david f

“I was bemoaning the fact that I have accomplished little with that intelligence.”

Yep, I can sure relate to that. I suffer terribly from the frustration of lack of achievement in my efforts to ‘fight endlessly year after year for an end to the absurdity of continuous human expansion and the development of truly sustainable societies that are in balance with natural systems!’, and within my career as a botanist, ecologist and geomorphologist, which is perhaps in part due to putting so much time into the former.

Maybe one indication of intelligence is the level of frustration or even depression that some people face, if that frustration is due to their inability to achieve honourable motives.

There are probably many intelligent people who have failed to achieve as much as they would have with much less intelligence, and suffered a much-reduced quality of life, due to frustration and depression.

“I think one indication of intelligence is the ability to doubt and question”

Yes indeed. But most of the aspects of our lives that really need to be questioned and remedied are just too entrenched or too big to deal with, and lead directly to great frustration for those who really care.

So, maybe intelligence is closely linked with passion (for a particular subject or cause). Is it possible to be really passionate about something if you have a low intellect?

In reading these posts and some other threads too I have come to a believe david F’s view is a reflection of extreme sentimentality and emotion.

“Intelligence” is a human trait and not a virtue. David is assuming that all traits are measurable on a moral scale, the larger they are the morally better they are.

Intelligence ain’t like that.

Picasso would be called an extremely intelligent person for his ability to perceive and paint abstract thoughts of cubism as applied to a female image.

But Picasso was a political gypsy, drawn to a political ideal whilst simultaneously repelled by it. He was a womanizer and very amoral.

Salvador Dali was the same, brilliant yet vain and arrogant and self-centered but he had hangups from birth, starting with being given the same name as his dead older brother.

Mozart had a dirty mind.

Cellini was a thief

And more than one creative genius was as queer as a nine-shilling note.

“Savants” are an interesting case-study, extreme creative genius and insight, an obsessiveness for perfection yet some exist a state close to autism.

Chaos is the best uniform and diversity the only constant.

Ludwig “Is it possible to be really passionate about something if you have a low intellect?”

You might be right Ludwig.

My observation of people of “lower intelligence” (hate that term it is so mono-dimensional) is they often have so much trouble just dealing with the simple routine of their daily life that it consumes their entire day and have no time to take on other ideas which they could get passionate about

Col Rouge wrote:

"“Intelligence” is a human trait and not a virtue. David is assuming that all traits are measurable on a moral scale, the larger they are the morally better they are."

I have made no such assumption. I merely questioned the value of intelligence for survival and the good of society. Just as some blond, blue-eyed people have set up a hierarchy which assumes that blond, blue-eyed people are more valuable than those who don't share that attribute some intelligent people have made the assumption that Col Rouge charges me with making. I do not assume intelligence or other traits disconnected from morality can be evaluated on a moral scale.

Good Morning David f,

Exactly what "intelligence" is, nobody knows. Psychologists have been trying to define the concept throughout this century without much success. It is generally agreed, however, that intelligence involves a combination of two factors: an innate, 'inherited' element that sets a limit on a person's intellectual potential, and a learned 'environmental' element that determines how far that potential will be fulfilled.

Since there is no such thing as a person who has not been exposed to socialization in some environment, there is no way to measure either the innate or the learned component alone. Both are inextricably mixed in any individual.

IQ tests given at schools for example are not accurate.

An IQ test measures "intelligence" by comparing the subject's performance on a number of specific tasks with the performance of the rest of his or her age group. The IQ test is misnamed, however, for it is not really a test of "intelligence" at all, whatever intelligence may be. It is actually a test of skills in a very limited range of fields, primarily in linguistic, spatial, symbolic, and mathematical knowledge and reasoning.

The tests ignore many other intellectual capacities that are not directly relevant to the school curriculum - such as creativity (for example, literary imagination, art appreciation, or the ability to compose music), or social skills (for example, persuasiveness, wit, or the ability to be 'street wise'). In short, the IQ test focuses on academic aptitude, not on intelligence as a whole.

If we go on the assumption that "intelligence" is the capacity of reasoning, understanding, or similar forms of activity. How on earth do you measure it?

Interesting thread David...

David f
Quoting me “I have made no such assumption. I merely questioned the value of intelligence for survival and the good of society.”

Responded

“I have made no such assumption. I merely questioned the value of intelligence for survival and the good of society.”

Disagree, that is exactly what you are questioning.

Simply put, considering anything in the context of being “good” or “bad” for society is to question and therefore consider the morality of it.

Intelligence, like science, the weather or nature in general is not influenced by what is good or otherwise for survival or the good of society. It simply “is” a given dimension to human existence.

My statement (quoted above) was in response to david f’s comment “The foregoing intelligent individuals were responsible for enormous social costs.”

In describing them has being “responsible for enormous social costs” is to imply a moral responsibility.

Foxy your comments on the limitations of IQ are valid. My partner advises me everyone has a potential for some degree of competency in, I think it is 7 different mental processes, like communication, artistic creativity, IQ, social ability, abstract reasoning etc.

Certainly the limitations of schools as they are today and have always been is to measure the product (educated children) on only one or two of these measures and not all of them and even then some informally (“he is a popular boy”, “she does not work well with others”) rather than through formal examination / objective evaluation.

We invariably learn more after we leave the cloistered halls than before. Hence, my view, the best purpose of secondary education is to equip people to be able to ask the right questions (which is why some businesses employ me today) rather than pretend it can equip them with the right answer.

Col Rouge wrote:

"“I have made no such assumption. I merely questioned the value of intelligence for survival and the good of society.”

Disagree, that is exactly what you are questioning.

Simply put, considering anything in the context of being “good” or “bad” for society is to question and therefore consider the morality of it."

Like many words good has many meanings. Some meanings of good have nothing to do with morality. Good can simply mean effective as a good brewer, soldier or weapon maker. Bad can mean a bad or ineffective brewer, soldier or weapon maker. Good of society can merely mean that which promotes the survival of a society in competition with other societies. That is the sense in which I meant it.