Veganism: Foolishness or Folly?

[jakelafort]

Yeah, intelligence is a slippery concept.

Any legit debate requires terms like race and intelligence be defined. On the other hand do any of think that Trump cultists are average intelligence? I do not. Even without limning the lemmings i am not out on a limb in that assertion, or am i?

[Unseen]

jakelafort wrote:

Yeah, intelligence is a slippery concept. Any legit debate requires terms like race and intelligence be defined. On the other hand do any of think that Trump cultists are average intelligence? I do not. Even without limning the lemmings i am not out on a limb in that assertion, or am i?

I said intelligence isn’t a “thing” specific enough to measure the way you can measure something like the ability to remember words and definitions, and you seemed to agree, but now you’re arguing that the intelligence of Trumpists is low.

Pardon me. I’m feeling a little dizzy.

[jakelafort]

Unseen, I have some vague formulations or notions of what constitutes intelligence. Notwithstanding my thoughts which would be seen by some as incorrect or idiosyncratic i am in agreement that intelligence is a difficult concept. Acknowledging it as such is odd since we all judge ourselves and others as being intelligent or stupid. We do it all of the time. However if one forms a definition then it is not impossible to test. In some instances it may be fairly straightforward.

Without having defined it I am still comfortable in my assertion in re trump cultists.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

One trait of intelligent people seems to be the ability to quickly recognize patterns. But I don’t think people who are not above average intelligence are “stupid”.  I know some 160+ people in Mensa who are still theists because they can’t grasp the difference between objective evidence and subjective opinion. I have had the logic of some of my arguments improved by listening to people who would not have considered themselves very intelligent. We can still fall prey to conspiratorial thinking. All human have the ability to “reason”. It is what makes us human. Some are better than others at it and levels of intelligence are not always indicators of ones ability to reason and to then think logically about the implications of what they have reasoned.

Artistic intelligence might see someone playing Chopin at age 11 while others can’t master “Chopsticks” after 2 years of tuition. 98% of the world is somewhere in between. All measures of IQ, emotional, social, etc. are similar.

Never argue with stupid people unless you are sure they are not doing the same. Even if you “win” all you can say is “I just won an argument with a stupid person”. I took the Mensa test 31 years ago. I am thinking of doing it again to see if there is much of a difference in the result, bearing in mind the Flynn effect.

 

[jakelafort]

Reg, you use the word intelligence the way i use the word aptitude.

Pattern recognition without discrimination is an abomination. Handicapping horse races involves a great deal of pattern recognition. That ability alone is insufficient. One must understand when a pattern is significant and when it is not.

People often ascribe agency to patterns they recognize. They posit their own significance in the grand scheme. They mistake correlation with cause and effect. Intelligence is in part avoiding those traps. Intelligence is the transfer of applicable knowledge between subjects. It is skepticism. It is recognition of one’s mistakes. I am making an executive decision to stop explaining my ideas in re intelligence.

But how about those Trumpist morons? Ha? Ha?

[Unseen]

It’s so hard to get people to accept that “intelligence” is so nebulous a concept as to be virtually meaningless.

[jakelafort]

You can make the case that it is a construct. I don’t buy that but it is plausible.

Intelligence deals with the general but universal whereas aptitudes deal with specific talents.

[jakelafort]

I am reminded of Oliver Sacks who has some cool books about fascinating aptitudes. He gives descriptions of savants and autistic persons who have mind blowing aptitudes for things like math and art. Some of them have no more intelligence than a dull chimpanzee. But they have brilliant aptitudes.

[Simon Paynton]

I always see general intelligence as “grunt power” or how quickly someone can process information and draw new connections.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Reg, you use the word intelligence the way i use the word aptitude.

Sorry, I should probably have also used the word “sequence” instead of “pattern”.

I can hardly draw a circle but I “know” 30 is the correct answer in this “what is the next in the sequence” question because I see the pattern almost immediately.

3,4,6,8,12,14,18,20,24…..30

Maybe some of us are just stumbling by on the boldness of our ignorance 🙂

[_Robert_]

..and then comes 31+1 😉 even though I am not an Amazon Prime member.

Lots of these questions are  “group/delta” formulas, some have multiple rules.

[_Robert_]

Getting way off topic….but I’m not one to care…Music is a language of math but somehow the last time I listened to computer-written music, I wasn’t a fan. I wonder if AI will eventually be able to compose “Mozart quality” pieces. And what would be the consequences of a plethora of great AI generated music, art, sculpture, novels etc.

[Unseen]

Intelligence is pattern recognition. Intelligence is aptitude.

My reply is in two words: autistic savants (formerly known as idiot savants).

Kim Peek had a below average IQ, scoring just under 90 on most tests. However, perhaps due to Peek’s missing ‘corpus callosum, Peek could read entire books in a short space of time, scanning 2 pages at a once (using each eye to focus on a page). As if that wasn’t already impressive, Peek was capable of reciting the entire contents of 12,000 books on demand.

BTW, some savants have higher-than-average IQs, so savantism is unrelated to intelligence as measured by IQ tests.

Other savants, while being largely incapable of functioning in everyday life are capable of incredibly complex mathematical calculations, of knowing what day of the week a date far in the past was, of being able to reproduce highly complex pieces of music on one hearing, and on and on,

More examples of such savants.

It would seem from such examples that intelligence as measured by IQ or even as thought of in everyday life by ordinary folks has little or no connection to aptitude.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Unseen.

[jakelafort]

Brain droppings:

Off topic is on topic when digression is the oxygen of intelligence.

Neb by neb
the sighted sign
that waxing on
is so much brail
in declensions
of deforming
glancing meaning
but who can describe?

We have the temerity, audacity, egoism to characterize inorganic intelligence as artificial intelligence! Intelligence will only emerge when it is unshackled from the prison of its biology. Cases in point. You are in love. You can not evaluate your partner’s behavior. You have an iq of 162 and you believe with all of your might that you will become an immortal and that Adam and Eve didn’t conceive. You are a judge and you are hungry when you sentence Frank Rizzo to 25 years whereas you would have sentenced Frank to 15 if only you had time for lunch.

And how much of our vaunted cognition is preconscious? Reg looks at a sequence of numbers and sees it almost immediately. In court during trials and contested matters i used to know immediately that the other attorney made a flawed argument. Then i had to think in what ways it was flawed. There is a famous savant who sees a cityscape briefly and reproduces it artistically with incredible likeness. It is not simply the rudimentary shit that was tested in Libet that is below the surface. Savants see the answers to complex mathematical equations instantly.

“Are they making any progress on planet earth?” “Nah just a bunch of primates and monkey spankers…nothing but artificial intelligence…”

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Yes, the intelligence of savants will not be easily measured. But you can learn to tell the week day of any date easily enough. It’s good fun.

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