Tract on intelligence

[David H]

Intelligence is not about knowing, intelligence is about thinking, being able to see logical connections, working means to ends, and understanding. It is intelligent to be able to plan several moves in advance in chess, but you're not intelligent just because you happen to know all the capitals of Africa. At least that's one common view on intelligence.
Some would say that you can't come more intelligent by practice like you can improve your knowledge by studying. Maybe one could draw a parallel, seeing if you eat a lot food you get fatter, but most likely not taller, and if you study books a lot you increase your knowledge and get more educated, but you may not get more intelligent. The intelligence is in that case something you just have to accept, just as you have to accept your height. But some would object, saying that you sure can improve your intelligence. It is for example well proved that it's possible to improve your results by practice in solving so called ”IQ-tests”. And the same is for any other logical discipline, of course you may become better by working with it repeatedly.
-'Well oh well', someone would argue, 'the unintelligent may stand tip-toe, raise their hands, learn how to jump, twist and turn, and that way reach a bit higher. But that one of these shorties would succeed with a slam dunk, no one really believes. One may additionally say, that it's possible to improve one's logical thinking in certain areas, but that it simply won't do when it comes to solving major issues – when you need to work holistically, use wider perspectives and don't have any clearly stated instructions to follow. The unintelligent will surely screw it up one way or the other then.'

But if one really wants a part of the fruits of intelligence maybe it's more an issue of wanting and daring to think in particular ways, than being able to think. Let me connect with this little anecdote;
I was playing badminton with some dude the other day. It didn't turn into a game of any sparkling heights because he had such problems with my drop shots, and I repeatedly failed to cover his smashes in the upper left corner. 'It seems like I win on my softness, and you on your hardness' I told him. And while we were playing we continued chit-chatting about this and that. We soon found out that we both had been studying maths at the university. I told him that I thought the courses in algebra were rather simple but that the courses in analysis were harder. 'In algebra I can easily memorize all the rules, but in the analysis one need to understand the depth of the formulas, and I find that tiring', I said.
'It's easy to learn things like algebra where you almost only need to memorize', he explained to me, while hitting a cross ball to my backhand side. 'But for the deeper knowledge, as in the analysis, all the time you need to open your mind, see new alternatives and possibilities. Realize that for each centimeter you pass by, there is a new crossroad, where you have to consider which way to continue. For a lost boy like you that will evoke angst, or as you said – you find it “tiring”, because each time you stop by you'll get reminded that you have no clue where you really are going. And you don't want to admit that to yourself.'
'You live a life of lies, but thats all okay with me, I know many who does', he said and was just going to smash the ball unstoppable to the upper left corner, but he seemed a bit distracted and the ball eventually struck straight into the net.

Of course not even a millipiece of what I just typed is true. I have all respect for honesty and truth, but in this tract I give myself the permission to lie just as much as I please. After all, I'm not writing this in order for you to get to know what I've experienced in my life, nor to enlighten myself one day when I get old and gray suffering of dementia and need to know what kind of person I've been. No, this is a tract on intelligence, and is solemnly for that purpose.

So, to reconnect; I've done some research. I've read about intelligence in my philosophy dictionary, at the homepage of Mensa, at a bunch of forums on the Internet etc etc etc.
Here I found a list of the IQ of several famous historical people:
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Cox300.aspx

I also caught some comments concerning this list. One person noted that it must've been crushing for Rousseau to know that his arch rival Voltaire had 40 more in IQ. Another commented that of course one can understand that Voltaire was more intelligent, seeing he was a lot more broad-minded. One third smart-ass said she scored like 150 on an IQ-test on the net and got like oh so scared thinking it was like below average :-O

According to my syllable-dictionary ”broad-mindedness” is a syllable to intelligence, but isn't that an apprehension which opposes what the IQ-tests values? You know the ones who show four numbers and ask you to answer which the fifth one is ought to be. I say that the broad-minded person wouldn't restrict herself to approving that the following number in the series 1,2,3,4 has to be 5. Instead she opens up her mind for many other possibilities. For example she wouldn't take for granted that 1,2,3,4 should be interpreted as numbers, she would look at them just as unprejudiced as she looks at any other symbols, pictures or spots of dirt.
I read a thread at some philosophy-community-forum entitled ”intelligence is prejudicialness”. The creator of the thread was arguing the same way as I just did I think, that intelligence as it is measured in the IQ-tests is rather about restricting ones mind. But he was mainly babbling about ribosomes and that brain-substance-tommyrot-things you know. Another person objected this thesis and meant that real intelligence has nothing to do with prejudice. He cited some Buddhist-bloke (or such) who claimed that intelligence is living and not mechanical and that the true intelligence is not sprung from logical thinking. It's creativity and bla bla, so think spontaneity bla bla, curiosity bla bla, and consider the intuition of a bla bla.

But oh well, for those who still want to draw a sign of equality between intelligence and open-mindedness... then it's easy to be maximally open-minded by just pointing out that EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE! Those who know most is the ones who knows the least! And the only thing I know is that... I know nothing.
-'Oh boy, that was many brave statements', I hear you opposing me. 'You assume that you know that you nothing know – then you are accepting one obvious paradox as completely true. And you who claim that you know nothing, at the same time you sift yourself to the ones who knows the most. You're calling yourself maximally open-minded when you are actually narrow-minded like a tiny, tiny RAT!'
-'Hehehe', I then reply, 'if you assume that I really meant what I was stating, who is then the narrow-minded? All what I wrote, it was just for fun, par ris!'

If course it's not seriously spoken. Still I think it can be out of value to keep in mind. Why think 'good', why think 'bad', when one may think 'hmmm...?'. Maybe a person has a chain of thoughts, or a certain mood that she wants to express but that she can't get a grip of, and each attempt to find  words for it is failed. And if it may actually be caught in words for a while, it's still fragile, and may easily be broken by self-obsessed people who forgets to pull in their claws when grasping after it. Sometimes I sense that people are too quick to narrow their perspectives and just accept or decline something that they in fact never seen all dimensions and possibilities of. That's where the roots of my problems are. That's the reason why I began to frenetically press these keys on my laptop.

Let me illustrate with an example: I got my test in social sciences handed back the other day. At one of the questions my teacher had commented my answer: 'A very interesting opinion!'. 'Oh, so I expressed an opinion?', I thought when I read it, 'that I didn't know'. Or wait, I didn't quite think so actually. I thought 'how imbecile of him to assume that I expressed an opinion. ”Opinion” is a word that includes some sort of personal valuing, but when I respond a task at a test I only do it with the intention to give as plausible answer as possible and there's no use in bringing any issue about opinions into mind then!' Or, by the way, I never thought so either. I don't think I formulated any thought in words, but I can recall how I felt an indignation when I saw his use of the word ”opinion” about what I had written.
Now you of course oppose me, saying it was stupid and simple of me to take it so, and that I certainly had no reason to incite myself that way. The word ”opinion” doesn't necessarily have anything to do with personal valuing to do, and it doesn't  necessarily embed any normative aspect. To have an opinion can simply be to bring something into perspective, or to have a view.
'Okay, okay, I admit that my example wasn't clear as the clock.' So let me illustrate with another, better one, then:

I was going to buy food at the local mall. I said hello to the cashier, pulled my card, hit my code, pushed the green button marked OK, got the question whether I wanted to confirm the purchase and I pressed OK again. Then I looked back towards the line and I saw products such as crisp-bread, rice, milk, oranges, neatly placed on the rolling hoop with all the bar-codes directed towards me. And onward I slowly moved my eyes to the other side of the cashier, towards the exit... There laid seven packages of mackerel-fillets.
- 'Excuse me', I told the cashier, 'I think I accidentally paid for the wrong food.'
It had been a misunderstanding because the lady who bought food before had split her products into two sets. And after she had payed for her first set she went and started packing those products. And all awhile I hadn't shown much attention and thought it was my turn and... oh well oh well, you understand, so I don't need to bring this thing into details! Anyway, we got to erase and rewind, redoing everything. And then when all problems had been solved, and I had payed for my own food, the cashier told me this (now we reach the point I wanted to make):
-'Yeah, I thought it was a bit strange! You didn't look like one who would buy...'
Didn't look like what!?!?!? Oh, by the way, forget that example. Again it was something I made up. There was never any mackerel-fillets involved. If you want to know the truth, I tell you, it was seven packages of “Rattle Snake” - extra thin luminous prophylactics. I was a bit ashamed to admit that, and decided to “call it something else”. But it doesn't matter now anyhow.

So, back to the intelligence; If one reads a text that one doesn't understand a single scrap of, wouldn't it be good to know what the author had in IQ so that one could get to know if what was written really only was rubbish, or if it – despite all – might be found something thinkable therein? Anyone would think it's more fertile to interpret a picture painted by an artist with 190 IQ, than a picture painted by an elephant with an 190 centi-long trunk, even though they can be way so similar!
And consider if all people got to answer the question whether they believe themselves to be smarter than most people in their community. Some would surely hesitate and beg for a specification of what it means to be smart. But when they get exhorted to just answer what they really believe, I am convinced that a crushing majority will reply ”Hell yeah, I sure do believe that I am smarter than most of the people in my community. And in fact, people in my community also tend to understand things better than people in other communities”. And those who wouldn't reply so, would in the inner chambers of their hearts still believe it. Wouldn't it be good with an objective IQ-test that really can sift the good ones from the bad then? When it's so obvious that it's not possible to trust ones own judgment in issues like these... Maybe all of us should make an obligatory IQ-test every fifth year or so and have the results registered in our id-cards, so that the 'not-so-intelligent' can be reminded every now and then that they most likely have nothing out of interest to say? Maybe they can spare to bother us other people with their opinions then.
But as you probably already have understood, I don't care the slightest about what is intelligent and what isn't. Just as little as I care about all other answers that I pretend to be looking for.