Who's the Smartest, part 3 Epistemological Sophistication

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