Well, "What's a genius" probably deserves a thread of its own - but mere membership of Mensa doesn't cut it for me. — MetaphysicsNow
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. — MetaphysicsNow
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. — MetaphysicsNow
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.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.
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).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.
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. — MetaphysicsNow
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. — MetaphysicsNow
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). — MetaphysicsNow
A little story which I'm sure you will have heard in different guises but I think is apt here. A homesteader being told about Einstein commented that whilst he (the homesteader) had lived a long and happy life, working outdoors and enjoying whatever life handed him, having a loving wife and three happy children, Einstein had worked at often menial jobs, could not sustain a marriage, had little or no relationship with his children and died racked with guilt about his part in the atomic bomb. Who's the most intelligent? — Pseudonym
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:If intelligence is not the capability to be 'better' at some range of tasks, then what is it?
I didn't measure anything and I did not even compare your "wether" with a correctly typed "whether". — MetaphysicsNow
Now I understand that you do not understand statistics. If you don't understand statistics, then you won't even know what IQ tests are about. Why are you arguing if you don't know IQ tests? — FLUX23
No, that won't work either. — SophistiCat
And when you recognise that you have made a mistake (if you ever do) do you thereby measure that fact? — MetaphysicsNow
The questioning of IQ validity is an evidence of low IQ. — Belter
And the only thing that IQ tests have ever been able to tell about anyone is how good or bad they are at taking IQ tests. — MetaphysicsNow
This the wrong point. Why IQ tests are different to other psychological ones? The questioning of IQ validity is an evidence of low IQ. — Belter
If you are right, then the word "intelligent" would never have exited, much less used by anyone. It is because we have some (vague) concept of intelligence that we can use the word. — FLUX23
Basically, we don't look inside anyone's head for intelligence. If we judge it at all we judge it by the things people successfully do. Put a series of those sorts of things in a test and, by default, you do indeed have a device for measuring the thing we're calling 'intelligence'. Either that, or admit that we really don't know what sort of thing an intelligent person should be able to successfully do, and so abandon the idea that we have any means of measuring it, neither intuitive nor quantitative — Pseudonym
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 — MetaphysicsNow
A little story which I'm sure you will have heard in different guises but I think is apt here. A homesteader being told about Einstein commented that whilst he (the homesteader) had lived a long and happy life, working outdoors and enjoying whatever life handed him, having a loving wife and three happy children, Einstein had worked at often menial jobs, could not sustain a marriage, had little or no relationship with his children and died racked with guilt about his part in the atomic bomb. Who's the most intelligent? — Pseudonym
the fact that we speak about intelligence in a discriminating way, prooves that at least the ones who do this have at least some intuitive way of quantification they believe to be true enough to talk about it. — Tomseltje
Your theory about IQ (predictable by people's belief about IQ tests) is not plausible. — Belter
Not necessarily. This would require a presumption that the intention of the language user is to accurately communicate some fact. Given what we know of human psychology, I think that's probably unlikely. — Pseudonym
Both mathematics and music are complex in their own ways yet there are those good at one but not the other. Surely if they were possessed of some abstract ability they would be innately good at both? — Pseudonym
If you think that IQ tests are bad designed, so they are not scientifically valid, you should show some kind of evidence. If your argument is that empirical science is inherently "invalid" in some grade, it is a selection fallacy or a kind of general skepticism equally fallacious. — Belter
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.
Wich theory would that be, and why don't you consider it to be plausible? — Tomseltje
My point is that we still have much to improve on iq tests to increase their accuracy — Tomseltje
Well, I am not assuming you don't understand statistics. I am assuring you that you don't understand statistics.Why are you assuming it is me who doesn't understand statistics? As long as you don't provide a decent argument for your assumption, you are just poisoning the well.
I might just as easily assume that it is you who doesn't understand statistics to the degree required to understand me correctly, and don't know enough about how iq tests are made and applied to give an accurate response. An assertion that at least is substanciated by the fact that you failed provide any actual counterargument to my statements, but instead opted for an ad hominem fallacy. — Tomseltje
If by accurate you mean there is no error margin, they are inaccurate, but the same goes for measuring liquids in a measuring cylinder. The only difference is that measuring cylinders used in chemistry are less inaccurate than iq tests. — Tomseltje
Odd that you seem to think I don't understand statistics, while we at least seem to agree on this statement. Perhaps your reply was adressed at someone else? — Tomseltje
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.