My take is that intelligence is not a global property. As example, my college room mate couldn't really do philosophy at all, at least not in a manner we would find interesting. But he did go to Harvard med school and become a surgeon. And the opposite is also true of course, many of the best philosophers probably can't figure out how to make a call with their cell phone.

I think what we call IQ is a combination of certain comparative methods in character/pattern recognition (often in a limited field of study) and memory recall capacity. In my own perspective, intelligence has to be measured comprehensively across all fields of study/knowledge from the abstract (ideas and concepts) to the practical (empirical), from instinctive to acquired, from imitative to creative, etc.

From what I can tell, humans are incapable of determining the absolute scale of intelligence. With respect to a relative scale, it becomes redundant since it is primarily a matter of perspective. We may have a short-term converging account of application of intelligence which cannot hold in the long-term because of changing human needs, wants and endeavours.

Also, I don't know who determined Donald Trump to have a high IQ (he mentioned something about taking a test) but, if it's based on modern methods, I highly insist on a revision.

Also, I don't know who determined Donald Trump to have a high IQ — BrianW

He has a high IQ at a particular set of skills which have proven themselves decisive in a particular environment in a particular time and place.

He has a high IQ at a particular set of skills... — Jake

You don't get to have a high IQ at your own set of particular skills. IQ is by definition a standardised form of measurement. You either score well or you don't. Best you could say is Trump had the right kind of intelligence/acumen for thriving in the real estate business.

Is it Donald Trump who has the high IQ or the guys working for him. By himself, he even seems to contradict his own operation.

This guy is often credited as being the behind the scenes skanky philosopher king who is kind of the grandfather of the Trump reality. Full video on Netflix.

I'll leave Trump land now so as to not further hijack the discussion, a "talent" I seem to have an excessively high IQ for. :smile:

It would be hard even for someone with a high intelligence to determine what intelligence is? We need like an advanced alien race to do it for us or AI?

In my own perspective, intelligence has to be measured comprehensively across all fields of study/knowledge from the abstract (ideas and concepts) to the practical (empirical), from instinctive to acquired, from imitative to creative, etc.

That's a good way of looking at it. Would it include things like putting in a light bulb (hands-on), working on cars (troubleshooting/systems thinking). Or is it in a purely academic sense?

So really, breadth is as important as depth and depth only needs to be in one thing (limited field of study). The rest acquaintances?

I can live with that definition.

Would it include things like putting in a light bulb (hands-on), working on cars (troubleshooting/systems thinking). Or is it in a purely academic sense? — Drek

All sorts of situations mental and physical, academic and simplistic included. But, I don't think we need to worry too much about not being proficient in everything. I think, just good value common sense goes a long way. Sometimes it's not about how good a person is at something, it's about recognising the path of best and realistic value even when it's relatively unfamiliar or unpopular. Because, chances are, if a person recognises their own limitation in a very average or common situation, they will be more inclined to do something about it than if the situation was infrequent or staged.

Is this meant to be about intelligence or IQ? They are different, intelligence being more nebulous and philosophically interesting while IQ is actually quite well documented and specific.

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Mines apparently high but I’m loathe to believe it. The thing is you need an in test that tests a range of cognitive functions not just all spatial awareness or pattern recognition or critical thinking. I mean not just one of those but an almagam of several those mentioned and more. And it shouldn’t spend to long on easy questions it should get gradually
More Difficult. A test like that would give a good overall score. Too many in tests these days just test one type of cognitive function. So you might be terrible At patterns or something and score low and walk around depressed thinking you’re thick but on another test you might be a bloody genius. Just my two cents

As one of my old psych profs said (back in the antediluvian 1960s, "Want to is more important than IQ." This prof had been a professor for decades on the basis of a faked PhD. Unfortunately, his novel approach to scholarship was revealed later on and he died in some sort of disgrace. I thought he was a good teacher.

Intelligence is a good thing, of course, but so is stick-to-it-ivness, ambition, imagination, and planning. People tend to get smarter as they get older, in some cases, at least. Some people start getting dumber at about 30, give or take a few years, and by the time they are 50 or 60 they idiots. But if you work at it consistently (have curiosity, read widely, remember useful information and think about it), don't fry your brain with too many drugs or too much alcohol, don't hit your head on concrete too hard or too often, don't consume too much cultural crap, you tend to "get smarter".

Intelligence has never meant the certainty of being a huge success--making millions of dollars, becoming world famous, chased by crowds of screaming women (like screaming with excitement and lust, not #me2 screaming for blood), or getting elected president (we now know one can be a complete imbecile and be president).

Intelligence is defined as the ability to adapt to one's circumstances, or to one's environment. This would include observational intelligence, memory, adaptability, speed of learning, problem-solving, use of language/linguistic ability, and so on. Clearly we don't all perform the same on tests designed to measure how each of us does on a scale of possible scores on the test, one that is supposedly normed for the population of the persons taking the test and its inevitable variants.
(A properly designed test has gone through rigorous 'item analysis' to ensure each question/problem measures what it purports to measure and that it discriminates between various levels of what it measures. Additionally, it has at least two 'equivalent forms' of the test, usually by randomly assigning items that have been validated to either of the forms).

It was determined decades ago that IQ tests, per se, have inherent biases in them if they are not normed for the population from which the subject comes. Cultural and educational experiences, for example, or rather their paucity, can have an adverse effect on the subject's scores, and if the scores are used for 'selection' processes, say intake to universities or to government positions, you can appreciate that neither the institution nor the subject's interests will have been well served. Obviously, there are ethical problems with deselecting people whose achievement on the test falls short of a selection cut-off criterion, and you could see that even administering it would be unethical for the possible psychological outcomes one would incur when being informed of the unsatisfactory results.

Does an average score (by definition, a score falling inside of the boundaries of one standard deviation on either side of the mean score for the test in question, with the standard scores normed properly) mean non-extraordinary performance in academia or in the workplace? Not at all. A score derived on any one day is merely a guesstimate. Its counterpart generated a week later might be somewhat different, poorer or better. If better, there's the problem of the 'test-retest effect' where people learn to do the test with each exposure to it...or its variants. There is also a phenomenon known as the 'Flynn' effect, which I won't go on to discuss; you can google it. But it means such tests must be revalidated every decade or so.

Are mental illness and intelligence correlated? Yes, often. Are they causally correlated? Not by a long shot.

The western militaries have done a great deal of research on these selection tests and have successfully defended numerous legal challenges to them. In the case of the Canadian Armed Forces, the GC and later tests were tests of learning ability. That is, how quickly can the person learn so as to succeed (and not fail) to master the material he/she must learn and not waste a valuable seat on the few courses we can afford to run each year on the topic? It turns out that for many occupations a score in the 'below average' range, or two standard deviations below the mean, is sufficient to grant a place to recruits. Of course, we don't rely solely on the GC or its modern variants. Educational background, work experience, references, and the person's appreciation of what he/she seeks in the way of work are all important. The latter speaks to motivation, another exceedingly important factor in predicting success. Has she bothered to meet with and interview people doing that work? Does she know how long the course is, and what topics she'll have to learn? Does she know where she could be employed? For example, if she wants to be trained and employed as a fire fighter, how does she feel about being deployed at sea for between six months to a year? Canadian frigates and destroyers have marine helicopters, and they need to be able to put out aircraft fires...and ship's fires.


I'll stop, but I hope you understand that there's much more to the simple IQ score, and its means of measurement and its utility in selection, than might meet the eye.

For me, intelligence is the ability to see structure rather than content. Some call it pattern-recognition I think.

We use logical arguments daily but it was Aristotle who first saw the structure of what makes a good argument. Aristotle was intelligent.

Einstein saw that an accelerating object is similar to an object under the influence of gravity - pattern recognition.

I think the same may be said of almost all recognized intelligent people.

In order to even suggest that IQ tests measure intelligence, one must define intelligence as the ability to learn, rather than the ability to problem solve. Someone can learn well throughout their entire lives without being very creative, especially when they're coached through the learning process in an educational system. To be a good problem solver, however, you need to be creative, and IQ tests do not measure creativity.

Does mental illness have anything to do with intelligence? — Drek

Mental illness generally impedes one's intellectual performance.

Is being average put you at odds with accomplishment in intellectual work? — Drek

That depends on want to, preparation, and IQ. A determined person of average intelligence who is well prepared can do quite well intellectually. A poorly motivated, poorly prepared, but high IQ person isn't magically going to come up with the next BIG THEORY OF EVERYTHING probably. Most high achievers were probably very smart, but they were also ambitious and well prepared.

A high iq measures how well and quickly you can solve problems, recall words or shapes or colours. Not really intelligence at all. Someone could get a low IQ but still take a machine apart and put it back together perfectly, or know extensive information about history from the Big Bang to know, all in order of date and year etc. I think the most important test is EQ. Emotional Quota

For me, intelligence is the ability to see structure rather than content. Some call it pattern-recognition I think. — TheMadFool

The quest for "pattern" can be taken too far though. Our brains love a good narrative. Although narration is a sort of intelligence I guess - historians and good essay writers have a high "NQ" as it were.

The quest for "pattern" can be taken too far though. — Kippo

That goes for everything.

What I find worthy of note is that if you take humanity as a whole then intelligence is fragmentarily distributed among the populace. Some are creative artists, others are math wizes, still others are musical virtuosos. You get the picture.

If the above situation is unavoidable then where does that point to re the holy grail of philosophy - wisdom?

No single person can ever attain it. It has to be a collective effort. I just hope those who matter can see the ''pattern''.

I am tempted to define people who are rarely bored as "wise".

Is it speed, memory, adapting?

Is being average put you at odds with accomplishment in intellectual work?

Does mental illness have anything to do with intelligence?

What's the difference between 100, 120, and 140 IQ in practice? — Drek

IQ measures the ability to function in problem-solving. It also measures the ability to adapt. You can have low IQ and learn a lot of information, but not know how to utilize that information, only to recite. You can have a low IQ and learn repeating tasks and be an expert on it but not how to adapt when things change.

IQ can define what occupations you can handle. If there's a lot of repetition, a lot of "using stored information" and repeating mechanical tasks, you can have a very low IQ and still perform. Many with very low IQ even excels at these tasks since higher IQs might need other stimuli to function properly.
If you have a high IQ, you are best at jobs which features a lot of adapting situations. Where you need to use the knowledge that you have and connect the dots into a new form. That's why successful engineers and scientists rarely have low IQ, since their success comes out of learning the properties of something and solving the problem of how it works or what something is. You can't do that by repeating tasks and just storing information. Same goes for creative people who are successful; they know how to create something out of the information and inspirations they have.

So, to answer your questions. Being average is only at odds with the highest performance of intellectual work. Meaning the highest form of science, engineering etc. There are some good things about having an average IQ though (meaning around 100 - 110). At the most extreme ends of the spectrum, there are problems in balancing ideas. At the lower end, most run into the Dunning Kruger effect, in which they aren't intelligent enough to understand that they aren't intelligent, meaning they think they are smart when they aren't. At the high end of the spectrum (125-200), there are so few who challenge their intelligence that they can easily win any argument by rationalizing their point of view without any valid counter-arguments. This means that because they cannot be challenged by others, they tend to lack in challenging themselves and only present arguments in support of their own opinion or hypothesis. The lack of external challenge makes them bad at challenging themselves (there's a psychology term for this that I've forgotten at the time of writing).
So having an average IQ isn't the worst thing, it might even be beneficial in some forms, especially dialectics. I would argue that a good, high, but balanced IQ is around 110-125 for our modern age. Most occupations are moving into fields that require much higher cognitive functions. Which means there will be a problem for the lower end of IQs down the road.

Mental illness has nothing to do with intelligence. A rain man-kind of person might be superhuman in math calculations but cannot use that ability for anything.

Here's a graph of occupations in relation to IQ levels.
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

I think the most important test is EQ. Emotional Quota — Mattiesse

This has been a notion for many years but it's simplified and overused by people not knowledgable in psychology. It's like the Jung personality spectrum that some companies use when hiring, but most psychologists call bullshit methods. EQ has been abandoned as a spectrum of measurement because it's not measurable in any practical way. It also puts extroverts in an advantage over introverts, even though extroverts only excels at tasks that need social skills, when introverts excel at higher cognitive work and even leadership roles as strategists.

If you want a better working method for calculating a persons cognitive and behavioral function, use the Big-five measurement. It's what most psychologists use today to determine the personality and cognitive performance of a person. Combine it with an IQ measurement of that person and you get a pretty solid sum of that person's capabilities and weaknesses.

:grin: :ok:

Extr A vert...not extr O vert. In keeping with extraneous, extraordinary...


To Mattiesse, you might find some use in the following information:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223096839_Assessing_the_Predictive_Validity_of_Emotional_Intelligence

generally agreed there are 8 to 10 types of intelligence. however there hard to make a test for because they look different in each person. IQ is about your problems solving ability. High IQ means the more complicated problems your capable of solving. A low IQ may put you terrible at school (wich it intends purpose was to see wich would struggle in school). In practice all it means is that you can put 2 and 2 together to get the corect answer.