What is Intelligence

[Hans Tucker]

In another thread someone used the word 'Intelligence' which has made me ponder a question over the past few days "What is Intelligence?"

A while ago a work colleague gave me a book title The Mensa Quiz Book with a statement at the bottom of the cover "Test Your Knowledge against the highest IQ's in the world". Flicking through the pages I note the majority of questions are recalling facts, dates from different categories .. is regurgitating facts and dates really a measure of intelligence? There are some problem-solving questions .. somehow, I believe that may be a more apt form of intelligence testing .. or is it more a test on thinking.

Is society being advance by a minority of above average intelligence people and we are along for the ride? Is Elon Musk really intelligent or is he just an opportunist and good businessman that has a lot of intelligent people working for him to make his visions come true.

Thoughts?

[xelasnave]

It means different things to different people I guess but for me I think it is all about ability to solve problems with what is available.

Maybe the truck wont start and you need some fire wood to cook breakfast...intelligence has you getting the wheel barrow for a small load of wood so you can eat rather than pulling the truck apart to make it run. Intelligence always focuses on the goal one is seeking to achieve and not getting sidetracked.

I think remembering stuff is great but more important is to remember a subject exists and where to look it when the time comes to involve its application in what you are doing.

Alex

[AstroViking]

I'll agree with Alex here. Intelligence really is the ability to solve problems with the knowledge you have on hand, as well as being able to find the information you need.

Case in point - a world famous academic with more letters after his name than I've had hot dinners called building security to let him out of the building. Why? Because he couldn't understand what "Press green button to open door" meant. Just because you know lots of stuff doesn't make you intelligent.

[Deepfieldastro]

from a psychological perspective, intelligence is defined as the ability to problem solve and be anything but autonomous, to adapt based upon learned knowledge

in a more simple way, I don't see intellect as just book smarts, but overall your ability to navigate complex/challenging situations in life adequately

[xelasnave]

When I was 11 years old I designed an electric motor( I did not know they existed strangley and was responding to my farthers claim that perpetual motion was impossible..this motor was my attempt to show him otherwise), I could pass leaving certificate chemistry, manage a miscroscope, taught my self chess using carboard cut outs and could beat everyone including all the teachers, and routinely entered paintings in the local country shows always taking out first second and third as well as designing my own model planes that flew and one took out a first prize for modelling in the show.

AND yet none of this was intelligence...I was a dunce because I found "English" boring and as a result did not give my best...you could think that just one of the teachers thought...now here is a bright young chap..but no..to make it worse my teacher and my fathercwere best friends we would go to dinner at each others houses and all he could say was " he just needs to apply him self"...no recognition of being perhaps a little bright...

He would say to my father "life will be hard for him"...ironically years later when we moved to Cheltenham we find the teacher lives three doors down across the road...and so he was able to witness overcthe years my story of success in law and finally developing owning the most successful Real Estate agency in that suburb ( next suburb actually)... so it just shows even a dumb kid like me can make it.

My point is back then if you did not fit the mold you were no way intelligent.

Alex

[glend]

Intelligent, as an adjective, only provides a comparative benchmark at any point in time. An intelligent person in 1880, would be ignorant today. The value in intelligence lies in the realisation that your not.

[xelasnave]

That's the truth..I won all my legal battles basically because I felt inferior and just put in so much time until one day I realised so many of these folk I thought were clever were not so just " upper class" folk talking as if they were educated...

Many folk look for all the reasons they are right whereas I have always looked to find all the reasons I could be wrong.

Alex

[xelasnave]

Hans..did you delete a post or did I dream you made one? I was going to comment having thought about what you wrote for quiet a while...Anyways...

[pmrid]

Try thinking about intelligence in a non-human context. In discussions about life forms off-earth, those discussions often categorise life forms as intelligent or not. The context is about “first contact protocols” and the like. In these discussions intelligence is used as meaning no more than cognition.

Memory and problem-solving require cognitive ability but are much more than that. I think we are captives of our misuse of the term intelligence.

[Hans Tucker]

No Alex .. you weren't dreaming I deleted the post.

[TrevorW]

The actual Mensa test to determine if you can become a member is a lot more about problem solving not just knowing facts - to be a member of Mensa you must do the test within a certain time limit and achieve an IQ rating within the top 2% of the population. I failed coming within the top ...% of the population when I did the test many years ago. To me intelligence encompasses many things, problem solving, intuition, common sense, morality, and foremost the willingness and ability to learn new things :)

[xelasnave]

It tells you something when you are not sure like I was..thanks Hans much more appreciated than you can know.

I bought a book once by Edward DeBono??? The Power of Lateral Thinking (50 years ago so...) And it had problems to solve mostly forks balancing on glasses with corks, maybe someone has seen it...well it gave you like 60 seconds or 90 seconds whatever to solve each problem ...only problem for me was I worked out every problem by the time I had read the sentence..no lag what so ever...to me it seemed so trivial that I could not believe the man had bothered to write a book...so according to that book I must be the smartest man on the planet given the time limits for extra smart etc but as Glen said you need to be smart enough to know you really ain't that smart...and from that moment on I had little respect for intelligence tests...no doubt that is not fair but I am just explaing why I feel that way..

So I wonder what, or could there even be, the ultimate intelligence test?...Hunger Games springs to my mind.

Alex

[ChrisD]

As a species, to survive the next 100 years.
As an individual, to know and understand yourself.

Chris

[oska]

I think this is the most important thing. It almost doesn't matter how "smart" you are if you're actually willing to learn.

[By.Jove]

Having a good crap filter - knowing what really matters, and ignoring what doesn't. Starting with the garbage that is FaceBook, Twitter, most gossip.
The "intelligence" part is knowing what really matters. Maybe 50% inherited, 50% learnt.

As for Elon... he's just an egomaniac opportunist aiming to take the cash from people with more money than brains, and happy to destroy the environment here in the process. What's even sadder is that the US not only allows it but even funds SpaceX.

[Stonius]

I think recall is a part of intelligence, but not the whole deal. Think about it this way - a computer with the latest processor but without storage is useless, and vice versa.



And then there is the way in which we skew the measurement of intelligence towards human intelligence. A dolphin would think we're dumb because we can't swim for sh*t or echo-locate. And we like to think of ourselves as the smartest creature on the planet, but chimps far outperform humans in some tasks to do with working memory (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=chimps%20outperform%20humans%20at %20memory%20task%20-site%3Apinterest.*&oq=chimps%20outperform%20humans%20a t%20memory%20task%20-site%3Apinterest.*#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3e1a743d,vid:zsXP8qeFF6A). Do we give them credit for being smarter than us in some ways? Not a chance!


And then there is no one type of intelligence. Emotional intelligence for example.