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LonelyJar
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11 Sep 2014, 5:38 pm

Is one born that way, or can one change? What matters more, capacity or content? How much does the variety of one's knowledge matter? Do smart and wise mean the same thing? To what extent should one be book smart and street smart? Is simply "acting" smart more important? When can one be considered smart enough? How does creativity fit in the picture? Does being smart even matter that much in the long run?

P. S.: Don't mind me. I'm just having an existential crisis.



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11 Sep 2014, 7:04 pm

All your questions could be answered as follows: It depends.



aghogday
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11 Sep 2014, 9:06 pm

LonelyJar wrote:
Is one born that way, or can one change? What matters more, capacity or content? How much does the variety of one's knowledge matter? Do smart and wise mean the same thing? To what extent should one be book smart and street smart? Is simply "acting" smart more important? When can one be considered smart enough? How does creativity fit in the picture? Does being smart even matter that much in the long run?

P. S.: Don't mind me. I'm just having an existential crisis.


My standard IQ was measured in the range of 130 to 140; however until I more fully learned physical and emotional intelligence that are a mandatory part of the most important type of intelligence, in my opinion, and in general, in the field of science, per the necessity of effective social interaction skills to survive in the social group; now at this point in time in history, too, given the regular day to day effective need for reciprocal communication, my overall much fuller potential intelligence was severely limited then

Greater physical intelligence gained by instinctively and intuitively gaining dance and martial arts skills helped my abilities in nonverbal communication greatly, per the initiation of the effort on my part.

And in general, the confidence of knowing I can easily defend myself if necessary for survival as a basic instinctive human animal attribute, helps my self confidence in social situations greatly.

I think the problem with standard measures of intelligence is it measures intelligence; basically required for school, to learn abstract constructs to continue to build and maintain the infrastructure of culture. But what it fails to do miserably, in my opinion, is to effectively teach and promote physical, emotional and yes creative intelligence too.

Just a requirement for young folks to take a philosophy class 101, if you will, could give folks more of a renaissance taste of life that is offered in the secondary educational system today.

But it's the maintenance of culture and its infrastructure that seems to be the prize, instead of the core human being, that we cannot realistically escape from on the full course of the most important course: human life and human connections that is the core of human happiness, as suggested in science today.

To summarize, in general, other than for merit in school, standard intelligence is of only relative value in achieving what now seems to be the greatest human task of all that so often comes seemingly much easier for other animals now. What should relatively be a a simple task: attaining animal homeostasis, where the fight or flight response is only used in emergency not on a minute to minute basis; and relaxation is a way of life.

One does not see that often, in the crowded aisles of Super Walmart where the so called 'common man' lives. And yes, that is what I truly describe as a sad state of human being affairs.


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LoveNotHate
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12 Sep 2014, 1:31 pm

I would define "smart" as a relative measure of intelligence.
I would define "intelligence" as dynamic decision making/reasoning.

Thus, smartness is a relative measure of the effectiveness of one's dynamic reasoning.



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12 Sep 2014, 3:50 pm

aghogday wrote:
LonelyJar wrote:
Is one born that way, or can one change? What matters more, capacity or content? How much does the variety of one's knowledge matter? Do smart and wise mean the same thing? To what extent should one be book smart and street smart? Is simply "acting" smart more important? When can one be considered smart enough? How does creativity fit in the picture? Does being smart even matter that much in the long run?

P. S.: Don't mind me. I'm just having an existential crisis.


My standard IQ was measured in the range of 130 to 140; however until I more fully learned physical and emotional intelligence that are a mandatory part of the most important type of intelligence, in my opinion, and in general, in the field of science, per the necessity of effective social interaction skills to survive in the social group; now at this point in time in history, too, given the regular day to day effective need for reciprocal communication, my overall much fuller potential intelligence was severely limited then

Greater physical intelligence gained by instinctively and intuitively gaining dance and martial arts skills helped my abilities in nonverbal communication greatly, per the initiation of the effort on my part.

And in general, the confidence of knowing I can easily defend myself if necessary for survival as a basic instinctive human animal attribute, helps my self confidence in social situations greatly.

I think the problem with standard measures of intelligence is it measures intelligence; basically required for school, to learn abstract constructs to continue to build and maintain the infrastructure of culture. But what it fails to do miserably, in my opinion, is to effectively teach and promote physical, emotional and yes creative intelligence too.

Just a requirement for young folks to take a philosophy class 101, if you will, could give folks more of a renaissance taste of life that is offered in the secondary educational system today.

But it's the maintenance of culture and its infrastructure that seems to be the prize, instead of the core human being, that we cannot realistically escape from on the full course of the most important course: human life and human connections that is the core of human happiness, as suggested in science today.

To summarize, in general, other than for merit in school, standard intelligence is of only relative value in achieving what now seems to be the greatest human task of all that so often comes seemingly much easier for other animals now. What should relatively be a a simple task: attaining animal homeostasis, where the fight or flight response is only used in emergency not on a minute to minute basis; and relaxation is a way of life.

One does not see that often, in the crowded aisles of Super Walmart where the so called 'common man' lives. And yes, that is what I truly describe as a sad state of human being affairs.


The invasion of Iwo Jima, Japan killing over 250 million Chinese people before WWII, the influence of people like Hilter, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong, those are truly sad states. Walmart is pretty pleasant by comparison. I mean we have to be realistic people, it's not the greatest tragedy in the world that basically no one has read Plato, that basically no one understands all of the basic rules of logic. No one ever has.

Like you said there are other types of intelligence, the human mind is capable of incredible, wonderful things when you compare it to any other mind. We retain language, I'm typing this on a forum after all. People who are less intelligent than average still do incredible things with their minds when you really think about the process that goes into forming a human being, and that's a no brainer for parents.

Ultimately intelligence isn't so important for everyone, I have a friend named John who has been a trucker for 20 years, a very successful independent one, and because he doesn't understand how to pay his bills online he literally delivers all of them himself by hand. Doing taxes is a serious struggle for him and I have helped him do that most of our adult lives. Yet at the same time John has taught me a lot about success, how to "keep my nose clean" at work. He excels in other types of intelligence.

It matters little to me that I'm a savant or that I have trouble even getting an accurate score on IQ tests because of how well I do. Emotionally I was very stunted, honestly childlike, and I came to learn as a man that what is really important when it comes to intelligence is whether people can lead meaningful lives. And if they need help to do that, by all means we should help them along the way or even permanently.


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12 Sep 2014, 5:26 pm

Throughout much of my life, I always had the sense that I never quite fit in with the rest of society.

By accident at the place I used to teach at, I had an indication that I may be quite left-brained. I investigated it further and there were signs that I had a much higher IQ than I had ever suspected. Eventually, I made arrangements with the local Mensa proctor to have a formal examination session. It turned out that I more than met its minimum requirements and took out membership a bit later.

Later, I heard about Intertel and wrote the GREs again. My scores were enough to put me well within the upper percentile and I joined that group as well.

So what did that mean for me? It went a long way to explain why I felt out of step with people. Fortunately, I made good use of that IQ by getting a good education, though my transcript is respectable but hardly outstanding.



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12 Sep 2014, 5:51 pm

Lukecash12 wrote:
The invasion of Iwo Jima, Japan killing over 250 million Chinese people before WWII, the influence of people like Hilter, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong, those are truly sad states. Walmart is pretty pleasant by comparison. I mean we have to be realistic people, it's not the greatest tragedy in the world that basically no one has read Plato, that basically no one understands all of the basic rules of logic. No one ever has.

Like you said there are other types of intelligence, the human mind is capable of incredible, wonderful things when you compare it to any other mind. We retain language, I'm typing this on a forum after all. People who are less intelligent than average still do incredible things with their minds when you really think about the process that goes into forming a human being, and that's a no brainer for parents.

Ultimately intelligence isn't so important for everyone, I have a friend named John who has been a trucker for 20 years, a very successful independent one, and because he doesn't understand how to pay his bills online he literally delivers all of them himself by hand. Doing taxes is a serious struggle for him and I have helped him do that most of our adult lives. Yet at the same time John has taught me a lot about success, how to "keep my nose clean" at work. He excels in other types of intelligence.

It matters little to me that I'm a savant or that I have trouble even getting an accurate score on IQ tests because of how well I do. Emotionally I was very stunted, honestly childlike, and I came to learn as a man that what is really important when it comes to intelligence is whether people can lead meaningful lives. And if they need help to do that, by all means we should help them along the way or even permanently.


I feel blessed to have adapted and mastered culture as it certainly wasn't always that way, and I think that opportunity exists greater today because of the free-flow of information. I personally am very happy with the freedoms we have in our country as at least a person who tries hard and looks for answers can find them now.

And yes, I agree the standard for a meaningful life exists within the individual and certainly what is a meaningful life for one person may mean nothing to another, but to me that is the greatest thing about human nature and different minds of thinking: diversity. There is never a person that comes along in my life, that I don't learn at least something from that I didn't know before, as each human in their knowledge and personality, as well as skills is a little different. :)

An open mind is always the way to improvement in human being, in my mind, for sure. ;)


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14 Sep 2014, 6:40 am

Being smart is not about memory (the information you have aquired). If it were I would be smarter than Socrates, Newton...etc. * I know more about reality than they do. I know about the big bang, evolution, DNA etc and they do not. Smartness is about the ability to juxtapose information forming new information.
* and that is absurd.


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14 Sep 2014, 12:32 pm

LonelyJar wrote:
Is one born that way, or can one change? What matters more, capacity or content? How much does the variety of one's knowledge matter? Do smart and wise mean the same thing? To what extent should one be book smart and street smart? Is simply "acting" smart more important? When can one be considered smart enough? How does creativity fit in the picture? Does being smart even matter that much in the long run?

P. S.: Don't mind me. I'm just having an existential crisis.


It depends.

Words are tough things to work with. The ones we use today aren't the same as the ones that were used a few thousand years ago. Your encounter with the term "intelligence" is different than that of a psychologist, a rapper, an athlete, Einstein. IQ was created to test the skills that would be most helpful for a certain kind of success in life, though IQ has been shown not to coincide with other kinds of successes. Though I would imagine Socrates would have a lot of questions about IQ that would render its "high standing standard" humorous.

You have a lot of definition questions. Like I said before, everyone's going to have a different answer. Who's answer are you looking for? What do you mean by "important" or "enough"? Smart enough for what? What is "the long run"?



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14 Sep 2014, 1:52 pm

The OP never responded. I would like to see this thread address what it means to be smart for ASD people?

For example, my ASD doctor asked me a riddle once, he asked me, "your brain is like a computer, and we don't think computers are smart, do we? It may seem disparaging, however, I think we know there is some pertinence to that riddle.

This has always been a sensitive issue for me, because for most of my life people said I was dumb. I had an incident last year in which a policeman kept asking me if I am "ret*d", and I had prolonged PTSD from that event. I live with my mom, and afterwards, at night several times, my mom overheard me verbally repeating the event over and over, and in repeating of the event, then I would insert a retort to the "are you ret*d" question. So now when she gets mad at me, then she calls me names like "dumb", and "stupid", because she knows how much it hurts me.



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14 Sep 2014, 3:00 pm

I do have a smart mouth sometimes.


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14 Sep 2014, 3:02 pm

babybird wrote:
I do have a smart mouth sometimes.


I've noticed. :wink:


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14 Sep 2014, 3:05 pm

^^ :lol: ^^


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19 Sep 2014, 5:29 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
The OP never responded. I would like to see this thread address what it means to be smart for ASD people?

For example, my ASD doctor asked me a riddle once, he asked me, "your brain is like a computer, and we don't think computers are smart, do we? It may seem disparaging, however, I think we know there is some pertinence to that riddle.

This has always been a sensitive issue for me, because for most of my life people said I was dumb. I had an incident last year in which a policeman kept asking me if I am "ret*d", and I had prolonged PTSD from that event. I live with my mom, and afterwards, at night several times, my mom overheard me verbally repeating the event over and over, and in repeating of the event, then I would insert a retort to the "are you ret*d" question. So now when she gets mad at me, then she calls me names like "dumb", and "stupid", because she knows how much it hurts me.


It seriously pissed me off to read about your mother exploiting your feelings like that.


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20 Sep 2014, 10:24 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
This has always been a sensitive issue for me, because for most of my life people said I was dumb. I had an incident last year in which a policeman kept asking me if I am "ret*d", and I had prolonged PTSD from that event. I live with my mom, and afterwards, at night several times, my mom overheard me verbally repeating the event over and over, and in repeating of the event, then I would insert a retort to the "are you ret*d" question. So now when she gets mad at me, then she calls me names like "dumb", and "stupid", because she knows how much it hurts me.


This is deeply upsetting.
I ran into problems with my superios recently, and he implied that I was too stupid to understand the task, and went on to explain it to me, step by step, over an hour and a half, interpreting my signs of boredom as signs of having tuned-out and being unable to understand. He went to speak to the manager, and I'm now on probation, as they are not sure whether I'm capable of doing this entry-level job.
Truth is, my IQ is 126, I have an MA in the field and I'm so underchallenged by my work that I can't motivate myself to do it.
So what it means to be smart, for an Aspie: probably that you'll have to try harder to ever get into a position where you can actually apply your brain's capacity, or go straight to depression.


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20 Sep 2014, 10:56 am

What do you consider intelligence? Knowing facts? Ability to solve problems? Is there more than one type of intelligence? What about creativity as intelligence? And does a "smart" person have only one or a few of these kinds of intelligence, or most or all of them?


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