So far we have decided the smartest person can be found by:
Intelligence=content knowledge x creative strategy x working memory x processing speed
The most intelligent person is able to maximize all of these and is able to reduce and alter them at will for certain purposes. The most exclusive factor is that of producing creative algorithms and it is the most missing and undervalued in our educational system. Working memory and processing speed appear to be largely biological and secondly path-dependent development. Content knowledge depends on what one is exposed to. While the content of science and education appear most important in our environment, someone without education could take content simply from experience and be highly intelligent without formal education. Creativity may have some biological aspects also, since it seems to run in families affected by bipolar and schizophrenic disorders, most prominent in those with traits but not the full debilitating disorder.
Now to frame all this is epistemological sophistication which is one's ability to think about the frame in which knowledge and intelligence manifests. It can be also called one's philosophy of knowledge. As an example, being able to think about thinking is sophistication. Being able to see how religions develop and function is sophistication while interpreting the world from only a religious context, as fundamentalists do is a lack of sophistication. Why? Because the person who understands religion is able to interpret the world from an outside context and can predict the less sophisticated person's beliefs. In other words, the more sophisticated person's understanding contains all of the other person's understanding and more. Those who think science is truth are similarly fundamentalist and do not have a wider frame such as a background in philosophy of science to be able to see science from a wider perspective. There are fundamentalist scientists, fundamentalist vegans, fundamentalists atheists, etc. What they have in common is a simple interpretation of the world, no different than any other religion.
Right and Wrong
People who think in terms of right and wrong mean, right and wrong according to some system which they believe to rule the universe. Since humans are unable to know the universe that fully, anyone who knows right and wrong is deluded, thinking that some system be it science or religion or politics has figured out the world and you need but believe in them and you too have the knowledge of god, knowing good and bad. This is foolishness, be it science or religion.
There is right and wrong only according to some logical system, and none of these systems is the full truth of the universe. However, when two people agree to use a particular system, you can certainly be correct or incorrect about what statements are true according to that system. Since people most often agree on certain logical systems, in conversation, one can certainly be right and another person wrong because you both agree on the logical systems to use, one person is simply misusing those systems or making a logical error. Example, 1 + 1 = 2. We are agreeing to use certain number systems and according to those systems, this is the correct answer.
Those who think right and wrong are simply objective and determined by a god or by the universe are most likely deluded. The use of the terms right and wrong are also mainly social and do not even attempt to contain the full truth of the universe, hence, it has too low an information resolution to even refer to objective truth. Something like E = MC2 may attempt to assert a universal truth, but look at how more detailed and specific that is than something like is gay marriage right or wrong. There is clearly no universal truth about that. No planner of the universe writes E=MC2 then next to that writes, 'and gay marriage is wrong' like these are equal informationally and both absolutely true.
Condescension and the Kruger Effect
The idea here is similar to Piaget's stages of cognitive development. The fundamentalist is stuck in the concrete operational stage, knowing of only one logical system, and believing that system controls the universe and further that he has access to it directly or through a preacher or a god. The fundamentalist vegan feels as if the universe itself has told him meat-eating is wrong under all circumstances and that is a truth equal to E=MC2. The man of epistemological sophistication understands the fundamentalists narrow mind frame and much more, and therefore cannot help but to condescend to that person as an adult cannot help but condescend to a child.
An easy example is say there is a tribe that lives in the middle east and they think that this is the entire earth, yet you have traveled all over the earth and know how big it is, it's shape, and that the middle east is only a small part of it. When these persons argue about the world and it's constitution, you can't help but condescend, even if you say nothing. You simply have much greater knowledge and perspective and you will not soon convince them that their small slice of the earth isn't even the tip of the iceberg.
Another example, the person who understands how religions evolve and develop and how people become indoctrinated can only listen to two religious people argue over whether Mary was a virgin or not, because they are arguing over something that only has a low-resolution answer, an answer he can't take seriously. Two vegan/vegetarians may argue over whether it is right or wrong to consume milk. Again, the sophisticated person knows there is no objective right or wrong to the question, it is a matter rather of negotiating what logical systems they agree on and according to those systems, which behavior has the impact they desire. Some people understand this when they say such and such is 'right', while others think that it's 'rightness' is just guarnteed by god, the universe, or platonic forms or some other nonsense. The man of greatest epistemological sophistication condescends in discussion with those with lower sophistication most often by remaining silent, just as adults rarely enter the arguments of children.
Even if one decided and tried very hard not to condescend knowing the lesser individual had greater popular backing, that would merely more condescension, the others ignorance being so great one need not try to overcome it.
This unfortunately may create a Kruger effect in areas such as religion and politics. "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate." The fundamentalist is almost always the loudest and is often the person who most greatly lacks understanding. He is so ignorant, he thinks he knows everything. It's important we guard against that such that we are not led by idiots. However, such ignorance is often taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. For example, to get people to fight in wars, to work terrible jobs for low pay, to get people to vote against their own interests, one uses fundamentalist rhetoric and the absolute conviction of the idiot to sway the masses. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the idiot fundamentalist from the unscrupulous puppet-master. One imagines someone like Karl Rove is a puppet-master whose understanding contains evangelic beliefs but who must himself be too intelligent to believe such things. However, it's difficult to tell. Likewise, it would seem someone like George W. Bush is a true fundamentalist believer, lacking sophistication and praying for his god to make magical things happen for him as he sends innocent people to war against other innocent people. That kinda lack of sophistication is obviously dangerous for someone with that kind of power. Yet such a person is easily used by the unscrupulous who really only want to profit from such a war and the subsequent destruction.
In current news, Kim Davis, the glorified and holy court clerk is probably an unsophisticated idiot, believing fully in some narrow interpretation of scripture when it suits her, but Mike Huckabee who flies in to take advantage of the situation may be an unscrupulous profiteer, although he seems none too sophisticated himself.
One does not personally want to be used as such a tool so epistemological sophistication is necessary.
Next we will talk about ways to increase intelligence.
Thanks for reading,
DF Seldon
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Who is Smartest, part 2, Information Resolution
What is information resolution?
Here is a comment I made in response to a comment about self-interest being everyone's main motivation.
"If everything you do is self-interest, then self-interest loses it's meaning. The point being made is that one easy way to reason is to assume everything one does is self-interested, and I get the point, it just becomes meaningless when you scrutinize it. What is it when one does something for others? Sacrifices oneself to pain and death? You can say, well you're doing it for your genes or to satisfy some dream of power. So what? That doesn't mean it's not altruistic. Altruistic cannot mean, 'done with no other motivations except to help others,' nor can self interest mean 'done with no other motivations except to help oneself,', everything is done with multiple motivations, and also, motivation is a low-resolution model of understanding human action. We know of chemical and even possible quantum things going on in the brain, yet we still speak of motivations and self-interest. This is ancient philosophy and from a time when they actually did not know about neurotransmitters, chemistry, and physics. It's folk psychology."
I said that the term 'motivation' has low information resolution. Lower resolution than say, 'dopamine'. What is meant by this?
It means that the term 'motivation' comes from an information system, a system of language to explain human behavior that has a a small number of not well-defined information points. These are beliefs, desires, emotions, and words for experiences of humans. It is a logical system that includes such words as remorse, guilt, freewill, etc. All of these have been critiqued and they are basically ancient folk psychology and philosophy. However, it is still how we speak and partly how we understand the world. Hence a motivation isn't really something that exists, it is part of an interactive behavioral and information system that people use who have our language and culture. It is easy to imagine a culture where there is no such word that really corresponds to 'motivation'. In the language of brain science, there is basically no such term, although when we talk across information systems, motivation appears to be linked to dopamine. However, motivation comes from a primitive information system while dopamine comes from a much more definite information system that includes chemical and atomic structure, with lots of strict definitions and data points. This is what is meant by information resolution.
The term is borrowed from television resolution and it basically means the same thing. A 1080p screen is 1920 pixels across by 1080down, for a total of 2,073,600 pixels. That is 2 million information points, with each pixel being able to display various colors. Contrast that with a screen with only 16 pixels which can display only 4 colors each.
A concept like 'motivation' is like a display on a screen with only 16 pixels, and a term like dopamine is like a display on a screen with over 2 million pixels. There are more information points and the points are more definite.
Who is smartest?
Some people use language with low information resolution and basically speak and operate on lower information. Some people think that language is one big information system where every word has a definite meaning that has been worked out and put in a dictionary and all of these meanings correspond to the real world. That is akin to believing in Santa Claus but it may be the default position of persons in the western world. It is low information resolution and faith that someone, a god-like entity, has created the world from language and named everything in English.
The smartest person uses advanced and appropriate information resolution and is aware there are different information systems aka language games at play in both colloquial and technical speech.
Next, we will talk about epistemological sophistication as it relates to intelligence. Have fun friends. Also, since this is a noots blog, I will look at some noots and see if they may increase intelligence.
Thanks friends.
DF Seldon.
Please leave a comment here or on facebook!
Here is a comment I made in response to a comment about self-interest being everyone's main motivation.
"If everything you do is self-interest, then self-interest loses it's meaning. The point being made is that one easy way to reason is to assume everything one does is self-interested, and I get the point, it just becomes meaningless when you scrutinize it. What is it when one does something for others? Sacrifices oneself to pain and death? You can say, well you're doing it for your genes or to satisfy some dream of power. So what? That doesn't mean it's not altruistic. Altruistic cannot mean, 'done with no other motivations except to help others,' nor can self interest mean 'done with no other motivations except to help oneself,', everything is done with multiple motivations, and also, motivation is a low-resolution model of understanding human action. We know of chemical and even possible quantum things going on in the brain, yet we still speak of motivations and self-interest. This is ancient philosophy and from a time when they actually did not know about neurotransmitters, chemistry, and physics. It's folk psychology."
I said that the term 'motivation' has low information resolution. Lower resolution than say, 'dopamine'. What is meant by this?
It means that the term 'motivation' comes from an information system, a system of language to explain human behavior that has a a small number of not well-defined information points. These are beliefs, desires, emotions, and words for experiences of humans. It is a logical system that includes such words as remorse, guilt, freewill, etc. All of these have been critiqued and they are basically ancient folk psychology and philosophy. However, it is still how we speak and partly how we understand the world. Hence a motivation isn't really something that exists, it is part of an interactive behavioral and information system that people use who have our language and culture. It is easy to imagine a culture where there is no such word that really corresponds to 'motivation'. In the language of brain science, there is basically no such term, although when we talk across information systems, motivation appears to be linked to dopamine. However, motivation comes from a primitive information system while dopamine comes from a much more definite information system that includes chemical and atomic structure, with lots of strict definitions and data points. This is what is meant by information resolution.
The term is borrowed from television resolution and it basically means the same thing. A 1080p screen is 1920 pixels across by 1080down, for a total of 2,073,600 pixels. That is 2 million information points, with each pixel being able to display various colors. Contrast that with a screen with only 16 pixels which can display only 4 colors each.
A concept like 'motivation' is like a display on a screen with only 16 pixels, and a term like dopamine is like a display on a screen with over 2 million pixels. There are more information points and the points are more definite.
Who is smartest?
Some people use language with low information resolution and basically speak and operate on lower information. Some people think that language is one big information system where every word has a definite meaning that has been worked out and put in a dictionary and all of these meanings correspond to the real world. That is akin to believing in Santa Claus but it may be the default position of persons in the western world. It is low information resolution and faith that someone, a god-like entity, has created the world from language and named everything in English.
The smartest person uses advanced and appropriate information resolution and is aware there are different information systems aka language games at play in both colloquial and technical speech.
Next, we will talk about epistemological sophistication as it relates to intelligence. Have fun friends. Also, since this is a noots blog, I will look at some noots and see if they may increase intelligence.
Thanks friends.
DF Seldon.
Please leave a comment here or on facebook!
Monday, September 7, 2015
Who is the smartest? Part 1
Who Has the Greatest Intelligence?
Intelligence is almost certainly not what test makers insist it is, the ability to do cross-word puzzle type mind tricks rife with social bias. It's not IQ, which itself was never an honest creation but a way to discriminate against minorities ethnic, religious, cultural, and racial.
These weak measures of intelligence have received enough criticism and are not taken seriously by the most intelligent persons like Einstein, Feymann, and Gould, but are the darling creation of the establishment-privilege system, whose goal it is to lock others out of privilege by preventing direct competition, hence it will always be a tool of negative discrimination.
When a field really opens up to actual talent, such as in competitive sports, the field immediately becomes incredibly diverse racially, religiously, and ethnically. When a field is not truly open, it remains the province of a particular race and culture. Even in competitive sports, making it to professional levels often requires one to succeed in college in order to play for a college team so even this locks out those who could succeed at basketball but who cannot suceed at college. Why is this necessary? If one is going to play basketball, why don't we just let them show what they got? The ability to succeed at basketball is an intelligence, we shouldn't stop them from doing that because they are no good at the ancient dead language in Beowulf.
What then is intelligence? What is a good intelligence measure?
I propose that intelligence is any way in which a creature uses information and algorithm to produce advantage for itself or others. Thus the most intelligent person is the person who has the most extensive content knowledge and versatile and extensive algorithms. I want to distinguish between content and algorithm. Content is rote knowledge, sometimes in the form of words and numbers (which are actually in the form of unique qualia as they appear phenomenologically), but also as experiences and other qualia and non-phenomenologically may be represented by more fixed structures in the brain. Algorithm is the functions that act upon knowledge to produce new thoughts and strategies and may be represented by unfixed, energetic, mobile and neurogenesis-like aspects of the brain. For example, a basketball player like Michael Jordan appears to move in ways other players don't move, thus he has more content knowlege of different moves and he has more strategies and algorithms to convert the content for different purposes. In contrast, a savant like Kim Peek has lots of content knowledge but very little ability to mutate that content into new and creative strategies. His only strategy was to learn and repeat. This kind of knowledg is often preferred by dominating and oppressive regimes because it produces slave-like behavior. Learn and repeat. Mechanical, like a machine. Most of us would say such action is not intelligence at all, due to a lack or creativity and strategy. Kim Peek was reportedly unable to tie his shoes or dress himself without assistance. There are those who have lots of content and few strategies. There are those who have many creative strategies, but little or non-exclusive content. These aspects are also similar to the idea of crystalized versus fluid intelligence. Some cultures privilege crystalized intelligence or rote content knowledge and others privilege creativity and spontaneity, fluid knowledge. When they combine, one has the greatest intelligence.
Leonardo da Vinci had much to say against the hubris of 'written' knowledge. "Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy— on experience, the mistress of their Masters."
Many people in western civilization believe that knowledge consists of memorizing passages from "great" thinkers and repeating them. This is a past-time of the privileged. People who don't know how to feed and clothe themselves but rely on third-world labor to do that. It is a travesty of justice and intelligence. At any natural diaster, they discover how stupid they really are, as they are unable to survive except by summoning more third world labor by weilding American currency.
It may be hypothesized that popular black culture privileges fluid intelligence, as in freestyle rap. One must create rhymthic and rhyming poetry on the spot, and is penalized for anything that sounds 'written', which is a anathema in freestyle rap competitions. The fluid performance is privileged over rote memorization and performance of rehearsed material. It may also be hypothesized that the dominant white culture privileges rote knowledge and obedience and hence idolize Kim Peek who can memorize and repeat anything but cannot produce any new or creative strategies from the information. These cultures can learn from each other, to maximize both content knowledge and creative algorithms.
Another aspect of great intelligence is working memory. Working memory is the amount of memory and awareness one is able to deal with at one time. As an example of awareness, some people, while writing on a computer are similtaneously aware of their bodily sensations, all of the vibrations in the house and what they may mean, and the vibrations outside, as well as the time, and a host of qualia and memories they are using while working at the computer. Others are aware only of what they are working on and will ignore everything happening around them. This is also why some people can experience dramatically different environments and learn nearly nothing, because they are not taking in and processing new information, but seeing things from a biased point-of-view. As in the 'let them eat cake' quote, such persons even in mortal danger from a starving mob may be unable to comprehend what is happening due to ignorance.
Another aspect is appropriate and versatile processing speed. Being able to process information quickly when needed and slowly when needed. Why slowly? Processing information slowly may allow exposure to more self-knowlege in the form of thoughts and emotions and may allow developments to occur to the problem at hand which may change the circumstances. Life is not always about making quick and rash decisions.
So,
Intelligence = Content x creative algorithm (qualitative) x processing speed
Creative algorithm is qualitative because one very good algorithm to solve a problem is worth a billion worthless algorithms. Quantity of algorithms and the rate at which one can test them mentally is only useful in that it may help produce a useful algorithm. For example 1+1=? One can answer infinite numbers but the only correct answer is 2, according to the number system we are using. Trying different numbers is only useful to the extent that it gets you closer to the correct answer. Very few things in life of course has such definite answers, which is another reason intelligence tests fail to measure how adaptable a person is. Intelligence tests work well for cultural discrimination and that is precisely what they were made for. In the preceding example, the highly intelligent person knows that while the answer to this question is 2, one can imagine many other number systems where the rules are different and the answer is different. More on that later.
There are infinite ways to mutate content into new and effective strategies. The creative mind is able to dream up new and different ways to behave. Einstein was able to mutate the content he was given by Newtonian physics into a new and counter-intuitive but effective new type of physics, quantum physics. Oppeheimer, Fermi, Feymann and others were able to mutate that knowledge into an atomic bomb
How Does Intelligence Relate to Life Outcomes
Intelligence will not make one a millionnaire, but it can help one achieve a greater quality of life. One Swedish study which measured an intelligence factor showed that intelligent persons did not make more money than their peers but were healthier. Intelligence tests, while they do not measure a single general intelligence factor, do measure basic mental and physical health, environmental stability, reading ability, and degree of acculturation to modern society. Hence it correlates with types of intelligence and basic mental and physical health. One must be able to see well enough to complete the test, must be awake enough, know how to read, understand the cultural references, and be physically well enough to sit and work and pay attention for up to 2 hours. This will correlate to certain life outcomes but it is of course not what is meant by intelligence. One could do a better job just interviewing the person, as shown in some recent studies.
There can be infinite types of intelligence and many general and specific intelligence factors. Attention control is a general factor that will be helpful across many fields. Advanced bodily awareness and knowledge is useful in a few fields such as sports and dance. General bodily awareness and knowledge is necessary for everyone, such that one doesn't choke to death on one's food while just a baby. One has to learn how to eat and successfully get the food down the right pipe, and that requires bodily awareness and swallowing algorithms that must be executed correctly both consciously and incorporating automatic reflex. If automatic mechanisms fail, one may have to learn new and specific conscious mechanisms for successful swallowing. For example, there can exist a person with little formal education but who would otherwise be dead were it not for diverse and creative algorithms for conscious control of failing autonomic function through advanced bodily intelligence. A prime example is how the actor Christopher Reeves after a paralyzing accident taught himself to breathe consciously when his automatic breathing function failed. This is a type of intelligence. He is using diverse strategy in a way very few if any people before him has ever been able to do. It is a new intelligence he can teach to others who may need to use it. It is not an intelligence that will ever be tested on an intelligence test.
General and Specific
Many studies suggest there are few general intelligence factors. Rather, people become advanced at whatever it is they choose to study and they pretty much suck at anything else. I hold that their are general intelligence factors also, some prime examples being working memory and attentional control. These are common general intelligence factors, but their are many that exist and infinite possibilities of others. A substance could dramatically improve intelligence until almost everyone is taking it and adapted to it, then it becomes a vitamin eventually. For example, if caffeine became so important to success that we all evolved to need it, rather than being an advantage of exclusive persons, it would become a vitamin. The government would issue a recommended daily intake of caffeine. It takes a long time for a substance to become a vitamin, so we will probably not see it occur in our lifetime, or if it has, we have not noticed it.
As an example of privilege, those who can afford a doctor can be diagnosed with ADHD and demand accommodations such as more time to do intelligence tests while those who cannot afford a doctor and have symptoms of ADHD will certainly not get accommodations and produce worse scores even if they are of at least equal intelligence. I know of an 2nd generation intelligence researcher who takes intelligence tests under accommodations for ADHD, having more time to complete them, and interpreting his scores as if they were achieved fairly. And hence the results are skewed in favor of the wealthy. It is embarrassing to have to explain this as anyone who does not already know this is embarrassingly ignorant to the reality around them, living in a fantasy world, worshipping the guardians of knowlege who are none other than wizards of Oz, and it embarrasses me to have to speak to such persons. However, it may be useful to persons who are honestly researching this phenomena. The take home message is simple, intelligence tests are voodoo discriminatory crap. You can more correctly intuite intelligence by simple observation of 10 minutes or more of a person.
Shamelessd Profiteers
Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker come to mind of shameless profiteers of the establishment. Dawkins of course produced throught-provoking good work in his early years then fell victim to celebrity. Instead of letting his work engender open discussion, he tried to make it doctrine then tried to make his atheism doctrine by debating such people as Deepak Chopra who is none other than an entertainment figure. I was personally a fan of Dawkins, Pinker, and Trivers. In the end, only Trivers has made the cut of putting real knowledge before propaganda and profit. The others have become entertainment clowns. It is questionable if Pinker has ever had anything to say. He is a Kim Peek-like figure, able to quote many authors, but not able to truly offer any new insight of his own. Let us be done with such rubbish, at least in our later years, for there is not time. The longevity potion will be finished in our lifetime, but we will not have access to it, only the shameless profiteers will be able to afford it and to hell with them.
Nassim Taleb has become the unintentional arbiter of intellectual integrity. I would not charge him with maintaining it in such an environment as ours, but perhaps he will. As some people would rather suffer ill fate than become a fake. Myself, don't know if i would. I would sell out for money as quickly as possible, but after being comfortable, I could display some integrity, and it takes very little for me to be profitable, since I recognize my living and driving quarters need only be reliable, not fancy. I need a bed i can sleep on for years and a room and place i can sleep in with comfortable temperature, bathroom facilities, eating facilities, and privacy, that's it. It needn't be larger than a prison cell. If it is, I would probably find a smaller area to camp out where I can do all of my work and play without having to take an elevator.
Next time, we will talk about what is right and wrong, what is general and specific knowledge, information resolution, and what can make you smarter. Have fun friends.
DF Seldon
Right and Wrong
General and Specific knowledge
Intelligence is almost certainly not what test makers insist it is, the ability to do cross-word puzzle type mind tricks rife with social bias. It's not IQ, which itself was never an honest creation but a way to discriminate against minorities ethnic, religious, cultural, and racial.
These weak measures of intelligence have received enough criticism and are not taken seriously by the most intelligent persons like Einstein, Feymann, and Gould, but are the darling creation of the establishment-privilege system, whose goal it is to lock others out of privilege by preventing direct competition, hence it will always be a tool of negative discrimination.
When a field really opens up to actual talent, such as in competitive sports, the field immediately becomes incredibly diverse racially, religiously, and ethnically. When a field is not truly open, it remains the province of a particular race and culture. Even in competitive sports, making it to professional levels often requires one to succeed in college in order to play for a college team so even this locks out those who could succeed at basketball but who cannot suceed at college. Why is this necessary? If one is going to play basketball, why don't we just let them show what they got? The ability to succeed at basketball is an intelligence, we shouldn't stop them from doing that because they are no good at the ancient dead language in Beowulf.
What then is intelligence? What is a good intelligence measure?
I propose that intelligence is any way in which a creature uses information and algorithm to produce advantage for itself or others. Thus the most intelligent person is the person who has the most extensive content knowledge and versatile and extensive algorithms. I want to distinguish between content and algorithm. Content is rote knowledge, sometimes in the form of words and numbers (which are actually in the form of unique qualia as they appear phenomenologically), but also as experiences and other qualia and non-phenomenologically may be represented by more fixed structures in the brain. Algorithm is the functions that act upon knowledge to produce new thoughts and strategies and may be represented by unfixed, energetic, mobile and neurogenesis-like aspects of the brain. For example, a basketball player like Michael Jordan appears to move in ways other players don't move, thus he has more content knowlege of different moves and he has more strategies and algorithms to convert the content for different purposes. In contrast, a savant like Kim Peek has lots of content knowledge but very little ability to mutate that content into new and creative strategies. His only strategy was to learn and repeat. This kind of knowledg is often preferred by dominating and oppressive regimes because it produces slave-like behavior. Learn and repeat. Mechanical, like a machine. Most of us would say such action is not intelligence at all, due to a lack or creativity and strategy. Kim Peek was reportedly unable to tie his shoes or dress himself without assistance. There are those who have lots of content and few strategies. There are those who have many creative strategies, but little or non-exclusive content. These aspects are also similar to the idea of crystalized versus fluid intelligence. Some cultures privilege crystalized intelligence or rote content knowledge and others privilege creativity and spontaneity, fluid knowledge. When they combine, one has the greatest intelligence.
Leonardo da Vinci had much to say against the hubris of 'written' knowledge. "Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy— on experience, the mistress of their Masters."
Many people in western civilization believe that knowledge consists of memorizing passages from "great" thinkers and repeating them. This is a past-time of the privileged. People who don't know how to feed and clothe themselves but rely on third-world labor to do that. It is a travesty of justice and intelligence. At any natural diaster, they discover how stupid they really are, as they are unable to survive except by summoning more third world labor by weilding American currency.
It may be hypothesized that popular black culture privileges fluid intelligence, as in freestyle rap. One must create rhymthic and rhyming poetry on the spot, and is penalized for anything that sounds 'written', which is a anathema in freestyle rap competitions. The fluid performance is privileged over rote memorization and performance of rehearsed material. It may also be hypothesized that the dominant white culture privileges rote knowledge and obedience and hence idolize Kim Peek who can memorize and repeat anything but cannot produce any new or creative strategies from the information. These cultures can learn from each other, to maximize both content knowledge and creative algorithms.
Another aspect of great intelligence is working memory. Working memory is the amount of memory and awareness one is able to deal with at one time. As an example of awareness, some people, while writing on a computer are similtaneously aware of their bodily sensations, all of the vibrations in the house and what they may mean, and the vibrations outside, as well as the time, and a host of qualia and memories they are using while working at the computer. Others are aware only of what they are working on and will ignore everything happening around them. This is also why some people can experience dramatically different environments and learn nearly nothing, because they are not taking in and processing new information, but seeing things from a biased point-of-view. As in the 'let them eat cake' quote, such persons even in mortal danger from a starving mob may be unable to comprehend what is happening due to ignorance.
Another aspect is appropriate and versatile processing speed. Being able to process information quickly when needed and slowly when needed. Why slowly? Processing information slowly may allow exposure to more self-knowlege in the form of thoughts and emotions and may allow developments to occur to the problem at hand which may change the circumstances. Life is not always about making quick and rash decisions.
So,
Intelligence = Content x creative algorithm (qualitative) x processing speed
Creative algorithm is qualitative because one very good algorithm to solve a problem is worth a billion worthless algorithms. Quantity of algorithms and the rate at which one can test them mentally is only useful in that it may help produce a useful algorithm. For example 1+1=? One can answer infinite numbers but the only correct answer is 2, according to the number system we are using. Trying different numbers is only useful to the extent that it gets you closer to the correct answer. Very few things in life of course has such definite answers, which is another reason intelligence tests fail to measure how adaptable a person is. Intelligence tests work well for cultural discrimination and that is precisely what they were made for. In the preceding example, the highly intelligent person knows that while the answer to this question is 2, one can imagine many other number systems where the rules are different and the answer is different. More on that later.
There are infinite ways to mutate content into new and effective strategies. The creative mind is able to dream up new and different ways to behave. Einstein was able to mutate the content he was given by Newtonian physics into a new and counter-intuitive but effective new type of physics, quantum physics. Oppeheimer, Fermi, Feymann and others were able to mutate that knowledge into an atomic bomb
How Does Intelligence Relate to Life Outcomes
Intelligence will not make one a millionnaire, but it can help one achieve a greater quality of life. One Swedish study which measured an intelligence factor showed that intelligent persons did not make more money than their peers but were healthier. Intelligence tests, while they do not measure a single general intelligence factor, do measure basic mental and physical health, environmental stability, reading ability, and degree of acculturation to modern society. Hence it correlates with types of intelligence and basic mental and physical health. One must be able to see well enough to complete the test, must be awake enough, know how to read, understand the cultural references, and be physically well enough to sit and work and pay attention for up to 2 hours. This will correlate to certain life outcomes but it is of course not what is meant by intelligence. One could do a better job just interviewing the person, as shown in some recent studies.
There can be infinite types of intelligence and many general and specific intelligence factors. Attention control is a general factor that will be helpful across many fields. Advanced bodily awareness and knowledge is useful in a few fields such as sports and dance. General bodily awareness and knowledge is necessary for everyone, such that one doesn't choke to death on one's food while just a baby. One has to learn how to eat and successfully get the food down the right pipe, and that requires bodily awareness and swallowing algorithms that must be executed correctly both consciously and incorporating automatic reflex. If automatic mechanisms fail, one may have to learn new and specific conscious mechanisms for successful swallowing. For example, there can exist a person with little formal education but who would otherwise be dead were it not for diverse and creative algorithms for conscious control of failing autonomic function through advanced bodily intelligence. A prime example is how the actor Christopher Reeves after a paralyzing accident taught himself to breathe consciously when his automatic breathing function failed. This is a type of intelligence. He is using diverse strategy in a way very few if any people before him has ever been able to do. It is a new intelligence he can teach to others who may need to use it. It is not an intelligence that will ever be tested on an intelligence test.
General and Specific
Many studies suggest there are few general intelligence factors. Rather, people become advanced at whatever it is they choose to study and they pretty much suck at anything else. I hold that their are general intelligence factors also, some prime examples being working memory and attentional control. These are common general intelligence factors, but their are many that exist and infinite possibilities of others. A substance could dramatically improve intelligence until almost everyone is taking it and adapted to it, then it becomes a vitamin eventually. For example, if caffeine became so important to success that we all evolved to need it, rather than being an advantage of exclusive persons, it would become a vitamin. The government would issue a recommended daily intake of caffeine. It takes a long time for a substance to become a vitamin, so we will probably not see it occur in our lifetime, or if it has, we have not noticed it.
As an example of privilege, those who can afford a doctor can be diagnosed with ADHD and demand accommodations such as more time to do intelligence tests while those who cannot afford a doctor and have symptoms of ADHD will certainly not get accommodations and produce worse scores even if they are of at least equal intelligence. I know of an 2nd generation intelligence researcher who takes intelligence tests under accommodations for ADHD, having more time to complete them, and interpreting his scores as if they were achieved fairly. And hence the results are skewed in favor of the wealthy. It is embarrassing to have to explain this as anyone who does not already know this is embarrassingly ignorant to the reality around them, living in a fantasy world, worshipping the guardians of knowlege who are none other than wizards of Oz, and it embarrasses me to have to speak to such persons. However, it may be useful to persons who are honestly researching this phenomena. The take home message is simple, intelligence tests are voodoo discriminatory crap. You can more correctly intuite intelligence by simple observation of 10 minutes or more of a person.
Shamelessd Profiteers
Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker come to mind of shameless profiteers of the establishment. Dawkins of course produced throught-provoking good work in his early years then fell victim to celebrity. Instead of letting his work engender open discussion, he tried to make it doctrine then tried to make his atheism doctrine by debating such people as Deepak Chopra who is none other than an entertainment figure. I was personally a fan of Dawkins, Pinker, and Trivers. In the end, only Trivers has made the cut of putting real knowledge before propaganda and profit. The others have become entertainment clowns. It is questionable if Pinker has ever had anything to say. He is a Kim Peek-like figure, able to quote many authors, but not able to truly offer any new insight of his own. Let us be done with such rubbish, at least in our later years, for there is not time. The longevity potion will be finished in our lifetime, but we will not have access to it, only the shameless profiteers will be able to afford it and to hell with them.
Nassim Taleb has become the unintentional arbiter of intellectual integrity. I would not charge him with maintaining it in such an environment as ours, but perhaps he will. As some people would rather suffer ill fate than become a fake. Myself, don't know if i would. I would sell out for money as quickly as possible, but after being comfortable, I could display some integrity, and it takes very little for me to be profitable, since I recognize my living and driving quarters need only be reliable, not fancy. I need a bed i can sleep on for years and a room and place i can sleep in with comfortable temperature, bathroom facilities, eating facilities, and privacy, that's it. It needn't be larger than a prison cell. If it is, I would probably find a smaller area to camp out where I can do all of my work and play without having to take an elevator.
Next time, we will talk about what is right and wrong, what is general and specific knowledge, information resolution, and what can make you smarter. Have fun friends.
DF Seldon
Right and Wrong
General and Specific knowledge
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