Redefinition of intelligence? (split from are scientists arrogant...)

[Scotty99]

 

If we're supposed to stop looking when we think we've found the answer, then the world is flat and everything revolves around it. Stars are just holes in the black fabric masking us from Heaven.

 

We ARE the smartest species overall on the planet. Other species might be smarter in different aspects of intelligence. Chimps have better visual memorization than we do, for instance. But overall, we have advanced cognitive abilities across the board that gives us superior intelligence. I don't think that's arrogance talking.

 

 

Maybe i am alone in this but i feel the word intelligence needs a redefine. Really, how "smart" are we? We have done a lot of cool stuff obviously, but i feel big brains have far more negative consequences than positives. Mental illness in animals is like 1 in a million, humans is like 1 in every 3?

 

I dunno, we just pat ourselves on the back far too much. It is very possible we have just gotten to smart for our own good.

[Phi for All]

Maybe i am alone in this but i feel the word intelligence needs a redefine. Really, how "smart" are we? We have done a lot of cool stuff obviously, but i feel big brains have far more negative consequences than positives. Mental illness in animals is like 1 in a million, humans is like 1 in every 3?

 

I dunno, we just pat ourselves on the back far too much. It is very possible we have just gotten to smart for our own good.

 

It's important to realize how important high intelligence is, but we should also be intelligent enough to understand that any single aspect of our abilities means nothing by itself. In some situations and contexts, humans are the most successful species known. Humans are the only species capable of leaving the planet. But put us naked in the middle of the ocean, without access to tools or tool-making, and we'd be less successful than a herring.

 

We also need to realize how we're supposed to fit with the rest of life on the planet. The herring provides the basis for an enormous and intricate food chain responsible for billions of other creatures. Our intelligence requires us to use it reasonably, imo.

[Scotty99]

You missed my point altogether. You instantly assume "high intelligence" as one befit to the human species, i am suggesting the term intelligence be redefined. I struggle to find a good example. the best i can come up with is instinct. I feel instinct is the true intellect of the universe.

[DrP]

When you make a decision based purely on instinct you still use use your brain. It is your brain that makes all of the decisions even if it seems like your gut.

[Phi for All]

You missed my point altogether. You instantly assume "high intelligence" as one befit to the human species, i am suggesting the term intelligence be redefined. I struggle to find a good example. the best i can come up with is instinct. I feel instinct is the true intellect of the universe.

 

While I agree that one can't simply claim humans are the smartest animals, our high intelligence is unmistakable and was paid for in stark evolutionary terms. We gave up a lot to get it, and when it's combined with our cooperative nature, our communication skills, and our tool-making ability (to name a few of the most important traits), it paves the way for the kind of advanced societies we have today.

 

I don't think it takes away from any other animal's amazing abilities to say that about humans. I don't think you need to invent a "true intellect of the universe" just because humans can be arrogant about their intelligence. Especially instinct. Instinct is amazing, but it can be pretty blind for a "true intellect of the universe".

 

I'm thinking now of a documentary I saw where a big fish is munching on a medium fish. While his tail half is being eaten, the medium fish is still being driven by instinct to munch on a tiny fish that wanders too close to his mouth. Is this an example of the instinct to eat overriding the instinct to flee?

 

I'm human. I'll take cognitive reasoning for the win.

[Scotty99]

Again, its all boils down to how to define intelligence. Are we smarter because we can build skyscrapers or do animals take the cake because they are oblivious to ego and narcissism?

 

1

[StringJunky]

Again, its all boils down to how to define intelligence. Are we smarter because we can build skyscrapers or do animals take the cake because they are oblivious to ego and narcissism?

 

1

The presence, or lack thereof, of ego and narcissicism are not indicators of intelligence. Where'd you get that idea from?

[Scotty99]

The presence, or lack thereof, of ego and narcissicism are not indicators of intelligence. Where'd you get that idea from?

 

Again, you presuppose what intelligence means. I am suggesting something different entirely.

[Phi for All]

 

Again, you presuppose what intelligence means. I am suggesting something different entirely.

 

Why don't you come up with a term for your "something different entirely", and leave the definition of intelligence as it is? It's not a presupposition, it's something that's been studied quite intently.

[Strange]

 

Again, you presuppose what intelligence means. I am suggesting something different entirely.

 

 

Redefining words to mean something else, especially when that something is is itself poorly defined, is rarely useful.

[dimreepr]

I think what Scotty is trying to suggest, rather clumsily, is that our intelligence is a double edged sword.

 

On the one hand our intelligence manifest in what we see in our modern world and all the advantages that brings us.

 

On the other hand, that same intelligence can also manifest in discontentment.

 

The noun discontent means "longing for an improved situation," like thinking you haven't achieved everything you should have by now, discontent that probably makes you miserable. The parts that make up discontent are dis, meaning "not" and content, "a state of peaceful happiness."

[tar]

Thread,

 

I think that Phi has alluded to the crux of the matter in suggesting that we (scientists and non) are standing on the shoulders of giants. That is "our" intelligence is not only what we individually know, but what those around us know, and more importantly, what those before us knew.

 

I used to support the service of fax machines at the manufacturer level and had the thought one day, of how long would it take someone with no civilization behind them to make a fax machine.

 

Alone with no material science, no information on where to find the metal, how to get it out of the ground and forged, no petroleum, no plastics, no command of energy, tools and processes and such, even for the basics. Not even close to designing lasers and microprocessors or stepper motors. Or the communication system to get the pixels sensed in Chicago to New York and a second fax machine...

 

So the pretentiousness, related to the OP, that was deflected from the knowledgeable scientist to the anti-vaccer blogger in the article, I think has more to do with assuming that because you know or feel something, it is you and you alone that knows or feels the thing, without the proper credit going to the work of unnumbered scientists and practitioners that had to have come before you.

 

That is, scientists are pretentious if they think because they know a formula and someone else does not know that formula, that they thought up the formula or that it is somehow theirs, and does not belong as well, to the person that does not know the formula.

 

Brilliant people often leave their work to others, for the benefit of others, and whether you are a scientist or not, and whether the topic is science or childcare, the findings of one of us, shared with the world, are indeed the property of all of us.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited August 31, 2016 by tar

[dimreepr]

Thread,

 

I think that Phi has alluded to the crux of the matter in suggesting that we (scientists and non) are standing on the shoulders of giants. That is "our" intelligence is not only what we individually know, but what those around us know, and more importantly, what those before us knew.

 

 

If you want to stand on their shoulders, you have to climb up first.

[tar]

dimreepr,

 

I know plenty of people that drive cars, without understanding the internal workings of a combustion engine.

 

You are suggesting you know how to climb unto someone's shoulders, and non-scientists don't have a clue. Somewhat pretentious of you.

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

I'm not a scientist and I wouldn't pretend otherwise, knowledge of a car and how to use it doesn't equate to understanding a car, or how to build one.

 

Standing on the shoulders of giants is a metaphor of progression, IOW if you want to build a better car, you first have to understand what came before.

[tar]

dimreeper,

 

I get it. But in terms of intelligence, the intelligence embodied in the car is available to the driver, and in terms of computer programs and many of the scientific procedures going on today there are pieces of technology and processes that are "used" without understanding of how to make it happen. Like the fax machine, you could use the ink or toner, without understanding CMYK color balance, or what plant to harvest, or mineral to mine, to find a certain pigment.

 

Regards, TAR

we are standing on the shoulders of giants when we look at google Earth

Edited August 31, 2016 by tar

[dimreepr]

Moving the goalpost's does require intelligence but it doesn't define it.

[tar]

dimreeper,

 

My initial point, was in agreement with Phi, that none of us are very smart by ourselves, and that we need quite a support group, both currently and historically, to "be intelligent". I didn't move any goal posts, from there.

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

Being intelligent doesn't require others.

[tar]

I disagree dimreepr. You couldn't even talk if you did not have parents that taught you. The symbols we "think" with are a language. A language taught to us by others, developed by others and refined and documented by others.

 

A babe raised in the woods by wolves, would not be as intelligent as the babe raised by a Harvard professor dad and a research scientist mom.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited August 31, 2016 by tar

[dimreepr]

You're confusing intelligence with learning.

[tar]

another thought

 

I woman I worked with on a technical hotline once said in response to someone that remarked at how she always knew the answer, that it was not knowing the answer that was as important as knowing where and how to find the answer.

 

Regards, TAR

[dimreepr]

A new problem is never solved by learning.

[tar]

Dimreeper,

 

I do not think I am confusing intelligence and learning. I think I am pointing out the relationship between thinking and language. And as such, the development of the language, within which to have the thought, is of utmost importance.

 

There are various components of intelligence, in terms of memory power, and computational ability, and abstract thinking, and the speed and sureness with which one can make analogies, and comparisons and look at things from multiple perspectives and the like, but the babe raised in the woods does not know nearly as much as the one raised around the university. No matter how much grey matter she was born with.

 

Regards, TAR

Dimreeper,

 

How about new problems are often solved by recalling the lessons learned while solving the last problem.

 

That is one of the standard tenets of project management.

 

Regards, TAR

and take math for instance

 

someone can have an abstract thought, using the math that was developed though countless propositions and trials and assumptions, by herself, but can not claim to have done it on her own

[dimreepr]

Problem solving

 

Ill-defined problems are those that do not have clear goals, solution paths, or expected solution.

 

 

Please suggest a way an ill-defined problem can be learned.