Metaphysical Intelligence

[Stars Down To Earth]

This has been nagging at me for some time.

When we typically speak of "intelligence", do we think of it as a raw biological machine power (and a measurable quality), but is it really just all that for us humans?

When measuring human minds, our science-based ideology is the most accurate thing we have right now, but it also overlooks much because it only seems to rank fitness for an industrial society.

I know that abstract logical intelligence is important, but how do you measure things like bravery, stability, fortitude and other things that make a people great? Intuition? Reliability? Beauty? I remember that back in college, I once asserted that a daft Russian peasant with an IQ of 98, living in a community that hasn't changed in a thousand years, is probably much more valuable and less destructive than the average Eton wanker with an IQ of 120.

What do you all think?

[Der Steinadler]

This has been nagging at me for some time.

When we typically speak of "intelligence", do we think of it as a raw biological machine power (and a measurable quality), but is it really just all that for us humans?

When measuring human minds, our science-based ideology is the most accurate thing we have right now, but it also overlooks much because it only seems to rank fitness for an industrial society.

Also, abstract logical intelligence is important, but how do you measure bravery, stability, fortitude and other things that make a people great? Intuition? Reliability? Beauty? Back in college, I once asserted that a daft Russian peasant with an IQ of 98, living in a community that hasn't changed in a thousand years, is probably much more valuable and less destructive than the average Eton wanker with an IQ of 120.

What do you all think?

Well that's the thing.

What is it we are actually doing when we start reducing qualities to a mere quantity.

[Mordid]

I'd guess the ability is innate intelligence, how we use it is according to our sense that comes from experiences and circumstances.

[Ville]

Metaphysical Intelligence

It is said that when a centipede started thinking about which leg moves after which… it suddenly realized it was unable to make legs walk properly. And it could never move again.

There are few among our species that are not upwardly mobile, not a good fit to most job requisitions; paralyzed by metaphysical reflection, their consciousness may be in a free fall… but it is them who, to a great degree, are responsible for creating air of the next paradigm shift in the society.

As a complex system positioned for expansion, any healthy society must have the “abnormality” of these people.

[Logan]

It is said that when a centipede started thinking about which leg moves after which… it suddenly realized it was unable to make legs walk properly. And it could never move again.

There are few among our species that are not upwardly mobile, not a good fit to most job requisitions; paralyzed by metaphysical reflection, their consciousness may be in a free fall… but it is them who, to a great degree, are responsible for creating air of the next paradigm shift in the society.

As a complex system positioned for expansion, any healthy society must have the “abnormality” of these people.

I totally agree, though I could not have expressed it so well. I once heard Michael Caine remard in a film something to the effect that, thinking too much makes one weak. There is something to that, but yes, we do need other degrees or depths of thought as well.

Thanks. :)



'Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so.'

Shakespeare

[Oreka Bailoak]

When we typically speak of "intelligence", do we think of it as a raw biological machine power (and a measurable quality), but is it really just all that for us humans?

Many people who hold pro-immigration political views, and those who want to deny that race exists, which is most people in the government/media/universities (people from fields like sociologists, womens study etc.- but funnily enough not the biologists, psychologists etc,) try to downplay the idea that intelligence can be measured.

Arthur Jensen defines intelligence as g, while personality traits are clearly separate. Those people who deny that genetics are important often say that intelligence and personality are blurry and the same thing so you cannot pull them apart- this is total nonsense. The method scientists use to measure intelligence is extremely well studied and agreed upon unanimously by psychology researchers today. You can look at the brain size, compactness of the brain, amount of neural circuitry, neural brain wave frequency and energy use (smart people have minds set at a higher frequency, that operate using more complex alpha wave brain patterns, and are able to do a similar task as a less intelligent person but much better and with less expended energy).

The word intelligence or smart has taken on so many different meanings and I think it would be a good idea to redefine it based upon solid research.


When measuring human minds, our science-based ideology is the most accurate thing we have right now, but it also overlooks much because it only seems to rank fitness for an industrial society.

G is correlated to ...

IQ is positively correlated with...
Achievement motivation,
altruism,
analytic style,
aptitudes,
cognative abilities,
artistic preferences and abililties,
craft work,
creativity fluency,
dietary preferences (low sugar, low fat),
educational attainment,
eminence,
genius,
emotional sensitivity,
extra curricular attainment,
field independence,
height,
health fitness,
longevity,
sense of humor,
income,
depth and breadth of interests,
involvement in school activities,
leadership,
linguistic abilities (including spelling),
logical abilities,
choice of martial partner,
memory,
migration (voluntary),
military rank,
moral reasoning and development,
motor skills,
musical preferences and abilities,
myopia,
occupational status,
perceptual abilities,
piaget type abilities,
practical knowledge,
response to psychotherapy,
reading ability,
regional differences,
social skills,
socioeconomic status of origin,
socioeconomic status achieved,
sports participation at university,
super market shopping ability,
talking speed,
values and attitudes.

Negative Correlations with IQ;
accident proneness,
aceviercence,
aging,
alcoholism,
authoritarianism,
social conservatism,
crime,
delinquency,
dogmatism,
falsification (lie scores),
hysteria (versus other neurosis),
impulsivity,
infant mortality,
psychoticism,
racial prejudice,
reaction times,
smoking,
truancy,
weight to height ratio.

That is quite a bit more than just "industrial society". I think that argument is a total sham argument often used by people trying to hide differences between groups and people.


I know that abstract logical intelligence is important, but how do you measure things like bravery, stability, fortitude and other things that make a people great? Intuition? Reliability? Beauty? I remember that back in college, I once asserted that a daft Russian peasant with an IQ of 98, living in a community that hasn't changed in a thousand years, is probably much more valuable and less destructive than the average Eton wanker with an IQ of 120.

Those are personality traits and not intelligence. They are totally separate.

Beauty is another category all to itself. (there is an interesting correlation between intelligence and beauty, not because beauty causes intelligence but beautiful people more often have kids with smarter people)

It's not blurred, you can have any combination of attractiveness, intelligence, and personality, and character values.

[Svipdag]

I came to the conclusion many years ago that the only thing that IQ tests test is test-taking ability, mainly the ability to second-guess the author(s)
of the test.

This is not "sour grapes", by the way. According to one of these preposterous tests, my IQ is 180, so I have no personal grudge against them.
But, what does it mean ?

I know a woman with an IQ of 150, a MENSA member, who hasn't got the sense to come in out of the rain. She lives on a trust fund which her parents set up for her, knowing that she could never manage her own finances.

She considers herself a poet. God help us ! She's a female William Topaz
McGonigall. To supplement her trust fund, she has held various jobs, such as delivering newspapers from her bicycle.

Most of the other people whom I have known who have high IQ's strike me as muddle-headed and feckless. The most brilliant people whom I have known also have high IQ's , probably because they are as good at test-taking as they are at all other intellectual activities.

In short, it is my opinion that intelligence tests are meaningless.


"Ve get too soon oldt und too late schmardt." - Amish proverb

[Oreka Bailoak]

I came to the conclusion many years ago that the only thing that IQ tests test is test-taking ability, mainly the ability to second-guess the author(s)of the test

Check out my list of correlations.


In short, it is my opinion that intelligence tests are meaningless.

The military spent millions of dollars trying to find out what is the best predictor of success on the job. They tried hundreds of different tests and methods and they found that IQ, based upon the g-factor, is the single best predictor of success on the job- nothing else even came close (not interviews, not memory exams, not personality tests etc.). If your IQ doesn't reach the top you cannot become a fighter pilot, or any other elite job, because the risk of failure is too great for average IQ people in such a competitive environment.


my IQ is 180

LOL. 1 person out of every 20,696,863 people have that IQ.
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx
You should take the WAIS IQ test. You can buy a copy from amazon.

The book I'm basing a lot of what I'm saying is "G-Factor" by Arthur Jensen which is an amazing book years ahead of its time and one of the single most important psychology texts ever written. It's a very difficult read.


Most of the other people whom I have known who have high IQ's strike me as muddle-headed and feckless.
They often are.

[Raskolnikov]

I have a high IQ but am described as well as if not better by this list than the first one:

Negative Correlations with IQ;
accident proneness,
aceviercence,
aging,
alcoholism,
authoritarianism,
social conservatism,
crime,
delinquency,
dogmatism,
falsification (lie scores),
hysteria (versus other neurosis),
impulsivity,
infant mortality,
psychoticism,
racial prejudice,
reaction times,
smoking,
truancy,
weight to height ratio. I think being kicked out of society causes metaphysical interest; I won't say metaphysical intelligence. Then I can't even say that. I never really made the attempt to stay in society. It's a very tough question I try to answer but never can. I don't know what I could possibly do to integrate at any particular point. I can look at the past and say I should've done something, but at the time it was actually impossible.

[Phil75231]

A lot of those IQ correlates are vague - like "social conservatism", anything with "values" in it (or suggestive of it), "social skills". Most of the rest are spurious correlations. I agree 100% with spivdag - IQ tests are good for measuring only a few narrow sets of intelligence. It cannot measure social skills (another vague at best one). Lots of Aspergers people have High IQ, for example. And I am talking about the WAIS (I took it twice, scored 120 on it the first time, 117 on it the second).

[Stars Down To Earth]

Most of the other people whom I have known who have high IQ's strike me as muddle-headed and feckless.
Indeed. And that's why I think IQ is a very incomplete measurement of human value and behaviour. (Of course, I might argue that it doesn't need to be complete. The point is to weed out the daft fuck-ups, not divide humanity into elites and plebs.)


What is it we are actually doing when we start reducing qualities to a mere quantity.
Exactly. But, continuing on my previous post - a measure of human worth doesn't need to be complete. In fact, completion might be an impossibility. However, it SHOULD do its best to account for as much reality as possible, shouldn't it? Especially realities that have a concrete effect on everyday life?

Traditionally defined "intelligence" is important. It's without a doubt ONE OF the central issues. But I don't think you can disentangle it from the other important issues, which are a wee bit harder to define. The problem of raw stupidity is a very visible, very easily understood one.

Think of this for a moment. There have been many primitive small-scale societies on this planet that haven't shown the same trends as "the big races" (endless conquest, will to power, the reduction of everything to an economic level). These primal societies have a very, very low IQ. Think of the Kalahari Bushmen, or the natives of the rain-forests in South America. These are small, illiterate, nearly static but completely stable socieites. But they can't even count past ten, in some cases. Really stupid nig-nogs, right? Thing is, there must be something about their psyche which prevents them from shitting all over their surroundings.

[GeistFaust]

Good Topic Colourblind, it is well though out from a conceptual standpoint. I think that Metaphysical intelligence is just a broader way of describing the multiple sub-groups and variations of intelligence and the forms which indicate or represent these variations. I think a high level of metaphysical intelligence is possessed in an individual with a high capacity for cognitive, psychological, and emotional intelligence.



All of these are rather important to developing a well rounded and wholesome individual. A lot of the development for capacity and potentiality in an individual has to do with cultural and environment factors and influences. At the same time I believe in innately noble people there is a yearning or longing to cultivate the noble qualities which they possess. Likewise an ignoble, ignorant, or stupid person will waste their time on more frivolous things.



Generally a stupid and ignorant person will to some degree or another possess a lower form of emotional, psychological, and metaphysical intelligence than someone with a higher level of intelligence. Also it is not always about a higher level of intelligence which constitutes the nature of a person's metaphysical intelligence, but its broadness, and the amount of subject matters it can grasp effectively.



I think this is why Polymaths or the Renaissance Man figures have such a profound affect on the average person's mind. They represent an almost divine entity or a "god" within the body of a man. This is the ideal image of man, and this ideal image is something which is not always quantifiable. The many "points" where it is not quantifiable is the inspiring center for a true and authentic genius.



Just because genius, which constitutes the highest level of metaphysical intelligence, can not always be quantified does not mean it can't at certain other points. The problem with trying to define intelligence from a metaphysical point, is that we begin to reduce the abstract and conceptual to something which is merely tangible.



There are so many sub-types and genus of metaphysical point it appears that there is no way to adequately describe metaphysical intelligence in either a negative or positive way. Again there are ways of establishing certain definitions and methods of quantification, which we deem as presupposed within a certain context, and which presupposed a metaphysical intelligence.



The only way to grasp them though is how the intellect and psychological forces are applied by a certain individual within the context of the empirical world in accordance with certain conceptual laws. Conceptual laws which might apply only subjectively, objectively, or at times both. In essence the nature or schematics of metaphysical intelligence is not always clear cut or black and white.



Its basically what man makes or creates of it, and this in large part "guides" itself to that which is productive and civilized. A lot of what metaphysical intelligence is and how it applies to the different forms of intelligence which are and can be expressed by humans is determined by the dynamic nature of empirical and scientific facts.


Its application is only as viable in so far as it remains quasi-arbitrary or subjective in regards to certain data that is collected to verify a person's level of intelligence in a certain spectrum of "intelligence."


Without some high level of cognitive intelligence, this metaphysical intelligence you speak of, which seems to manifest itself through virtous acts and noble disposition, is more or less an impossibility. The cognitively intelligent man, unlike the ignorant fool, can separate himself subconsciously from the mediocre and herd oriented metaphysical intelligence of the commoner.

[Thunor]

I suppose it's because intelligence (the conventional sort) is not the be-all and end-all of everything. Other character traits are also important. A "strong character" needs more than just a high IQ, and smart people can screw things up as well. Sure, stupid people often screw things up, but only if they're allowed to. A devoted but stupid worker is better than a super-intelligent intellectual who doesn't actually do anything.


Indeed. And that's why I think IQ is a very incomplete measurement of human value and behaviour. (Of course, I might argue that it doesn't need to be complete. The point is to weed out the daft fuck-ups, not divide humanity into elites and plebs.)
Eugenics is another good point. Should we be weeding out the dumbest people? But to limit eugenics to only IQ, or focusing on that, is rather stupid. A better basis for eugenics is an understanding of race.

[Stars Down To Earth]

A few more points on this topic:

My own life experience tells me that some people who lack in technical intellectual ability (what we normally call "intelligence") can be imbued with a sort of intuitive sense that guides them through life in a very constructive, creative way. I had an ex-girlfriend who was a gifted poet, in a sort of raw, musical, intuitive manner. To use a psych-term, she had a "natural tendency towards harmonious order", as well as normal physical and mental health. She wouldn't have the slightest chance in dealing with the semantics of this argument, not all, except in a sort of visceral sub-sensory way. It's also obvious that these sort of people, beyond not being destructive or parasitic, could actually fill a very constructive role within a proper social order.

I guess someone with high "metaphysical intelligence" would be the perfect balance between cold logical intelligence and this intuitive harmoniousness. The Renaissance Man, or whatever.


A better basis for eugenics is an understanding of race.
If, by "race", we mean a recognition of ethnic communities as an organic totality with a spirit that operates on a supra-individual level, then I agree with you completely. Ideally, the race should be like a body, with different parts having their different roles. It's also pretty obvious that the racial bodies that exist really need to burn off some fat. (And I'm all for eugenics, at least the sort that encourages the top 10% of our society to breed more and the bottom 10% to breed less. It goes without saying that racial aliens are a perfect case for "negative eugenics".)

Also, if we talk about the "bodily" nature of society, we might bring up cancer. Too much fat is a problem, but that's easier solved that a cancer through the whole organism. Social cancers are totally unrelated to intelligence. Actually, destructive ideas are often promoted by intelligent people. Just think of all the apparently "intelligent" Freudian and Marxist theories, which are socially poisonous even though the promoters of these ideas are almost always quite intelligent.

[Padre Organtino]

My personal experience supports this claim. The most reasonable and well adapted folks I've met were Georgian villagers who despite not being very bright in certain subjects and matters still had a tight grasp of reality and a lot of practical intelligence. Now the most ignorant and unaware would be some of Moscow intellectuals that had no idea what real life was about.
This said I think that common sense works best combined with strategic vision and intellectual potential provided by the eductaed ones. Problem with simple folks' common sense is that it operates well on day to day grounds and gives good rational for simple decision making but has limited potential for really advanced tasks. Basically the ability to adopt very new and different technologies, ways of doing things, customes and etc was what helped Euros to dominate in the end. You can not accomplish this without having some real intellectuals at your disposal.

[Thunor]

Well, if your goal is to nurture this "metaphysical intelligence" in all humans (or at least, all people of your own race), then it's the strongest argument in favor of radical eugenics, rather than a mark against it.


Social cancers are totally unrelated to intelligence. Actually, destructive ideas are often promoted by intelligent people. Just think of all the apparently "intelligent" Freudian and Marxist theories, which are socially poisonous even though the promoters of these ideas are almost always quite intelligent.
True.
Who needs those intellectuals who have no grasp of reality, anyway?

[Thunor]

Also, I just looked this up and found out that the best German philosophers all had under 120 IQ points.

Fact.

[LastManOnEarth]

There is no reliable measure of whatever we choose to term intelligence.

It doesn´t help that you give a concept such a bombastic and authoritative name as "Intelligence quote". It says something, but is not even close to any kind of fullness.

The sad truth is if you took a cross-section of what people come to call "geniuses" of any given period of history, their IQs would not correlate very well with achievement.

It´s like with so many other human ideas and concepts; we think we´re so hot and that we got the whole picture, but in fact we are just maggots.