Poll: Is intelligence objective, intersubjective, or subjective?
- Thread starter The_Informed
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Obviously, yes. If you're better at math than me then in that respect you're just plain more intelligent than I am.
Intelligence, as measured by IQ, is defined as... the ability to solve IQ tests. That is all there is to it, making it a mostly objective score. You still need to account for variables in testing and possibility that some answers may have been plain lucky, but still.
Obviously intelligence testing in general has been developed to measure one's overall acumen and indeed, IQ has shown significant correlation with abilities such as memory and problem solving, but it's not an exact measure of anything in particular, obviously enough - overall human intellectual capacity is something far too complex to be expressed as a single numerical score.
Overall, I'd say the question is rather laconic and I'm not sure if I understood it correctly, but I'd say intelligence as measure of overall human intellectual prowess is largely intersubjective (as per the definition offered, I admit this is the first time I've encountered it) with relevant outlier cases - for instance a a number of people [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_possess_an_eidetic_memory] have been claimed to possess eidetic memory (and even should the claims be false, their memory remains impressive), but I would expect most of them hadn't displayed matching problem solving ability.
And then of course we have an entirely separate definition of intelligence as general information, usually of strategic or tactical importance - this can of course be quantified in bits, but the value of intelligence seems largely divorced of its volume - for instance knowing that Trump will win the 2016 election beforehand (let's say in March 2016 or so?) would most likely be far more valuable to Russia than detailed research on the diet of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass region, including both standard rations and external nutrition sources, even though the latter would take up far more space.
Obviously intelligence testing in general has been developed to measure one's overall acumen and indeed, IQ has shown significant correlation with abilities such as memory and problem solving, but it's not an exact measure of anything in particular, obviously enough - overall human intellectual capacity is something far too complex to be expressed as a single numerical score.
Overall, I'd say the question is rather laconic and I'm not sure if I understood it correctly, but I'd say intelligence as measure of overall human intellectual prowess is largely intersubjective (as per the definition offered, I admit this is the first time I've encountered it) with relevant outlier cases - for instance a a number of people [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_possess_an_eidetic_memory] have been claimed to possess eidetic memory (and even should the claims be false, their memory remains impressive), but I would expect most of them hadn't displayed matching problem solving ability.
And then of course we have an entirely separate definition of intelligence as general information, usually of strategic or tactical importance - this can of course be quantified in bits, but the value of intelligence seems largely divorced of its volume - for instance knowing that Trump will win the 2016 election beforehand (let's say in March 2016 or so?) would most likely be far more valuable to Russia than detailed research on the diet of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass region, including both standard rations and external nutrition sources, even though the latter would take up far more space.
That can be attributed to practice. If I do math more than you, I'll most likely be better at it.Queen Michael said:
If we were, however, to learn math for the same period of time and I would be better at it than you, that would mean that I'm more intelligent.
I hate how we reduce so many different abilities to the single parameter of "intelligence", especially since many of those abilities don't even necessarily correlate to each other. It's made all the worse by the way we regard that single parameter as an inherent and unchanging trait we are born with. Memory, knowledge, logic, spatial reasoning, computation, intuition, and learning speed are only a few of the abilities we try to cram under the umbrella of intelligence. To make things even more confusing, some models of intelligence also include things RPG fans would probably attribute to charisma or dexterity.
To answer the OP, some of the components of what we call intelligence are objective, some are subjective, some are objective but are extremely difficult to accurately quantify, some are based in physiology(hardware) and some are learned(software). Having great abilities in one of the components of intelligence does not always correlate to high abilities in some of the other components. I'm not sure what option my opinion on the matter would fall under in the poll. Probably the second or third.
IMO the way we conceptualize intelligence is very stupid. Which is ironic...maybe? Irony is another concept that has accrued a bunch of different definitions that are sometimes unrelated or even contradictory to each other.
To answer the OP, some of the components of what we call intelligence are objective, some are subjective, some are objective but are extremely difficult to accurately quantify, some are based in physiology(hardware) and some are learned(software). Having great abilities in one of the components of intelligence does not always correlate to high abilities in some of the other components. I'm not sure what option my opinion on the matter would fall under in the poll. Probably the second or third.
IMO the way we conceptualize intelligence is very stupid. Which is ironic...maybe? Irony is another concept that has accrued a bunch of different definitions that are sometimes unrelated or even contradictory to each other.
Intelligence is a very general property. It has something to do with being able to think quickly, to think well, to be able to learn new things, to be able to reason correctly and creatively. Perhaps it is too vague to easily measure. Some people seem clearly to have more of it than others but this is hard to prove or make entirely measurable. It seems like the sort of thing that can be measured, but only with limited precision. I don't think we should dismiss IQ tests alltogether but they can only tell you something if you don't take them too seriously. The difference between 100 IQ and 105 is the difference between doing the test while tired or energetic.
Eh, I wouldn't say "stupid" so much as "over-simplified". Which is understandable, the concept is very complicated, confusing and poorly understood. Most of the time, we don't need a really thorough grasp of the concept, as long as we are aware of the limitations of how we are used the term there wouldn't be a problem.Silent Protagonist said:
I agree that it is over-simplified rather than stupid, and I think that is apparent from the rest of my post. Calling it stupid was an attempt at humor ruined by the fact that I immediately tried to explain it with the with the whole irony tangent.Thaluikhain said:
Where I disagree is that I don't think we(collectively) are aware enough of the limitations of the term and the flaws in how we conceptualize intelligence. I think the way we generally conceptualize intelligence actually causes quite a few problems across a multitude of different areas of our society and culture. Probably small problems in the grand scheme of things, but problems none the less.
Ah, ok, fair enough.Silent Protagonist said:
I agree, "as long as we are aware" is rather wishful thinking on my part. I tend to think it causes large problems, dismissing someone as stupid because they aren't good at one particular thing, for example. An extreme example, but someone who is not a native speaker of a language will often be assumed to be stupid by someone who is. Or the other way around, where someone is (perhaps rightfully) see as an expert on something they are judged to be worth listening to on unrelated fields.Silent Protagonist said:
Another one that frustrates me is when a person believes they aren't very intelligent(relatively or otherwise) and therefore doesn't even try to understand things that aren't immediately obvious to them, because they think if they were smart then they would "get it" but since they don't "get it" they assume they aren't smart enough and "it" will remain forever beyond their ability to comprehend.Thaluikhain said:
At least they aren't as bad as the people who think they ARE very intelligent and assume that means they are incapable of doing anything stupid, and therefore do and think a whole lot of really stupid things. The ones that never reach the "I only know that I know nothing" depth into any given topic and assume that their shallow understanding of the topic is a mastery of it.
People confuse intelligence with IQ I think. IQ is a very specific, narrow thing, and people with a low IQ can have other forms of intelligence and it doesn't mean that they're stupid.
But no, all forms of intelligence are things that are objective, we just tend to ignore most of the forms of intelligence and place too much focus on IQ which causes the declaration of someone as having low IQ to be similar to calling them stupid and that feels intuitively not true (because it isn't) which then causes us to think it's all subjective when in fact all that is happening is people ignore the other types of intelligence at work and if they did take it all into account you could objectively rank people on their overall intelligence. Sadly, I don't think we have any way of doing that yet.
But no, all forms of intelligence are things that are objective, we just tend to ignore most of the forms of intelligence and place too much focus on IQ which causes the declaration of someone as having low IQ to be similar to calling them stupid and that feels intuitively not true (because it isn't) which then causes us to think it's all subjective when in fact all that is happening is people ignore the other types of intelligence at work and if they did take it all into account you could objectively rank people on their overall intelligence. Sadly, I don't think we have any way of doing that yet.
Objectively I think even the 'dumbest' of us already possess exceptional intelligence. Think about it; humans have the capacity to exist within a social species and the ability for autonomous decision making. To accomplish this the neural networks in our brain have a processing power that is surreal. Just look at how advanced computer technology has become yet it's nowhere near to the point where A.I. can do the same. I think much of what we consider 'intelligence' is behavior that doesn't come natural to humans like mathematical problem solving. Humans have the ability to take resources away from brain processes not specifically designed(or rather not evolutionary adapted) for such specific tasks and some people have greater capacity for this then others hence they score higher on IQ tests. I think much of this ability is genetically inherited but with probably 20% leeway due to neuroplasticity of the brain.
Either that or I just hope I'm not stupid b/c I suck at math.
Though even then intelligence can come in other forms like creativity, imagination, sensitivity, intuition etc. I like to think intelligence is more than just logic problem solving.
Either that or I just hope I'm not stupid b/c I suck at math.
Though even then intelligence can come in other forms like creativity, imagination, sensitivity, intuition etc. I like to think intelligence is more than just logic problem solving.
The lack of connection between IQ and 'intelligence' is actually a result of how subjective science is in general. Generally, you have a hypothesis that you want to prove, which you develop an experiment for to provide a result. Notice how many 'yous' are in there. All measurements are based on what humans deem value and are based on our senses. IQ and intelligence are the same. You might have a lot of intelligence (skill and knowledge) as a ferrier but it is no longer deem value except in specific circumstance.
What if I'm better at math than you but can't name an organic compound to save my life, while you can?Queen Michael said:
