Comments on: The nature of intelligence http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2007/01/11/the-nature-of-intelligence/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Cyde Weys http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2007/01/11/the-nature-of-intelligence/comment-page-1/#comment-55 Cyde Weys Sun, 14 Jan 2007 16:18:34 +0000 http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/index.php/2007/01/11/the-nature-of-intelligence/#comment-55 What an apt analogy, tempered in its brilliance only by its obscurity and the quantity of the unwashed masses unlikely to understand the allusion. What an apt analogy, tempered in its brilliance only by its obscurity and the quantity of the unwashed masses unlikely to understand the allusion.

]]> By: arensb http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2007/01/11/the-nature-of-intelligence/comment-page-1/#comment-49 arensb Sun, 14 Jan 2007 07:09:44 +0000 http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/index.php/2007/01/11/the-nature-of-intelligence/#comment-49 <blockquote>But the concept of intelligence as a single number, the Intelligence Quotient, is bunk.</blockquote> Yup. Reducing intelligence to IQ is like measuring the volume of a katamari (if that makes any sense): it works well enough, enough of the time that there may be some value to it, but never forget that there are all sorts of odd things sticking out all over the place. In this image, most people's minds are roughly spherical katamari, with bulges in the direction of their particular skills. A stereotypical absent-minded professor would be rather lopsided, with a big chunk sticking far out in the "atomic theory" direction, and big gaps in the "social skills" areas. And a calculator would be a golf ball sized katamari with a telephone pole stuck to it, giving it genius-level proficiency in arithmetic, and zero skill at anything else. So the moral of the story is that if you see someone less intelligent than you, you should roll over them, and absorb their katamari into your own.

But the concept of intelligence as a single number, the Intelligence Quotient, is bunk.

Yup. Reducing intelligence to IQ is like measuring the volume of a katamari (if that makes any sense): it works well enough, enough of the time that there may be some value to it, but never forget that there are all sorts of odd things sticking out all over the place.

In this image, most people’s minds are roughly spherical katamari, with bulges in the direction of their particular skills. A stereotypical absent-minded professor would be rather lopsided, with a big chunk sticking far out in the “atomic theory” direction, and big gaps in the “social skills” areas. And a calculator would be a golf ball sized katamari with a telephone pole stuck to it, giving it genius-level proficiency in arithmetic, and zero skill at anything else.

So the moral of the story is that if you see someone less intelligent than you, you should roll over them, and absorb their katamari into your own.

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