Monday, November 21, 2011

Intelligence is Invisible

General intelligence is practically invisible in personal interactions because intelligence typically cannot be readily recognized.  Intelligence can be defined many different ways from Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to reading and writing ability, memory, knowledge, reaction time, and many other definitions.  Here intelligence means general intelligence, sometimes abbreviated g and similar to what is often referred to as IQ.  Some people might argue technical points about exactly what g and IQ mean, but the exact definition is not important here, just that there is something that is general intelligence that has something to do with reasoning ability.  Consider, for example, logic games in puzzle books:  some people can do them and others cannot.  The ability to solve logic puzzles, for example, has something to do with reasoning ability, and, therefore, has something to do with g.  Programming more than a few lines of code is another example of something related to g:  some people can program thousands of lines of complicated code in a week while other people could not do the same thing in a lifetime.  Many kinds of analytical problem solving are related to g--people have wide ranges of abilities in solving these problems.  Thus there is such a thing as g, whatever it exactly is, and people have varying abilities of g.

Society has watered down the definition of intelligence in the last several years to include just about any skill.  If one can recognize many different kinds of plants, for example, that is intelligence.  If a child can give a smart answer to a question, that is intelligence.  Society does not seem to want to recognize that some individuals have better reasoning skills than others, and, therefore, blurs the definition of general intelligence in order to trivialize it.  There are at least a couple of reasons why people have a tendency not to look for signs of IQ in other people.  IQ tests have been criticized for inaccuracies because of being written with a bias for a certain culture.  This does not mean that there is no such thing as a high IQ, it only means that the tests were inaccurate.  The concept of IQ has generally not been embraced in schools because telling a student that they have a low IQ can demoralize a student.  These negative attributes of IQ have a tendency for people to not look for the IQ capabilities in other people.  Thus the invisibility of general intelligence is somewhat by the choice of the viewer.

IQ is also typically invisible for people who are looking for it, even intelligent people looking for it in other intelligent people.  This is because most social interactions do not provide a forum to display intelligence.  Loud and fast talking is not evidence.  A display of confidence is not evidence.  A good personality is not evidence.  Knowledge of trivia is not evidence.  A problem-solving conversation might be evidence as verification for two intelligent people, but an intelligent person cannot convince an unintelligent person by conversation because the unintelligent person would not know if the intelligent person was giving an intelligent explanation, or not.

Contrast intelligence with the ability of a tall person to dunk a basketball.  It is easy to verify that the basketball was dunked.  Some short people will never be able to dunk a basketball in their entire lives no matter how long and hard they try.  However, society does not pretend that short people can dunk basketballs and also does not tell short people that they can dunk basketballs if they would just try hard enough.  People as a rule do not abstain from telling short people that they cannot dunk a basketball out of a fear that short people will give up on trying to dunk basketballs.

Compare intelligence with the ability of someone to see further into water.  Suppose that two people, Fisherman A and Fisherman B, are fishing out of a boat on a lake.  Also suppose that Fisherman A can see five feet deeper into the water than Fisherman B.  Fisherman A can tell Fisherman B what he sees deeper in the lake, but Fisherman B may not be able to directly verify that Fisherman A can actually see further.  Even if Fisherman A catches a fish from deeper in the water, this may have been luck and does not necessarily verify that Fisherman A can see further in the water.  The fact that Fisherman A can see further into the water than Fisherman B does not mean that Fisherman A is a better person than Fisherman B.  Perhaps Fisherman B is better at another attribute, say muscularity, than Fisherman A.  We all have our good points and bad points.

General intelligence exists but is difficult to determine in personal interactions because it is not readily apparent.  Some people do not tend to recognize general intelligence, anyway, because IQ tests have had a bad reputation and because labeling students with low intelligence can demoralize them.  People with higher intelligence generally cannot convince people of lower intelligence because people of lower intelligence cannot tell the difference.  We all have good attributes and bad attributes, of which general intelligence is just one attribute.  Higher intelligence does not make one a better or worse person, but we should recognize that it exists, even if it is typically difficult to detect.

You can see tactics.
The guiding strategy, though,
Is invisible.

Suggested Comments:


Are there other types of intelligence, skills, or capabilities that are invisible?


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