What is Intelligence?

How much brain power does it take to invent the wheel? It’s a question that I often pondered about in my youth. It doesn’t seem to take much observational power to notice that round things roll and if you put an axle in the center of a round object, you have a modern day wheel and axle. Modern humans have been around for 160,000 years and the earliest wheel and axle dates to about 3600BC. It took us more than a hundred thousand years to invent what a lot of kids today can probably easily discover in their playtime.

There’s this curious phenomenon called the Flynn effect. It’s the consistent increase in the average IQ of a population over generations. Is it possible that the intelligence of homo sapiens back then was just so far behind that what we consider simple cognitive tasks now, required advanced feats of mental gymnastics?

I remember looking at Leonardo Da Vinci’s mechanical designs when I was prepubescent teen and thinking to myself “I could’ve designed these” I had a pretty high regard my capabilities back then :) But while Da Vinci was no doubt a genius and his engineering designs were advanced for his time, I do think that a lot of people living today would be capable of coming up with similar designs, even without the benefit of formal mentoring or passed down technical knowledge.

Not that that would matter. The days of the single inventor working in their basement changing history may be past us. Most major advances in technology are developed by companies or organizations with several brains working together and more than a couple of thousand dollars in funds. Technology is at the point where collective intelligence, as well as funds, are required for it to advance   

a.) at the left, Davinci's design for a crossbow b.) at the right, my design for a slightly different type of 2 stroke engine when i was in gradeschool. I didn't think that i was lagging too far behind compared to Da vinci back then.(I invented my own alphabet when i was young so i could write in private)

I remember when I was much younger, we were given regular IQ tests by the school guidance counselor. Some questions in the tests were significantly more difficult than others. I would answer the tricky questions first thinking that maybe they would matter more. Maybe they would be worth more points. I thought that I’d impress the person who’s checking the test more if I answered the more difficult questions correctly. And then I found out later on that you’d get the same points for correctly answering the easiest question as you would the most difficult questions. That just didn’t make sense to me and I think I continued doing what I was doing for a while.

And then later on, we were taught a strategy on how to score well on these exams. “Answer the easiest questions first and then progressively go to the more difficult ones. If you run out of time, answer the remaining questions using guesswork.” I asked myself how could this be a reliable measure of intelligence when, on top of being a multiple choice test, you were also taught strategies on how to game it.

Perhaps the tests that we were given weren’t up to international standards but you can train people to do better on these tests. Which begs the question: Are we really getting smarter or are we just getting better at answering this specific test. What exactly does this test measure?

Savants are individuals who excel on one specific task but have difficulties in other cognitive tasks. Kim Peek, the inspiration for the movie Rain Man, for example, could read 2 different pages of a book at the same time with each eye scanning a different page. He could remember everything that he read. His brain has absorbed so much information that he wasn’t just a walking encyclopedia, he was practically a walking Google. He could also do complex calendar calculations which no normal human being would be able to do even with extensive training. Like other savants though, Kim peek was disabled in other areas of his life.

A lot of people with Savant syndrome have damage to certain parts of their brains. Savant syndrome has also been replicated artificially using magnetic stimulation that temporally disables parts of the brain. It’s interesting that rather than requiring more brain tissue, you actually have to disable parts of your brain in order to do tasks that require “intelligence”. Kim peek’s brain actually is missing its corpus callosum or the bundle of nerves that link that the two brain hemispheres together. Our brains filter out a lot of information which it considers unnecessary otherwise we’d be overloaded with information. The theory is that this filtering process is what’s missing in a lot of savants.

Kim peek’s brain could do mental feats that none of us would be able to do but he couldn’t understand metaphors,  his father had to take care of him until his death because he couldn’t survive on his own. He couldn’t even dress himself without assistance. His IQ was measured to be below average but does that mean that he wasn’t intelligent? If someone with Kim Peek’s exceptional memory and computational skills scores low on an IQ test then what is the IQ test not measuring?

There is no scientific consensus on what the definition of intelligence is aside from that which IQ measures, which is in itself is controversial. One interesting fact about IQ test results is that it can be affected by the motivation of the person taking the test. When given financial incentives to score high on an IQ test, subjects can score up to 10-15 IQ points higher which is a pretty significant increase.

IQ is significantly affected by the person's motivation to think and the motivation to solve a problem

Perhaps ancient human beings didn’t find a strong enough motivation to invent the wheel until the Bronze Age when society became complex enough that they could profit from it in some way. We could see a similar trend in today’s technological developments. We could advance our understanding of the universe so much faster if the US would increase NASA’s budget. Currently though, NASA’s budget is only about 2.8% that of the US military budget. Back in the 70s, people thought that we’d have colonies on other planets by now. We haven’t even been back to the moon since 1972. We’re more motivated to spend brain power on problems that we can profit from in the near future.

Most people have their own barometers for intelligence. A lot of psychologists would agree that there are many types of intelligence. There’s mathematical intelligence, linguistic, musical etc. As we’ve seen in the case of savants, excelling in one particular area doesn’t always translate to functional intelligence. I think intelligence lies in the valleys in between. It’s in the motivation to think and the capability to use these different types of intelligence as tools to achieve a certain goal. It’s not just to absorb information but to create something with what has been absorbed.

I think that as a society advances, the value of individual intelligence becomes less and less important. Computers are getting better at solving problems that involve logic, statistics, group behavior etc. Eventually we will realize that even intelligent people can be flawed decision makers and we will rely more and more on data crunching machines. Gifted individuals will do well in their respective fields but the capability to singlehandedly advance humanity may be beyond the individual unless he bands together with other equally capable individuals. From a societal standpoint, more important than individual intelligence is collective intelligence –the average intelligence of a population. It directly correlates with a nation’s GDP, with its technological advancements, with its standards of living. It also affects how far an individual can push his intellect. Even if we do produce a man of Da Vinci’s intellect, if he doesn’t get the funding (which is related to GDP), if he doesn’t get the intellectual manpower that he needs to advance his ideas, he won’t get very far.

The Beauty of Melancholy

Happiness has been put on a pedestal, often described as the ultimate goal in a human being’s life. Depression has been demonized endlessly by thousands of internet quotes. So it may surprise some that there are those who find appeal in melancholy. I for one, can’t imagine what my life would be like if I had not lived through it. I speak from the vantage point of one who was once almost always depressed and alone to someone who has come to terms with his own skin and isn’t as lonely anymore.

All throughout my youth until my early 20’s, I was perpetually depressed. I wouldn’t call it clinical depression because I had plenty of good reason to be depressed. It was mostly because I didn’t have a lot of people around me, also because I wasn’t living up to my high expectations of myself. My self esteem was incredibly low and it severely affected my interaction with people. It was also during this time when I was at my creative peak. My creative outlets were visual art and writing –most of this blog was a product of that particular time in my life.

 Now my life is quite different. I now know what it’s like to be valued by another person, which I’ve discovered, is the biggest self esteem boost that one can get. I also have come to terms with myself, so to speak. The downside is I no longer paint and I rarely write. When I was depressed, all I wanted was for the depression to end but now that I’m quite settled in, I look for it. I’d listen to sad music, watch tragic films. Weird as it may sound, I occasionally try to induce sadness but It doesn’t come as easily as it used to.

The appeal of melancholy is difficult to describe. One sees beauty in it though it’s hard to determine if you actually feel pleasure or satisfaction from that beauty. It feels like viewing the world through a different lens. You see things that you wouldn’t normally see if you’re in a jovial mood, in the company of others. It makes one introspect more. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that most artists and thinkers also tend to be depressive. Marcel proust once said that Happiness is good for the body but it is grief that develops the strength of the mind.

Perhaps everyone is drawn to sadness to a certain extent. We watch depressing films, listen to sad music, we try to induce tears when we’re perfectly happy and it feels good, I think.

Or perhaps this isn’t something that everyone can relate to. But to the artists, the musicians, the writers, the couch philosophers out there, I think you know what I’m talking about -to look at the world, desaturated of color with a slight tint of blue, to appreciate the soft shadows cast on a cloudy day, Maybe it does take a keen eye to see beauty in gloom

On the Meaning of Life

“What is the meaning of life?” The question has been pondered about by countless philosophers for centuries. It makes me wonder why… because I think it’s a pointless question. I don’t think the question is pointless because I think that life has no meaning. I think it’s pointless because the question assumes that there should be a general standard for meaning and that it has to be defined external to the person asking the question.

There was a commercial by the World wildlife foundation which I found to be a bit intellectually substandard. The commercial was about wildlife conservation. I don’t remember the exact words, so I will paraphrase: “It is perhaps the greatest question man has ever asked. We know that plankton exist to feed the whales, we know that zebra exist to feed the lions, we know that (insert species here) exist for (insert species here). What about us? What is our purpose?

I didn’t like the commercial for a variety of reasons. One, because it states that the inane question “what is our purpose” is the greatest question man has ever asked. Two, because it seems to assume that there is a universal purpose for why we are all here

From a lion’s perspective, a zebra’s purpose may be to satisfy its hunger. But from the zebra’s perspective, the purpose of its existence may be to get through life without satisfying the lion’s hunger. Purpose comes from either the lion’s or the zebra’s intent to achieve its own respective goals -Goals that are diametrically opposed to each other.

One may say that the purpose of fire is to give us warmth or to heat our food. But fire didn’t come into existence to serve man. Fire existed and then man found purpose for it. That purpose only exists to those with minds to see benefit from fire. From fire’s perspective, it doesn’t care what man does to it. Fire itself has no intrinsic purpose for existence except for the subjective interpretations of purpose that man assigns to it.

Meaning is defined as the overall purpose of one’s existence. The claim that there is an overarching purpose for the existence of everyone or everything is a circular claim. The question “What is the meaning of life” is a question that proposes its own answer 

Purpose requires intent, can only exist in minds that are capable of intent and is perspective relative. From a theistic standpoint, it’s a valid question since you may be of the belief that you were created by a mind that is capable of intent, for a purpose that it defined itself. It is valid to ponder what intentions your god had for creating you. Though I don’t see how you can get an answer unless you can ask him yourself.

However the question just doesn’t make sense in a secular forum because it presupposes true the assumption “purpose precedes existence”; That we were put here for a purpose that preceded our capability to define it and that the birds, lions, the whales and us are pawns fulfilling a purpose that was devised by a mind that is capable of intent –by asking such a question, you are already presupposing true the existence of a sentient creator

One of the most irksome questions that theists ask me is “If there is no god, how can our lives have meaning?” 

Believers who can’t see meaning or purpose in life without god bother me. I just don't understand why some people can't grasp any concept of meaning or purpose without god. It seems like they’ve surrendered so much of their thinking process to their chosen deities that they’ve forgotten that purpose could also be defined from the first person perspective. They believe that they have a purpose, I believe that I have a purpose. The difference is that I don’t need other entities to define that purpose for me

It’s not just believers who misuse the word “meaning”. Some atheists claim that according to evolution, the meaning of man’s life is to spread his genes. I think that “meaning” is not the most appropriate word here. Evolution is a mindless process that is incapable of purposeful action thus it cannot ascribe meaning or have reason for anything that it “does”. Evolution gave us the capability and the motivation to procreate. Whether that will be the purpose of our existence will be determined by the individual who has the mind to conceive of purpose

The question “what is THE meaning of life” makes as much sense as “what is THE favorite color” which cannot be answered unless you have a reference point. For the question to have sense, you have to replace “THE” with “you” or “my”. So instead of asking: “What is the favorite color”, ask what is your/my favorite color

Instead of asking “what is the meaning of life”, ask: “what is the meaning of your life?” “What is the meaning of mine?”