/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2442884]

What is intelligence? Can dumb people understand complicated concepts if they spend enough time thinking about them? Or maybe dumb people can't understand complicated concepts, no matter how much time they spend thinking about them and/or trying to understand them?

[Anonymous No.2442905]

jklgertmel;te;fss

[Anonymous No.2442908]

Not a function of time, it's a function of interpretation.

[Anonymous No.2442911]

interesting question. I think everyone will be able to learn anything, but I'm not a scientist, I just don't believe that you are born to be stupid.

Maybe intelligence is some sort of "talent" you're born with, just like Tiger Woods was born with a talent for golf. I have a hard time understanding complicated things, but I know it's because I rarely go in depths with stuff, but when I concentrate and grind the same thing over and over I learn and understand it.

[Anonymous No.2442918]

I think of intelligence as pattern recognition; i.e. more intelligence = faster recognition of more complex patterns. I suppose that's pretty general, and there will be those on /sci/ with a more detailed understanding.

However, based on my understanding, a dumb person may not understand a complicated concept (thus making them dumb), or they may understand it with more time (thus giving them a lower rating on a dumb scale). And, I suppose, it is hard to give a polar scale for intelligence. Some people will be able to quickly understand something complex based on a certain type of reasoning, and won't be able to understand something less complex if it relies on knowledge or reasoning that they do not possess.

Why do you ask?

[Anonymous No.2442933]

Let's put it this way...

Aboriginal Australians inhabited the continent for 40 thousand years, and in that time didn't come up with a single invention, except for variations of the stick (hollow stick, sharp stick, curvy stick). They didn't invent the wheel, nor written language, nor numbers beyond 3 or 4, depending on which area you are talking about... (Google it).

You could say, "Well, that's just their culture, they had a rich spiritual intelligence and understanding of the land" - but we all know that is just beating around the bush... If Europeans hadn't colonised Australia in the 18th century, Aboriginals would still be in mud huts, literally stone age people.

On the other hand, European, Far East, Middle Eastern etc civilisations have made astronomically more discoveries and inventions - by chance, perhaps, but almost certainly because of a much greater intelligence.

So I think intelligence is just a heritable trait which enables people to understand complex ideas and abstractions. Some people have it, others have less of it. It is very predictable given a person's race.

inb4 political correctness

[Anonymous No.2442952]

>>2442933

mind-blown

[Anonymous No.2442956]

>>2442933
That's more of an environment and opportunity issue than anatomical differences. The human brain is for most intents and purposes here the same for all humans on earth. Everyone has the same capacity for learning and intelligence, but there are these minor things that may get in the way like the way your neural network is structured or how you are taught to adopt new information. Neurochemical imbalances may also distract you from learning or normal thought processes. But all the tools you need are there from birth bar any pathology.

[Anonymous No.2442962]

The main question is - is intelligence merely understanding speed or rather understanding potential?

Which scenario is right?:
A smart person would understand some concept an hour, or even a day faster than a dumb person
or
A smart person would understand some concept that a dumb person would never understand, even if they lived forever and spent all the time trying to understand the concept.

[Anonymous No.2442963]

>>2442956

>The human brain is for most intents and purposes here the same for all humans on earth

I suggest you take a basic anatomy course. There are MASSIVE differences in brains between people of different races. In terms of brain mass, structure, grey/white matter etc etc. It is very well documented.

Suggesting that thousands of years of isolation and evolution had no bearing on the intelligence of different races and civilisations is completely unfounded. Intelligence is just as prone to evolutionary change as is skin colour, athletic ability etc

[Anonymous No.2442973]

>>2442962

Both - but the first scenario is probably what we compare different people with, whereas the second is more about comparing species

[Anonymous No.2442979]

>>2442933
No, in before an actual understanding of how evolution works and how Homo sapiens sapiens evolved, physiologically and culturally.

Let's just take the last point before going into the mother of all genealogies: if a particular set of cultural adaptations enables a group of people to survive and thrive, what sense is there in fucking around with other stuff with no advantage? They were on an isolated continent, with no competition and living healthy, fertile, full lives in whatever they did live in. People have been in Australia 40,000 years- clearly, whatever the hell they were doing was working just fine. Otherwise, Europeans would've hit on an unpopulated land.

[Anonymous No.2442982]

>>2442979

OK, now use that same argument for Europeans

What use is there having spacecraft and computers when all you need to do is survive and not get eaten

[Anonymous No.2442993]

>>2442963
Don't be a condescending prick first of all, I am a 4th year neurophysiology major, second of all there has been no major anatomical evolution in humans since 200kya, the biggest social change is the behavioral evolution 19kya. All brains have the same anatomical capacity and the brain is the same for all humans. I have never heard this BS about races being different, only sensationalist crap in the news which has absolutely no bearing in the neuroscience field. You say it is well documented, then provide the documentation.

[Anonymous No.2443008]

>>2442982
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

[Anonymous No.2443021]

>>2442962
>implying these are not correlated.

[Anonymous No.2443044]

>>2442884
>Can dumb people understand complicated concepts if they spend enough time thinking about them?

No

[Anonymous No.2443062]

>>2442993

Your post reeks of political correctness.

It is well documented that brain size differs across races (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Brain_size).). Whether this affects intelligence is unproven. It is also well-known that IQ differs as well. Sadly, it has been very hard to do any research into whether this is genetic or environmental because saying anything that might be perceived as encouraging racism is career suicide for scientists, just as it would have been career suicide to propose evolution before the Enlightenment.

Also, what's with all the Hebrew in the captchas?

[Anonymous No.2443074]

>What is intelligence?
oh boy, here we go again...

[Anonymous No.2443092]

>What is intelligence?
Baby don't test me, don't test me.
No more...

[Anonymous No.2443111]

Intelligence is balance, it's not what you know, it's what you need. It's not what you are, it's what you're with.

[Anonymous No.2443159]

Intelligence as defined with in the AI world provides a good model for your inquiry. In Artificial Intelligence programing, intelligence is the ability to synthesize new information from a set of given premises. Your savant would become erudite, but not intelligent. There is a big difference between regurgitating information and creating new information.

[Anonymous No.2443170]

Okey fuckface, here's what intelligence is;

The ability to use your mental resources to adapt to your environment.

Not "this is what I pull out of my ass", but what the books will tell you. The definition of intelligence.

It's just like competence, it's context sensitive, expect intelligence just includes the head.

[Anonymous No.2443172]

>>2442963

[Anonymous No.2443173]

Okey fuckface, here's what intelligence is;

The ability to use your mental resources to adapt to your environment.

Not "this is what I pull out of my ass", but what the books will tell you. The definition of intelligence.

It's just like competence, it's context sensitive, expect intelligence just includes the head.

Now stop being a bunch of faggot who pretend they know anything about psychology.

[Anonymous No.2443182]

>>2442963
> Implying crazy racist views are mainstream.

Stop pooping in your hand and calling it chocolate pudding.

[Anonymous No.2443213]

>>2442933
> Implying environment and culture didn't have a huge impact on the different types of living.

Look at the amazonian tribes using psychedelics, being one with nature. They wouldn't destroy it to build something that was unnecessary.They had a better climate allowing them to not need as secure buildings as the british etc would have needed in cold winters.

I hope I'm getting trolled.

[Anonymous No.2443215]

>>2443182
>> Implying crazy racist views are mainstream.
They're... They're not?

[Anonymous No.2443258]

>>2443215
No, they are not.

[Anonymous No.2443270]

>>2443258

[Anonymous No.2443275]

>>2443062
On another note, brain size has proven to be a terrible indicator of general intelligence, as measured either by IQ or by problem-solving metrics like the classic rat maze.

Man, sperm whales, they invented everything!

[Anonymous No.2443305]

>>2442933
someone needs to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

their lack of 'inventions' and general backwardness wasn't due to them being 'dumb'; it was a simple effect of their isolation.

racistfag.

[Anonymous No.2443321]

>>2443305
>their lack of 'inventions' and general backwardness wasn't due to them being 'dumb'; it was a simple effect of their isolation.

interesting wiki page on it. it leaves me wondering though, what's the excuse for native americans? the geography and natural resources in large swaths of north america are identical to europe, yet they were millenia behind.

[Anonymous No.2443322]

>>2443062
Ok, I looked over it, there are some correlative studies that are controversial and inconclusive. They also don't account for the dramatic differences you proposed like inventing planes and using a stick to get ants out of an ant hill between ethnic groups which I maintain is an opportunity difference (still arguable). The differences could also be environmental effects on gene representation and growth like the one guy proposed with infamily brain size and cognition study. It's fun research but as of this time it would not be considered staple knowledge in neurocognition. That is to say it's not irrelevant, but I wouldn't cite it as indisputable.

Most human developed concepts are not out of reach for anyone from birth. There isn't a person who is physically unable to learn calculus unless there is a pathology. Intelligence is a bad word, too subjective.

[Anonymous No.2443331]

>>2443305
Aztecs were isolated from Europe, and they figured out some bad-ass astronomy and calendar.

[Anonymous No.2443333]

>>2443275
Brain size to body mass ratio is an extremely reliable estimator of intelligence, which is why asians>caucasians>negroids, and neanderthals>all.

[Anonymous No.2443334]

>>2443331
And the Europeans burned the majority of them, damn whiteys.

[Anonymous No.2443345]

>>2443334
I never said they were superior, just that "it was a simple effect of their isolation" is a fallacious argument. Lots of non-multicultural peoples made discoveries.

[Anonymous No.2443354]

The human bottleneck happened so little time ago (in evolutionary perspective) that any significant differences between humans couldn't have had time to occur. All differences between individuals are just superficial attributes.

so there goes your racism

[Anonymous No.2443374]

>>2443321
>the geography and natural resources in large swaths of north america are identical to europe, yet they were millenia behind.

Probably has something to do with it taking millenia for people to disperse on foot across two continents.

[Anonymous No.2443387]

>Can dumb people understand complicated concepts if they spend enough time thinking about them?

Is there really such a thing as being dumb, or is it just a product of culture and unconventional intellectual specialization?

[Anonymous No.2443424]

>>2443387

That's true, but the slope of that line makes your hierarchy of intelligence meaningless - significant differences in cognitive ability appear to require much larger changes in brain-to-body ratio than exist in non-pathological Homo Sapiens variation.

>>2443333
In my experience, and this is merely an observation, what "intelligence" means in common usage is better translated "critical thinking skills" and "knowledge of specialized terminology."

[Anonymous No.2443541]

http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html

very, very related.

tl;dr: there is no talent nor inborn intelligence, only practice and interest

[Anonymous No.2443562]

>>2443387
Usually there are no dumb ppl, at least if you only use somewhat healthy (i.e. no menengitis), well nurished test subjects (for example I knew a guy from Germany, while his mother was pregnant with him in 1946 there was a huge famine in the country, this showed)

There is however aquired stupidity, being told for years that you are just not cut out for science, or that women just suck at math will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, esp. when children are told this.

[Anonymous No.2443587]

Autism and mental retardation.

Both extremes in terms of intellectual capability. We are NOT all identical. I can look at my older brother, he has the mental capacity of a 7 year old, although I don't know exactly what's wrong with him, it could be brain-damage that occurred during or before birth.