What is the nature of intelligence?

[The Truth]

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The book that SunofBeach is onto here is an excellent read. Its called "The Bell Curve" rather than jar [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

In that book the authors talk about all kinds of things that effect measures of general intellegence. Parents, schools etc. They say that to them it appears that if you have a large enough sample size then general intelligence is 60% genetic and 40% environmental factors. For any one individual it can be all one or the other factor though.
On the different types of intelligence most experts would say that there is a difference between verbal skills and mathematical skills. But many believe there is also a general intelligence factor for people.
When the authors commented on racial differences of general intelligence (ie Jewish race scoring higher, and certain minorities lower) that got some controversial press even though they also said that some of those differences could lessen over time.

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This book is good, but dated. There are many new books on multiple intelligences.

I like this one

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465026...ks&v=glance

its dry but gets you through the concepts.

blake

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I think the application of knowledge is just as important in quantifying intelligence as learning. there are plenty people who do well in school but can't apply what they've learned.

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I would argue that this example isn't learning. These people you speak of have an ability to regurgitate information, but not to apply it. To me learning includes the ability to apply the information, if you can't do that you haven't really learned anything.

[purnell]

How about: "Intelligence is the ability to make and use tools to acheive one's desires"?

This is purely about the definition of intelligence. I read that if a class of school children (or 6th formers/college) who know each other well are asked to "rank the class in order of intelligence" their results will correlate with an IQ test. I don't know for sure whether this is credible, but it sounds right.

While musical ability may be impressive, I don't think that a musical expert who couldn't spell or do basic maths would be described as "intelligent" by most people.

I'm not intending to comment on the value of artistic abilities. But I think that calling them "intelligence" when most people don't intend this as a meaning of the word, is something done by people with low IQ scores.

On a metaphysical basis, I submit that intelligence consists of two things:

1) The ability to observe and recollect external events;

and;

2) The ability to make determinations (or predictions) of ongoing events based upon your recollection of previous observations.

I don't necessarily agree that there are several types of intelligence. Yes, some of us have a musical ear, and some of us are good at persuasion. IMO, these are all aptitudes derived from different peoples' ability to percieve, recollect and apply different sets of stimuli better than others.

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I don't necessarily agree that there are several types of intelligence. Yes, some of us have a musical ear, and some of us are good at persuasion. IMO, these are all aptitudes derived from different peoples' ability to percieve, recollect and apply different sets of stimuli better than others.

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So in the end it's a matter of semantics. You think there is only one intelligence but that it is better at applying itself to different stimuli in different people. To me this isn't really different than saying there are different intelligences.

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I don't necessarily agree that there are several types of intelligence. Yes, some of us have a musical ear, and some of us are good at persuasion. IMO, these are all aptitudes derived from different peoples' ability to percieve, recollect and apply different sets of stimuli better than others.

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So in the end it's a matter of semantics. You think there is only one intelligence but that it is better at applying itself to different stimuli in different people. To me this isn't really different than saying there are different intelligences.

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It is semantics. I just wanted to point out that I thought all skills came from those two things.