True intelligence is turning thought into reality.
Define true Intelligence
- Thread starter Captain_Crunch
- Start date
I'm surprised nobody has pointed this out (or I missed it), but current psychology and neuroscience currently accept the different types of intelligence:
1. Verbal – the ability to use words
2. Visual – the ability to imagine things in your mind
3. Physical – the ability to use your body in various situations
4. Musical - the ability to use and understand music
5. Mathematical – the ability to apply logic to systems and numbers
6. Introspective – the ability to understand your inner thoughts
7. Interpersonal – the ability to understand other people, and relate well to them.
8. Naturalist intelligence - the ability to relate with nature and other living beings.
9. Existential Intelligence -sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life, why do we die, and how did we get here.
Other resource (9 types).
1. Verbal – the ability to use words
2. Visual – the ability to imagine things in your mind
3. Physical – the ability to use your body in various situations
4. Musical - the ability to use and understand music
5. Mathematical – the ability to apply logic to systems and numbers
6. Introspective – the ability to understand your inner thoughts
7. Interpersonal – the ability to understand other people, and relate well to them.
8. Naturalist intelligence - the ability to relate with nature and other living beings.
9. Existential Intelligence -sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life, why do we die, and how did we get here.
Other resource (9 types).
As you point out, Wisdom Seeker, there are many different ways to define and measure 'intelligence'.
Perhaps it is a flaw of our human ego that we tend to narrowly define 'intelligence' from our own perspective?
It's the only perspective we got...
I grant you that.
Perhaps I should have elaborated to state that we may be in error of our understanding of what constitutes intelligence when we work from the platform of comparing other intelligences to ourselves as the baseline. There may be other intelligences that we are not even cognizant of.
I am quite intrigued by the manner in which colony and hive instincts manage their huge numbers to exist and interact cooperatively, though we tend not to accord them to have much 'intelligence'.
As you point out, Wisdom Seeker, there are many different ways to define and measure 'intelligence'.
Perhaps it is a flaw of our human ego that we tend to narrowly define 'intelligence' from our own perspective?
Hi scheherazade
Although the ego is constantly altering our perception of the world, intelligence is an innate characteristic of human beings that is developed with growth and, if nourished, it reaches a crescendo that only stops when we think that we have reached our limit. Each of us are intelligent in some way or the other, the part were the ego comes in here, is that it always makes us believe that we are somehow special compared to others, so it makes us degrade or underestimate other people’s abilities. The fact is: if you compare two people (intelligence-wise) it would be almost impossible that one would be superior in all aspects of intelligence, one will be good at something that the other is not so much and vice versa.
So what you say is right, our definition varies depending on what we think we are good at, and by the side effect of cognitive dissonance we normally wouldn’t take in consideration another definition that would make us “inferior” than other people (the type of intelligence we are lacking and probably below average).
For example: someone is a genius musician, and by cognitive dissonance he believes that the “musical intelligence” is somehow “higher” than the “mathematical intelligence”; but it is not, none is higher than the other and all types of intelligence are required for humanity to be an evolving force as a unity. One person could even be an “average intelligence” in all types, but that is also good and in that hypothetical scenario he would be an extraordinarily complete person but in no way “superior” to others who may be a geniuses in one type, but lacking in other.
Off course, that my perception may also be altered by the ego, so... :shrug: just my two cents.
What do you think the next great genius will accomplish?
Whatever he or she applies themselves to, IMO.
Awakening the greater population to the observation that the present status quo is not sustainable might be one priority. :bugeye:
Hi scheherazade
Although the ego is constantly altering our perception of the world, intelligence is an innate characteristic of human beings that is developed with growth and, if nourished, it reaches a crescendo that only stops when we think that we have reached our limit. Each of us are intelligent in some way or the other, the part were the ego comes in here, is that it always makes us believe that we are somehow special compared to others, so it makes us degrade or underestimate other people’s abilities. The fact is: if you compare two people (intelligence-wise) it would be almost impossible that one would be superior in all aspects of intelligence, one will be good at something that the other is not so much and vice versa.
So what you say is right, our definition varies depending on what we think we are good at, and by the side effect of cognitive dissonance we normally wouldn’t take in consideration another definition that would make us “inferior” than other people (the type of intelligence we are lacking and probably below average).
For example: someone is a genius musician, and by cognitive dissonance he believes that the “musical intelligence” is somehow “higher” than the “mathematical intelligence”; but it is not, none is higher than the other and all types of intelligence are required for humanity to be an evolving force as a unity. One person could even be an “average intelligence” in all types, but that is also good and in that hypothetical scenario he would be an extraordinarily complete person but in no way “superior” to others who may be a geniuses in one type, but lacking in other.
Off course, that my perception may also be altered by the ego, so... :shrug: just my two cents.
Very difficult to compare the various 'intelligences', I quite agree. Preferable also to have some aptitude and/or appreciation of all intelligences in seeking a balanced perspective for the journey. Most perceptive of you.
That doesnt take into account the massive correlation between the Verbal, Mathematical, and Visual on the IQ test. And the "Musical" portion I'm sure correlates well with IQ as well, as we know Mozart was pretty smart, and many of the areas of the brain involved in recognizing musical patterns are associated with IQ as well. 6-9 are either related to verbal and IQ capacities in general, or are unmeasurable.
Are you actually suggesting that there is no such thing as general intelligence?
I think before we can seriously inform debates about intelligence any further, we need a better understanding of the brain and how the things we associate intelligence with come about. Until then, it can't be anything more than heuristics and abstractions about what mental capacity or ability is, lacking any real way of associating and measuring said abilities.
You are right, the relation of the various types of intelligence has something to do with the development of right or left side of the brain. Also, higher degrees of a given type of intelligence can be measured in a person that has trained for that specific purpose (intelligence is innate, but the growth should be nourished for it to develop to its potential). So multiple intelligences are not fixed, you can train any type of intelligence yourself to become more proficient in that area.
Mozart was undoubtedly a musical genius, and probably good at other types of intelligence as well, but his interpersonal intelligence was low. Although Mozart had high mathematical and verbal abilities, he was in constant stress and had trouble relating to others.
Other Examples:
Einstein: high logical-spatial intelligence, low interpersonal intelligence.
Gandhi: high interpersonal -linguistic intelligence, low artistic intelligence.
Picasso: high spatial-artistic intelligence, low logical-mathematical intelligence.
Freud: high linguistic- interpersonal intelligence, low spatial-musical intelligence.
Take Stephen Wiltshire, for example, he has an extremely high artistic intelligence, but extremely low verbal-interpersonal abilities (he learnt to speak at age 9). And probably would score low on an IQ test. In spite of that, would you say he is unintelligent?
Thomas Edison for example, was kicked out of school at age 12 because he was too dumb, did badly at math, and had trouble with words and speaking.
If you would measure the "general intelligence" of these folks (accounting all types), they would probably score somewhat average, but they were geniuses of their type of intelligence.
I’m not suggesting it; I’m just quoting the multiple intelligence theory that was initially developed by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner.
There are types of intelligence that can be measured accurately, while others not so much currently as you stated; if you could design a test that measure all the types of intelligence accurately, and average the results you could say that that average would be the measure of the “general intelligence” of a person, as you put it.
Current IQ scores are very accurate for most types of intelligence (not so much the free tests on the Internet as you would probably score higher than what you actually have), and you can say in a quite assertive manner the higher your IQ, the more probability you have in succeeding in the corporate world. But high IQ does not necessarily mean you will do well in sports, paint a work of art, compose a great symphony, be aware of the natural environment (like farmers, hunters, gatherers), or even live a happy life.
Where now?
I wouldnt necessarily say that his artistic abilities were intellectual abilities, especially if he scored low on all aspects of the IQ test. Artistic and musical abilities dont necessarily have to do with intelligence [/I]
Relating art ability to intelligence is very hard because there are multiple definitions of "art" and what being "Artistically talented" implies. In the autistic savant case, how much of it was expressive art as opposed to a simple ability to capture and sketch his environment?
As for living a happy life, we already know highly intelligent people dont tend to live happy lives.
ones place in relation to the scale of the cosmos is definately associated with parts of our current tests of intellectual abilities, so this isnt adding anything novel toour definition of intelligence.
In fact ultra high IQ children sometimes demonstrated high ability in the arts as well as the natural math/science/writing aspect. Kim Ung-yong, with an IQ measured by special tests at 210, was not only writing for the New York Times, solving differential equations, and studying particle physics at age 7, we was also writing adult level poetry. This suggests that intellectual pathways may be related to pathways involved in artistic talent. Although there is the case of children who are extremely talented in arts including painting and writing poetry, with strange spiritual beliefs, who dont have extremely high intelligence to go with it. The moral of the story: we need neuroscience to show us in more detail how pathways involved in intelligence and artistic talent get started so that we can better see their relationship and better assess an individuals abilities, and then come up with a better picture of how to define "intelligence"