sophie

Hopefully I will be able to demonstrate the order of my ideas and show how any interpretation of the essence of intelligence must veer towards simple operations. A simple operation can be viewed as one of the set of operations the brain provides which uses memory and representative-memory as the axis upon which operations are formed and performed.


It would be instructive to highlight a few details of existential reality. With memory there are more than one way to get from AtoB. AtoB represents a populated dimension where A and B are any two non-identicals in existence. Logically we can write A->B & B->A ; after we can say the memory M will assert A which will yield B. However P can also assert B, and P is represented by a memory and an operation. The system adds up to M->A->B ; and P->A->B ; P and M are related in the form M->P. P is still a memory although it is in the form of memory and operation. The more straightfoward memorising the sequence has its limitations and its use and practise can hamper intelligence when further cases of generality should cause operations to form.

The question which forms is whether the native brain
provides this P function, the memory and operation
procedure, as a direct extension of its native
capabilities, or as a meta-machine which uses an
intermediate interpretaion between consciousness
and the provider.

How can we evade the idea of provider. This is what Darwin claimed evolved in the universe. Providence has its greatest association with the service providers. Genetics ensure the provider of human qualities is regular across the species. The provider of the operation of consciousness is important regardless of the specific interpretations of consciousness. The basis on how intelligence forms is already written into the brain and the use of these basics develops with the development of
the provider. I may be able to show the natural intelligence of the brain is independent of environment and environment imposes its own development of the brain sometimes measures it and believes in itself.

I should pause for the moment to indicate whatever is termed intelligence in the naturalworld must be associatd with brain power. Genetics allows this brain power to manifest as provider and as such it is difficult to escape the fact that the brain has to be geared for intelligence and it is this gearing ratio philosophy finds itself once more capable of speaking.

This will be the telling factor of what truly seperates knowledge from intelligence in our planetary world.

seebs

I seem to recall that someone was doing some fairly interesting research on trying to do "intelligence" tests that were less dependant on what you know, and more on how you process information. I have a vague recollection of tests based on doing a series of gradually-more-complex tasks; you start with "push the button under the light which comes on", and eventually work up to things like "push the button under an odd number of lights", or 'push the button under the greater number of lights". What I remember being told (and I am totally unable to find citations right now) was that people who score better on IQ tests might or might not be faster than other people, but:
1. Their times were less variable within a given test.
2. They didn't slow down as much as the test got more complicated.

This had to do with something like "Elementary cognitive tasks"... Unfortunately, I'm out of the loop on this sort of thing these days.

ps418

Yes. ECT performance, measured as inspection time (IT), or reaction time (RT), is signficantly correlated with both psychometric 'g' and IQ. And the more complex the ECT, the higher its correlation with 'g' and with IQ. IT is the amount of time of exposure to the stimulus that it takes to generate a correct response. Most ECTs are so simple that almost anyone can get correct answers in less than a second. So, yes, for reasons that are not completely understood, speed of mental processing is correlated with cognitive ability.

Petrill et al, 2001. Inspection time and the relationship among elementary cognitive tasks, general intelligence, and specific cognitive abilities. Intelligence 29, 487-496.

Patrick

Jennie

I remember many years ago taking an IQ test called the Raven test; it was lots of little pictures and you had to figure our the relationship between them and complete the last series. Supposedly it was an unbiasied IQ test, though the researcher did say that young adults (as I was at the time) did better than older adults. Clearly it wouldn't work well on infants.

This "Flynn Effect" is very interesting. Is it thought that this is due to better nutrition and health care? If so then it should be slowing down as our nutrition has gotten to a plateau and health care is now excellent. Or are there other hypotheses out there?

God Fearing Atheist

RSPM is a great IQ test. Like you said, its culture-free and also highly g-loaded.

No one quite knows why the Flynn effect occurs. It could be due to those things you mentioned (in which case, its a real gain in g), or it could be due to something like better test-taking ability (in which case, the gains wouldnt be in g).

There is some new evidence that this secular gain is leveling off in certain countries.

-GFA

echidna

Umm, no, more commonly and correctly Ravens and similar tests are termed "culture-reduced".

echidna

Increasingly sophisticated society & earlier learning, improved education techniques. To my knowledge there's no sign that the Flynn Effect is slowing.

ps418

. . . or, 'culture-fair.'

Patrick

ps418

Yes, those may all be factors. But we should keep in mind that even Flynn himself does not think that the Flynn Effect is solely due to increasing intelligence. In fact, Flynn thinks that the real increase in intelligence may be of a much smaller magnitude than the effect would imply, which is precisely one of the reasons that the FE is so hard to explain. There is an brief article in the Jan 1999 Scientific American where Flynn's views are discussed:

Flynn's Effect: Intelligence scores are rising, James R. Flynn discovered--but he remains very sure we're not getting any smarter

He goes into much more detail in his chapter in The Rising Curve. For instance, he gives reasons for doubting that there has been the major increase in intelligence over time implied by the FE. I don't know if Flynn is right or wrong, or what the cause(s) of the FE are, just that he personally does not view all of the gains associated with the FE as real gains in intelligence. Flynn concludes his chapter, saying that:

IQ Gains Over Time: Toward Finding the Causes. in Neisser, U., ed, The Rising Curve: Long Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures, American Psychological Association, Washington D C, 1998.

Patrick

sophie

Intelligence involves knowing or estimating the goalstate and a means of resolving the goalstate.

Intelligence is determined by our existence which has a thinking part and an active planetary action based world. The effects of your intelligence can be examined on the planetary scene whereas the effects in your mind are of a different quality realising effects in the area of intelligent thought is only feedback concerning the success ratio of the intelligence itself.

We can think intelligently but we can act less intelligently due to all the various factors which populate the planetary world. Perhaps this was what Flynn meant when he noted Americans score higher in I.Q tests but have not become smarter. The smartness he must obviously be referring to must be American action in the American Republic. I wonder how does he measure this smartness and why does it have to be production geared to society like a renaissance.

On the philosophical front we realise the scope of intelligence varies from keeping care of your brain to interacting safely with humans in the planetary world. All the infinite spots for potential misinterpretation can be idealised in a manner in which the operational characteristics of intelligence is evident. Yes you may wonder about students, "why do they not see the operations which can be formed".

Mental intelligence seems to be about a virtual world where the changes from AtoB or the movement from AtoB are characterised by intelligent thought. In the mind the darn thing works. Taking the step into a planetary world must also be characterised through intelligent performance. It is at this point we can once again draw the distinctions clearly within the intelligence compound between the pure genetic flavour and the homely herd smell. It is through performance in the planetary world intelligence gains existential value and it does seem as if the natural genetic intelligence of babies allows them to perform satisfactorily.

Once again it is difficult to evade the idea of genetic intelligence. Once again I believe exploring the scope of genetic intelligence and trying to connect (the atheist's spiritual connection) to it and trying to make direct extensions of it, will help us to cope better with existence in our planetary world.