Intelligence

by onacruse 33 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  onacruse

  Ha! So many of my favorite folks (except for that bikerchic ).

  Very interesting observations, and thank you all for participating in this discussion...if I wasn't so tired from eating sawdust all day, I'd respond one-to-one. However, perhaps it would be of value if I offered a little bit of "narrowing" here.

  As a not purely hypothetical situation, imagine two JWs, both (to all intents and purposes) equally educated and capable of performing all of the analytical processes 'ordinarily' associated with intelligence.

  After a period of time, one of them synthesizes the evidence, and "sees" through the WTS bullshit. After an equal period of time, the other one still does not, and becomes even more entrenched in self-denial.

  Is it a matter of one of those JWs having a more developed emotional construct? More self-courage? Or, perhaps (as I have speculated with others, and still wonder)...perhaps it's "just" a matter of intuition?

  "Intelligence" is a very slippery little critter.
• 

  Carmel

  Intelligence is marying the right woman!

  caveman
• 

  Puternut

  Well, I was intelligent enough to look it up.

  in·tel·li·gence ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-tl-jns)
  noun

  1. a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge
  b. The faculty of thought and reason.
  c. Superior powers of mind. See Synonyms at mind.
  2. An intelligent, incorporeal being, especially an angel.
  3. Information; news. See Synonyms at news.

  4. a.Secret information, especially about an actual or potential enemy.
  b. An agency, staff, or office employed in gathering such information.
  c.Espionage agents, organizations, and activities considered as a group: ?Intelligence is nothing if not an institutionalized black market in perishable commodities? (John le Carré).
  

  Puternut
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Puter,

  1. a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge

  That could discribe our whole universe,,a conscious being growing in awareness. Createing new things thru evolution of everything even the way things behave is evolving so called "laws" of physics must evolve too like the speed of light and gravity.
• 

  Stromboli

  "puter" Well I've lloked it up too and that's way i say that that is the best definition I've found. The one you've found is very diplomatic but generic and the capacity to apply knoledge it's not necessarely a sign of it. I'm not able to apply numeros things that I do understand. I can understand math concepts that have no use at all and you could happely live without knowing them but still I need a degree of intelligence to understand them

  "onacurse", "Intelligence" is a very slippery little critter. Thanksfuly! There are so many books about it and many have an agenda. If we were able to truly quantify intelligence we would have a big problem in our hands!!

  "Carmel" Intelligence is marying the right woman! No that's luck!!!!! LOL
• 

  gumby

  Elsewhere says intelligence is how we adapt to our enviroment. I live in a 5th wheel in a RV resort while a home is being built. Do you know how humiliating it is to adapt to this? I've starting selling crack cocaine, have big hefty trash bags in front of my trailor full of budweiser cans, I had to tear holes in my tee-shirts, I purposely cracked a piston ring so my truck would smoke, I had to learn to smack my wife around, cuss, and fart out loud. It hard adapting...but I can do it!

  Craig, I'll go with your 3rd choice also although it had it's limits. A person could be intelligent in this sense but be dumb in executing what he/she knows regarding it.

  People who can retain information/numbers, etc.....might be intelligence ONLY in this regard. This same person may be clueless as to the meaning of the information they have retained. For example...a dumbass dub might be able to quote and tell you where to find a scripture.....yet be totally in the dark as to that scriptures meaning.

  Gumby
• 

  avengers

  What constitutes intelligence?

  DUH?
• 

  gumby

  Yeah Avengers.....but if you look deep into his eyes.....there's something there. He's prolly thinkin about humpin sumthin at least.

  Gumby
• 

  kitties_and_horses_oh_my!

  Direct perception of what is.

  Hmm, no, I don't believe that really is possible. (It's the old concept of quaria, I've read a little about it but overall I admit to not knowing everything about it.) My Psychology of Perception course that I'm in this term is making it pretty clear to me that we interpret everything, there is really nothing that happens that we experience free of biases and judgments.

  ________________

  A cool quote on this is:

  "In becoming human we have given up the one thing that can never be regained: The certainty of the animal that what it sense is exactly there in the shape the eye beholds." -- Loren Eisely, Anthropolgist, author "The Immense Journey"

  ________________
• 

  Stromboli

  "Grumpy" For example...a dumbass dub might be able to quote and tell you where to find a scripture.....yet be totally in the dark as to that scriptures meaning.

  That's not intelligence, that's good memory. Many people confuse the two. Good memory is just a tool of intelligence. If you are able to store a lot of ideas you can make more connections, but if you didn't understand them in the first place, then it's useless because you will not be able to connect them with each other. That's why it's better to remember concepts rather then formulas or scriptures, a concept is a formula with notes