What is Intelligence?

[couch-potato]

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)
All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

From: Asimov, "What is Intelligence?" (http://www.haverford.edu/writingprogram/Asimov.html)

[iStaaHi]

yeh,, i know what your sayin,, people are on diffeeertn planes of education,, klike, they might be as smart at knowing shit, they know different things tho,, i dono, im pretty stonde,, i know whta your sayin tho

[samostalan]

In my eyes, as long as you don't posses ignorance, you have intelligence. But intelligence differs from person to person; everyone specializes in their subject of choice. I agree with that entry though, pretty interesting way of looking at it.

[Breukelen advocaat]

The only requirement to join MENSA is a high IQ. Many of it's members are just regular people.

From their website:



There is simply no one prevailing characteristic of Mensa members other than high IQ...........Mensans range in age from 4 to 94, but most are between 20 and 60. In education they range from preschoolers to high school dropouts to people with multiple doctorates. There are Mensans on welfare and Mensans who are millionaires. As far as occupations, the range is staggering. Mensa has professors and truck drivers, scientists and firefighters, computer programmers and farmers, artists, military people, musicians, laborers, police officers, glassblowers--the diverse list goes on and on. There are famous Mensans and prize-winning Mensans, but there are many whose names you wouldn't know.Mensa Information (http://www.mensa.org/index0.php?page=10)

[Coelho]

"Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

Man... thats true indeed... most people who are too educated ends being lost in their own knowledge, and simply cant think in simple ways. Ive noticed it with my teachers. As more highly educated they were (Several PhDs, etc), harder they were to understand. Yet as less educated, easier they were to understand. Both could teach the same subjects, but the more educated ones would complicate it more.
The only ones who are not this way are the true geniuses, who can solve the hardest problems thinking in the simplest ways.

[organick]

Asimov, Rodale, this place gives me hope for the human race yet, peace out growers.

[psychocat]

IMO Intelligence isn't worth a thing if it isn't coupled with common sense.
I have often been told in my life that I am very intelligent but it hasn't prevented me making some very stupid mistakes. :D

[eggrole1]

Last time I took one of those tests I was so baked and got 142 I think lol. Ever since I was a little kid I scored high in stuff like SAT test etc.

I agree that your IQ generally doens't make you a smart or dumb person, and that the higher/lower it is the more difficulty you have "connecting" with people simply because after about 30 points difference there is a large enough gap in the way people think it is hard for them to relate.

I for example possess litle to no "common sense". I don't remember birthdays, phone numbers, hell I get lost all the time minutes from my house on commonly traveled roads. At the same time I can rattle off facts that pertain to things I deem fit to remember and are generally more acedemic in nature.

The point I wanted to make it that IQ is a rating that (i think) is more about your potential to learn. In your mechanic example, you have the potential to learn to do the same work as they do but they may not have the potential to be a physicist for example.

These tests generally looks at the approach you take to problem solving, more than the solution itself.

[twitch]

the ability to learn from ur mistakes

[psychocat]

the ability to learn from ur mistakes

Very intelligent answer. :thumbsup:

[lostegg]

As an Art Education major here is a quick definition of intelligence. In short, my view of intelligence is the ability to learn, adapt, and think critically in any given situation.

Just my quick thought.

[deaner]

very nice definition egg. this place helps prove my arguement that stoners (and alot of other "drug" users) as well are more intelligent than the rest. i keep trying, but dang, ding ding, im toast. we have no intelligence, our brains can only adapt, learn through experience and create a world that makes sense, intelligence shines brightest in folks that reject that world, and seek some other meaning. but all the feelings we have i believe are created in our brains, to survive, reproduce, the only thing left for me to wonder is where does the need to reproduce come from?, or even the need to survive, if its all programmed in as i believe, then its mainly for the purpose of those 2 things, every emotion we have can be attributed to a survival instinct, pretty much. everythings automated, intelligence is only there when we stop the picture, say to ourselves "what the fuck is all this?" "why am i feeling the urge to reproduce?" "is jesus white, black, and what about santa??" "why do i love this person, and not everyone else?" "how much wood coulda wood.. you feelin me? its the questions, the wonderers that have intelligence, everybody else is a monkey. artificial intelligence and human intelligence are not much different, ones just organic, the other is uh, un-organic, sorry if this all sounds like bullshit but im pretty much "to' up from tha flo' up", nevertheless :detective1:, its all true, ah, the reason for our instinctive desire to reproduce is that its actually programmed into our dna and shit, so we all got the same drive pretty much wired in, we are all connected to our need to breed, and its not even us as individuals but our whole species. kinda creepy to me, but im probably a nutcase. :yippee: and baked.

[eggrole1]

I like the theory there. I subscribe to the school of thought that there is an underlying (un)consciouness that we are all hooked up to even if you don't realize. That is how I explain things like instinct abnd the desire to breed on the basic level.

The problem then starts with social conditioning. I for one think it is almost iresponsible to have children in today's global climate (political and literal). Over population is a real concern and even if people realize that on an instinct level, you are hammered on from day 1 "how you are supposed to live". For most people that means: school-job-marry-kids-etc.

"intelligence shines brightest in folks that reject that world'

Love that, but I am a bit biased lol!

[psychocat]

I don't believe it is possible to measure intelligence , who is more intelligent the poet or the surgeon ?
I believe :
To assume you are more intelligent seems somewhat arrogant , and to attempt to convince others of your superiority only highlights your ignorance.. .. :D

[fenderninja]

I think it's funny how because this thread is on intelligence, everyone is using correct grammar and punctuation. Haha!

[Darth Vapor]

Very intelligent answer. :thumbsup:

Actually, it's not. Learning from your mistakes is an example of wisdom, not intelligence.

[psychocat]

Actually, it's not. Learning from your mistakes is an example of wisdom, not intelligence.

Stupidity is repeating the same acts and expecting different results.
The fact that stupid people will always make the same mistakes means that it requires the intelligence and ability to learn to know you are responsible for your own actions ..

[hydronutes]

There should be a couple of holes in this to help open a can of worms for the sake of posts on intelligence.

Ability to put 2+2 together in a way that impresses or benefits you or others.

This allows you to be good at math and be intelligent but appear not intelligent to a small sample of society because everyone you choose to hang around with looks down on math or can not do it themselves. Since as a group no math will be done then the groups would see that 'skill and ability' as worthless.
Someone greatly musical is often considered stupid or lazy by people who are non-musical. If people can not see your work try to understand why.

A monkey in a cage had a peanut at the bottom of a glass tube.
No- he did not use a stick with something sticky or a hook on the end.
He ran to the drinking fountain, filled his mouth with water and filled the tube. Did you think of that? :)

Intelligence is almost definable.
Some holes are left above (I do not agree 100% with it) so folks can elaborate on this post if desired.

As for awareness and consciousness even the best scientists argue whether quantum mechanics plays any part in the functioning of our neurons firing.

A lab has almost copied a rats entire neural network into some giant computers and will run the rat soon. I suspect it will behave and learn exactly as the rat and it will think its a rat as much as a rat thinks lol.
If it does not do that then it gives credit to souls and quantum energy for complex organisms.
Being made from waffles and wine myself in a belly I lean toward myself being a robot who is deluded into believing he has free will.
What we believe is now happened 1/10th of a second ago- thats fact. Our mind shifts time for us to match our senses together and the entire process takes time.

My goal as an artificial intelligence researchers is to prove the smallest circuit of consciousness. If it is an illusion then what is the smallest number of interconnections that is aware.
Note that when you stub your toe you are not painting or being creative but still believe you are aware. You do not have to be creative or offer anything intellectually to call yourself conscious by that logic.

Ive given up on the goal anyway :)
When you try to believe and see evidence you are a robot you get a sick feeling and a dislike for the subject.
If you start to see some of your inner processes working a 'fear flash' kicks in and you are pushed back home from the road blocks at the end of the matrix. :rastasmoke:

It takes big balls and intellect to seek knowledge which is beyond mans everyday common logical steps of greed.