Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jackrabbit]

Plus I just like seeing the brains in this forum smash into each other with great force AND BURN.

More accurate.

More, more accurate.

[Armok]

THis is an intresting topic, but the question is actually somewhat wrongly asked.
There is no objective absolute definition of intelligence corresponding to some physical characteristic, intelligence comes in many forms, and each have many subtypes wich in turn have subtypes and so on in an almost fractal pattern, and on top of it they are highly interconecting, and what people usually mean by "intelegent" is peaple who have a large amaount of most of them.

Some of the most importnant  broad categories are:
- knowledge, raw information, learning
- "CPU speed", how fast and much you can think, how large your working memory is, etc. If you duble you patience and put you in some kind of time bubble were time goes twice as fast you have in effect dubled this. Mesured fairly well by IQ tests.
- something whos name for the moment slip my mind, at medium levels usualy called common sense, made up by things like willpower, rationality, sound priorities, intuition, and the ability to ultilize the other kinds of intelegence properly, and aply them to situations rather than letting them lay idle.
- Metacognition, basicaly how to use the CPU speed and memory efficently, it is the skill and knowledge on how to think better.
- Wisdom, basicaly a grasp on life, reality, morality, and existential issues. It does not neceserly mean you are right at all, the greatest peaple (Not necesrly leaeders, mind you) of most religeons are usualy extremly wise, but an equal % of atheists are as well. Medetation or similar mental states suposedly improve this.
- Experience, having seen what actualy hapened in previus situations is of great help to figuring you what to do in future similar ones. Note that this does not always need to be personal, you can have seen it hapen to somone or even just read it in a history book.
- skill(s), this is the category for types of intelegence that help in a particulart task and can be lerned with practice, and yes many mental skills have to basicaly be seen as intelegence.
- creativity, the ability to randomly come up with new concepts and configurations out of thin air, and determining if they are usefull ones to keep and act upon, or random junk to forget again.

This is just some broad strokes towards general directions, and neither precice nor acurate nor 100% true, just some generalizations that shuld give you a fair idea. It could also be argued that some of these things are causes of intelegence, or results of intelegence, rather than actual intelegence itself.

[Emperor_Jonathan]

Pretty much what Armok said sums up my opinion, however I don't define so many intelligences.

However.

In my opinion an IQ test is an outdated and limited system to measure intelligence, intelligence comes in many forms, not just your "CPU Speed", as Armok puts it. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, of which I prefer, proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These are:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

I would make a large wall of text but I'm tired.

[bjlong]

In the fairly-recent past, intelligence was how much knowledge one had. Smartness was how much knowledge one could quickly attain and synthesize.

To put things into perspective, trivia contests test only intelligence. Research takes some intelligence, but a lot more smartness. Groundbreaking ideas require intelligence, smartness, and society being on the cusp of change--such as the technological innovations in use during the American Civil war. General Lee, despite whatever political hoo-ha he was mixed up in, was brilliant because he could see what to change, versus most other Generals, who only thought in terms of charging and retreating. (The same thing could be said of Grant, but his main innovation throwing regiment after regiment at Lee's army, because his men were expendable.)

[Ai Shizuka]

Can't define intelligence, for there are many kinds of it.

First of all, IQ tests mean absolutely squat, and I generally get >140 scores (I bet a lot of people on this board get high scores).
A high IQ score doesn't mean you understand things that other people don't. You can just elaborate them faster and with a more effective logic "stream". 90 IQ person will still solve the quiz, but in 5x the time and with MUCH more effort.

Now on the real topic. You can have a 190 IQ person, totally handicapped in "daily things" logic.
Real-life example. I work with horses in the Army. A lot of kids (18-22 years old) come in and out of this place for their 1st year of service, so I can observe a lot of different personalities in an unusual working set-up (vast majority of them have never had anything to do with horses). Now on the two "extremes" of personality. You can see the very smart kid with super-high quiz scores, but he's totally fucking challenged in anything manual. After two months he still doesn't know how to saddle a horse, put things all in the wrong places and generally pull off stupid shit like standing 50 cm behind a horse surrounded by flies.
The kid is not stupid, but he's simply unable to put his intelligence in action.

Then there's the opposite. Kid dumb as a brick wall. You think you are talking with a caveman but he surprisingly learns how to do everything in two weeks. Then you can leave him in charge for the week-end and on monday everything's fine, while smart kid n.1 is still trying to figure how to enter a box without crushing himself between the horse and the doorjamb.
This kid will never figure how to solve some logic quiz, but has great "pratical" intelligence for manual work (wich is not necessarily dull or repetitive).

Obviously those two are the extremes and there are all the intermediate personalities. There are people with both brain and manual intelligence (like myself  ). But wich one is smarter between these two? I know I can't pick one.

Then there's the culture factor. A person may know a lot of things, read a lot and generally have a good general culture, but can still be totally stupid. Maybe he simply looks smart, but he's just got a very good memory and can quote things he's read 15 years ago.

Common sense. Smart people still do stupid shit. If you did not figure it yet, I consider myself a smart person. But I still drive at 190kmh on the highway, and that's definitely NOT a smart thing to do. I often drink myself to oblivion with my friends and, again, that's not a smart thing to do.

And, finally, there's what in my opinion discerns intelligence from genius. Creativity. The greatest minds in human history have always been smart people with the capacity to put their gift in action on something totally new and original.

Yeah, wall of text and probably multiple grammar/spelling mistakes. Not my first language, sorry about them.
To sum it up, you can't define intelligence. There are many different kinds of it.

[blah28722]

Intelligence is an incredibly vague word that doesn't properly define anything.

It's like trying to define "strong", "tough", and "fast".

There's way too many different ways to be smart/intelligent for it to be measured effectively.

Although I'd say intelligence represents book smarts in the scientific area, because it seems to be used a lot for that case.

[Muz]

Well, you can measure strong, tough, fast easily enough. Intelligence is one of the things I'd rather avoid. I mean people have been trying to measure it for ages. IQ, multiple intelligences, level of education, ivy league universities, street smarts, wisdom, language skill. All of these measurement methods have their own really annoying flaws.

I dunno.. from what I've seen, it's sort of like religion. People will interpret it to convince other people of what they want to believe.

[blah28722]

Well, you can measure strong, tough, fast easily enough.

It's easy to measure specific versions of these, but it's hard to measure "strong" as a vague concept.

For example, "strong" can be represented by weight lifting (which has like 6 billion versions), mental strength, pain tolerance, discipline, numbers, and others that I can't really think of right now.

"Fast" can be running speed, punching speed, dexterity (say, magicians), and quick thinking.

[Jreengus]

It's already been said but I'll say it again. IQ tests are stupid ways to measure intelligence. I personally score low on them because I can't keep my mind focused. Anyone who has read Terry Pratchet think Leonard of Quirm, My mind jumps about way too much for me to focus on the question. This also tends to screw up my ability to revise for tests, combined with my terrible procrastination and I really annoy teachers. I'll be hailed as on of their smartest students due to my ability to pick up information and concepts incredibly fast, and even carry on those concepts to their logical conclusion without having to be told. But I then go and do badly in the exams.

[Zironic]

It should be proven though actions not meaningless tests.

[Sordid]

It's already been said but I'll say it again. IQ tests are stupid ways to measure intelligence. I personally score low on them because I can't keep my mind focused. Anyone who has read Terry Pratchet think Leonard of Quirm, My mind jumps about way too much for me to focus on the question. This also tends to screw up my ability to revise for tests, combined with my terrible procrastination and I really annoy teachers. I'll be hailed as on of their smartest students due to my ability to pick up information and concepts incredibly fast, and even carry on those concepts to their logical conclusion without having to be told. But I then go and do badly in the exams.

That's not how IQ tests work.

[Jreengus]

They're timed right? The time it takes me to complete the first question if I'd been focused I could have finished the whole thing.

[blah28722]

Their timed right? The time it takes me to complete the first question if I'd been focused I could have finished the whole thing.

The questions take, like, two seconds to answer and it's mostly coming to the logical conclusion of something.

It's not so much a matter of focus as the ability to solve through logic.

[Jreengus]

Well put simply by the time I finish reading the question my mind is already wandering. If I tried one under proper exam conditions I would probably do better as I can focus somewhat ebtter.

[Jude]

Pretty much what Armok said sums up my opinion, however I don't define so many intelligences.

However.

In my opinion an IQ test is an outdated and limited system to measure intelligence, intelligence comes in many forms, not just your "CPU Speed", as Armok puts it. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, of which I prefer, proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These are:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

I would make a large wall of text but I'm tired.

This is the one I was talking about. As I said, it's going in the right direction but still falls into the trap of trying to lump multiple diverse abilities into a single "intelligence." Unless two abilities ALWAYS covary with each other, they should be considered separate abilities, separate modules, separate intelligences, what have you.

For example, Logical-mathematical intelligence fails on me since I can think plenty logically, but as soon as numbers or equations enter the picture, my brain blanks and I can't do jack.