Intelligence

The Thinking Process 1

Intelligence

Like most people, I learnt about the different aspects of ‘being human’ many years ago. I never really questioned them much at the time. The aspects were the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, and the spiritual (or soul). There may have even been a fifth that I’ve forgotten.

Personally, these days, I only believe in the physical and the emotional.

While many people will argue about the idea of not including the spiritual, I think the most contentious omission might be that of intelligence. I simply don’t believe that intelligence is an innate part of the human brain. It is best used as a group name for the cognitive skills that we have developed as the human race evolved.

The concept of intelligence itself would have been many years in the making and perhaps came about for a number of different reasons. I believe that one of the main reasons it was accepted as an innate part of ‘being human’ was to distinguish humans from other animals. For me, that would mean it was based on an incorrect assumption. In other words, I believe all animals (with brains) have at least some potential to learn these skills, but we humans apparently have a greater memory capacity and a far greater desire to learn and improve.

I blame the human ego for how easily we accept this concept of ‘intelligence’. We love the idea that there is something that puts us above the ‘other animals’, something that makes human beings special.

Of course, we measure this thing called intelligence. If, IQ tests concentrate entirely on measuring those cognitive skills, they could still be regarded as ‘accurate’ in what they are trying to measure. Memory is essential but isn’t one of the cognitive skills and should be tested separately. Knowledge isn’t part of ‘intelligence’. It’s simply what our cognitive skills help us to learn. Often these tests have a time limit, which means speed is being used as part of the test. Thinking of answers more quickly may be wonderful, but trying to be faster can also be a detriment to clear thinking.

We already know that cultural factors can influence the validity of an IQ test. Could simple experience also be a factor?

For me, the major problem could be the lingering idea that we are testing intelligence rather than different skills. Should all skills be tested for the result to be accurate? Should the test give equal value to each skill, or should it give different values to different skills? In any event, we are testing a number of different skills and giving an overall result. That’s a little like choosing the best overall competitor at the Olympic Games.

Or do we do that too?

And, of course, we now have AI.

It’s my understanding that an AI program is basically an algorithm designed to be used by a computer. This makes them far more like the idea of cognitive skills, than some innate thing called intelligence. Personally, I think that, rather than AI, they should be called AA–artificial assumptions. Just like our own cognitive skills, they tend to be based on, or use assumptions, and I hope we all know that assumptions, even the most obvious ones, can sometimes be wrong.

Possibly the most concerning thing about the concept of intelligence is the way it has become infused in our thinking, even our culture. After all, it’s so useful as a general term. A friend does something rather silly. You smile and say, ‘That wasn’t very intelligent’. It had nothing to do with intelligence. We see a person or group of people do something we consider stupid and think they’re not very intelligent. Hopefully we didn’t mock them because it had nothing to do with intelligence. We wonder why seemingly clever people can think completely differently to us. Because it has nothing to do with intelligence.

These examples may seem minor, but they demonstrate how much the concept of intelligence influences our thinking.

It makes you wonder. If we got rid of the concept of intelligence, would our thinking actually improve?

But doing something like that would probably call for intelligence.

Yep, Just my thoughts. Nope, not much research.