Intelligence discussion

[WilyWestbrook0]

Working with the developmentally disabled and spending time researching neuroscience has caused me much reflection on what it means to be truly "intelligent."


So often, we throw out vague, non-specific judgments like, "That guy is an idiot," or "He is really smart."


But what do we even mean by that? An idiot at what, or smart at what? In the context people toss around those statements, usually they are saying, "He didn't get or see that particular aspect of a thing as quickly and as completely as I did." You can't really take a specific instance and then try to apply it broadly like that, though. For all you know, that person is good at things you aren't.


I posted a sample Wonderlic test recently. Typically, when people think of intelligence in and of itself, beyond the statements like "dumb" and "smart" they fling about so liberally, they think of IQ tests.


However, what does an IQ test really measure? It measures a few dozen questions pertaining to arithmetic, abstract reasoning, spatial logic, and language. You naturally have to have had a lot of environmental experience where you were exposed to such questions to be any good at them. There are also controversies like the Bell Curve and the fact that women rarely score in the gifted range relative to men (conversely, there are more men at the extreme low end of IQ than women - seems we ladies are rarely absolute geniuses OR completely incapable of test-taking!).


I have a pretty good idea of my own strengths and limitations, but I've had enough time to think about it and see how I react to enough situations to make those kinds of informed judgments. Still, it's harder for people to admit weaknesses than acknowledge strengths. So many times I will see someone rave about their experience, education, and the like, all while being tactless, belittling, biased, and ignorant of context in the same situation. We also know of people who can get tied up in their academic underwear: read about the Sokal affair to see a great example of this.


In the end, we would perhaps all do better to consider intelligence not as some overly generalized thing, but to realize different domains, and acknowledge humbly that we're all naturally very good at some things and not so much in others. Some of my DD clients may not have "book smarts," but they often have splinter skills in visual-spatial awareness, hands-on learning, memory, etc.

Thoughts?

[gsj68]

smart and wise are two different words for a reason

[centrehice]

Working with the developmentally disabled and spending time researching neuroscience has caused me much reflection on what it means to be truly "intelligent."


So often, we throw out vague, non-specific judgments like, "That guy is an idiot," or "He is really smart."


But what do we even mean by that? An idiot at what, or smart at what? In the context people toss around those statements, usually they are saying, "He didn't get or see that particular aspect of a thing as quickly and as completely as I did." You can't really take a specific instance and then try to apply it broadly like that, though. For all you know, that person is good at things you aren't.


I posted a sample Wonderlic test recently. Typically, when people think of intelligence in and of itself, beyond the statements like "dumb" and "smart" they fling about so liberally, they think of IQ tests.


However, what does an IQ test really measure? It measures a few dozen questions pertaining to arithmetic, abstract reasoning, spatial logic, and language. You naturally have to have had a lot of environmental experience where you were exposed to such questions to be any good at them. There are also controversies like the Bell Curve and the fact that women rarely score in the gifted range relative to men (conversely, there are more men at the extreme low end of IQ than women - seems we ladies are rarely absolute geniuses OR completely incapable of test-taking!).


I have a pretty good idea of my own strengths and limitations, but I've had enough time to think about it and see how I react to enough situations to make those kinds of informed judgments. Still, it's harder for people to admit weaknesses than acknowledge strengths. So many times I will see someone rave about their experience, education, and the like, all while being tactless, belittling, biased, and ignorant of context in the same situation. We also know of people who can get tied up in their academic underwear: read about the Sokal affair to see a great example of this.


In the end, we would perhaps all do better to consider intelligence not as some overly generalized thing, but to realize different domains, and acknowledge humbly that we're all naturally very good at some things and not so much in others. Some of my DD clients may not have "book smarts," but they often have splinter skills in visual-spatial awareness, hands-on learning, memory, etc.

Thoughts?

Have you really? Have you been stretched to your last sinew physically? or mentally?


I too thought I had an idea of my limitations and that I was totally in control all situations until I became an adventure traveller over 40 years, ago, I really had not experienced anything that would challenge me like the next 35 years..

A bit of a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie as a younger person, I guess, …….. perhaps I went looking for stress. I don't know.

I do know that the physical and mental stresses I experienced at severe altitudes above 24,000 feet. The absolute exhaustion, and spatial unawareness of HACE, or AMS, and it's affect on my motor function and ability to be able to put one food in front of the other due to lack of oxygen, the horror of staring down the barrel of an AK-47 from a Freedom Fighter from a Central American country screaming "Gringo" at me, when I am nothing near a Gringo, as I'm not an American, and somehow talking my way out of not getting my head blown off.

Starving for days at a time in an Indonesian jungle, living outside with no funds, no shoes, and an inability to make contact with home due to incomplete functioning telecommunications in the 70's and a moderate case of Giardiasis.

Being trapped on a mountain again at altitude during a raging mountain storm with 65mph plus winds, on the end of a rope, thinking that the next gust will propel me over 5,000 feet down to my death.

Being only seconds from complete sheer exhaustion and imminent death, trying to save somebody who was drowning in the Ocean, trying to suffocate me due to their increased rush of adrenaline while drowning. I have pulled 5 drowning people out of the Ocean in almost 60 years, 3 of them nearly killed me doing it. I am attracted to them like a Shark is to blood, but now I know that, and more than adequately prepared.

Being held at machete-point in a Central African country, not knowing if I would lose my head with a machete, or be sold into some form of indenture, then be killed or worse, waking up dead.

I don't think that people that go about their daily lives in the USA even have an awareness of their composure under duress, those that have fought in wars, especially on the ground, naturally do. I do know that the will to survive is so strong, that you simply cannot give up.

I still adventure travel, but now I don't just jump out of any airplane, or jump off any cliff over 75 feet like I willingly did as a young man. I can imagine the suffering of apoplexy with aphasia, would be the closest thing to helplessness in the current state that I am in, as I watched my Father suffer this fate for 3 years until death.

I do know one thing. Young people and wealthy people really don't think much about death, nor do they actually think that they are marked, just like each and everyone of us is.

[WilyWestbrook0]

As someone with likely Asperger Syndrome, my limitations are many. I could spend many paragraphs writing about them and how they have affected relationships, job performance, etc.

While not having faced the types of situations you have had - I'm not the thrill-seeking type - I have nonetheless thought a lot about death. Nearly dying of an autoimmune disease at age ten will do that to you, as will enduring the suicide of an older brother two years later when I was twelve. I may be just a year shy of 30, but do not make blanket assumptions based on age. It's important to consider possible context and the events of people's lives first.