I don't mean in the sci-fi way, like intelligent life, I mean in people. What qualities do we mean exactly when we say someone is intelligent?
For me it comes down to these things:
1)Curiosity. You have to want to learn, examine, and analyze things, be it numbers or organisms or a game.
2)Critical Thinking. You have to be willing to question everything, reassess your knowledge at every step, and adjust.
3)Memory. Having a broader knowledge base from which to draw and make conclusions. Also important for 4...
4)Understanding. Being able to see the logical connections between things you've learned.
5)Application. Being able to apply your understanding of an area of expertise to a problem. This might be simply writing a term paper in your own words, or being able teach someone else, to proposing a new gravitational model.
These are smart boards, and I'm sure this will get picked apart, so have at it. Is there something I left out? Does anyone have a radically different definition of what makes someone intelligent?
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I agree with the five criteria you listed. I'd also add two items, or refine the definitions in your list with these two concepts: creativity and divergent thinking (being able to see multiple outcomes/possibilities/problems/solutions, etc.).
Creativity fits in with application, I think, and divergent thinking might be part of critical thinking.
To use your own examples: one does not come up with a new gravitational model without either of these concepts, and the best teaching and term papers come with healthy doses of both.
Also, I prescribe to the theory that there are different modalities of intelligence. A "naturally atheletic" person might be said to have a high level of kinesthetic intelligence, but he or she might struggle with academic or social applications. If you think about such an athelete, your five criteria fit this theory well.
I have read a little about literary,auditory, and kinesthetic intelligence. I would also argue that there are other types: musical, mechanical, mathematical... and more!
Interesting topic.
EDITED for Grammar- always
I think you covered it pretty well. I especially find it significant that you listed curiosity first. This is in keeping with something Einstein said about genius I think. Maintaining a "child-like sense of wonder" and so forth.
I thought this thread was going to be about the attribute in game terms, and I was going to bring up Gygax. He said something about Int = you know why smoking is bad for you, Wis = you choose not to smoke.
I especially find it significant that you listed curiosity first.
Well since a couple people have commented on it I guess I'll elaborate.
In a way I model my criteria after the scientific method, and the first part is always a problem or a question. I don't know anyone that I'd consider intelligent that doesn't have a healthy sense of curiosity, either taking apart a car and putting it back together, or (since this is a gaming website) trying to poke holes in an RPG ruleset and see how they can bend it to their will.
I don't intend the list to be an all or nothing proposition, and I think there are plenty of generally smart people who have very little of #5, but I think that's what separates genius from just intelligence.
@Scribe, I think Creativity is a better word for #5 but it's too late to edit.
Similarly I think you can be smart and be unable to remember much at all, to be able to sort of intrinsically "know" a subject without being able to point to a single datum or citation. But it helps.
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The above are all good criteria, but I think you have to include the speed or ease with which an individual can achieve the above criteria. We all know or have heard of people who are curious, critical, can apply thier knowledge, etc. but must do so slowly. That is different from someone who can do it quickly or handle many problems simultaneously.
What about adaptability? I might add that.
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Intelligence: Ability to solve intelligence tests.
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I don't mean in the sci-fi way, like intelligent life, I mean in people. What qualities do we mean exactly when we say someone is intelligent?
For me it comes down to these things:
1)Curiosity. You have to want to learn, examine, and analyze things, be it numbers or organisms or a game.
2)Critical Thinking. You have to be willing to question everything, reassess your knowledge at every step, and adjust.
3)Memory. Having a broader knowledge base from which to draw and make conclusions. Also important for 4...
4)Understanding. Being able to see the logical connections between things you've learned.
5)Application. Being able to apply your understanding of an area of expertise to a problem. This might be simply writing a term paper in your own words, or being able teach someone else, to proposing a new gravitational model.These are smart boards, and I'm sure this will get picked apart, so have at it. Is there something I left out? Does anyone have a radically different definition of what makes someone intelligent?
My dogs know that to prevent the plate from sliding across the floor - they put their foot on it and hold it in place - so all of the above or if they are feeling bored chasing a small amount around the plate - will tip the plate on its rim and pool the food to one side. They know if there is no food in the bowl and it is about dinner time- they have an uncanny sense of meal and breakfast time - will come and get you and flip the bowl to make the empty bowl noise if you still haven't caught on.
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Intelligence: Ability to solve intelligence tests.
** spoiler omitted **
To what degree? If Intelligence is the ability to solve an intelligence test - to what degree must the test be solved? and what about a superpositional test subject - who fills all possible combinations of the test answers so there is always a 100% correct state and a 100% wrong - and every possibility between these two - as well as that which isn't discerned by a limited test.
That would imply intelligence is a limit we impose on that which has no limit.
So to apply an intelligence test isn't an indication of intelligence - it is merely an indication of the tester's limits.
Does anyone have a radically different definition of what makes someone intelligent?
An ability to appreciate The Grateful Dead, you moron.
Intelligence: Ability to solve intelligence tests.
** spoiler omitted **
To what degree? If Intelligence is the ability to solve an intelligence test - to what degree must the test be solved? and what about a superpositional test subject - who fills all possible combinations of the test answers so there is always a 100% correct state and a 100% wrong - and every possibility between these two - as well as that which isn't discerned by a limited test.
That would imply intelligence is a limit we impose on that which has no limit.
So to apply an intelligence test isn't an indication of intelligence - it is merely an indication of the tester's limits.
You've missed Drejk's point. We have no definition of intelligence but we do have intelligence tests - defacto we have created a circumstance where intelligence is the ability to do well on intelligence tests.
Its slightly more complex then that with things like determining the validity of the tests etc. but this pretty much sums it up.
Needless to say this little tautology has a great many critics...including the majority of experts in the field. Quite possibly we are simply asking the wrong question by trying to break things down into loosely defined and rather malleable categories like 'curiosity'. It becomes a kind of philosophical exercise when you do that - interesting in its own right but not an activity that is likely top actually get us down to the truth of the matter. The neuroscience guys might eventually get us to some kind of an answer.
All that said I'm doubtful we'll get to a real answer since we can't really get a consensus on what intelligence is but we all seem to agree that it is made up of an alphabet soup of different components...its just that no one agrees on which components should be included no how to wait each component in terms of its value.
Lol... I'd rather do it the other way around: How do you define stupidity or lack of intelligence?
(Joker)- "Now, here... we... go..."
You've missed Drejk's point. We have no definition of intelligence but we do have intelligence tests - defacto we have created a circumstance where intelligence is the ability to do well on intelligence tests.No, just because we call a cow a sheep, doesn't make it one. What we know of as IQ tests are nothing more than measures of certain qualities and they're badly flawed by cultural bias. They offer very little insight to that zeitgeist phenomenon we call intelligence.
My post conceded to this criticism. Nonetheless at this point in time for our culture Intelligence tests remain, defacto, the measure of intelligence. Most strikingly we see this in SATs which is a kissing cousin to an IQ test.
The cultural bias angle is more interesting and more complex then you seem to write it off as as well. If you want to meet people that rank really high in our IQ tests you might try visiting Inner Mongolia. They (by which I mean the Chinese broadly) score, on average, a heck of a lot better then any western population and this despite the fact that we made these tests and they are presumably culturally biased toward us.
One of the reasons you don't read about books like The Bell Curve anymore. The people that would write such books don't like the way the current data has trended. Currently its Latino's that are on the bottom (historically it was blacks) and the Chinese are so far ahead of everyone else that if your not Chinese you don't want to talk about it. Needless to say no one likes these results. For the old advocates of such tests...well this is not what they where looking for...and for the liberal minded academics...we where supposed to slowly get closer together as time went on...not further apart.
Thus no one in the western academic world is happy with the results currently - and it is probable that I.Q. tests will eventually get phased out...As Stephan Gould's historical look at IQ tests makes clear this game is only fun when the test proves that your the smartest dude around. All other results are clearly unscientific.
Yeah, I don't remember any of the details, but I remember back in the day reading voluminous essays about The Bell Curve being bullshiznit.
Anyone looking for a fun book about how intelligence-tests are a tool of the capitalist oppressors is directed here for further reading.
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Yeah, I don't remember any of the details, but I remember back in the day reading voluminous essays about The Bell Curve being bullshiznit.
Anyone looking for a fun book about how intelligence-tests are a tool of the capitalist oppressors is directed here for further reading.
A Popup book?
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Funny thing is that people have intelligence that works in totally different ways, and that don't necessarily overlap.
Like, my brother is a whiz at certain types of reasoning. The dude took apart a stereo when he was 5; mom came downstairs to stare in horror at him playing with all the pieces. He said, "Don't worry! I can fix!" And he did. Years later, he said it was "obvious" how it was supposed to go together, because he just thought about where each piece looked like it would plug in. Dude was reconfiguring motherboards before anyone had a word for "computer." But this is the same guy who, if you tell him: "Name the next number in the sequence: 2, 4, 7, 11..." will get mad at you and tell you it SHOULD have been "2, 4, 6, 8," and that you are obviously misquoting the sequence, and you're just trying to ask him trick questions.
He's WAY smarter than I am in a lot of ways, and yet consistently fails IQ tests, and he bombed the SAT. This is in contrast to yours truly, who aced the reading comprehension portion of the SAT without actually reading the essays, was named a National Merit Scholar solely (as near as anyone can tell) in recognition of his mastery of multiple-choice tests, and who thinks mechanical pencils work because there's an imp who lives in them. (What? You press the button and it hurts him, so he creates more lead as an offering to bribe you to stop. Eventually you crush him to death, which is why no more lead comes out.) (OK, maybe I don't REALLY believe that, but I still can't figure out how the hell the lead is supposed to feed into the pencil.)
Yeah, I don't remember any of the details, but I remember back in the day reading voluminous essays about The Bell Curve being bullshiznit.
Anyone looking for a fun book about how intelligence-tests are a tool of the capitalist oppressors is directed here for further reading.
It didn't help that their work was underwritten by the Pioneer Fund either. Might as well have just asked the Klan for donations.
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Intelligence: Ability to solve intelligence tests.
** spoiler omitted **
As a Psychology Major, I can only nod in agreement.
We have no good means of truly defining or measuring intelligence, so we make stabs in the dark via testing and hope that the tests bwe make actually correlate with real intelligence (whatever that is).
That's science's current answer to this question, anyway. The science of how human beings work really is still in it's infancy, folks.
From what we do have, there seem to be many* different types of intelligence, which don't necessarily correlate with each other all that strongly though, so something like IQ or any other general intelligence factor is unlikely to result in very precise data.
*
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I think measures of intelligence will, at least for a few more decades, continue to be highly subjective. You can try to measure the usefulness of someone's intelligence with things like SATs and aptitude tests, or you can try to measure their capacity to learn or reason with IQ tests, but a portion of the population will always do terribly. Are they not as intelligent, or is it just that they don't connect? Could effort be a sixth component of intelligence?
Honestly I could give more s&@@s about measures of intelligence. They facilitate elitism and in my experience cause people to give up on learning. Neuroscience can probably eventually give us some sort of stat listing, but defining Intelligence as an attribute doesn't look to advance humanity.
::buffs fingers on shirt::
Well, I hate to brag, but you know, the media defines intelligence. I define mine, for instance, to be near infinite. Just ask me.
Well, to answer Nicos' question to the best of my ability, I think that a lot of people in this thread are positing the idea that Int Wis and Cha all represent different kinds of real world intelligence.
The whole "social intelligence" or "kinesthetic intelligence" or what have you. I don't really buy into that personally. Those are certainly skill sets, and traits we can ascribe to people, but I think calling them all 'intelligence' smacks of political correctness to me. It's just not okay to call anyone unintelligent in polite society.
Well, to answer Nicos' question to the best of my ability, I think that a lot of people in this thread are positing the idea that Int Wis and Cha all represent different kinds of real world intelligence.
The whole "social intelligence" or "kinesthetic intelligence" or what have you. I don't really buy into that personally. Those are certainly skill sets, and traits we can ascribe to people, but I think calling them all 'intelligence' smacks of political correctness to me. It's just not okay to call anyone unintelligent in polite society.
That's pretty much how multiple intelligence theory works: rebrand a bunch of capabilities not usually counted as intelligence as forms of intelligence. It's a semantic shell game with no science to back it up.
Which would be fine if we said intelligence was a meaningless word, but it's pretty obvious that nobody wants to actually do that.
Well if I thought it were a meaningless word I wouldn't have started this thread :)
My personal definition for intelligence basically boils down to desire to learn, ability to learn, ability to understand what you've learned and extrapolate from it to contribute to your own or society's wellbeing.
Well if I thought it were a meaningless word I wouldn't have started this thread :)
My personal definition for intelligence basically boils down to desire to learn, ability to learn, ability to understand what you've learned and extrapolate from it to contribute to your own or society's wellbeing.
And if the MI people really thought it was meaningless, they'd have no reason to label the abilities they do as intelligences instead of just calling them abilities.
Personally I'm a books and papers chauvinist. If it's not pertaining to the typical activities most people imagine when they think about ingelligence (academics, learning, etc) then there's no sense applying the word to it. It's perfectly legitimate to value different things without insisting they all be called by the same title.
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That's pretty much how multiple intelligence theory works: rebrand a bunch of capabilities not usually counted as intelligence as forms of intelligence. It's a semantic shell game with no science to back it up.
Which would be fine if we said intelligence was a meaningless word, but it's pretty obvious that nobody wants to actually do that.
Gardner's a snake oil salesman masquerading as some sort of scientist (and not particularly well).
Please, please, do not assume that a lack of empirical evidence regarding his theory (which there is indeed a lack of, because his theories are complete b*&@#~!~ designed to make him money by sounding vaguely plausible) means that the idea of multiple forms of intelligence is not a perfectly valid one in the psychological community.
Various actual scientists (Sternberg leaps immediately to mind) are pretty sure there are multiple different forms of intelligence out there...the categories they fall into simply have basically nothing to do with Gardner's 'theories'.
It's perfectly legitimate to value different things without insisting they all be called by the same title.
Couldn't agree more.
I think you’ve provided a decently comprehensive definition of intelligence meatrace.
Although from a practical side it seems intelligence in people is widely defined by the average person by how much the person they are talking to is saying the things they want to hear, as opposed to any objective scale of intellectual capacity=(
Gardner's a snake oil salesman masquerading as some sort of scientist (and not particularly well).Please, please, do not assume that a lack of empirical evidence regarding his theory (which there is indeed a lack of, because his theories are complete b#&~$!*% designed to make him money by sounding vaguely plausible) means that the idea of multiple forms of intelligence is not a perfectly valid one in the psychological community.
I had teacher torture training, so all I ever got was Gardner. Which probably says a lot about my teacher torture training.
Sternberg's categories all sound like things we would normally describe as intelligence from my quick Wikipedia skim, so it's already infinitely far beyond Gardner's crap.
I think a major aspect of intelligence, is also the same thing that makes us different from most animals, which is prediction.
The smarter a person is, the more accurate they can make predictions. Experience plays a big role in this ability, but experience isn't enough. You need the critical thinking skills necessary to use that experience to know what comes ____.
A lot of 'geniuses' we able to combine two disparate ideas or concepts and use them to predict an entirely new concept.
How would you measure and test for this, removing the necessity of experience? I have no clue and am not sure you even can.
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I had teacher torture training, so all I ever got was Gardner. Which probably says a lot about my teacher torture training.
I'm sorry. Truly. IME the psychology training provided to teachers is woefully obsolete (my school's teaching program still teaches behaviorism as gospel) or outright wrong. Current psychological theory is quite a bit more creible and well researched.
This is particularly sad in regards to learning theory which is, y'know, relevant to their profession. It appears to be a standard part of learning to be a teacher, though.
Sternberg's categories all sound like things we would normally describe as intelligence from my quick Wikipedia skim, so it's already infinitely far beyond Gardner's crap.
Yeah, Sternberg's theory has its' issues (primarily oversimplification, his three categories are more broad over-categories of the much more numerous categories he originally came up with)...but it is a real theory of intelligence as such, come up with by a respected authority in the field.
Gardner's, um, isn't.
I read the bell curve, and I thought that the authors did a pretty good job of isolating the socio-economic variables. It doesn't tell us anything we didn't know, but was good at causing a stir. Maybe their next book should tell us that African Americans are good at basketball.
Rather than stirring, I'd trade 1/2 my intelligence for 1/4 boost to wisdom.
I think a major aspect of intelligence, is also the same thing that makes us different from most animals, which is prediction.
If animals had no ability to predict, Pavlov's dogs wouldn't have salivated, and we'd never have heard of the dude. Hell, I see my cats make predictions on a day to day basis, and they're a lot dumber than most dogs.
I had teacher torture training, so all I ever got was Gardner. Which probably says a lot about my teacher torture training.I'm sorry. Truly. IME the psychology training provided to teachers is woefully obsolete (my school's teaching program still teaches behaviorism as gospel) or outright wrong. Current psychological theory is quite a bit more creible and well researched.
I'd wager most psychology training give to future teachers is given by teachers, not psychologists. And they, of course, got it from other teachers a few decades prior.
I think a major aspect of intelligence, is also the same thing that makes us different from most animals, which is prediction.If animals had no ability to predict, Pavlov's dogs wouldn't have salivated, and we'd never have heard of the dude. Hell, I see my cats make predictions on a day to day basis, and they're a lot dumber than most dogs.
I'm not saying that animals can't predict, but rather their ability to predict is much more limited than ours.
If you ask a 5 year how their parents will feel if they break the TV and they'll give you an accurate response (most likely), but the child's ability to make that prediction without prompting is limited.
A dog can watch a flying frisbee and predict where it will land. A human can predict, prior to throwing, that the unsuspecting person in the field will get scared or angry when that frisbee hits them.
Peter Higgs was pretty smart, being able to extrapolate that something unprovable (at the time) existed, because his math predicted it. It still isn't exactly proven, but that prediction alone has advanced our scientific understanding.
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I'd wager most psychology training give to future teachers is given by teachers, not psychologists. And they, of course, got it from other teachers a few decades prior.
Probably true. And unfortunate at a college level, since Psych professors are readily available and teach developmental psycholgy classes regularly.
The Seven Types of Intelligence
Psychologist Howard Gardner has identified the following distinct types of intelligence in his Multiple Intelligences Theory ("MI Theory") in the book "Frames of Mind." They are listed here with respect to gifted / talented children.
I'll reiterate: Gardner's theory has no real proof of any sort. It is ignored by competent authorities in the psychological community. It basically just sounds good enough to a layman to sell books. It's snake oil.
I'd wager most psychology training give to future teachers is given by teachers, not psychologists. And they, of course, got it from other teachers a few decades prior.Probably true. And unfortunate at a college level, since Psych professors are readily available and teach developmental psycholgy classes regularly.
My program:
1) Content area courses generally taught by someone competent in the content area, though occasionally badly out of date. (I had what purported to be a linguistics-based analysis of English that spent a lot of time trumping Sapir-Whorf.)2) Methods courses taught by actual classroom teachers with decades of experience.
3) Lots of vague pedagogy classes that differed very little from one another but were theoretically about educational psychology, diversity, and reading. Most amounted to Intro to Ed re-done with slightly different emphases. One had the main requirement of having us memorize the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (Yes, really.)
But I had a real s+%# program that did not deign to even try to build toolboxes of stuff to try. Friends who went to better schools still had a lot of #3. One is currently doing a graduate program doing more of #3.
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But what constitutes a competent Authority? The largest group who hold some consensus that they are right and all others are wrong?
That would be extremely arrogant and Dangerous.
Generaly speaking, competent authorities are those who have had actual training in the area in question. I mean, if 4 out of 5 people who've studied something agree on an aspect of that thing, they're likely to be fairly close to correct.
But, of course, by 'studied' I don't necessarily mean 'read a lot of books on' per se, but rather 'have a lot of empirical data on'. Many books aren't worth the paper they're printed on, but actual empirical data from well orchestrated experiments and studies tends to be worth quite a lot.
And the data? None of it supports Gardner...which makes his position basically indefensible.
Eh, I suppose. I'm not a psychologist. I heard about it from Niel Borts.
Neither am I as of yet. :)
But the data I've looked at, and my Psych Professor (who's both a psychologist and a specialist in the study of intelligence...and has thus looked at whole mountains more data than I), both support him being grossly inaccurate. This doesn't mean he's universally wrong on everything, mind you, just that anything accurate in his theory is pretty much accidental.
Matt Ridley - When Ideas Have Sex
Moderately related to the topic. Towards the end he mentions that he has no interest in, and even considers it irrelevant to understand human innovation, measuring individual intelligence.
For several hundred years, we've had the ability to collectively do things that no single human could do alone. Even 'simple' things, like manufacture a computer mouse.