How one defines intelligence and a genius

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

The existence of idiot savants is well documented.

Yes, but the psychology of those savants are NOT well researched. Whether or not they can be used as a counter example to the general intelligence factor theory is extremely questionable.

[Jinto]

My understanding of intelligence must be seen more from the perspective of problem solving:

Intelligence is determined by one's source of meta knowledge, the more versatile meta knowledge one has, the more available range of problem solving domain. So if the meta knowledge is very specialized and focused, it can be a problem, since thinking out of the box is more complicated then. To specialize in something one however needs a deep meta knowledge in the matter. So having a versatile yet deep and therefore mighty meta knowledge aids intelligence.
Meta knowledge allows to associate things and use thinking patterns. The more versatile meta knowledge one has the more easy it is to select, readapt, mutate and reselect problem specific thinking patterns.

Intelligence is also determined by the brains immediate memory. Usually the brain's capabilities to associate and abstract knowledge pieces is influenced directly by the size of the immediate memory. Depending on how many variable knowledge pieces the brain can memorize at a time, a more or less complex association or abstraction based on the single knowledge pieces is possible. So having a large immediate memory aids intelligent problem solving.

Intelligence is further determined by the complexity of the information processing structures (for further reading I'ld suggest the topic neural networks). The more complex the information processing structure is, the more complex is the potential mapping function that processes information. The more complex this potential mapping function is, the more unique, recombined, abstracted or associated... information it can create.
In the human brain that is determined by the facilitation of the neurons in the neural network. Children have a much higher potenital for facilitation then adults, therfore it is important to start to train the brain very early. The facilitation of the neurons, will also influence the mentioned immediate memory capabilites and and the storage capabilites for meta knowledge.
The more neurons you have the more facilitation of the neurons is theoretically possible.
...
Though if one has too many neurons, its too much for the controler => retarded
...
Well, okay back to topic... it is quite impossible to ever reach the theoretical limit of facilitation, since every step closer to this limit makes it harder to improve a step further. So, the facilitation is often limited by the will/effort to further improve facilitation. Understandably if one has too few neurons, facilitation will have a lower limit to start with, so to reach an equally complex facilitation as one with more neurons requires more effort.

Intelligence and wear off effects:

Be warned however, straining facilitation can lead to problems. If the brain looses the ability to erase (forget), a greater risk for retardedness for people with highly complex facilitation is given. Since all the variables that cannot be erased will influence the outcome of thought in such a highly interconnected neural network. The more interconnection, the more influence.
Since facilitation is what makes up memory (the facilitation patterns are basically memorized data in an abstracted sense, though certain memories are only based on predefined patterns that get activated to a degree the memory information equals with the pattern, especially for those informations in the immediate memory), work load for neurons should neither be too much nor too little. The too little use case will negatively affect facilitation capabilities (memorizing) and the too much use case will negatively affect defacilitation capabilites (erasing/forgetting). So both will negatively affect intelligence. Therefore if one strains oneself too much to raise ones intelligence, one can burn out. The defacilitation capability reduction is further contributed by aging.

(Actually its much more complicated, but I think this abstract summary let one get an approximate idea of how intelligence is affected)

edit: Facilitation = Priming (its hard to find good dictionaries to translate such words, I don't know which one is actually the correct translation for "Bahnung")

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by tripperazn

Yes, but the psychology of those savants are NOT well researched. Whether or not they can be used as a counter example to the general intelligence factor theory is extremely questionable.

*shrug* I'm not sure what you mean by "general intelligence". But the fact is: those people show remarkable ability in one area, while in all others, they're what's commonly described as "idiots".

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

*shrug* I'm not sure what you mean by "general intelligence". But the fact is: those people show remarkable ability in one area, while in all others, they're what's commonly described as "idiots".

They have certain regions more developped in their brain. Often they use regions for their abilites that were not meant to be used for this. Thats the same as if you would use your graphics card for Folding@Home (see my signature link & pun and advertisment intended ). On a PC it is easier to control what a device should compute and when. I.e. you can do the math of Folding@Home on your GPU while not using direct3D. Once you want to use direct3D the Folding@Home on GPU is switched off.

This form of task management is not so easy to be done in the brain. So when someone can calculate the root of a 30 digit number just by imagining images, one can conclude the very capable visual center (or a neighbour regions) aids this person in the process. Such a thing is only possible with bad content filtering (in a manner of speaking). Usually such people prefer a structured every day life and no sudden changes or too many new impressions. Thats the downside of bad content filtering... everything goes through, the information overflow makes one go crazy.

[Edgewalker]

I'd say the existence of autistic savant's make it so intelligence can never really be fully defined. The only factor that seems consistent is "ability to comprehend information" ...which can be stretched in every direction.

Academics definitely has nothing on it. It's work ethic, and part of it is social skills too. I have known many people who do poorly in a classroom environment but become pure geniuses when it comes to studying and teaching themselves.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

[LIST]
Please define what you mean with "intellectualism". If you have no input (ideas and concepts and teachings), you're also not capable to produce much coherent output. On the other hand, if you're not capable of critically thinking through the input you get, you'll end up as one of the sheep.

This is ethics, not intelligence. It is a common mistake to throw every postive/negative adjective at something deemed praiseworthy/condemnable.

Ok, I think the intellectual is the person who can critically think up his own ideals and express them clearly to other people. The first type of people that come up in my mind when I consider an intellectual are philosophers.

While it is an ethical issue, I've always thought that the way people look at ethical issues requires some understanding to support why they think something is wrong or not. Slavery was abolished because people could see that they were living human beings just like them, if they weren't smart enough to realize something like this, slavery would still exist today. The whole idea of morality is just opening a can of worms though so I suppose I'll just end here.

By the way, when I was talking about freaky geniuses, I was talking about idiot savants, I just didn't know what they were called.

[Rookie103]

By the size of their e-pen0r.

[siya]

I'm too lazy to read through everything....so sorry if what I say has already been said.

Intelligence is not how well you do in school...or how much you know...you could make all As in a highly advanced class and still be stupid. To me, Intelligence is based on how well you are able to obtain the information, and how well your are able to find/notice it...You've heard the term "You are the stupidest smart guy." From what I've seen, this is generaly use towards alot of smart people that can never seem to notice the smallist things that are completly obvious..Does the knowledge you know make you intelligent? Yes it does..but that is not what intelligence is.....

I think that a genius is one who is intelligent in one or more subjects. They know what this and that is, and if they don't, they would want, and will, and know where to go to obtain it. I could be a genius in Advanced Science and be completly stupid in Math....So, intelligence is not so much what you know..but how to find it...

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Edgewalker

I'd say the existence of autistic savant's make it so intelligence can never really be fully understood. The only factor that seems consistent is "ability to comprehend information" ...which can be stretched in every direction.

Academics definitely has nothing on it. It's work ethic, and part of it is social skills too. I have known many people who do poorly in a classroom environment but become pure geniuses when it comes to studying and teaching themselves.

Work ethics my foot. I did great academically, and I had terrible work ethics. My social skills are, to this day, abysmal. And I've known plenty of people with good work ethics who did pretty badly in school.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Ok, I think the intellectual is the person who can critically think up his own ideals and express them clearly to other people. The first type of people that come up in my mind when I consider an intellectual are philosophers.

While it is an ethical issue, I've always thought that the way people look at ethical issues requires some understanding to support why they think something is wrong or not. Slavery was abolished because people could see that they were living human beings just like them, if they weren't smart enough to realize something like this, slavery would still exist today. The whole idea of morality is just opening a can of worms though so I suppose I'll just end here.

I think the economic factors played a lot more.

Originally Posted by siya

I'm too lazy to read through everything....so sorry if what I say has already been said.

Intelligence is not how well you do in school...or how much you know...you could make all As in a highly advanced class and still be stupid. To me, Intelligence is based on how well you are able to obtain the information, and how well your are able to find/notice it...You've heard the term "You are the stupidest smart guy." From what I've seen, this is generaly use towards alot of smart people that can never seem to notice the smallist things that are completly obvious..Does the knowledge you know make you intelligent? Yes it does..but that is not what intelligence is.....

Sometimes, intelligent people just aren't interested in what people around them find highly important. So, yeah, they mostly just don't notice what seems "obvious", and can't bring themselves to care if they do.

I think that a genius is one who is intelligent in one or more subjects. They know what this and that is, and if they don't, they would want, and will, and know where to go to obtain it. I could be a genius in Advanced Science and be completly stupid in Math....

I rather doubt that.

So, intelligence is not so much what you know..but how to find it...

The ability to look things up in wikipedia is not a good measure of intelligence.

[Edgewalker]

Work ethics my foot. I did great academically, and I had terrible work ethics. My social skills are, to this day, abysmal. And I've known plenty of people with good work ethics who did pretty badly in school.

What school did you go to ? I would have loved to have gone to a school that doesn't meet that standard. Almost every school I have been to or ever known has assigned very easy, but highly time consuming work.

Then again, I have no idea what your definition of work ethic is and what you consider having done well academically is. In my case I was an average ( C ~ B ) student but only because I didn't do half the homework and instead relied on high test scores ( A- ~ A+ range ) to keep me at a 3.0 GPA.

If you define academic success as having actually understood and remembered the material in such a way that one could apply it to everyday situations, then you would say I was an excellent student.

But if you define academic success as GPA and final grades, I was pretty standard.


However, you have to understand that what we are talking about here is defining intelligence. If even a small handfull of people with high intellect don't excel academically, it proves that there is a flaw.

Oh, that's easy. An intelligent person is someone who mostly agrees with me. I think you'll find that's the definition that's most often used, more or less consciously, even though people don't often admit it out right.

And if you disagree with me, you're and idiot.

Lots of truth in this statement...sadly...:P

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Edgewalker

What school did you go to ? I would have loved to have gone to a school that doesn't meet that standard. Almost every school I have been to or ever known has assigned very easy, but highly time consuming work.

Then again, I have no idea what your definition of work ethic is and what you consider having done well academically is. In my case I was an average ( C ~ B ) student but only because I didn't do half the homework and instead relied on high test scores ( A- ~ A+ range ) to keep me at a 3.0 GPA.

I went to some of the best schools in my country (France) and I earned a few high level degrees.

As for terrible work ethics: not doing most of my homework, or doing it while watching TV, and generally never making much of an effort.

If you define academic success as having actually understood and remembered the material in such a way that one could apply it to everyday situations, then you would say I was an excellent student.

If you can use school knowledge in everyday situation... WTF did you learn in school?

But if you define academic success as GPA and final grades, I was pretty standard.


However, you have to understand that what we are talking about here is defining intelligence. If even a small handfull of people with high intellect don't excel academically, it proves that there is a flaw.

There are all kinds of intelligence. Having one - doing well in school - doesn't mean you have others. I just disagreed with saying that succeeding in school could only come from good work ethics and social skills. (WTH are those for anyway? Bribing the teacher?)

[tripperazn]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Work ethics my foot. I did great academically, and I had terrible work ethics. My social skills are, to this day, abysmal. And I've known plenty of people with good work ethics who did pretty badly in school.


I think the economic factors played a lot more.

Work ethic helps, but by no means takes precedence over intelligence. Chemistry midterm, this girl I knew studied 16 hours over 3 days with a tutor. I had no idea we had a midterm until 10 min before the class. Her score: 92%. My score: 96%. While she would have gotten a much lower score without study, clearly work ethic's importance depends on the person.

If by "economic factors" you mean the US literally splitting into 2 entities from decades of disagreement over this issue, then yes, slavery was resolved because of "economic factors".

General Intelligence Factor
This is what I was referring to, by "general intelligence". I really doubt that savants could be used to disprove this theory. The best of them have REALLY messed up neural connections. The fastest calculating savant right now sees numbers as shapes and colors which combine together depending on the operation.

[Edgewalker]

(France)

That explains it then. In America, schools teach to the lowest common denominator and frequently hand out poorly designed homework that doesn't relate to the material nearly as much as it should.

[kenjiharima]

it depends if a person still has active brain cells if you ask me.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by tripperazn

If by "economic factors" you mean the US literally splitting into 2 entities from decades of disagreement over this issue, then yes, slavery was resolved because of "economic factors".

I meant the economic viability of keeping slaves. Does your industry rely on a lot of unskilled labor (and slaves aren't as cheap as you'd think, what with the necessity of watching them so they don't slack off or escape), or do you need a smaller number of skilled hands?

Though really, I only have the most casual acquaintance with the US' history, but I don't buy that they "split in two" just for the sake of slaves. I'd bet that was only part of a conflict that hit a little closer to home to the decision makers.

[Gemstar]

To me intelligence is how smart someone is in a specific field and genius is already having knowledge prior to whatever you are associating with.

[Synria_]

If you get caught by this man... you are definitely ranked among the dumbest.

[Diaboso]

Inteligance is the amount of knowledge you have obtained, and your ability to utilize it

genius is ones natural ability to understand something with out much effort.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I meant the economic viability of keeping slaves. Does your industry rely on a lot of unskilled labor (and slaves aren't as cheap as you'd think, what with the necessity of watching them so they don't slack off or escape), or do you need a smaller number of skilled hands?

Though really, I only have the most casual acquaintance with the US' history, but I don't buy that they "split in two" just for the sake of slaves. I'd bet that was only part of a conflict that hit a little closer to home to the decision makers.

The division of both the North and South (Sectionalism) was due to slavery. People today may argue that it was mostly a fight about state's rights, but I would ask them, what about state's rights? That would be slavery. The reason slavery had such a big impact on the relationship between North and South was that it developed two different strongholds of opinions, one was the slave states, the other was the free states. As the U.S. expanded further into the Western territories, more states were being admitted to the union that would disrupt a so called balance of power in congress of slave to free states. To even it out they would often admit two states at a time. Eventually laws like the Missouri compromise and compromise of 1850 agitated people so much that relations started to become violent. While I don't remember the names of the senators, a senator got caned into critical condition on the senate floor because of rising emotions. When President Lincoln came into office, South Carolina finally got its reason to succeed as Lincoln threatened to abolish slavery, and then we all know what came after that. While the abolitionist cause in the North wasn't the most powerful driving force of the people in trying to free slaves, it had a large reason to do with it. Still people finally did let all races become equal by the 1960s civil reforms, although there still exists racist people today.

[4Tran]

Intelligence is largely the ability to understand abstract concepts and complicated ideas. Hence it's mostly an inherent attribute, but it's quite possible to nurture it. Intelligence concerns several different factors so there isn't any definitive way to measure it; however, the ability to excel at higher academics (more in areas like higher-level university math programs than just AP) is definitely a good indicator.

Genius is an altogther different concept since it only means that one shows either great aptitude or great accomplishment in a particular field. As such, it's quite possible for a genius to be less intelligent than a non-genius.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Too much do people mistake the difference between sounding intelligent and actually being intelligent. For example two people can write a sentence that expresses their view on a subject matter. The person who sounds better is often mistaken as the more intelligent viewpoint on the matter, although the person who isn't considered the intelligent one could have had the better viewpoint.

This is a good point, but I think that you're drawing the wrong example. Too often, people confuse the ability of a person to spout trivia as a measure of intelligence. However, this is fallacious because trivia is, by definition, trivial and not important. As such, it often is just a measure of the kinds of media an individual is exposed to, and how much of it he can regurgitate.

Originally Posted by Vexx

1) problem-solving skills (how do I get that banana that's hanging from a string? I want to nail that deer without coming close to its antlers. ...)
2) success in adapting to and manipulating new environments (terrain, tools, social environments, etc)
3) Collecting data elements (histories) in enough quantity to so that one has a robust set of previous experiences to use as metaphorical models to apply to the current experience. (I've seen large teeth-infested animals before -- I shouldn't *taunt* them.)

This is an excellent summation.

Originally Posted by Aoie_Emesai

But you would still have to say, memory skill and the capacity to retain that physical memory when needed is quite necessary, humm?

The ability to memorize things certainly helps, but an exceptional memory doesn't necessarily correlate with greater intelligence; and it's possible for a forgetful person to be very intelligent.

Originally Posted by Aoie_Emesai

Well... vocabulary isn't the best way to measure intelligence, it's a good way to start. It at least seem you're smarter ^^

I don't know about that. Modern writers generally have inferior vocabularies to the writers of the 19th century, and new college students have a worse vocabulary to their predecessors, but that doesn't mean that any one group is necessarily more intelligent than the other.

As a personal example, just because I know the word "defenestrate" doesn't make me a more intelligent person than if I didn't. It just means that I read about it years ago, and I found it quirky enough to remember (I believe that it was in the context of "defenestrate" being the most useless word in the English language).