Not a particularly good analogy - driving tests are also a measure of your ability to manipulate a car - if you can do that in the context of a test you are likely to perform well with a car in other contexts (although not necessarily, bad drivers pass their driving tests). This is a key disanalogy with the IQ test: there is no device/tool being used to take an IQ test, except perhaps a pen (but then there are better ways to test penmanship than an IQ test). — jkg20

If you have problem with this example because it involves a device like a car, then just think about the theoretical exam for the driving test, wich merely requires the idea of a car, but not an actual car to take the test. At least where I live passing such an exam is required to even start the practical lessons driving a car. And the critisism stays the same, It doesn't merely measure how good you are at taking that kind of tests, it also tells something about how aquinted the person taking the test is with traffic rules. So it also has a predictive value on how well the person will perform when starting practical driving lessons. The reason we don't allow people who fail this test to start practical driving lessons is because it would increase the number of traffic accidents if we did.

Iq tests are similar in that regard, they just test a persons on more general knowledge and ability to reason, and hence they also have a predictive value on how that person taking the test will perform in the future in situations that require skills associated with what the test measures.

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. — MetaphysicsNow

I used a simular example to attempt to explain differences in ways to measure something (since I do play guitar and not the violin I opted for a first hand experienced example). The flaw here is in the assumption that the violin player who is fully proficient is no longer measuring. This is not the case, this violin player learned a way to measure the same thing by other means than when he started to learn how to play wich is way quicker than would be possible compared to having to measure everything required to play the piece consciously.

Tomseltje

You sound alot like someone acknowledging that he/she can move his/her arm, but denies the chemical reactions taking place within your muscle tissue.

Exactly what I have I said that entails skepticism about the science of human physiology? Plenty of what I have said manifests skepticism about what the IQ industry is messed up in, but nothing I have said undermines the work of physiologists. — MetaphysicsNow

You seemed to do so when you stated:

Well acts and processes are distinct things — MetaphysicsNow

My example clearly demonstrates that the act and the proces can be undistinguisable, hence they are not by definition distinct things, at best you could argue they can be distinct ways of adressing what happened. How can the act of making milk into butter take place without the process of making milk into butter taking place? You seem to suggest they can.
It seems simular to me like making the error of stating "miles and meters measure different things" in stead of stating "miles and meters are different ways to measure the same thing (in this case the length of something)".

What might get you out of the hole you have dug for yourself is if you could present us with some cogent non-question begging examples of somebody unconsciously ascertatining something. I wish you luck with that. — jkg20

I don't think I was ever in that hole to begin with, since I already gave some examples of that, but you didn't seem to recognize them as such. So perhaps I should elaborate. If you learned to play an instrument like the guitar the example should be familiar, since while you start practicing the guitar, you will have to think consciously about where to place your fingers with one hand and when to stroke the strings with the other hand. However, this proces takes so long, that even if you try to play the music at half the speed, you are still often way too late in placing your fingers. Once you at least partly automized the proces, you willl be able to play the music at its correct speed without missing a note. But once you are there, you trained your body to unconsciously measure where to place your fingers.
The same principal goes for learning to type on a querty keyboard (with the exeption that there is no time limit for typing as there is in music, untill you want to become a professional typist, in wich case you must be able to accurately type an x number of characters a minute, wich most people don't reach after their first five minutes of practice) and learning to ride a bicycle.

Nobody unconsciously ascertains anything — jkg20

You can state this, but you didn't demonstrate it to be truth, nor do I agree with this assumption. I did attempt to demonstrate the contrary with an example. Since when I play the guitar I can unconciously ascertain where my finger needs to press the string to get the right sound out of my guitar when I stroke the string with my other hand. The same as when someone walks through a doorway, that person ascertains wether he/she would fit through before walking through it, most people don't require a tape measure to make this measurement, especially the more the size of the doorway differs from the size one would just be able to fit through. And the same kind of unconcious ascertaining is required to drive any vehicle with a steering wheel. Well practiced bikeriders don't consciously think when riding a bike,"ooh im steering 2 inch to far to the right, time to start steering to the left by x degrees", they practiced so they can unconsiously steer the right way in order to stay on the right side of the road as well as to stay on top of the bike and not fall off.

when I recognise intelligent behaviour, what are the intentional conscious activities I engage in to determine the extent, dimensions or quantity of intelligence? — jkg20

I pointed out the invalidity of the question, since it assumes that the activities must be conscious, wich wasn't stated in the definition I gave. As I attempted to explain with a practical example, at least part of the proces of recognizing can be unconscious.

Teacher: Let x equal the number of sheep.

Pupil: But teacher, what if x is not the number of sheep? — EnPassant

teachers mistake: openness, better he had said " the number of sheep is defined as x"

Pupils mistake: disagreeableness, not willing to participate into thinking about the consequences of defining the number of sheep as x.

Propor teacher respond : "we are not talking about what if x is not the number of sheep, we are talking about the situation where x is the number of sheep. I appreciate genuine questions about the subject, but I don't wan't to hear any more questions designed to distract from the subject, last warning."

'social intelligence' is more correlated with personal trait agreeableness than with intelligence.

Computers are not intelligent, they just execute the commands programmed into them, it's the computer programmer who requires intelligence.

IQ tests provide an excellent means of ascertaining how good people are at taking IQ tests, that we can say for sure. — MetaphysicsNow

Just like how driver tests provide excellent meant of ascertaining how good people are at taking driver tests. That we can say for sure. However, you implying that it doesn't tell us anything else is rather ill informed, otherwise why would passing a drivers test be manditory for everyone before driving a car on the public roads? Same goes for iq tests: the result holds more information than just how good the participant is at taking iq tests.

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't intentionally read letters one by one when I read, I read whole words. I may have started reading by intentionally going letter by letter, but I gave that up a long time ago and I suspect you did too. — MetaphysicsNow

The fact that you had enough practice so you can recognize most words by just reading the first and last letter of a word and a decent estimation of the number of letters in between, doesn't mean you are not reading letters any more.

Why did you shot the sherif?

I was aiming for the deputy but the sheriff got in the way. — MetaphysicsNow

Thanks for confirming you are just here to troll and not to be actually discussing philosophy.

Tomseltje never seems to respond to direct questions. — MetaphysicsNow

Poisoning the well now Metaphysics? I answered several direct decent questions on this forum, in order to make that statement, you should have checked all questions asked to me, and checked all my answers to those posts in order to determine I didn't answer any of them, You obviously didn't do so, disingenious at best.
Of course I don't answer questions based upon a strawman of my position. I tend to point out the strawman first giving you a chance to reformulate your question to a question that actually might have anything to do with my position.

You seem to be blaming the one you expect to answer the question. You are painfully ignorant about the invalidity of certain questions, but as an example, why don't you answer the following direct question:
Why did you shot the sherif?

Ascertaining is an intentional activity engaged in knowingly in order to arrive at some specific piece of knowledge about something — jkg20

yea.. tell me about someone able to recognize wich letter is wich without engaging into the intentional activity of reading the letters. The fact that a person automized the proces to the degree he/she isn't concious about certain parts of the proces he/she engages in, doesn't mean they are not intetntionally actively engaging into the party automized proces.

When I play the guitar, I don't need to think conciously about where and how to move my fingers, because I automized that part, I'm still intentionally actively engaging in playing the guitar.

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. — MetaphysicsNow

No, what I mean when I use the word 'measuring' is measuring, the fact that I might mean something else by it than when you use the word 'measuring' doesn't mean that I did not mean measuring. To imply so is unwarrently accusing me of lieng. The more correct interpretation would have been to conclude that we were using different definitions. Now in order to understand my position, when I started to use the word 'measuring', you will have to accept the definition I used. To substitue your definition for mine while already having estabilished they are different is at best disingenious.

Now in other discussions, your definition might be more usefull, but not in this one. Since you were claiming to try understand what I meant, a genuine attempt at understanding what someone else meant by his/her statement, includes accepting his/her definition provided that apply to the statement.
Only after you proporly understand a statement can you attempt to counter it with arguments, so far your arguments merely point out you didn't understand the original statement to begin with.

As soon as a definition is provided that is different from the one you had in mind when the word was used, it's time to think about what the position could be when appling the new definition, instead of starting to complain about the perceived misuse of the word.
The way you formulate it, you seem to be afraid that when you accept the new definition, you get robbed of the definition that you used to apply. Wich is not the case, on the contrary, if you accept the new definition, you enriched yourself by having learned a new definition on a word that can be more usefull in some circumstances, while still having the oppertunity to use your old definition in circumstances where the old definition is more usefull.

Can you be a little more specific about "several" test? Are they test with completely different problems? Or are they test with similar problems? This is particularly important when discussing statistics. — FLUX23

The reference was to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale vs. Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale especially when applied to less median groups. I see many people mention their personal iq score, but seldom I see anyone mentioning wich test they used for it. Nor does it seem to get mentioned in other iq discussions, the reference usually is 'iq-tests are [ fill in any claim]' without specifying about wich test the claim is made. Not too surprising, since I had my iq formally tested at three instances, and on neither of those was I informed wich iq test was being used.

As for the question you ask, I was confused there too for a while, but I think I've got it now. Yes, I prefer a human-centric philosophy, and perspective on life, the universe and everything. But I want an honest view, so I would avoid projecting the meaning I see onto the world. Meaning is in the eye of the beholder, it is not part of the thing we assign or ascribe it to. That kind of projection seems to be very easy for us to slip into, as we do it a lot. I try to avoid it whenever I can, or comment if it seems someone else is doing so.

Does that answer your question? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

I don't think humans can really avoid projecting, though it can be quite usefull to be aware of doing so and realize that meaning is in the eye of the beholder and all of us are beholders. For an honest vieuw though one can't exlude the meaning and values we appoint to things in our world. When practicing science we should try avoid it, but when it comes to the other neccesities of life, I'm not so sure we should exlude it from the equasion in every instance.

Yeah, well, I suppose in a sense this thread seeks a definition of "definition".

In that context, my poiint is that a set of synonyms does not set out what we might call the meaning of some term. — Banno

Not really, its more about the neccesity of providing a definition on the words used when their meaning is not clear to the receptor.

Of course a set of synonyms usually isn't precise enough when someone requires a definition of a word used. Hence a description, possibly accompanied with a synonym is a better way to provide a definition. Of course neither of those is the meaning, it merely is a different representation of the meaning that might be better understood than the single word that was used.

It's like having a biologist send his 3 year old to explain evolution to a group of people. Either God doesn't exist, or he is really terrible at communicating things in a clear and concise manner. — chatterbears

Well, if you refuse to talk to the biologist himself, you will have to do it with the explanation of the 3 year old, you shouldn't blame god for that. Since god works through people, at best you can blame the people not doing it proporly, not nessesarily god. Unless you believe that all people are perfect of course, i don't believe that, I believe that none of us is perfect, but decent people strive for perfection.

Yet you haven't cleared it up at all. So apparently God does not act through people, since you weren't successful, correct? Also, if God acts through people, he's done a horrible job. — chatterbears

Why assume it's god who failed and not the people? I failed explaining it so you can understand, you failed to understand, it doesn't nessesarily need to be a failur on god's side. I could have done a better job at explaining, perhaps you could have done a better job at trying to understand.

Well acts and processes are distinct things — MetaphysicsNow

not from where i stand. I can move my arm as an act, wich includes several chemical processes within my muscles. It's impossible for me to perform that act without those chemical processes taking place.

You sound alot like someone acknowledging that he/she can move his/her arm, but denies the chemical reactions taking place within your muscle tissue.

Tree-rings have no intrinsic meaning. Meaning is assigned arbitrarily to them by humans. Even using tree rings to determine the age of a tree is a human thing: we kill the tree to see how old it was. The rings simply reflect the way the tree grew. They have no intrinsic meaning, and they were not put there for the use of humans. — Pattern-chaser

Glad you demonstrated to be able to make the differenciation needed here, I tried to point out to Banno. Thank you for substanciating my position.

"and they were not put there for the use of humans"

I'm just not sure about this last part, I don't know why they were put there, do you? I can't logically exclude the possibility that they were put there for the use of humans just yet.

Having cleared up this conundrum, I'd like to point out that I started this topic about the definition of words. Definitions of words used in a statement clearly are not about intrinsic meaning but about assigned meaning.

ps.
No offence intended, but seeing your statement

I prefer philosophy that is useful and meaningful to humans, and I prefer to consider matters relevant to humans, from a human perspective. — Pattern-chaser

I would have expected you would opt for assigned meaning rather than intrinsic meaning, yet you chose differently. I wonder why, got any thoughts on that?
(note, I realize this is a rather personal question, so I'm not expecting you to express the thoughts you may have on this, just whether you gave it some thought yet or not)

TomseltjeThat's also where Pattern-chaser goes astray, rightly noticing that we impart meaning to tree rings while also concluding that this means tree rings have no meaning at all- apparently without noticing this contradiction — Banno

You seem to be non specific regarding build-in meaning and assigned meaning. In case of the tree rings, they may not have a build-in meaning, but they may have an assigned meaning. If you don't differenciate but just say meaning in general we won't be able to tell wich kind you are reffing to, and we will just keep disagreeing.

Note that the Socratic Dialogues themselves are discussions about the meaning of various terms; working out what we mean is pivotal to philosophy. If we begin by simply stipulating meaning, then arguably we are not actually doing any philosophy. — Banno

It's the kind of meaning I was referring to. I'd say that we can't sensibly start going into a philosophical discussion without those being clear. Whether the defining is part of the philosophical discussion or preceeds it, I don't really care, as long as it happens.

but you assign meaning to them — Pattern-chaser

once meaning has been assigned, it has meaning I'd argue.

it is anti-philosophical to not respond to a request for definitions. — Arne

I'm glad we agree on this. I wished all on this forum would. Perhaps it could be included in the site guidelines.

For example, measuring the height and length of a wall in order to work out how much paint I'll be needing. — MetaphysicsNow

To measure the wall in your example, one could use a measuring device. However a skilled painter can do it without, just by looking at the surface and making an estimate of the surface area. In both cases the width and height of the surface area has been measured.

No such intentional measuring activity is going on when I recognise an "s" on a page — MetaphysicsNow

That's what you think, I didn't say you should be concious of it.
When a preditory animal encounters another animal, an estimation gets made: Is this something to eat, is this something to run away from. In order to make the estimation, the size of the other animal gets measured. Is it smaller then it's something to eat, is it bigger, then it's something to run away from.

What is that notion of measurement? — MetaphysicsNow

I gave you the definition I used, what more do you want?

brains are not things that measure. Human beings measure things and by analogic extension, we have created devices that also measure things — MetaphysicsNow

This is where you go wrong, reread the definition I gave, a device is not needed to measure, the definition doesn't mention its requirement, though it can still help to obtain more accurate measurements.

It makes sense to say "thermometers measure temperature" since we measure temperature with thermometers — MetaphysicsNow

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.

Stop applieng your narrowed interpretation of the word measure, and start applieng the definition given if you want to make sense in your responses.

It is another abstract example — Belter

iq is a rather abstract concept, what were you expecting?

In my view, a rational skepticism would question the validity of the Raven Test, or any other IQ test — Belter

All scientific findings should be questioned, it's called scrutiny. When it comes to science it can't happen too much.

activities required to gain a skill are not required to maintain a skill — MetaphysicsNow

It would depend on the skill. When getting skilled in archery for example, you look at the target. Once you are a skilled archer, you still have to look at the target in order to hit it. Even if you were training to shoot blindfolded, in both cases there is still the activity of holding the bow. So in this case your assesment doesn't hold.

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. — MetaphysicsNow

Recognizing something using your eyes includes measuring, once you can recognize the s with your eyes closed you don't need to measure it any more. If you have to use your sense(s) to make an assesment, you are measuring, no matter how quickly you do it. Measuring is a skill by itself. It can be trained and improved.

Give the violin player a violin where the strings are twice as much apart, and he/she won't be able to play by just using muscle memory any more. Since the 's' you read, isn't the same shape and size in each instance, you can't rely on muscle memory either, and must measure the 's' in order to recognize it as an 's'.

Because you are questioning them, but you do not cite anyone. It is such as to question that thermometers are not reliable, but without to give an example of it. — Belter

Very well, here is an example, the precision of an iq test has the 95% reliability interval at measured iq + or - 15 iq points. 15 iq points is also the standard deviation in measured iq in a population.

I'm not saying they are not reliable, their reliability is dependant on what they are used for. A thermometer that may give a value 10 K more or less than the actual temperature is quite unsuited to measure the temperature of an incubater for bacteria, but it's adequate for measuring metal temperatures when forging in a coal fire.

So how about if we measure weight with a thermometer? (We'll just call it a "weight-measuring device"... for good measure.) We are measuring something, we can do comparisons, calculate average, etc. We should be good, right? — SophistiCat

Nice strawman.
You missed the point. The point being is that you can measure body lenght, or body weight, but just the measuring result in meters or kg doesn't tell you wether the person you measured is tall or heavy. In order to make such a determination you have to compare the measured result with the average. We have units for such measurements that are quite fixed.

The difference with iq tests is that the unit isn't fixed, but gets updated each year to compensate for the flyn effect.

You said that rejecting IQ tests shows low IQ, and to question its validity shows high IQ. — Belter

As an improvement of what I considered to be a joke you stated:

The questioning of IQ validity is an evidence of low IQ. — Belter

I merely attempted to point out the difference between questioning something, and dismissing something. Where scientifically it's always ok to question something, as in applieng scrutiny. Wich is different from dismissing something, as in stating it's validity is 0.

Though if you didn't intend it as a joke, I would say:
At best they are an indicator, like all the questions in an iq test are mere indicators, having a single question on an iq test right or wrong sais nothing about that persons iq, you can't apply statistics to individual cases.

If the IQ scores are always lower (or higher) than the perfect test, and the values vary greatly between individuals compared to the perfect test, then the IQ test is both "inaccurate" AND have "deviation". — FLUX23

Alas there is evidence that this is the case. I assume we don't disagree on the deviation. But since there are several tests for iq, we have a certain iq test that has results that are on average 12 points lower than another iq test. So either one of the tests is inaccurate and off by 12 points, or both of the tests are inaccurate, off by 0-12 points.

Scientific theories are supported by empirical data. You have not data (I suppose) of your claim. — Belter

wich claim I made are you referring to? At best you could make a case that I didn't present the data, you are merely assuming I don't have it since I didn't present it yet. Since I don't know wich claim I made you wan't me to defend, I don't know wich data you are asking for.

It is possible, but again you do not show any evidence. You should cite any actual IQ tests — Belter

Why do you want me to cite an iq test as evidence? Even if I could post the symbols used in iq tests here (no idea if that is even possible here) I don't see how that is any evidence for my statements. What I'm talking about are statistical results of great numbers of filled in iq tests. Now I don't have those piles of filled in iq tests, I have to rely on the scientists who do, and published their research. I could post some links to their papers if that satisfies you.

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. — MetaphysicsNow

That is what we call muscle memory, wich is separate from what we attempt to measure in iq tests. The measuring is only required when training muscle memory (when the violin player still has to look at his hands).

Your entire argument is that intelligence is adequately measured by intelligence tests — SophistiCat

Nonsense, in order to consider something to be adequate, you will have to state your reference. Adequate for what?
I don't recall mentioning the word adequately. Nor did I mention an application of what an iq test can be used for. My argument is that its the best way to measure it that is available, not that it can't be improved. Nor that it's adequate to substanciate conclusion x. Whatever x you may think of. Not to say that there are no conclusions to be derrived from iq tests, I just didn't make any claims about them here.

However, you confused "accuracy" with "precision". — FLUX23

You are probably right on this part, however, that doesn't mean it's an indication of my level of understanding statistics. More likely it's just a translation error, since I'm not a native english speaker.
My mathematical training was in my native language. So thanks for pointing it out.

My apologies for causing confusion on this, I didn't think the difference was that relevant to the subject in this case. Since on a single measurement the precision influences the accuracy. Wich applies in this subject, since generally the individuals only get tested once for iq.

indeed. if we were live, so to speak, you could simply ask for them. But given the nature of this particular medium, having them in advance would be best. — Arne

My main point wasn't even we should get them in advance, though I agree in this medium it can be usefull, especially for disambiguous words used. My point was mainly about that the definitions at least should be provided when asked for, rather than ignoring or refusing the request in the following response.

Although the age of a tree can be measured by tree rings, this isn't what they mean. I submit that they have no meaning at all. Clouds have no meaning either. Nor do black holes. They just are. — Pattern-chaser

Nonsense, if as you stated

I prefer philosophy that is useful and meaningful to humans, and I prefer to consider matters relevant to humans, from a human perspective. — Pattern-chaser

following it's logical conclusion, you'd have to admitt that to humans for who the age of a tree is relevant and know about how trees grow, the three rings indicating the age of the tree have that meaning.

Perhaps you meant that it has no meaning to the tree, but why would you with your preferance to consider matters relevant to humans?

I find that the important thing in discussing philosophy is that you (as in this case me) have a definition for the terms I use that I can clearly articulate to those who ask. In addition, it is equally important to know when someone is using a term that is inconsistent with your definition and that you press them to define their term. — Arne

On this we seem to be in agreement. My frustration that caused me to start this OP, was that I didn't get the definitions when I asked for them on several occasions. Or got a two word definition that was equally non informative.