Well it kind of is and kind of is not off-topic. Do you have a link to a paper where it is scientifically established that brains perform measurements? I think there is some co-opting of this term "measurement" going on in psychology and it is being given a very specific technical sense when experiments are being carried out, and then when conclusions are being drawn the usual everyday sense is being ushered back in through the back door.

We measured temperature with our heat sensor cells in our skin way before we discovered how to make a device like a thermometer. You may think its an uncommen way of applieng the word to measure, but actually it's the more common way, we have done so for millions of years, thermomenters only exist a few hundred years.
If we weren't able to measure without such devices, we wouldn't be able to determine whether the water we were boiling is hot or still cold when putting our hand into it.

Well, there are probably some fine-grained distinctions to make between testing the temperature of something with ones hand and measuring the temperature, but sure perhaps we can use bodily parts as instruments to measure things in general: an experienced painter may indeed size-up a wall with his eyes and then estimate how much paint he needs. Nothing I've said rules any of that out. I think the main point is the intentionality of measurement, not whether the instruments we use to do so are natural or artifactual.

So you do think that mental states have functions. So what exactly is your problem with the first premise of the argument for functional state identity theory?

I want to say that mental states fit brain functions

I'm not sure what you mean by "fit" here - do you mean "are", do you mean "are caused by" or something else entirely?

That's what you think, I didn't say you should be concious of it.

So we can unconsciously measure things?
Here is your definition of "measurement"
" the act or process of ascertaining the extent, dimensions, or quantity of something;"
Well acts and processes are distinct things, but presumably based on this definition, to measure something is to act in order to ascertain the amount of something .....So, how can I act to ascertain anything - let alone extents and dimensions - unconsiously? NB, this is not a general question about whether some of my actions can be unconscious or not, this is specifically about actions aimed at ascertaining results.
Perhaps if I somehow managed to use a tape measure during an episode of somnabulance I could be said to have performed an act of measuring whilst unconscious, but it would be tough to say that I had actually ascertained anything in doing so.

Since I do not endorse that mental states have not a function

I'm sorry, but I'm having difficulties with the way you are expressing yourself.
Do you mean that, although you believe that there are mental states, you do not believe that they have a function?

I think that mental states are not defined by their functional roles, but brain states.

If I change "Mental" for "Brain" in premise 1, for the argument to remain valid has to have for its conclusion:
3) Therefore, brain state and occurences are brain states and occurrences.

That would certainly be a logically valid argument, but then with (3) as a conclusion, I could substitute anything for (1) and (2) and have still have a valid argument, since (3) is a vacuous tautology.

You can hunt the philosophical-zomby argument without being a functionalist, pragmatist or instrumentalist. The philosophical-zomby argument is just one of a range of different problems thrown at functional state identity theory. Some of what you say in the this thread indicates to me that you do subscribe to that theory, some of what you say seems unclear. Hence I asked you the direct question to get clear on exactly what it is you believe. So, I'll try again: do you believe that the argument I just gave is sound (i.e. is logically valid and has true premises)?

The terms "instrumentalism", "functionalism", "pragmatism" mean different things in different contexts and in some contexts are not even compatible with each other. I presume you mean you subscribe to something like the following argument:
1) Mental states and occurences are defined by their functional roles.
2) The functional roles so defined are filled by states of and occurences in the brain (well, let's be honest, you'll need more than just a brain to fill some of these functional roles, the rest of the body will probably have to get a look-in).
3)Therefore, mental states and occurences are brain (bodily) states and occurences.

This is pretty much classic functional state identity theory - is that what you believe? If so, the knife/cutting onions analogy does not work in this context, since the activity of cutting onions - even if it can be defined in terms of some functional role - requires more than a knife to fill.

"How people think with the brain?"

This is a strange question - does it really make sense to suppose that we think with our brains?
I wash with soap.
I wave with my hand.
I laugh with my friend.
I accept a gift with gratitude.
I finish with a flourish.

In all these different cases of doing one thing with another, it makes sense to think of the doing in the absence of the thing that it is being done with. So, I guess I can think without my brain? Or perhaps I could think with someone else's brain, and not my own? If you do not think either scenario is possible, then the preposition "with" is not capturing what you take to be the connection between thinking and the brain.

Recognizing something using your eyes includes measuring

Let's recap where we are on this particular line of thought.
I claim that people can recognise intelligent behaviour without having to measure anything.
I point out that recognising something and measuring something are entirely distinct kinds of activity.
You admit that, but you say that nevertheless recognising something always requires measuring something.

I then go on to question this, since on a normal understanding of what measuring is, in so far as it is an activity engaged in by human beings, it is an intentional activity engaged in knowingly. For example, measuring the height and length of a wall in order to work out how much paint I'll be needing.
No such intentional measuring activity is going on when I recognise an "s" on a page, and I doubt very much that it is going on when you do either. I can certainly imagine circumstances where it would be going on - for instance, if I want to make sure that the "s" I have picked out is of exactly the right size to fit into the space I have on the document I am trying to forge, then recognising and measuring an "s" are going on together. However, note that in this kind of case, it is the measuring that depends on the recognition, not the other way around. You seem to be suggesting now, however, that there is some arcane notion of measurement which nevertheless is always going on when I visually recognise anything.

What is that notion of measurement? It is certainly not the usual one. I expect you will be tempted to say something along the lines, well, when I recognise anything at all my brain is measuring stuff.

My reply to that is that you are making a category error: brains are not things that measure. Human beings measure things and by analogic extension, we have created devices that also measure things, but stricly speaking even those devices do not measure anything, we measure things with those devices. It makes sense to say "thermometers measure temperature" since we measure temperature with thermometers, for instance, but strictly speaking, what thermometers do is react in characteristic and usually predictable ways to certain kinds of environmental change, such that they can serve as devices for measuring temperature.

So, now, in what sense do brains measure anything? Brains do not engage in intentional measuring activity themselves, and we certainly do not use them as we do devices such as thermometers. I can probably come up with a scenario in which I might use a brain to measure something, but it would be a truly bizarre scenario - perhaps I want to see if a box I have is big enough to carry a brain in, so I see if a brain I have to hand fits in the box. Arguably there I have used a brain to measure the size of a box.

Now I think you might be tempted to say something like, "but look at MRI scans that are recording what is going on in the brain when people are doing stuff like recognising "s"s: there's specific brain activity going on!". Well, I suppose we could try to use an MRI scan to measure brain activity when a person is recognising an "s" - I am not denying that in the least, although as far as I am aware nobody has been able to pinpoint specific types of brain activity corresponding to recognising anything, let alone something specific like an "s", although its early days of brain science. Regardless, what you seem to be wanting to say is that not only do MRI scans measure brain activity (in the sense that we can use them to measure brain activity), but they are measuring themeasuring activity of the brain. But there we are again back at the same category error. After all, if the brain is actively measuring anything, what is it measuring that thing with?

You probably think I don't understand what you mean by "measuring" and you are probably right. I supsect what you mean by "measuring" is not in fact measuring at all.

OK, but the general point holds: activities required to gain a skill are not required to maintain a skill. Recognising an "s" is a skill, perhaps measuring is required to gain that skill (although I am still unconvinced of that, you seem to have a model of human cognition that is generally contestable), but even so it does not follow from that that measuring in any way shape or form is required to maintain it.

My final reply to you was that you had a very specific and itself philosophically contestable theory of mind, and that discussing that was for another thread (of which there are plenty, by the way) not this one.

Three steps you have trained your brain to perform within a second, wich someone unfamiliar with the letter 's' has not. Kids spend years in school to train this skill, so eventually some even can get it trained up to the level that they are able to read up to 500 words a minute accurately.

Even if it is true that to obtain the skill of recognising an "s" requires measuring (and again, I insist that if it does then a very technical use of the notion of measuring is being used) it does not follow that proficiency in that skill once gained requires continual measuring. See my example of a violin player who at the beginning has to concentrate very hard on the exact positioning of fingers on the fingerboard, but who - when fully proficient - no longer needs to concentrate on the exact positioning of his or her fingers, they just hit the right spot.

I refer you to my final reply to FLUX23 - I believe you must have a very specific theory of mind-brain identity involving a very specific definition of "measurement" and probably some representational view of perception such that merely in seeing something, a measurement is always being made. Under any run-of-the-mill notion of "measurement" seeing and "s" on a page and measuring an "s" on a page are entirely different kinds of activities.

@Posty McPostface@Pseudonym A mark of an interesting anecdote is that it is open to many interpretations - I for one was thinking more along the lines of what might be the connections between happiness and intelligence.

If intelligence is not the capability to be 'better' at some range of tasks, then what is it?

Short answer - I do not know. Slightly longer answer - maybe it isn't really anything (any thing) at all. Perhaps I'm an intellectual nihilist :wink:

OK. I'll try to take a browse tonight at the suggestions for companions available on the memory of the world site and let you know if I'm going to use one specifically.

OK, sounds fair enough. I'll get started on trying to think of some interesting things to say about propositions 1 and 2. I'm going to be out of contact completely for the final week of June, so you may prefer to wait until July to get things started, but otherwise I could have a stab at putting some thoughts together over the weekend.

Well, perhaps we should just take things a step at a time? I don(t know - we have to start somewhere after all. I'm far from an expert, but I am familiar with the work of Russell and Frege that sits as the background to the Tractatus, and familiar enough with the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance/description to know that the characterisation of Russell's view of knowledge by acquaintance as causal (on the wiki page you link to) is moot. The article on solipsism you link to looks interesting, but I'm wondering if it is the kind of thing that should be looked at during rather than before starting on the reading of the work itself.
It may be that for your purposes, a reading group of the Tractatus is not the best idea, but rather a reading group based around articles on the Tractatus (such as the solipsism one). That way, the Wittgenstein experts on this forum might have more to contribute?

Just a quick thank you for that link to an incredible online resource I was not aware of.
@Posty McPostface Well, I skim read the Tractatus this weekend as I said I would, only to realize that in order to understand any of it, you have to understand all of it. Nevertheless, if we're going for a reading group, and we are not being lead by an expert, one approach is to go through it in bit-sized serial chunks. Any division is going to be arbitrary to some extent, but how about the following division into 10 such slices:
Session 1: Propositions 1 through 2
Session 2: Proposition 3
Session 3: Proposition 4.0
Session 4: Propositions 4.1 through 4.2
Session 5: Propositions 4.3 through 4.5
Session 6: Propositions 5.0 through 5.1
Session 7: Propositions 5.2 through 5.4
Session 8: Propositiions 5.5 through 5.6
Session 9: Propositions 6.0 through 6.2
Session 10: Propositions 6.3 through 7

Well, there's quite a lot going on in your post, some of which I think I'm inclined to agree with. I think you are perfectly correct, for instance, to point out a cultural element in the ascription of genius to musicians and writers that is largely absent in the case of mathematics. Of course, I'm pretty sure that cultural and social elements nevertheless have their role to play in the life history of any genius, but the language of mathematics is, at least these days, international.
Having said that, I think I might have to take more of an issue with what seems to be an implication of this remark of yours:

What's more, if there was some objective set of thing that Shakespeare could do better than any other, then producing works of literary genius could be taught like maths.

We can teach people how to write poetry, just as we can teach people how to construct mathematical proofs, but it will never follow that the people we do so teach will go on to become outstanding poets or mathematicians, rather than mediocre or even miserable ones. So, I'm not really sure there is any real difference in kind between mathematics/literature/music that can be drawn on the basis of pedagogical limits.

Basically, if someone who is good at maths and someone who is good at music are both 'intelligent', and if someone who is good at maths and music is more intelligent than someone only good at either, then intelligence must have some quantitative element.

Well, as I hinted above, I do not agree with the premise that someone who is good at both maths and music is more intelligent than someone good at only one or the other. But, even if I were somehow forced into agreeing with that, the most that would commit me to in regards to a quantitative aspect to intelligence generally is that we could quantify intelligence generally by counting the number of distinct intelligent behaviours a person exhibits (given appropriate circumstances for exhibiting them, of course). That is very far removed from the kind of approach engaged in by those involved in the IQ testing industry (at least in its current form).

Well, "What's a genius" probably deserves a thread of its own - but mere membership of Mensa doesn't cut it for me. We can probably say without courting too much controversy that Mozart is a better composer than Taylor Swift, and whilst we might get heckled by adolescents for suggesting so, we could probably find a musicologist who could give us all kinds of good reasons for believing that to be the case objectively. Similarly, perhaps some professor of literature can be appealed to to show us exactly how Shakespeare is a better writer than JK Rowling. What I'm still not seeing, though, is how admitting all that would support the idea that there is one measurable thing/property called intelligence that Shakespeare and Mozart had more of than do Taylor Swift and JK Rowling.

Where I do take some offence is the current state where those with shall we say non-conventional intelligence, resist having their skill measured quantitatively and yet wish to maintain fervently their authority to do so in their own subjective manner even in public discourse. That seems, to me, a little disingenuous.

OK, we may not have a disagreement about these kinds of people - it sounds like at some level they are being hypocritical, but if you had an example or two of who you are talking about it might be clearer to me what exactly the issue is here.

OK, so your claim that all recognition is measurement is based on a very specific theory of mind in which the term "measurement" has a very specific technical use, since in a non-technical sense I certainly do not need to measure anything when I recognise a face in a crowd. I can certainly imagine circumstances where I might do so - for instance, I have a picture of a crowd of people on the one hand, and a picture of a person to find in that crowd on another, and there I can see myself in some circumstances perhaps measuring the length of the persons nose in comparison to his brow and so on and comparing it with similar measurements of faces in the crowd. Also, if I have to recognise a specific person from a crowd of very similar looking people, I might go down to measuring (well, counting) how many freckles are on faces and so on However, that kind of measuring is certainly not what I am doing when I recognise my mother in a crowded supermaket. So if there is measurement going on - as you claim - it is in a very special and technical sense and in which case we have got about as far as we can go simply with the discussion of the validity of IQ tests, since it all seems to hang on a theory of mind. For sure, I think we are going to have significant differences of opinion on the mind-brain issue in general, given the differences of opinion about what IQ tests are measuring, but this is not the thread for that.

No problem,take a look through the posts between myself and Tomseltje on the idea that recognising intelligence involves measuring intelligence. I start off with the example that I don't measure anything when I recognise someone's face in a crowd, so recognition does not always involve measurement. He/she disagrees and the exchange peters out with two ideas left hanging and unsettled: 1) That even if we might gain an ability through using measurement in the beginning, it does not follow that continual proficiency requires continually measuring, and 2) What I suspect is some kind of general theory of cognition lying in the background of Tomselje's approach that assimilates all perceiving to measuring.

OK, so I think the first question to answer here would be whether you think we generally consider someone who can solve complex maths puzzles and play a musical instrument as more 'intelligent' than someone who can only do one or the other.

We're getting down into some complicated issues now! Well, personally I do not play a musical instrument. My colleague who sits next to me does. Other than that difference we have much in common educationally, and the similar jobs we perform we perform to all intents and purposes to the same degree of proficiency, advice seeking between us is a two way street. Do I consider myself less intelligent than he is on the basis that he plays a musical instrument, or did I just not have the same opportunities that he had growing up? Of course, I'm biased, so it's probably not for me to answer, but then why should the outcome of that question be based on our capacity to complete an IQ test either?

Of course, I've met stupid people, or rather people I would call stupid: voters of populist nationalist parties for instance, and so with people like that if I were asked if I were more intelligent, well, I might be inclined to say yes (although I've met some people who do vote that way who are remarkably good at mathematics). Here I think the example introduces the idea of there being some kind of value-based judgement going on in deciding whether someone is more or less intelligent than another.

So, to your general question

Does having an ability in more areas of intelligence make one more intelligent overall?

I suppose I have to answer "It's complicated".

I respectfully disagree.

About what specifically - the burden of proof charge?

If you have a concept and can distinguish between an intelligent person or not, whether subjectively or objectively, you are qualitatively measuring intelligence.

I've been down this particular path in this thread already - distinguishing one thing from another does not always involve measuring. At least, it is by far from obvious that it does. You may have an entire theory of cognition that is based on a representational theory of perception which assimilates all perceptual activity to measuring the environment, and so everything that involves perception in any way involves measurement, but it would be a whole different thread to examine that kind of idea and what might be wrong with it (the notion of "representation" is an often abused and confused one in the philosophy of mind and psychology).

That taking an IQ test is a manifestation of human intelligence is not something I have denied or would deny. What I am denying is that it follows from the fact that intelligence can be manifested in a variety of ways, including taking IQ tests, that intelligence is a thing which comes in amounts.

If, on the other hand, we wish to deny any authority to our vague notion of the sort of question an intelligent person ought to be able to answer, then we must also discard the notion that we can recognise an 'intelligent' person by the sorts of things they are able to do.

I'm not sure what you are implying here, but perhaps there's an argument to draw out of it. Suppose I accept that taking an IQ test is one manifestation of intelligence. Suppose I know someone who manifests other kinds of intelligent behaviour - she speaks a language, plays a musical instrument and has an active social life for instance, maybe she's also quite manipulative of others. Suppose that person fails miserably everytime she takes an IQ test of whichever variety. I might be surprised that she is bad at taking IQ tests, certainly, but then again perhaps not. The point is that there would be no (at least obvious) logical contradiction in supposing that she was simply bad at those tests yet still capable of manifesting all kinds of other intelligent behaviour.

Nicely put, and since you seem to have gained high marks in previous IQ tests, perhaps @Belter will take you more seriously than he or she is willing to take me.

You know, I'd never thought about it like that. By God you are right! I am a dumbass. Thanks for pointing that out.

That there is a concept of intelligence is not in question and how we gain that concept, or any other for that matter, is perhaps an interesting question. However, that the concept corresponds to a measurable property of human beings is what is in question. Human beings deal with plenty of complex concepts that we learn how to use without having to measure anything (at least in any straightforward sense of "measure"): intelligence is one of them, niceness is another example, there are plenty of others. Somewhat akin to 17th century physicists who developed the (now discarded) theory of phlogiston, psychologists and others seem to presume that there must be something objective and measurable underlying the use of the concept (yes, they even do this for niceness apparently). But that is simply a presumption and is entirely unsupported. Furthermore, unlike the developers of phlogiston theory, the motivation for the development of IQ testing and the surrounding technical apparatus was not disinterested pursual of knowledge about the nature of our use of a concept, but was actually driven by prejudices about what kind of people had more of this magical stuff than others.
The burden of proof here is not on the skeptic who accepts we have an interesting concept but who suspects a category mistake is being made when the concept is assimilated to physical concepts such as heat and mass. The burden of proof is on those who insist that the concept corresponds to a measurable property. As @SophistiCat points out, the burden of proof is actually more specific than just identifying such an objective property, but also that the property comes in differing amounts and is not simply present or absent.

In order to determine wether there is a 'z' or an 's' written, you measure several things.

That's disputable. For instance, I simply saw that you misspelt "whether" "wether" - I didn't measure anything and I did not even compare your "wether" with a correctly typed "whether". Developing the skill of spotting spelling mistakes may or may not involve "measuring" , although it would be a strange definition of "measuring" if it did, but even so that would not in the least entail that everytime I spot a spelling mistake now that I have that skill, that I am measuring something. When you learn to play a musical instrument such as a violin, you begin by concentrating very hard on where you place your fingers on the fingerboard. When you are a proficient violinist you no longer need to do that. Things that are done in order to gain a skill are not necessary to continuing to manifest that skill.

Now, you seem to be implying that even though recognition is not measurement, each recognition is made on the basis of having made a measurement. However, even that is not obviously true - what do I measure when I recognise a spelling mistake? I see the mistake, but seeing isn't always measuring.

Take your pick. I presume you have made a mistake at some point during your life, and have recognised that you had made that mistake. In that case, the fact that you recognised, yet did not measure, was the fact that you made that mistake.

And when you recognise that you have made a mistake (if you ever do) do you thereby measure that fact?

Recognising something and measuring that thing are, in general, two entirely distinct activities. When you recognise someone in a crowd, do you measure them? Hence, even if I can recognize intelligent behaviour, it does not entail that I am measuring anything at all. So, to conclude that intelligence can be measured merely on the basis that intelligent behaviour can be recognised is (another) non sequituur.

Also, as @SophistiCat mentions, even if all instances of intelligent behaviour had one and one thing only in common, it still need not be anything measurable - it could simply be present or absent, on or off.

If by "definition of intelligence" you mean "necessary and sufficient conditions for something's being intelligent" I have no definition of intelligence, I've already made that point at least once in this thread. Not having a definition in that sense, however, does not prevent me from recognising instances of intelligent behaviour. What I am challenging is the idea that all those instances that I would produce for you as examples of intelligent behaviour have one specific measurable quality in common.

Your definitions of what it would be to say that IQ tests are/are not accurate and have/do not have deviation are clear and make sense against this initial background assumption :

Let's hypothetically say that we have some ways to measure highly objective, critically accurate, perfect measurement of intelligence, and that we have the scores for 100 random people.

But it is precisely that assumption - i.e. that intelligence is a thing that can be measured - that is under scrutiny here, so as a defence of using IQ tests as a reference measure of intelligence, there remains some question begging going on. However, perhaps I've misunderstood what you are trying to do in your post.

Nicely expressed. I think it's pretty certain that Tomseltje is displaying some confusion about what IQ tests are measuring, and that he/she doesn't really mean by "intelligence" just "that which IQ tests measure" but something altogether more substantive.

Do you think there are differences in intelligence among people? — Tomseltje


Now either answer the question, or claim you can't answer it.. but simply not adressing it seems quite disingenious.

How do you expect me to answer the question when you have not even clarified what scientific definition of intelligence you suppose everyone to be familiar with.
Your definition:

intelligence : that what IQ tests measure

Well if intelligence is that which is measured by IQ tests, then intelligence for me is just an ability to take IQ tests, but then your question just becomes
Do you think that people score differently on IQ tests?
You don't really need me to answer that question do you? Of course people score differently on IQ tests, and presumably for many different reasons.

That's twice you've thumped the table and exclaimed "Nonsense!" although the second time you add a "that's just silly" presumably hoping that a little variety will pass for persuasive argument, but in the end your underlying argument remains the same:
Premise: IQ tests measure something
Premise: That something is intelligence
Conclusion: Therefore IQ tests measure intelligence.
That is an excellent example of a petitio principii, and I think I'll start using it when people ask me "what does begging the question mean?"

Now let's consider in a little more detail your mathematical example. If I am presented with the statement "1+1=2" either I know what those signs mean or I do not. If I know what those signs mean, perhaps the only context it makes sense for me to ask what 2 is would be if I were to be interested in the ontological status of mathematical objects, and if that were my motivation, then the response "2 is 1+1" is vacuously circular - it's not even unhelpful. If I do not know what the signs mean at all, then presumably my question "what is 2?" is motivated by a desire to find out what symbols like "1" and "2" and "+" and "=" mean, and then to be told "2 = 1+1" is also vacuously circular and not even unhelpful. What might be helpful perhaps in both contexts would be a brief introduction to number theory and the definition of the cardinals in terms of bijective relations between sets.

And thus we return to my as yet unanswered question: what is this supposed scientific definition of intelligence? You have not yet responded, so all I can do is put words into your mouth and suggest that "scientifically, intelligence is whatever IQ tests measure", and in which case, from my perspective that just makes the scientific notion of intelligence mean "the ability to take IQ tests". However, although I cannot give you necessary and sufficient conditions for what counts as intelligence (my whole point being to challenge the very idea that this can even be done) I can tell you that there are all kinds of activities other than taking IQ tests that manifest intelligence, so that particular scientific definition of intelligence would be uninterestingly specific, although at least it would not be vacuously circular.

To dismiss the validity of iq tests would be to dismiss that the ability to answer questions correctly has any relation with cognitive ability.

Well, this is a little clumsily expressed, but if by "dismissing the validity of IQ tests" you mean something like "raising skeptical challenges about what IQ tests are supposed to be measuring" then to dismiss the validity of IQ tests does not in the least entail dismissing the idea that something's being able to answer questions might be related to that something's possessing cognitive abilities. So, from petitio principii, we move on to a non sequituur. Of course, being able to answer questions is not in and of itself a sufficient grounds for imputing cognitive ability, since in one sense of "answering a question" robots can answer a question, but it would be a brave (possibly Australian) metaphysician that would infer from that that robots have cognitive abilities.

Wittgenstein once said something along the lines that in psychology there is experimental method and conceptual confusion, and from what I can see, there is no better example of what he was on about than the IQ testing industry.