Philosophers have the highest IQ

[scilosopher]

Math and science both did grow out of philosophy, but that does not mean philosophers are experts at math and science while mathematicians and scientists don't understand philosophy.

I personally think the fact that the greatest minds did tend to be people who studied and thought about many different fields - math, science, philosopy, art, is possibly causal not consequential. If you exercise all the different basal abilities of your brain they improve and together they make your brain able to attack a question from many different angles, which brings out all sorts of different features that aren't initially apparent.

Presumably if one is harder than the other it's as much a reflection of the amount of effort people have put into it than the inherent difficulty. I have no doubt there are people out there who are smarter than me and could come up with either math or philiosophy I didn't understand. I think the difficulty level of the material would therefore be set by those who do it rather than what they are trying to do (as well as the amount of time and energy they pt into doing it).

 

[Dapthar]

2 vs 1? Fine by me, much more interesting that way...

Originally posted by yinyinwang
"axiomatic" means no constrain.

You sure that you don't want to rethink this statement before trying to support it? By the nature of an axiomatic system, a statement is only considered to be true if it is a logical consequence of the axioms, otherwise, it is false, or has no truth value.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
you don't have to care much about the physical reality.

Your point being? A Philosopher is not one to tout physical reality, since many of their paradoxes simply cannot exist in a physical reality, and many of them deny the existence of said reality, so this point is one "against" both Mathematics and Philosophy.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
Have we ever seen a young successful philosopher who at least built a phi-structure of understanding?

I don't know if one exists. I haven't ever heard of one, but then I haven't done much searching for said Philosophers.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
How many young math men have we seen?

Quite a few, considering until a few years ago, a Mathematician's career was essentially considered finished by age 40, i.e. if they haven't discovered something by then, they never will. It is only recently with Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (he was over 40 when it was completed) that this idea began to change.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
The history performance tells that we have considerablly less philosopher than any other professions, why? And a successful profession become a philosopher in some way because they have to think that way.

You know, I was actually thinking of using a similar "rarity argument" to support my claims about Mathematics, but I did not, since I realized that this line of reasoning is fundamentally flawed. To take a logical extension of your argument, there are less postal workers than office workers, and by your logic, that implies that being a postal worker is more intellectually demanding, a fallacy. Thus, your line of reasoning is incorrect.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
Yes, any one can have his life philosophy and can challeng the pillar, that makes a success more difficult because there are limitless examiners around to attack you from all directions.

To the contrary, it makes it easier. Any point with a shred of truth to it can be argued just as well as an established idea, since there is no experimental evidence or previous standards to conform to, i.e. too much freedom, and too little structure makes a subject rather easy.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
As a mathman, the only thing you care is self-consistancy. You can assume the sun is made up of gold as a mathman, ...

It is true that in Mathematics, one is primarily concerned with self-consistency, since it is a measure of the strength of one's logic, but if one's constructs don't do something useful (In the context of Mathematics) then there isn't much point to it. Again, your example doesn't work either, since anything having to do with physical reality is not a concern of Mathematics. Frankly, if assuming the sun is made of gold led to an interesting solution of a long-standing problem, e.g. the Riemann Hypothesis, then Mathematicians would have no problem doing so.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
... but if you do so as a phi-man, you become everybody's laugh stuff.

Do you realize you are contradicting yourself here? You were just lauding the freedom of Philosophy, and now are touting its system of checks and balances?

I could create a philosophical paradox that states the sun is composed of a substance that only looks like Hydrogen and Helium to our instruments, but is actually composed of tiny strings of energy that no device can currently detect, (replacing "tiny strings of energy" with "tiny fragments of gold" will yield an analogue to your original example), but every measuring device that exists today cannot detect them, and this philosophical "paradox" currently has no resolution. It doesn't mean that it has any less validity since it goes against "Philosophical common sense", so even your absurd argument holds as much Philosophical validity as current Physics research.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
Yes a philosopher will not be easy to adapt to any profession, not because of the difficulty but the professional glossary.

So you're stating that Philosophers posses the proper tools to adapt to other fields, and the only barrier are the technical terms? Are you serious? Philosophy is not that efficient of an exercise for one's mind. The concepts in Mathematics are what present the difficulty, not the terminology, and I assert that Philosophy doesn't prepare one for the mental acrobatics that Mathematics requires.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
I think a phi-concept is far more difficult to grasp than a math one since you said they are"axiomatic".

Yes, but "axiomatic" ≠ easy. In Philosophy, almost all interpretations are equally valid, but this is not true in Mathematics. If one doesn't understand the definition of a limit, there is no "alternate and equally valid" idea to revert to, granted, there are certain pictures one can draw, and an intuitive notion is extremely helpful, but it all hinges upon the definition, and if one can't find some way to understand that definition, then you're out of luck.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
How much effort is dependent on how much you want to gain, not the subject.

To the contrary, the effort one must put in to a field to understand it is directly proportional to the difficult of the subject.

Originally posted by ProCop
In the domain of philosophy you can ask: What is mathematics?
Can you ask in the domain of mathematics: What is philosophy?

No, one cannot. But your comparison is flawed, since you biased it towards, you guessed it, Philosophy. Just as one cannot ask "What is philosophy?" in Mathematics, one cannot ask "What are the solutions of x²-5x+6=0?" in Philosophy.

Originally posted by ProCop
Mathematics is a subordinate of philosophy.

Incorrect. See why below.

Originally posted by ProCop
Mastering a subdomain compared to the mastering in of the whole domain speaks for itself (at least for some).

Then mastery of Philosophy should imply mastery of Mathematics, however, it obviously does not, thus, Mathematics is not a subset of Philosophy. However, mastery of Mathematics implies a great deal of familiarity with logic, and thus, a mastery of certain aspects of Philosophy.

Originally posted by scilosopher
I personally think the fact that the greatest minds did tend to be people who studied and thought about many different fields - math, science, philosopy, art, is possibly causal not consequential.

From this statement, I tend to get the impression that you are defining a "[great] mind" as one that is versed in many fields, however, this is not necessarily the case. Newton was a great mind, but does that make Cauchy, Ramanujan, or Euler, whose efforts were largely in the subject of Mathematics, not great minds? Are Schrödinger, and Einstein lesser minds since they dedicated their efforts to Physics? Certainly not.(The links are to brief biographies of the historical personalities in question. I recommend that all the posters in the thread at least skim them, and refer to their host site; http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BiogIndex.html; for a rather comprehensive collection of biographies of Mathematicians, Physicists, and other notable scientists. To those who are wondering, no, I have no vested interest in the site, I just felt like sharing a useful link.)

Originally posted by scilosopher
If you exercise all the different basal abilities of your brain they improve and together they make your brain able to attack a question from many different angles, which brings out all sorts of different features that aren't initially apparent.

True, however it is not necessary to work in many different fields to achieve this result. See the examples above.

Originally posted by scilosopher
I think the difficulty level of the material would therefore be set by those who do it rather than what they are trying to do (as well as the amount of time and energy they pt into doing it).

Not necessarily. Material can still be difficult for those who have studied it their whole lives, simply because it requires one to use so many aspects of one's mental faculties, and material can be difficult simply because those who are working on it choose to unnecessarily complicate their subject. I contest that the former is the case for Mathematics, and the latter is the case for Philosophy.

 

[Quantum Quack]

May be this has been already stated but it could be said that the reason that Philosphers have higher IQ's ( assumption) is that simply every one is in some way a philospher and as it so happens some of these philosphers are great mathematicians as well.

So a guy sits down who happens to be both and there fore scores higher that someone who is only specialised in math.

IQ tests if I am not mistaken take in a varity of specialist attributes and obviously if a person is skilled in all of them then the score is going to be higher.

For example I consider my speciality Dimensional imagination, in that I can visualise dimension ( not just the 4 d type but like looking in a mirror sideways type) and I think that if there were tests that showed the IQ level of this then I would score quite highly.

But by the same token I have very little mathematical ability but some reasonable philosphical abilty so therefore in the tests suggested by the thread starter I would fail to score much at all may be a 120 if I am lucky. ( luck....vat is dis ting called luck)

So I simply feel that if a philospher also has an interest and skill in math then he will score higher. Does it have to be any more comlesx than that?

 

[ProCop]

RE:dapthar

No, one cannot. But your comparison is flawed, since you biased it towards, you guessed it, Philosophy. Just as one cannot ask "What is philosophy?" in Mathematics, one cannot ask "What are the solutions of x2-5x+6=0?" in Philosophy.

x2-5x+6=0? in philosophical terms: Two idiots got into a figth with another five idiots to gain the access to six inteligent virgins. How many idiots got laid? How many inteligent virgins are there for one idiot? What is the ratio of idiot/inteligent virgins in the world? In the universe? In the multiverse?

 

[yinyinwang]

Dapthar:
I should make a few points clear first
1,a debate will help reach understanding, so ?v?is not important, but if you feel bad at talking to two or more, I can wait later.
2,IQ is not a tell-all method in measureing people's inteligence, I only take it as a reference.
3,I doubt the statistics by this thread because who can be called a phi-man is highly questionable.
4,difficulty exists in any profession and can deter any one, for instance, walking is simple but can you walk on hands, on one hand? on a finger? The same is true with math, you can build a math maze that no one can solve or simply there is no solution to it, but this is not an indication of wisdom.

 

[ProCop]

Philosophy as a discipline is more intelectually demanding because it has not (does not claim to have) one basic truth on which it is/would be based. We have contradicting/oposing philosophies which are worth of studying/knowing and generally encreasing the knowledge of the manking (incl. that of the mathematicians). Philosophic concepts are based on the coherence of their argument suggesting <i>possible</i> explanation about (some) phenomena. Mathematics is a construct which relays on the <i>proving</i> of the validity of concepts.

 

[Dapthar]

To those who are wondering, the responses are in chronological order

Originally posted by ProCop
x²-5x+6=0? in philosophical terms: ....

You're kidding, right? Philosophy simply cannot answer that question, since it does not have the tools to do so. Your "answer" simply illustrates this fact. By the way, the proper answers are x = 3 and x = 2 since x²-5x+6 = (x-3)(x-2). Also, in general, x²&ne;2x, therefore your initial "interpretation" beginning with "two idiots ..." is incorrect.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
Dapthar:
I should make a few points clear first
1,a debate will help reach understanding, so ?v?is not important, ...

I was simply using it as a colloquial way to indicate the number of people supporting each side of the debate. Nothing more.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
but if you feel bad at talking to two or more, I can wait later.

No need to. I have no problem with debating both of you simultaneously.

On that note, if there is anyone else besides the posters in this thread who disagree with any part of my argument, please feel free to post an argument to the contrary. I have no aversions to debating multiple people at once, for it simply improves my debate skills to do so.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
2,IQ is not a tell-all method in measureing people's inteligence, I only take it as a reference.

I on the other hand, do not think highly enough of it to even use it as a reference.

Originally posted by yinyinwang
3,I doubt the statistics by this thread because who can be called a phi-man is highly questionable.

I don't really get what you're saying here, perhaps that your original "rarity" argument was flawed since the number of people in a field is at best a mediocre indicator of its difficulty? Something else perhaps?

Originally posted by yinyinwang
4,difficulty exists in any profession and can deter any one, for instance, walking is simple but can you walk on hands, on one hand? on a finger? The same is true with math, you can build a math maze that no one can solve or simply there is no solution to it, but this is not an indication of wisdom.

Neither is formulation of a Philosophical paradox, which is an analogue of the example you are trying to use. Again, a moot point, for it goes "against" both Mathematics and Philosophy.

I hope that you are going to return to supporting your ideas now that you are done with this aside.

Originally posted by ProCop
Philosophy as a discipline is more intelectually demanding because it has not (does not claim to have) one basic truth on which it is/would be based.

My response to this point is essentially that "lack of one basic truth" makes the discipline easier since all viewpoints that have any shred of support can be argued as successfully as those which have been proven to be true time and again. Thus, there is no "filter", no separation of the "wheat" from the "chaff", creating a swamp of equally valid ideas.

If Mathematics had followed this world view, no one would have gotten past the definition of addition, since people would have been constantly arguing over whether or not "1+1=2", and as you can see, by looking at the thread entitled "Why does 1+1=2?", to this day, Philosophers still waste their time discussing "problems" that were resolved millennia ago due to the lack of a proper filtering mechanism for their field.

Originally posted by ProCop
We have contradicting/oposing philosophies which are worth of studying/knowing and generally encreasing the knowledge of the manking (incl. that of the mathematicians).

I suggest you supply some examples to support your claims, since aside from the "Philosophical assumption" that the axioms are assumed to be true, I see no example of where Philosophy has aided Mathematics. Surely, it is not in the concept of a number, since as one can see, there is still no agreement among Philosophers as to what a number is. Thus, aside from the statement that "There is no absolute truth", I can see no other places where Philosophy has helped, or will ever help Mathematics in the future, but perhaps you have an example that suggests the contrary.

Originally posted by ProCop
Philosophic concepts are based on the coherence of their argument suggesting <i>possible</i> explanation about (some) phenomena. Mathematics is a construct which relays on the <i>proving</i> of the validity of concepts.

This dichotomy is why I contest that Mathematics is superior to Philosophy. In a field, if one is not able to rigorously assess the validity of ideas, those in the field will rarely achieve anything that can be classified as an advancement by anyone.

To put it succinctly: The lack of a proper ideological "filtering system" in Philosophy results in the field amounting to little other than the expenditure of effort for little or no gain. Essentially, the field is a colossal waste of energy and time, and these resources that could be put to more productive use in the field of Mathematics.

(Note: The large blue text's purpose is simply to draw attention to those posters who may simply may be skimming the thread, in hopes of "getting a message out to the masses" as it were, and hopefully increasing interest in said thread. It is not meant to represent "anger" or "shouting" as per the traditional meaning of large colored text on the internet.)

 

[scilosopher]

Dapthar,
I didn't say that they had to have performed in all those fields, but simply "who studied and thought about many different fields".

I did not question the greatness of those that did not, but simply highlight the fact that the act of doing so might help a person's mind reach greatness.

I never claimed that it was necessary to work in many fields to be able to look at something from multiple perspectives (just that it helped).

Regarding my claim on the difficulty of the material you have again misunderstood what I meant, though in this case I was quite vague and should have anticipated misunderstanding. Given your general approach I hesitate to explain as I don't have the patience to put my ideas in a form that would be resistant to your general style of discussion (particularly because you make many faulty inferences which I would not want to have to systematically state I don't mean).

It is an easy road in debate to systematically misunderstand what someone says to attempt to make them seem incorrect or subordinate to oneself in reasoning, but this is a counter-productive act that makes the act of debate less meaningful. Although debating is done competitively the main point is to reach a conclusion about some topic.

Your posts don't put forward any thesis or point, they just nit-pick at what others have said without any attempt to move our collective understanding or the discussion forward. The very fact you seem to take pride in willy-nilly responding to multiple people at once and not trying to refine some general idea or line of reasoning makes me at least question if I would want to engage in such debate with yourself.

EDIT- actually I just read the very last blue part and the note and perhaps you do put forward points and may have some line of reasoning. However, it is clearly diluted by a tendency to focus on ill founded attacks (at least in my case, I'm not always sure exaclty what other people mean) which led me to running out of patience before I reached the end.

 

[ProCop]

REapthar

Field of mathematics is too limited to provide understanding/insight in/of the universe phenomenon as experienced by a conscious being. Surely the orderly behaviour of this phenomenon/universe must have a basis. The nature of this basis is an unanswered question of which an answer is needed (Phys/maths view is that it came into being from nothing in the Big Bang (in an uncentered explosion - is such a view/theory mathematics/physics or a philosophy by nature?) Further more in your model the man can be (and should your model be true) <i> will </I>be replaced by the computer because the computer, has higher mathematical faculty than the man and the man is less suited to exist in the universe than the maschinery is cq.<a href=http://www.kubrick2001.com/> Space Odyssey 2001</a>. Mathematical knowledge has put you in a capsule of an illusion that if you partial model is proved correct - then you understand everything. Such an incapsulation is not given too everybody as an option: there is more to be understood about the universe than its mathematics. Anyway the knowlege you got at school was largely structured by Aristotle, and you (I suppose) live under the democratic government composed on Plato' s ideas of the Republic...naturaly you can ignore that and concern yourself with the fact that you know for sure that 1+1 = 2). Sancta Simplicitas - the last words of Jan Hus (when he saw an old woman to bring a bundle of wood to his burning. )

 

[Quantum Quack]

All this hummdrumm may be a bit off topic about IQ testing but Procop, well said.

With no disrespect to the Mathematical fields I agree that sometimes the focus of ones enthuisiasm sometimes distorts the reality of what you are doing.

As with most specialities they require great devotion to be successful at and this deserves respect however when the illusions of granduer are shattered the specialist achieves "grounding" and a greater balance to their perspective.

It is possible to think of philosphy as a more generalistic field and mathematics as a more specific field. One requires intense focus on a particular area of interest ( maths) where as the other requires a more encompassing and generalistic view.

It could also be considered that philosophy is about everything and that everything includes mathematics.

 

[yinyinwang]

/"axiomatic" means no constrain./
Dapthar
Quote/You sure that you don't want to rethink this statement before trying to support it? By the nature of an axiomatic system, a statement is only considered to be true if it is a logical consequence of the axioms, otherwise, it is false, or has no truth value./
The proposition or axiom has no constrains, not any statement. And if any statement is true depends on what kind of logics you are following, so with the same subject, there are different math statements, for example, we have many geometries, Euclidean or non.

 

[yinyinwang]

/you don't have to care much about the physical reality. /
Dapthar
Quote/Your point being? A Philosopher is not one to tout physical reality, since many of their paradoxes simply cannot exist in a physical reality, and many of them deny the existence of said reality, so this point is one "against" both Mathematics and Philosophy./
Not much life experience or wisdom is needed to start math.
Philosophy serve many purposes. Paradox is a kind of training tricks, or help thinking, not necessarily true to reality. But phi-statement is "meant" to be true, even though there is no guarantee. But a math statement is not meant to be true to reality, only to its only math system.
And the philisophy which deny reality actually means nonreality is the reality.

 

[yinyinwang]

/The history performance tells that we have considerablly less philosopher than any other professions, why? And a successful profession become a philosopher in some way because they have to think that way. /
Dapthar
Quote/You know, I was actually thinking of using a similar "rarity argument" to support my claims about Mathematics, but I did not, since I realized that this line of reasoning is fundamentally flawed. To take a logical extension of your argument, there are less postal workers than office workers, and by your logic, that implies that being a postal worker is more intellectually demanding, a fallacy. Thus, your line of reasoning is incorrect./

You don't quite undertand the problem, we are not in short supply of Phi-man, but short of young ones.

 

[Quantum Quack]

maybe it's just that there is more money to be got for a math person than a philosopher.

Not much money in philosophy hey?

 

[ProCop]

RE Quantum Quack

Originally posted by Quantum Quack
maybe it's just that there is more money to be got for a math person than a philosopher.

Not much money in philosophy hey?

In the Middle Ages people believed that virtue was its own reward (something in the sense that living a honest and chaste live was in itself rewarding - you didn't need any other rewards besides that) I wonder if it would be applyable to knowing/knowledge. Knowing a lot could be reward in itself but...I would still prefer to get the half of this reward in Euros...

 

[yinyinwang]

Yes, any one can have his life philosophy and can challeng the pillar, that makes a success more difficult because there are limitless examiners around to attack you from all directions.

Dapthar
Quote/To the contrary, it makes it easier. Any point with a shred of truth to it can be argued just as well as an established idea, since there is no experimental evidence or previous standards to conform to, i.e. too much freedom, and too little structure makes a subject rather easy./

I don't quite get what you mean. Do you mean that the phi-man are talking baseless things or without care for logics?
math use formula or symbol to argue or reason,
phi-man use langguang to do so most of the time because the case can not be generalised into a set of simple symbols and equations or > or <, that does not mean no reason or structure at all.

BTW: you don't have to scream to big blue to make a point.

 

[yinyinwang]

As a mathman, the only thing you care is self-consistancy. You can assume the sun is made up of gold as a mathman, ...
Dapthar
Quote/It is true that in Mathematics, one is primarily concerned with self-consistency, since it is a measure of the strength of one's logic, but if one's constructs don't do something useful (In the context of Mathematics) then there isn't much point to it. Again, your example doesn't work either, since anything having to do with physical reality is not a concern of Mathematics. Frankly, if assuming the sun is made of gold led to an interesting solution of a long-standing problem, e.g. the Riemann Hypothesis, then Mathematicians would have no problem doing so./

A lot of math assumptions come as the abstractions from reality, or physical model, at least at the begining of its construction of any system, so you can not say that physical world has nothing to contribute to math, otherwise math become ghost depicting completely.

 

[yinyinwang]

... but if you do so as a phi-man, you become everybody's laugh stuff.

Dapthar
Quote/Do you realize you are contradicting yourself here? You were just lauding the freedom of Philosophy, and now are touting its system of checks and balances? /

You are assuming that which is not true. See above.

 

[yinyinwang]

Dapthar
Quote/I could create a philosophical paradox that states the sun is composed of a substance that only looks like Hydrogen and Helium to our instruments, but is actually composed of tiny strings of energy that no device can currently detect, (replacing "tiny strings of energy" with "tiny fragments of gold" will yield an analogue to your original example), but every measuring device that exists today cannot detect them, and this philosophical "paradox" currently has no resolution. It doesn't mean that it has any less validity since it goes against "Philosophical common sense", so even your absurd argument holds as much Philosophical validity as current Physics research./

You call it a paradox? Being so emotional does not help you think phi- or math-ly.(I hate long spelling)

Without physical evidences any statement remains as assumptions, not only phi- ones.
what do you mean by "Philosophical common sense"?

 

[ProCop]

RE Dapthar

It is OK to believe in something strongly. Strong belief can take a good quick thinking mind to places where few have ever been before. I think that capacity combined with passion is the most wonderfull gift. Do not let the the front-wind which this gift brings as a by-product to take you down. Let it power you up.

P.