'Intellect'

[member2013]

What are your musings on, human-‘intellect?’ Is it a pathology, with no long-term survival value: peculiar to humans? Are men like Plato, and Socrates; born with a voracious-interest in learning, progress, and curiosity about the world around them: as much as you would, perhaps, like to look at pornography? Or, are they a product of their civilization-environment, and slave-driver parents? Is an IQ test, an accurate measurement of, 'intelligence?' Or is, 'intelligence,' finding a way to survive on a day-to-day basis? Are these ‘intellectuals,’ weaklings that have isolated themselves from the ‘natural’ barbarianism state of man, left their body behind, and formed another survival strategy: their brain?

Do you believe that there are differences in ‘intelligence’ levels, between the arbitrarily classified ‘races,’ of man? Are you more impressed with the ‘feats’ of a ‘bodybuilder,’ or a ‘social-science’ major? Do you consider human-‘intellectuals,’ to be a ‘superior’ type of human, to all others? Do you consider moralists, religious-teachers, and philosophers to be ‘intellectuals?’ Or, are you more impressed by chemists, medical-doctors, architects, and surgeons? Give me your musings on, ‘human-intellect,’ and all of its vagaries.

 

[sputnikgirl]

Nice topic!

I think there are definitely different types of intelligence. I've known people who were extremely book-smart, but lacked in what people term "common sense". I've known other book-smart individuals who've also possessed a great deal of common sense, but no emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence I'll define as the ablility to read people's emotions, respond to another person's emotional needs, and convey their own in an appropriate fashion.

Given that there are different kinds of intelligence, I don't think IQ tests are accurate for everyone. You can score above average on an IQ test, but be emotionally inept and have no common sense. And it works the other way too...you can be considered "dumb" by a standardized test, but know how to rebuild a car from scratch. Intelligence tests and standardized tests don't test for a wide enough range of skills.

I think it has survival value. I don't think intellectuals are the only people who's survivals skills would suck, given the event of a mass catastrophe. I think the vast majority of people in industrialized countries have lost the "hunter-gatherer instinct", so to speak. We've evolved or devolved, depending on how you see it, past the need for strong animalistic instincts on many levels. I would argue that the only ones we still possess in any amount have to do with sex drive.

 

[member2013]

That was such an intriguing, and insightful posting. I offer my utmost thanks to you. In terms of where barbarianism, and intellect, co-mingles:

I loathe, and detest the Third Reich but I realize that humanity, could have very well, gone in their direction. I am also not shocked to find that type of happening coming out of a place like Germany; it simply solidifies what I have always felt towards Germany.

Humans’ fervently-wish to take an intellectually-moral and spiritual stance: on the man, Adolf Hitler, and his National-Socialist (Nazi) government policy as being the pejoratives of ‘barbaric,’ and ‘evil.’ Well, the harsh ‘reality’ is that when you have a cadre of tribalistic-barbarians that are using their fierce military-intelligence to, ‘bend you over,’ and you can’t fight back – humanity will go in their direction, and ideology. Your whiney moralizing and religious magical thinking won’t stop them.

Not to mention the fact, that many Germans that National Socialism advocated, recall the utmost prosperity in those times in terms of the intellectual and system-dynamics of that government-form!

 

[member2013]

Here is a book, that some may enjoy:

http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals...9496963?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176708667&sr=1-2

 

[D-rock]

Human intellect is important to our survival. It's what has made us the dominant species on the planet. We can't run as fast as most animals and we don't have fangs like a tiger. Our brain is the tool that nature has given us to survive. Of course it can be argued that it will also be the thing that helps us destroy ourselves. In that respect it's a sword that can cut both ways.

IQ tests have never been that accurate. Not only in finding out how much common sense one has, but also even at what they were designed to find in the first place. In fact, incredible amounts of test out there, probably all of them, are flawed from the perspective of rating intelligence in some aspect or another. There is just too much that goes into intellect to be accurately measurable to any precise degree. When you try to find out how easily somebody can learn and not just what they know it gets even more muddled.

While some people do learn easier than others, I personally think the ceiling to what almost any person can learn, assuming no mental problems, to be extremely high. I think the people we consider smart now, most "normal" people would be able to achieve that level of intellect if they have the right amount of time, resources, and motivation. I hate to say it, but the reason so many people don't reach that often has to do with laziness or apathy. There are also certainly people out there that truly don't have the resources either.

I also don't necessarily differentiate types of intelligence. A lot of it's all part of the same thing in which some people have decided to find insight into one part more than the other. I wouldn't say that intelligence is anymore apart form our natural state than any barbaric tendencies are a part of it. Those are all part of what we have evolved to be. It has now become what it means to be human.

 

[Legzman]

Would intellect = intelligence? If this is the case, I have yet to see any proof of it!

 

[member2013]

It is imperative when defining intelligence, to define what it is to be human, here are my findings:

Carbon-based, flesh and bone, that seems to exclusively multiply itself: through sexual-reproduction, only. Observing of a central-processing-data-unit, and communicates with like-creatures, and gadgets that like-creatures have formed - by the method of exchanging: patterns of energy. Seems to have the property, of concocting delineates, and models of the environment in which it exists in. Seemingly self-motivated, and self-correcting - preserves data both in external, and internal forms, seemingly. Networking: responds to organizational-principles, by interacting with like-creatures: for a permanent or non-permanent basis: for engaging in consistent cross-mode, behavior-patterns.

 

[member2013]

Would intellect = intelligence? If this is the case, I have yet to see any proof of it!

Elaborate.

 

[member2013]

Here is a quote that I have copied from the original book that I pointed out, in this topic.

"It is a fact, and in some ways a melancholy fact that massive works of the intellect do not spring from the abstract workings of the brain and the imagination; they are deeply rooted in the personality."

 

[meesterperfect]

All I can say on this topic is the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.

 

[McRocket]

The most superior humans are the ones that always treat other people - ALL other people - with respect and decency.
These 'superior' humans can be smart or dumb.

If these people are also intelligent then that is probably a big plus.

But there have been many brilliant people that worked for selfish reasons. Even murderous ones.

Intelligence has nothing necessarily to do with how great you are. Morality does. Intelligence is just a bonus. A substantial one. But just a bonus.


I too applaud this thread idea from Paradise Place.

 

[member2013]

Anyone else invariably-annoyed, and angered by pompous, and inflated, ‘gifted and talented,’ students that feel that what college you attend is the end all, and be all: of life? Anyone severely turned off by, ‘gifted and talented,’ students that speak in nothing but vitriol, and condescension? You know, the homely, and socially-inept types with grandiose compensatory fantasies of the ultimate, ‘intellectual-might!’

 

[McRocket]

Anyone else invariably-annoyed, and angered by pompous, and inflated, ‘gifted and talented,’ students that feel that what college you attend is the end all, and be all: of life? Anyone severely turned off by, ‘gifted and talented,’ students that speak in nothing but vitriol, and condescension? You know, the homely, and socially-inept types with grandiose compensatory fantasies of the ultimate, ‘intellectual-might!’

That's a big 'Yup'.

 

[member2013]

That's a big 'Yup'.

They tend to have a plethora of mental and personality-related issues.

‘High-IQ,’ seemingly - does not correspond to, ‘good-looks,’

I wonder why?

 

[McRocket]

They tend to have a plethora of mental and personality-related issues.

‘High-IQ,’ seemingly - does not correspond to, ‘good-looks,’

I wonder why?

I was more referring to the pompous and condescension part of your post on this subject.

They may or may not be good looking.

 

[member2013]

‘High-IQ,’ seemingly - does not correspond to, ‘good-looks,’

I wonder why?

Someone give an answer to the above, if you think you have any idea why.

 

[member2013]

I've always been an ardent-fan of chemistry, by the way.

 

[member2013]

"It is a fact, and in some ways a melancholy fact that massive works of the intellect do not spring from the abstract workings of the brain and the imagination; they are deeply rooted in the personality."

I would enjoy adding the insight on how much, in depth, our modern politics, arts, and science, still continues, to derive its deep motivation, and inspirations from the genius that emanated from, Ancient Greece. If I can quote, a man by the name of Bertrand Russell, much of our Western thought is Aristotle – plus footnotes to him. I am alluding to a paraphrase from, ‘Wisdom of the West’ - a 1960 work, by Bertrand Russell. Aristotle postulated this hierarchal model of persuasion: ethos: or objective characteristics of the author, the pathos: or subjectivity or emotionalism of the listener, and in the arguments themselves. The enchantment with persuasion, started with the treatises from Aristotle, and the dialoging of Plato. It was Plato that drew the parallel from persuasion to oratory: as being the 'art-of-persuasion.'

 

[member2013]

I was wondering the other day on what the use of 'philosophy' is....

Perhaps, it is used as an elixer, to amplify the attributes that we judge as divine, and exquisite: while simultaneously, subduing the attributes that we find to be damaging, or unideal. This is executed, by becoming more acquainted with the world. Your ideals, are set nowhere really, 'in stone,' other than in your own mind, even if they are passed into law....

Moving on....I like this quote on the intellect....


"The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all." -
-- Oscar Wilde

 

[trunk_monkey]

Intellect - The ability to skip over long worded posts.

But seriously. We are all smart when it comes to something we care about. I have seen amazing things from the most unexpected places based on this idea.