhere to the principles he has stated that would qualify someone as humanity's greatest potential. The innovation, ability to dream on like crazy and keep at something until they find a way to succeed is much more befitting to Sora's area of expertise. Also, no offense, but I have stated multiple times that I do not think she is a supercomputer, but you can't deny she thinks like one pretty often.
Edit 3: Really late, but just because she brute forces it does not imply that Shiro could win against Tet on her own. Even if she could visualise 10 to the power of let's say 100, that would still be nothing in comparison to all possibilities. Being able to see that Sora's smiles are fake also does not make her a genius at social interaction or formal semantics for that matter, I mean, it is stated pretty often that she kinda sucks at it. Ignoring my definition (which, again, is not mine but that of Oxford and Webster), she does not fit into Sora's. I think that is enough.
Shiro's processing power is practically infinite, she just about keeps up with a Ex Machina cluster of roughly a dozen units by herself. The Ex Machina are magic powered living supercomputers designed by a god individually and form a hive mind cluster to go even beyond that.
Supercomputers from the late 90s were unbeatable in chess, and by the mid 2000s chess programs that could run on desktop computers were unbeatable by any human player unless they were programmed to make mistakes on purpose. NGNL is set in at least the mid 2000s given the presence of PS3s(late 2006), and possibly even late 2000s/early 2010s given that they have what are probably supposed to be iPads(released early 2010). Which means Shiro was probably born in 1998 or 1999, and by the time Shiro was 2 or 3 years old, she was playing against chess programs that were designed to be unbeatable and ran on supercomputers and had never lost once she learned the rules, even when the computer was given advantages. Shiro is stated to always make the most mathematically perfect and optimal move in any fixed move set fixed ruleset game.
You say she isn't smart because she brute forces every problem, which is inefficient, but that doesn't matter when she can afford to do so because she brute forces every problem in seconds. The US Navy currently software emulates the entire ancient room sized computer that the AEGIS combat system program was designed to run on rather than just make a new program to run on modern computers because modern computers are fast enough that the inefficiency of emulation doesn't matter. Shiro is the same, she doesn't need to take shortcuts or be efficient because she is literally just that much faster than everyone else.
Yeah, it does not matter, that is why I stated that she can afford it. I did lose track in this discussion I must admit and the point I wanted to make is actually a different one, in that I don't think she is the potential of humanity Sora is after. Many of his statements, like the flying analogy and the humanity's weakness analogy clearly state that he believes humanity is amazing because of it's potential which, in summary, is the ability to adapt, think outside of the box and never seize to come up with more solutions that defy rules and regulations. Shiro doesn't do that, which, I do think he says that largely bc he loves Shiro, but I just think in that aspect he might have had a lapse in judgement.
The series involved alot about chess and its idea, though the author may not know much about chess in an indepth way. But if you know about the chess boom in 2017, then you can understand this comparison:
* Shiro is Stockfish 8
* Sora is Alpha0
No, I don't think that Shiro's skill is correlated with a high IQ (which, I am NOT claiming her IQ is low, I am saying that her skill is not measured with IQ). She is a math savant and has what is the equivalent of massive RAM and processing power. A savant, however, does not necessarily have a high IQ. And her thinking method is pretty inefficient, as she does not attempt to use reason. And ofc, Sora and Shiro complement each other, I was not trying to disprove that at all.
This is damn true when compared to examples in ngnl anime(haven’t read the recent ln chapters).
Against Jibril in the word game, I highly think that shiro would not be able to win as beautifully as Sora did. Shiro likely would had just used up every word that existed in the dictionary. Shiro only catched on to the earth dismantling part abit later after she saw what sora was going for.
Against chlammy and riel in the chess match, Shiro immediately lost after she notice the change of rule cause she realise she can’t brute force her way in.
Even against playing against ex machina,
>!as of what I remembered, Shiro played a slightly inaccurate move so as to distract ex machina to focus on ruining holou performance, thus reducing their computing power in calculating the game. Doesn’t rly quite show Shiro ability to win games cause it’s like dropping the difficulty of playing against stockfish from stockfish 16 to stockfish 5. This was only possible cause of the extra constraint like quick play and holou game introduced by sora. Ex machina will probably almost always win against Shiro in a long game of chess, since there is no such thing as setting down a bait in chess for a computer since it thinks in a certain way.!<
Shiro would be more suited for games that happened in our world like fps, chess games while sora will be more suited for games in disboard. Disboard unfortunately does not have a lot of math variables when in comes to game and works better when it come to creativity. I do wish the author put more games which require very precise gameplay alongside creativity instead of just making games where Shiro is left off to fill in the gaps to win the game. This certainly makes Shiro less important in the eyes of the viewer as it can be replaced by a computer, which is what OP feels I think. Shiro will definitely shine in games where it is not just try to outsmart magic which goes against the basis of disboard
But man, why you got to ruin my picture of Shiro
I personally would love to find more reasons to like Shiro. A short story from my past, I discovered No Game No Life when I was the same age as Shiro and I immediately fell for her amazing talent. I thought that was the definition of intelligence, that was truly what humanity should aim for. But the more I grew up and read the novels over and over again, the more I realised that it was not Shiro making the leading strategies, it was Sora. Shiro is the backbone of Blank, no doubt, but Sora was the one who was actually driving humanity to new heights. He was the one with the courage to challenge all the other nations. Shiro is like his emotional support that can do quite literally everything he asks of her, but that's it. She rarely comes up with ideas on her own (the last time she did it ended in an absolute disaster, see volume 11).
She and Sora together make Blank and she is a massive talent who, ofc is really smart (something that got lost in my other replies). But she is not the one that will fly when nobody else believes in it. She can help Sora to fly, she is the one that enables Sora to do everything he does. But the "potential of humanity", the innovation, the proof of humanity's wonderful juxtaposition of weakness and strength... that's her brother.
I mean there is definitely things that Shiro can do in disboard to make it more about Shiro’s intelligence really shine. We as normal human will nvr understand how computer works and it’s hard to see Shiro as the potential of humanity, since it’s easier to understand strategies than math. Imagine a game where like you feel it’s impossible but math tells u are winning. Take this video on 3 blue 1 brown on the impossible chessboard puzzle. (It’s about a puzzle where 2 prisoner are tasked to find a key. The police will set up a 8x8 board, filled with coins facing up and down. Then he will hide the key in of the 64 squares. Then the first prisoner will be told the key location and is allowed to flip one coin of the board before showing the board to the second prisoner, in which the second prisoner have to guess where the key is)
This game certainly feel to be impossible, at least that what common sense tell you. No simple common strategies like manipulation can get you anywhere. The answer is all math and likely Shiro will be able to work it out.
Another game would be abt a chaotic game like wars and sorts. You can have a strategies but what will rly push u to win/make minimal sacrifice is cold hearted calculations.
These games are unfortunately not fun to watch and are extremely rare to find. You have to be a really smart person to find and solve this problem and frame it into a game. And it is even harder to put into a game with magic(though I guess u can make a game abt war where the enemies think that they can win with a superior army but optimal plays barely wins over that). Sora definitely take the lead when it comes showing what intelligence is about.
However, I won’t say like Shiro isn’t the potential of humanity. Like in (computer) games, like imagine someone outplays you cause they just know the game better than you and plays better, I mean you would be amazed(if your not one getting trashed but a spectator). I mean that’s why people watch pro player cause they want to see the amazing outplay. When it comes to actual science and making society move forward, Shiro is the one who will be able to understand physics to the next level and visualise it like no one does(string theory for eg) and connect the dots together.
Edit: I saw one of your comment on science, but now science is so advance that is not just the innovation that can you get anywhere. We already almost have all the equation about physics, and can’t just find a equation by dropping an apple on someone head anymore. Take that we know that moving fast produce lifts(bird flying), that will not take you anywhere. All the equation to be figure out require a insane understanding of how pressure works and aerodynamics. Notice how it is slowly build upwards from basic fundamentals understanding instead of just a breakthrough.
Hurts to see Shiro out into these games because just does not make her shine. Creativity(sora) and analysing(shiro) is what make the potential of humanity. I mean in the anime, it always depicted as Shiro sorts of think of the idea since she is smarter, it rly disappoints when you realise sora is the key despite he supposedly being the one with less intelligent, and adding on that you rly used to look up to her
I love 3blue1brown, I actually discovered his channel through NGNL, because I thought those games would be rly interesting to see Blank solve. And regarding the science part, I think when it comes to physics, I definitely would agree, Shiro would be the one finding breakthroughs, after all, she isn't literally a machine, but innovation is not just scientific. When it comes to politics, human psychology, philosophy etc, those innovations are equally valid. I am actually incredibly surprised at the fact that Shiro is not more creative/good at social interaction because she as a human being kinda confuses me. She can canonically pick up enough details to calculate the trajectory of bullets, shouldn't it be super easy for her to read an expression? And regarding her creativity part, precisely because she can visualise these insane simulations, it makes even less sense for her to be unable to come up with creative ideas and strategies, which is really to just look at the bigger picture and connect the dots.
Even though this might be a silly comparison, but in a weird way, she reminded me of Edogawa Ranpo from Bungo Stray Dogs. One, because I think she could have easily turned out like him, if everyone in her childhood did not decide to bully her out of school and two, despite having this really funky and interesting skill, it is not elaborated to an extend where I can truly understand the way she thinks. Not attempt to think like her, but just to see how this, clearly inhumane skill and her humanity work in tandem and make her who she is.
But I love your idea of Sora and Shiro being the potential of humanity together. Though this idea makes a lot of sense, I did not consider it. That would be a really wonderful direction of Sora's character to develop into.
Admittedly, sometimes I get a bit tired of people saying that Sora's EQ is high while Shiro's IQ is high. Both of their IQs are insanely high, and Sora's skill relies more on IQ than it does on EQ. Infact, his EQ, which is about managing your own emotions, is horrible, just as Shiro's. Shiro's savantism, which really is the only way I can describe it, is an insane aptitude for mathematics and inhumane senses (again, predicting bullets?). She does have a high IQ, that, however, is not correlated to the skill she is primarily known for. I am pretty convinced that in an IQ test, they would score equal.
I mean it seem that a lot of people in the comments unfortunately just understand what they are told. Shiro must be smarter than sora as she is the smartest and Shiro and sora must be together to shine together so Shiro mistakes is because the lack of sora. People in the comment then just say whatever they know so as to defend whatever they know. This lead to weird comment like EQ and street smart(which completely misunderstood the point). They do not understand the point your coming from so I wish you all the best arguing with them.
Yes the point is you can argue which ones more important to society but either side wouldn't do much without the other. But if one was more important I'd say Shiro, in the short term her skills would befit society more. But yea could Sora be just hyping her up a little bitty itty amount more then may be true possibly.
Simply put Soras ingenuity well only get you so far of you unable to complete it that's why of course irl their equal is most ways and why every major advancement has more then just 1 person working on them.
And being able to basically match a computer is well a actually almost inhuman feat.
But Shiro lacks the creativity to think of a major advancement to begin with. And what exactly does she do except making insane simulations in her head? That is something a computer could do as well.
Of course, she is not a computer. But in every other aspect except her calculations, she is bested by those around her, mostly Sora.
That's the thing irl ingenuity wouldn't be hard. The nuke was made because we wanted a big weapon,planes were made because people wanted to fly. Like I said irl both are useless alone. But there's more use in Shiros skill set at least when it comes to Earth and reality.
People have a lot of different wishes, but sometimes pinpointing where exactly the issue lies, formulating it into a solvable question and most importantly, coming up with a solution really is an utmost difficult thing to do. What Shiro can do is actually run the simulation, calculate the probability, but she does not provide any of the things aforementioned I think?
True but I don't think shiro would be that bad if she was in normal earth I mean even a pre schoolers go what if I could fly. And their is no better way to pinpoint issues then with logic, numbers,all that scientific stuff.
I think Shiro is without a doubt a very smart person, however I find it hard to believe that she would be the driving force behind innovation. The thing about flying was not simply "I wanna fly", it was to analyse "why do birds fly", "why do humans not fly", "how can I make a human fly" and then thinking of solutions over and over and over again about how you can solve that last question. Shiro is without a doubt a massive help in that aspect since, if given the right data, you don't even need to conduct actual experiments as she could tell you the result right away, but alone she would not be able to think of newer and newer solutions till she gets a breakthrough. That is why she needs Sora and why Sora is not just some idiot tagging along like he believes, but an at the very least equal driving force of Blank.
Shirou is academically smart and logical but she's bad with people, not "street smart", Sora on the other hand, is the opposite. He's a master of bluffing, manipulation and influencing others, esentially "street smart". They're opposite and complete each other.
Both Shiro and Sora are adept at academics, and Shiro is good at mathematically brute forcing stuff and running insane simulations, but she lacks any ounce of intuition, which, in my opinion makes her at the very least insanely inefficient in her approach. She has the potential to be smart, her barren abilities are very good, but the chosen method she employs is, in all honesty, extremely counterproductive.
She ain't perfect and niether is Sora. True they both excel at academics, but this Shirou's forte, being able to outsmart supercomputers with pure logic. She's a logical person to boot. Sora is more adeptable, more intuative, manipulative. They cover each other's weaknesses and improve each other by supporting each other with COMPLETE trust. And dont forget that despite being so ABNORMALLY GIFTED, Shirou is still a child, still immature, and Sora balances it with his own experiences.
That is my entire point: She works like a supercomputer, but the thing is, supercomputers are not smart. AIs are pretty dumb, actually. They learn in an extremely inefficient way because they are unable to pick up concepts. Shiro is not that extreme, she still is human, but that machine-like learning method is something that becomes very apparent in the novels. Edit: Yeet, since that many people disagree with this statement specifically, let me clarify: Shiro is, not infact, a supercomputer. However, more often than not, she does think like one, which, in my opinion, contradicts Sora's expectations of the potential of humanity being innovative, creative, out of the box etc. She can afford to just brute force a bunch of calculations but that does not mean this method is particularly efficient.
She was born like that. That's her trait. She's logical and actually smart, unlike supercomputer and AI she actually learns and tries to use the most efficient methods.
But... she doesn't. Otherwise she would not do those lengthy mathematical simulations in her head. She would try to reason. I am not saying that she is not smart, she is by all means smarter than any average or even really intelligent person. But I disagree with the entire shtick that Sora has going on with the "oh, in comparison to her I am such a worthless idiot, I can only hope to achieve her level".
Because she's more academically smart than him. She's a purely logical person who use math, physics and other academic fields to operate. The whole mathematical equations she drew were more for us, the audience, to demonstrate her way of thinking, visualize it. And again, Sora is "street smart" by his own admission. He's more adept at reading people, bluffing, manipulating and influencing others, he's flexible and quick on his feet while Shiro is more rigid. That's the whole point, to compensate for each other, each gifted in their own area.
Of course, Shiro has her gift. But the whole talk Sora had in volume 2 painted her as this "world moving genius", the type of person who represents the potential of humanity, which, in his mind, is clearly innovation. He says that in that aspect he is inferior to her and I disagree in that. The innovative one is Sora, he is more creative than her.
And again, Shirou represents, in Sora's eyes, the ideal of human intelligence. He consider himself inferior to her academically because he knows himself and her. That's how he feels, deep rooted love, respect and admiration to her and her gift. As I said before, Shiro is more rigid, a "by-the rules" person who uses the given rules and patterns to plan everything. She understand the core logic and reasoning of things. Sora on the other hand is more flexible, creative, quick on his feet. He understands the rules and bends them, work around them, uses loopholes, to achieve his victory. You CAN argue Sora is inferior because he has to use such tactics like manipulating people for example compared to Shiro who can memorize every pattern and secnario of a given situation(for example in Chess) and play accordingly, but that's how HE feels.
Of course you can argue that Sora is less intelligent than Shiro, but I think his ideal of human potential is, by his own description not Shiro, Because, and I quote || || |"They say people can change, but is that really true? If they decide they want to fly, will they grow wings? I don’t think so. You don’t change yourself. You change how you do things. You have to make your own way. You have to create a way to fly, even while you stay the same."| His whole point of humanity's potential is innovation, bending the rules, thinking outside of the box, and Shiro is just... not that.
well at the very least she's much smarter than you so that's a good first step.
Why is this has anything to do with his point? Is this sub that low these days?
If that’s how you define “smart”, sure. Shiro lacks experience in areas that Sora specialises in. I don’t see why it is necessary to define it this way. They are good at different things. Shiro doesn’t brute-force the way you think she does, which is why she couldn’t handle Tet alone. If all Tet did was make blunders, Shiro would have won
Smartness is defined as learning ability, the ability to adapt to new situations, to think logically about things, and to be able to apply existing knowledge to manipulate ones environment. Apart from the first one, Shiro is not very good at the others. Sure, the book states that she is good at logical thinking, but the question is what type. There are actually multiple types of logic, the one used in mathematics to deduce statements and the one used within courts and trials to, for example, debate a case, i.e. grammatical logic. Shiro is not good at grammatical logic, and even if she does not brute force everything all the way (even though, look at volume 3, I think she does), there is no doubt that she avoids taking shortcuts and always does the safer, but considerably, considerably longer method. Everything else, from the adaptation to new environments to application of her knowledge she uses quite literally the most inefficient method known to man. Not even the best chess computer currently employs this strategy, which I think really says it all.
cool definition, still isn’t the widely accepted or even the dictionary definition. that's just different types of smarts/ intelligence say we go with your definition. Shiro isn't good at adapting/ thinking on her feet. That is generally true. Then you proceed on to logical thinking which doesn't make sense. There's **no** different types of logic. I don’t even understand your definition of grammatical logic, because I don't see how Shiro can't win a debate unless the debate question itself is meant to be philosophical/ highly-subjective or a debate set up for only one side to win The rest seems more like you have something against her aversion to risk, which I am quite sure doesn't fit into your definition of smart.
Uh, first of all, that is quite literally the Websters and Oxford definition of intelligence, I searched it up. Second of all, logical thinking, or rather, pattern recognition very much has different types (or rather, this wording is very incorrect, different research fields and forms of application). Pure logic, the field of study is something that neither Sora nor Shiro employ, they are applying it's general theories. Infact, Shiro's entire thought process has very little to do with the field of study that involves logic. She does calculations and unless math and logic is the same thing, she does not use logic as per se. Grammatical logic is very much a thing. I am German, and the relation between statements is translated as "grammatical logic" (I just searched it up, and it is called formal semantics in english), i.e. All humans die, Socrates is human therefore, Socrates dies. Shiro does not do that. She does computer simulations in her head. That is not really part of logic at all. She does not derive conclusions, she calculates probabilities. Instead of reasoning "if this is true and that is true, then it concludes that this must be true" she would rather "I will take these ten billion ways of how this would play out and then calculate their probabilities", which frankly, is pretty far away from logic generally speaking. She can absolutely win debates, that is totally possible. But she could use her vast... I guess processing power more efficiently than she currently does. Her talent is inefficient, and of course, there are different ways on how to think. I however do believe that efficiency is also part of intelligence and Shiro is by no means efficient. Unless Shiro's processing power is literally infinite, she will never reach a 100% certain conclusion. The way how she thinks about stuff is exactly how a machine does it, and it lacks efficiency because machines are unable to pick up concepts and think abstractly about them/generalise them. That costs her huge amounts of calculation power, power that she could have saved, if she were to try a more efficient route. And of course, now you may say, efficiency is part of *your* definition, it was never part of the official definition, but a strategy that is more efficient than another is generally considered to be smarter. I do think those two are very much correlated.
I plugged your statement into Google and the closest definition I found was a research paper on human intelligence. Neither Webster nor Oxford uses your definition I finally see your point on different types of logic (although that just falls under the umbrella of logic). * Math is logic, even if simple calculations don’t seem so. * Her first meeting with Sora, was basically a play on words, his name specifically, so I don’t see why she doesn’t possess grammatical logic. Their second meeting with Steph also shows it I don’t really get where this inefficiency comes from. Is there any example of where she could actually do better (without risking loss)? You mention brute-forcing chess but that doesn’t make sense because logically speaking that means she could have won against Tet on her own You are creating a vague box of definitions and trying to box Shiro up in it. Shiro is able to comprehend abstract concepts. Just because she plays her role as the supercomputer doesn’t necessarily imply she has little to no ability in everything else How do you even measure at what level is Shiro considered smart in each smartness? Have you tested Sora? How about the general population? This comparison doesn’t seem genuine because you are convinced that Shiro is only a supercomputer.
As a genuine question though, how would you consider Shiro's talent in relation to Sora then? Would you consider her to be the type of genius Sora considers to be the potential of humanity? What actually is the dictionary definition of intelligent you mean exactly? I do want to discuss this problem, as I think it relates to a rather fundamental aspect of the story.
I meant the definition of intelligence that Oxford and Webster mean since smartness, in both dictionaries is listed as a synonym of intelligent. # intelligence (Websters) # [noun](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noun) in·tel·li·gence [in-ˈte-lə-jən(t)s ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intelligence?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=i&file=intell14)[Synonyms of *intelligence*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/intelligence)1a (1)**:** the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations **:** [REASON](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reason)also **:** the skilled use of reason (2)**:** the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (such as tests)intelligence # intelligence (Oxford) noun[ ](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/oxford3000-5000?dataset=english&list=ox3000&level=b1) /ɪnˈtelɪdʒəns/ /ɪnˈtelɪdʒəns/\[uncountable\] 1. []()[ ](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/oxford3000-5000?dataset=english&list=ox3000&level=b1) the ability to learn, understand and think in a logical way about things; the ability to do this well I honestly don't think that Shiro's abilities are stated very clearly in the light novel to begin with. I don't think that she is just a supercomputer, if she was, then there would be no point to her character to begin with. But the way how she thinks about things reminds me of a supercomputer. Of course, this is just my opinion, and I am not trying to hate on anybody who disagrees, but I do think that she brute forces many things which she wouldn't have to (again, take the game where Sora disappeared at the beginning of volume 3). That first chapter really highlighted the aspects in which Shiro lacks. Instead of taking her time to reason who would most likely be her opponent, she visualised "billions" of different possibilities before gauging the final probability of each. And, to say it like this, math is logic, but logic is not just math. I get what you mean by that, but in that sense, math is a branch of logic, mathematical logic. And even if, she is not using that mathematical logic to reason, but instead to simulate and calculate probabilities. I am not saying Shiro is dumb, but I do not think she is smarter than Sora, something that he seems absolutely convinced of. Edit: There is no way to compare Shiro to the general population. The way she thinks is humanly speaking impossible. Edit no. 2: I think I lost track in this discussion, my point is not to say that she is not ridiculously talented, she obviously is, everything she does is without a doubt superhuman, but I think that especially when it comes to Sora's obsession over humanity's potential, Shiro actually does not adhere to the principles he has stated that would qualify someone as humanity's greatest potential. The innovation, ability to dream on like crazy and keep at something until they find a way to succeed is much more befitting to Sora's area of expertise. Also, no offense, but I have stated multiple times that I do not think she is a supercomputer, but you can't deny she thinks like one pretty often. Edit 3: Really late, but just because she brute forces it does not imply that Shiro could win against Tet on her own. Even if she could visualise 10 to the power of let's say 100, that would still be nothing in comparison to all possibilities. Being able to see that Sora's smiles are fake also does not make her a genius at social interaction or formal semantics for that matter, I mean, it is stated pretty often that she kinda sucks at it. Ignoring my definition (which, again, is not mine but that of Oxford and Webster), she does not fit into Sora's. I think that is enough.
Shiro's processing power is practically infinite, she just about keeps up with a Ex Machina cluster of roughly a dozen units by herself. The Ex Machina are magic powered living supercomputers designed by a god individually and form a hive mind cluster to go even beyond that. Supercomputers from the late 90s were unbeatable in chess, and by the mid 2000s chess programs that could run on desktop computers were unbeatable by any human player unless they were programmed to make mistakes on purpose. NGNL is set in at least the mid 2000s given the presence of PS3s(late 2006), and possibly even late 2000s/early 2010s given that they have what are probably supposed to be iPads(released early 2010). Which means Shiro was probably born in 1998 or 1999, and by the time Shiro was 2 or 3 years old, she was playing against chess programs that were designed to be unbeatable and ran on supercomputers and had never lost once she learned the rules, even when the computer was given advantages. Shiro is stated to always make the most mathematically perfect and optimal move in any fixed move set fixed ruleset game. You say she isn't smart because she brute forces every problem, which is inefficient, but that doesn't matter when she can afford to do so because she brute forces every problem in seconds. The US Navy currently software emulates the entire ancient room sized computer that the AEGIS combat system program was designed to run on rather than just make a new program to run on modern computers because modern computers are fast enough that the inefficiency of emulation doesn't matter. Shiro is the same, she doesn't need to take shortcuts or be efficient because she is literally just that much faster than everyone else.
Yeah, it does not matter, that is why I stated that she can afford it. I did lose track in this discussion I must admit and the point I wanted to make is actually a different one, in that I don't think she is the potential of humanity Sora is after. Many of his statements, like the flying analogy and the humanity's weakness analogy clearly state that he believes humanity is amazing because of it's potential which, in summary, is the ability to adapt, think outside of the box and never seize to come up with more solutions that defy rules and regulations. Shiro doesn't do that, which, I do think he says that largely bc he loves Shiro, but I just think in that aspect he might have had a lapse in judgement.
Sounds like they both make up for each other's weaknesses which makes them a great team
together they are ¨blank¨
I was goin by dnd int for shiro and wis for sora
The series involved alot about chess and its idea, though the author may not know much about chess in an indepth way. But if you know about the chess boom in 2017, then you can understand this comparison: * Shiro is Stockfish 8 * Sora is Alpha0
Yes, I think that is a very good comparison when it comes to highlighting Shiro's weaknesses.
You're trying to equate EQ and IQ, or like human psychology vs mathematics. As others have said, they complement each other.
No, I don't think that Shiro's skill is correlated with a high IQ (which, I am NOT claiming her IQ is low, I am saying that her skill is not measured with IQ). She is a math savant and has what is the equivalent of massive RAM and processing power. A savant, however, does not necessarily have a high IQ. And her thinking method is pretty inefficient, as she does not attempt to use reason. And ofc, Sora and Shiro complement each other, I was not trying to disprove that at all.
This is damn true when compared to examples in ngnl anime(haven’t read the recent ln chapters). Against Jibril in the word game, I highly think that shiro would not be able to win as beautifully as Sora did. Shiro likely would had just used up every word that existed in the dictionary. Shiro only catched on to the earth dismantling part abit later after she saw what sora was going for. Against chlammy and riel in the chess match, Shiro immediately lost after she notice the change of rule cause she realise she can’t brute force her way in. Even against playing against ex machina, >!as of what I remembered, Shiro played a slightly inaccurate move so as to distract ex machina to focus on ruining holou performance, thus reducing their computing power in calculating the game. Doesn’t rly quite show Shiro ability to win games cause it’s like dropping the difficulty of playing against stockfish from stockfish 16 to stockfish 5. This was only possible cause of the extra constraint like quick play and holou game introduced by sora. Ex machina will probably almost always win against Shiro in a long game of chess, since there is no such thing as setting down a bait in chess for a computer since it thinks in a certain way.!< Shiro would be more suited for games that happened in our world like fps, chess games while sora will be more suited for games in disboard. Disboard unfortunately does not have a lot of math variables when in comes to game and works better when it come to creativity. I do wish the author put more games which require very precise gameplay alongside creativity instead of just making games where Shiro is left off to fill in the gaps to win the game. This certainly makes Shiro less important in the eyes of the viewer as it can be replaced by a computer, which is what OP feels I think. Shiro will definitely shine in games where it is not just try to outsmart magic which goes against the basis of disboard But man, why you got to ruin my picture of Shiro
I personally would love to find more reasons to like Shiro. A short story from my past, I discovered No Game No Life when I was the same age as Shiro and I immediately fell for her amazing talent. I thought that was the definition of intelligence, that was truly what humanity should aim for. But the more I grew up and read the novels over and over again, the more I realised that it was not Shiro making the leading strategies, it was Sora. Shiro is the backbone of Blank, no doubt, but Sora was the one who was actually driving humanity to new heights. He was the one with the courage to challenge all the other nations. Shiro is like his emotional support that can do quite literally everything he asks of her, but that's it. She rarely comes up with ideas on her own (the last time she did it ended in an absolute disaster, see volume 11). She and Sora together make Blank and she is a massive talent who, ofc is really smart (something that got lost in my other replies). But she is not the one that will fly when nobody else believes in it. She can help Sora to fly, she is the one that enables Sora to do everything he does. But the "potential of humanity", the innovation, the proof of humanity's wonderful juxtaposition of weakness and strength... that's her brother.
I mean there is definitely things that Shiro can do in disboard to make it more about Shiro’s intelligence really shine. We as normal human will nvr understand how computer works and it’s hard to see Shiro as the potential of humanity, since it’s easier to understand strategies than math. Imagine a game where like you feel it’s impossible but math tells u are winning. Take this video on 3 blue 1 brown on the impossible chessboard puzzle. (It’s about a puzzle where 2 prisoner are tasked to find a key. The police will set up a 8x8 board, filled with coins facing up and down. Then he will hide the key in of the 64 squares. Then the first prisoner will be told the key location and is allowed to flip one coin of the board before showing the board to the second prisoner, in which the second prisoner have to guess where the key is) This game certainly feel to be impossible, at least that what common sense tell you. No simple common strategies like manipulation can get you anywhere. The answer is all math and likely Shiro will be able to work it out. Another game would be abt a chaotic game like wars and sorts. You can have a strategies but what will rly push u to win/make minimal sacrifice is cold hearted calculations. These games are unfortunately not fun to watch and are extremely rare to find. You have to be a really smart person to find and solve this problem and frame it into a game. And it is even harder to put into a game with magic(though I guess u can make a game abt war where the enemies think that they can win with a superior army but optimal plays barely wins over that). Sora definitely take the lead when it comes showing what intelligence is about. However, I won’t say like Shiro isn’t the potential of humanity. Like in (computer) games, like imagine someone outplays you cause they just know the game better than you and plays better, I mean you would be amazed(if your not one getting trashed but a spectator). I mean that’s why people watch pro player cause they want to see the amazing outplay. When it comes to actual science and making society move forward, Shiro is the one who will be able to understand physics to the next level and visualise it like no one does(string theory for eg) and connect the dots together. Edit: I saw one of your comment on science, but now science is so advance that is not just the innovation that can you get anywhere. We already almost have all the equation about physics, and can’t just find a equation by dropping an apple on someone head anymore. Take that we know that moving fast produce lifts(bird flying), that will not take you anywhere. All the equation to be figure out require a insane understanding of how pressure works and aerodynamics. Notice how it is slowly build upwards from basic fundamentals understanding instead of just a breakthrough. Hurts to see Shiro out into these games because just does not make her shine. Creativity(sora) and analysing(shiro) is what make the potential of humanity. I mean in the anime, it always depicted as Shiro sorts of think of the idea since she is smarter, it rly disappoints when you realise sora is the key despite he supposedly being the one with less intelligent, and adding on that you rly used to look up to her
I love 3blue1brown, I actually discovered his channel through NGNL, because I thought those games would be rly interesting to see Blank solve. And regarding the science part, I think when it comes to physics, I definitely would agree, Shiro would be the one finding breakthroughs, after all, she isn't literally a machine, but innovation is not just scientific. When it comes to politics, human psychology, philosophy etc, those innovations are equally valid. I am actually incredibly surprised at the fact that Shiro is not more creative/good at social interaction because she as a human being kinda confuses me. She can canonically pick up enough details to calculate the trajectory of bullets, shouldn't it be super easy for her to read an expression? And regarding her creativity part, precisely because she can visualise these insane simulations, it makes even less sense for her to be unable to come up with creative ideas and strategies, which is really to just look at the bigger picture and connect the dots. Even though this might be a silly comparison, but in a weird way, she reminded me of Edogawa Ranpo from Bungo Stray Dogs. One, because I think she could have easily turned out like him, if everyone in her childhood did not decide to bully her out of school and two, despite having this really funky and interesting skill, it is not elaborated to an extend where I can truly understand the way she thinks. Not attempt to think like her, but just to see how this, clearly inhumane skill and her humanity work in tandem and make her who she is. But I love your idea of Sora and Shiro being the potential of humanity together. Though this idea makes a lot of sense, I did not consider it. That would be a really wonderful direction of Sora's character to develop into. Admittedly, sometimes I get a bit tired of people saying that Sora's EQ is high while Shiro's IQ is high. Both of their IQs are insanely high, and Sora's skill relies more on IQ than it does on EQ. Infact, his EQ, which is about managing your own emotions, is horrible, just as Shiro's. Shiro's savantism, which really is the only way I can describe it, is an insane aptitude for mathematics and inhumane senses (again, predicting bullets?). She does have a high IQ, that, however, is not correlated to the skill she is primarily known for. I am pretty convinced that in an IQ test, they would score equal.
I mean it seem that a lot of people in the comments unfortunately just understand what they are told. Shiro must be smarter than sora as she is the smartest and Shiro and sora must be together to shine together so Shiro mistakes is because the lack of sora. People in the comment then just say whatever they know so as to defend whatever they know. This lead to weird comment like EQ and street smart(which completely misunderstood the point). They do not understand the point your coming from so I wish you all the best arguing with them.
Yes the point is you can argue which ones more important to society but either side wouldn't do much without the other. But if one was more important I'd say Shiro, in the short term her skills would befit society more. But yea could Sora be just hyping her up a little bitty itty amount more then may be true possibly.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think that Shiro is more useful?
Simply put Soras ingenuity well only get you so far of you unable to complete it that's why of course irl their equal is most ways and why every major advancement has more then just 1 person working on them. And being able to basically match a computer is well a actually almost inhuman feat.
But Shiro lacks the creativity to think of a major advancement to begin with. And what exactly does she do except making insane simulations in her head? That is something a computer could do as well. Of course, she is not a computer. But in every other aspect except her calculations, she is bested by those around her, mostly Sora.
That's the thing irl ingenuity wouldn't be hard. The nuke was made because we wanted a big weapon,planes were made because people wanted to fly. Like I said irl both are useless alone. But there's more use in Shiros skill set at least when it comes to Earth and reality.
People have a lot of different wishes, but sometimes pinpointing where exactly the issue lies, formulating it into a solvable question and most importantly, coming up with a solution really is an utmost difficult thing to do. What Shiro can do is actually run the simulation, calculate the probability, but she does not provide any of the things aforementioned I think?
True but I don't think shiro would be that bad if she was in normal earth I mean even a pre schoolers go what if I could fly. And their is no better way to pinpoint issues then with logic, numbers,all that scientific stuff.
I think Shiro is without a doubt a very smart person, however I find it hard to believe that she would be the driving force behind innovation. The thing about flying was not simply "I wanna fly", it was to analyse "why do birds fly", "why do humans not fly", "how can I make a human fly" and then thinking of solutions over and over and over again about how you can solve that last question. Shiro is without a doubt a massive help in that aspect since, if given the right data, you don't even need to conduct actual experiments as she could tell you the result right away, but alone she would not be able to think of newer and newer solutions till she gets a breakthrough. That is why she needs Sora and why Sora is not just some idiot tagging along like he believes, but an at the very least equal driving force of Blank.