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Measures for different intelligences

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
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If something can't be measured, it becomes just a feel-good label for oneself. Something like the ability to live the "most artistic" life.

What's established is that there's G-factor (unrelated to g-spot), generalized intelligence greatly explaining the random person's capability to do any mental stuff. No, I'm not talking about asylum here.

Now, what kind of metrics and methods of measurement we have? Let's start with the metrics.

Pattern recognition, mathematics, logic, crystallized intelligence (What's the capital of France?), verbal intelligence, spatial intelligence, etc. All of these have a nice G-factor built in, i.e. they're strongly associated with a person being intelligent in general.

What are the methods to do those? We know how the men and women of the world tend to form structures, hierarchies, with other people lifting other to the top, and other people climbing to the top using others as ladders.

Speaking of any intelligence metric, we have the lowly people, barely able to recognize the existence of the thing. Then we have people more adept in it - the people above collectively pick themselves as the ones more able, and the others are left behind. Often the group A below the group B in ability X recognize their inferior ability in the thing too, and recognizes the group B as more able. This is how metrics are formed.

This is how people invent that some logic is better, some mathematics is better, etc. It works. People can actually agree on it to a great degree, except for the points in theory they're unable to handle due to insufficient knowledge or intelligence. But, more intelligent people have put those things in order, too.

Then there's subjects that fail to exhibit much order. Who's got funkiest outfit? Who's style of living is funniest? What's the right way to live? What's good for society? What kinds of dreams should one dream when traveling in a bus?

The society fails to put any kind of good ranking, order if you will, to these kinds of activities. One is not much more better than the other, and doing something a certain way doesn't make one much better in anything, compared to doing it the other way. This is why the said issues fail to be a factor in intelligence, which is adaptive capability to survive, and to make informed decisions in light of new evidence.

I'd like to be told tho, why running 100 meters under 10 seconds is "Physical intelligence", and just not running 100 meters fast.

Then there's the measurement I mentioned. Perhaps I'll save that for another time.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
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People can better differentiate between individuals of different math ability, less so in ability to design "stylish" clothes. We can form groups of judges to judge clothes design, and there's a tendency to distinguish the "good" clothes from the "bad", but given the variety in taste, it's not nearly as pronounced as with a subject like math.

Because the latter subject (clothes design) is that much divided to different schools of thought, there isn't a well-establish ranking of excellence that would correlate strongly with general intelligence.

Even though there is good clothes design and there's bad clothes design, this particular ability fails to be a significant factor of general intelligence. Same goes for most favorite skills any one has, like ability to roll their tongue.

So, there you have an explanation why abilities in all kinds of obscure activities are not related to intelligence.

But anyone can still have the delight to be the best skateboarder in the block, anyway.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

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If you understand any of the things I wrote, raise your hand, and don't delete your posts after. Makes the topic easier to follow.
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
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Yes, I understand, but it's a difficult problem, ahah. I agree with you, but I don't know what to add.
 

527468

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I believe in multiple intelligences, like humorous and musical.

Some people of a stricter format would prefer to call them talents.
 

Nizy

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Some subjects are just more conducive to objective ability analysis. Testing one's math abilities is done using a universal scale, whereas testing one's fashionability is entirely subjective given a multitude of social variables.

Tests for "fashionability" or "trendiness" may be devised. But their significance may change in an instant rendering them useless. If you could devise an accurate formula for gauging "trendiness" you would be the wealthiest person on earth. Advertising companies would sell their souls. But I would be hard pressed to believe such a formula could exist.

I think testing one's "physical intelligence" falls somewhere in the middle between universal constant and social abstraction, due to uncertainty in our understanding of what constitutes optimal health.
 

nightning

ish red no longer *sad*
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There is multiple intelligence because the word intelligence has taken on too many connotations. Intelligence is now "everything", which of course it isn't and obviously can never be. But if you can't change people's association to the "feel good" factors of having intelligence... then one can only expand upon its definition to include other categories of useful but nonetheless "non-intelligence". And so you have emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, physical intelligence and what not.

If we go by the new layman's "definition" of intelligence (which seems to be how our dictionaries are evolving these days... inclusion of new terms or altered meaning e.g. spam, hack, tweet etc) then yes I agree we can have multiple intelligence. But this is only true because we've changed the definition of the word.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
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Yes, I understand, but it's a difficult problem, ahah. I agree with you, but I don't know what to add.
Thank you.
I believe in multiple intelligences, like humorous and musical.

Some people of a stricter format would prefer to call them talents.
Yeah, I think they're much more talent-like. Both correlate somewhat with general intelligence, but neither of them is a particularly good predictor of any other abilities.

Some subjects are just more conducive to objective ability analysis. Testing one's math abilities is done using a universal scale, whereas testing one's fashionability is entirely subjective given a multitude of social variables.

..

I think testing one's "physical intelligence" falls somewhere in the middle between universal constant and social abstraction, due to uncertainty in our understanding of what constitutes optimal health.
There's good tests to be made on uncertain concepts - there's sales charts, expert evaluations, etc.. the uncertain subjects, they do exist. They do. They are valuable things, too. Just that the intertester reliability of those measures is quite bad, but there is a general tendency in subjects like that.

Exactly. Like there's games of almost pure skill (chess), games of pure chance (lottery), and games in between (poker, depending on how many rounds you play) , some areas are uncertain, random when looked from a different point of view. With some subjects, the different points of views alter so much. It's no wonder such attributes can't be positively correlated to any measure of well being.

Take an extremely random measure. Were you born on an odd day or an even day? The two groups will probably show little to no deviation in their accomplishment in ANYTHING.
There is multiple intelligence because the word intelligence has taken on too many connotations. Intelligence is now "everything", which of course it isn't and obviously can never be. But if you can't change people's association to the "feel good" factors of having intelligence... then one can only expand upon its definition to include other categories of useful but nonetheless "non-intelligence". And so you have emotional intelligence, musical intelligence, physical intelligence and what not.

If we go by the new layman's "definition" of intelligence (which seems to be how our dictionaries are evolving these days... inclusion of new terms or altered meaning e.g. spam, hack, tweet etc) then yes I agree we can have multiple intelligence. But this is only true because we've changed the definition of the word.
Very insightful observation. As something is deemed "good", people want to be that. I guess this is why some concepts get muddled and diluted over time, and it's time to introduce new concepts. The educated people are faster to introduce and learn concepts anyway, so this isn't much of a problem. I'd still wish there would be stability within the subject area.

I think the main point in introducing new concepts would be to not portray them as too desirable. Social desirability factors come in to twist the responses to any non-objective questionaire, and in normal talk, too. Are you rich? yes. Are you handsome? yes. etc.

Nowadays the concept of intelligence is too widely known. It is a victim of it's own success. If someone wants to meet people of equal intelligence, he or she will have to mention some social clues pointing out to his amount and flavor of intelligence to find the right people to associate with.

This is another world of words that live.

But, what is it with the people who want to be recognized as intelligent? They don't want exactly that, really. They want to be recognized as acceptable, desired and good. Now, many people can be all that. Even those not that intelligent. But, perhaps it's the perpetual destiny to find new words for everything.

Swift, agile, fast, nimble.

Intelligent, smart, groove, hip.

What a chore.
 
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