Intelligence

by onacruse 33 Replies latest jw friends

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  poppers

  What siddhashunyata said
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  toreador

  Amazing, are you sure thats not an old wives tale? If he was a math wizard, how could he not balance a checkbook?

  Tor
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  link

  He did what all good constipated mathmaticians do; he worked it out with a pencil!

  link
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  bikerchic

  What constitutes intelligence? Is it (among many possibilities):

  1) The mere accumulation of knowledge...factual information?

  I tend to be motivated by learning only that which I need to do the task at hand. I've learned many tasks in my short life, therefore I am knowledgeable in many things most of which are geared to survival IE; job related. I could for instance teach you how to crochet and we could make items to sell on ebay and make money honey.

  2) The ability to collate that knowledge into a truly functional interaction with our environment?

  Same as above, functional so you can survive. Isn't life survival of the fittest, the more you know the more you can do? The quest is to break out of your comfy box and challenge yourself with higher achievements and surround yourself with those who are already achieving what you want to become or do.

  3) The capacity to change ourselves, in accord with what we have "learned,"...even if the information we have gathered goes totally against our grain.

  I see a common thread in my thinking......breaking out of the box challenging myself to do things I'm not sure I can do. Changing personality traits and overcoming fears to live my life to the fullest. I'm an intuitive person and this has served me well, I learned to read people when I was a youngin' I'm usually right by my first impression of people, situations and I'll stick with what works for me unless it proves to be wrong.

  Why I ask this is: It seems that many who others might consider the "smartest" people are socially the most inept, and many who would present themselves as the "smartest" are, in fact, unable to even do so simple a thing as connect dot A with dot B, and that others are simply very adept at putting words together (scored high on the SAT).

  I've heard and read that the most functional sane people are those who can get along with a diverse spectrum of society, not limiting themselves to one sect or class or group of people. Those who can just as easy get along with difficult people as those who aren't so difficult. I aim to be sane. I think I'm relatively smart, I married you.
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  frankiespeakin

  On,

  I have a hard time with intelligence. I don't have a good definition of it yet. Honesty maybe?,, pure objectivity maybe?? When you ask a question and find no answer is that intelligence? to admit the answer is filled with uncertainty?

  I don't think fact acumulation is intelligence nor is use of available facts one aspect of intelligence. How about the Sun and Earth are they intelligent,, I think so but not according to our common use of the metaphor.
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  OldSoul

  amazing: Einstein was not able to balance a check book, yet he was a wizard at physics and advanced math.

  I believe that the most up-to-date version is that he was an excellent theoretical physicist who required the assistance of a brilliant mathematician to bring his thoughts into formulaic terms. First, his wife fulfilled that role. Later in life he developed close friendships with many other noted mathematicians. He could spot the errors in formulas quickly, but had trouble laying them out for himself. Good point, either way.

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
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  frenchbabyface

  1) The mere accumulation of knowledge...factual information?

  The more we know the more we can help ourself, but that's not intelligence that's culture/experience it can help to act with more intelligency/understanding in using those information at the right moment, means that we understand that it is the moment to use our knowledge (making smart moves from what we know) ... which lead to your point number 2 and 3
  

  2) The ability to collate that knowledge into a truly functional interaction with our environment?

  3) The capacity to change ourselves, in accord with what we have "learned,"...even if the information we have gathered goes totally against our grain.

  2 and 3 are the capacity of adaptation, related to many other skills (Memory / experience and intelligence included)

  BUT to me pure intelligence is about understanding without even learning from a simple hint (everything / most / lots of things related) ... Means that I agree with Siddhashunyata :
  

  It is direct understanding as though all things were language. Language without language so to speak.

  We tend to want to rate people's intelligence but that's just dumb - makes we taking risks to lose intelligency cause it does not allow us to understand when the other one is actually intelligent on a matter that we don't understand, moreover if we don't even listen what he have to say (we juste lose the benefit of the knowlege / to be more smart) I mean it is not because we don't understand what somebody says that he is dumb (!!!) we should at least take some time to think about it ...

  Also Our culture have made up as elite intellectuals, that's why we tend to confond intelligence and intellectualisme (nothing to do with intelligence directly) it's just a kind of bourgeoisie based on knolegdes and way of thinking or talking on a matter to a large extand (just a kind of intelligence more knoledges based, that people actually can fake just in having a lot of knowlegdes in spitting out what somebody else already have said (more related to memory and the ability to play with it)

  In fact somebody will be intelligente in some areas and an other will be in others. Now you will appear more or less intelligent depends on where you are (example : the jungle or the city or ...), and what you have to do (example : talking or building or ...) Maybe some people feel that they are more intelligent (yes maybe but only in a few areas like everybody) actually we can't rate somebody's intelligence globaly, we can just compare it in each context (last editted to add : and even in each occasion) if we are intelligent enough on the matter

  Also some people will understand a matter from A to P and then won't be able to go further / some people might takes times to go from A to C but then get it straight from E to V ... just because of the fact they have different kind of intelligence all together that does not allow them to have the same performances at the same level.
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  frankiespeakin

  FBF,
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  Stromboli

  Intelligence:

  The ability to understand ideas and connect them thogether.

  Short isn't it..but by far the best I've found.

  That means that knowledge is not intelligence per se, but it helps as the more ideas you've understood the more connections you can make. Also the more ideas and connections the more new and more complex ideas can be comprehended.

  In the other hand, an individual could be able to make more connections with less knowledge and create knowledge itself.

  Some people are better/quicker at making certain type of connection (visual, abstract, practical, etc.) so they become better at some things. That's mainly due to their personality, their take on life, and their necessities/environment.

  The interesting thing is that it's not quantifiable as you would need to know how many ideas you've understood and how many connections you've made. Also all the connections you have not made and ideas you have not understood could be due to things like stress, fear, lack of self esteem, etc. and not due to lack of intelligence. So to quantify it you would need to know that too.

  IQ Tests only give a resulting quantity of knowledge and intelligence but not of pure intelligence.

  To understand Ideas you need intelligence but once you've understood them they cannot be counted as intelligence.

  As where's the intelligence in saying somenthing you know??? it's just a process of retrieving from memory
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  outoftheorg

  I think it is all three that you mentioned, plus one more. How cunning are you.

  My wife is not very educated in anything but being a medical nurse. She has only a 7th grade education.

  She has owned and operated 5 succesful resturants. Manages a home health operation.

  In any situation in life, she seems to be able to act and react in ways that please others and gets her what she wants. All the time not offending the others.

  Unless you'r behaviour is unacceptable, then beware.

  Some refer to cunning as "emotional" intelligence.

  I think we need a mix of these gifts to truly succeed in life. If we are missing one of the four it lessens our abilities.

  Outoftheorg