Stop thinking in terms of individual intellect

There has been this obsession with IQ online coinciding with the advent LW style rationalism-moralism and I feel like it's just an expression of the nature of a society that is on the level of administration built on enforced fragmentation. According to adherents of the IQ cult intellect and creativity are immutable characteristics within the DNA of individuals that also according to them have to prove themselves in isolation to others. It completely ignores how in humans the structure of social relations determines what is learned, built and considered culture. We could absolutely drive the IQ of individuals collectively into the dump by overly focusing on early entries into trade jobs instead of university education and prolonged high school years. We could in a similar fashion have institutions that really focus on personal development and the construction of science. We have those already, but for that to become the principle of society we would need to dismantle all our assumptions and later physically tear down what created them in the first place. The decontextualised worldview that generally pervades the minds of this time struggles to understand why there are such things as shame, self-harm and other anti-individual behaviours that individuals impose on themselves. The answer is simple. We are social and populations that have carried the shame allele are simply more prolific than others on our branch in the tree of life. In medieval times people were debile compared to now, but they were still just as social. Society forms from social activity and it starts necessitating more cognitive resources from individuals over decamillennia, you start seeing proper genetic changes. Let's look at James William Sidis. Considered the smartest to have walked the earth. He was from the beginning his psychologist-father's experiment. If it wasn't for the very carefully tuned social context that Sidis found himself in as an infant he would have been a pencil pusher of only above average intellect. Let's consider someone who thinks of intelligence as a detached object of individuals. As they carry this assumption they will always be in competition and have their guard up. They might not be stupid, they might even be very clever however they are limited because the possibility of cross-pollination with others is attenuated as that fundamentally relies on cooperation. Primarily their IQ (which is in its nature individualist) fixation keeps them from attaining higher methods of cognition. You might want to stop thinking as an individual.

i've argued about this in numerous other threads but i'll say it again - nobody really knows what intelligence is, nobody knows how to describe or measure intelligence in non-anthropocentric terms, nobody knows if intelligence is actually a universal property or if it is just humans vainly projecting their own thoughts and behaviors and virtues onto other things in the world

>>97935 I think Less Wrong might be up your alley. Very much about trying to cultivate a community and community knowledge base of intellectual, educated people who can bounce ideas around, collaborate on projects, and share ideas/knowledge/discoveries/concerns etc

>>97935 I try to think of it like this- bring to mind the smartest person you have ever met. They probably had enormous foresight, were probably doing things you would end up doing much later in life, having learned better. For example the smartest person I have ever known as a young child was one of the first people i've ever met that knew about cryptocurrency (bitcoin) and correctly predicted it's adoption and increase in value when it was still worth pennies per bitcoin. He had kali linux installed on his laptop at 11 years old and built a v6 engine from bar stock at 12 BY HIMSELF. So this is a person with amazing foresight, extremely knowledgeable, has excellent discretion when it comes to areas of study, was extremely well rounded in terms of different schools of thought, and was open minded, apolitical, typically absolutely one hundred percent correct about everything he ever asserted, and whenever he made a wrong assumption was so reasonable and detached from his ego that he could correct himself with no problems. I only knew him until he was about 17- and to this very day- he is the smartest person i've ever met in my life. Whenever I meet someone who presents themselves as intelligent they pale in comparison to this person. But this person dropped out of college because he couldn't hack it socially, couldn't get along in a group, and is now jobless and lives with their mother. People are intelligent in different ways. People with literal down syndrome have a different kind of intelligence that comes from being retarded- and the way I'll explain it is like this. When you are retarded and know it, you are forced to think through your thoughts a lot harder and longer and from different perspectives than someone who might be "smart". So a lot of times, given enough time, a retarded person might come to a more solid conclusion than someone who quickly will make an assertion and then stick to it. More thoughtful, less intelligent. Less snappy, more wise. Some people are quick thinkers and learners but their knowledge has no depth because they make assumptions and always assume they are right and that they know everything they need to. Retards ask questions. So intelligence isn't easily measured and different types of intellect do better in different situations.

>>97945 >he built an engine at 12 by himself I don't believe you. Like, physically, building an engine takes strength that no 12 year old has. At the bare minimum, they must have had someone helping.

>>97946 He had an overhead winch in his basement- and presumably his dad helped him out; and it was only a smaller sized model engine, but it was machined aluminum and a legit working engine- he ran it in front of me. knew the workings intricately- moved it on the railed overhead winch also

>>97941 I wouldn't throw this out of the window as I do think that it's a salient point for important discussions around perspectivity. What the argument is based on is the following, we built the internet and the ISS. We, specifically the dynamics that our human societies have created, managed to terraform the planet to our short sighted liking. For that you need some sort of coherent planning and organizing coupled with the ability to manipulate things physically, more abstractly methods to compress the essences of shaping your environment to one's needs into the smallest set of tools within a genetic code: The brain, the hand, efficient locomotion, ability to digest a wide variety of foods and so on. The direction in which this moves through evolution is what I would call intelligence and in its consequence we will see bodies become more and more dependent on tools that can be swapped like a brain in the vat steering a mecha suit connected to others via internet. Humans are unique in that regard and so far a first in evolution. I do very much think that when most talk about intelligence they're getting at a real and relevant property, but they're caught up in observing appearances instead of regarding the bases and interconnections with their causal interactions. That is the sort of thing I am critiquing and attempting to explicate, that many of the discussions on intelligence may correctly assign properties, like an enumeration of facts, but don't clearly get at how it comes to be and that people engaging in these discussions will do so primarily with the intent to become part of an exclusive in-group which necessitates myths around the uniqueness and superiority of individuals (if I am part of such a sect and say that intelligence can be greatly influenced depending on the social arrangement and that it flourishes especially when it's not containerised I will negate the logic of the group). >>97944 It very much would be if they didn't cling to their obscurantism, shibboleths and all. Society has moved past cloisters. >>97945 Yes, this is absolutely undeniable when we look at what we deem to be success within this society. The further you get from the mean the more potential energy is in your capacity to fail and so on. All abstract generalisations have their particular concrete counter-examples. They can't be done away with because of that though, they are necessitated because we don't always have the time to look at every potentially interesting aspect within the world.

>>97950 >we built the internet and the ISS. We, specifically the dynamics that our human societies have created, managed to terraform the planet to our short sighted liking. ants build supercolonies that are bigger than human nations, whales have an ocean-wide communication network where they stay in wireless contact with each other across thousands of miles of water by singing, birds track their own global positions by "feeling" the planetary magnetic field by some mechanism in their brains that we have yet to figure out. you might say, "well animals only developed these abilities/feats by way of random biological evolution and instinctive compulsion", but you could easily say the same thing about our human acheivements. it's not like the entire human species got together and decided to start making tools and taming animals and growing crops and building cities and computers and space stations, we found our way to these things by muddling through with trial and error just as any other animal does. you might also say, "well those animals developed those abilities as innate parts of their physiology rather than external tools" but this distinction isn't really relevant - the snail harvests material from the world and reforms it into its shell, an extension of its body, just as the human harvests material from the world and reforms it into an axe or a club, an extension of its body. our curiosity and problem-solving abilities that allow us to envision and construct such tools don't make us masters of our own destiny or some kind of "higher" lifeform, they just make us another kind of animal with a biological component that facilitates the making and use of tools, just as the snail has a biological component that facilitates the making and use of a shell.

>>97951 yet I can't paste a screenshotted image on this site

> He was from the beginning his psychologist-father's experiment Didint Sydis die of suicide or sum? and yeah this is all p obvious, in russia we call this "yet some other liberal sh1t"

>>97935 >According to adherents of the IQ cult intellect and creativity are immutable characteristics within the DNA of individuals that also according to them have to prove themselves in isolation to others. Absolutely. This kind of ideology of the fixed genius from the Marxist perspective also works perfectly to rationalize one's low position and suffering within the economic hierarchy. On the flipside the subjects that internalize this are relieved of the need to strive forward culturally and intellectually. They can simply be complacent and it's enough because it could not be otherwise.

>>97935 It's impressive how you can write all that in 2026 and ignore AI. You're suggesting some hypothetical collective consciousness without going into any detail, but what we already have right here right now is crystallized intelligence from millions of human interactions, books and conversations, on chip.

>>99320 information != intelligence spell out your claim because I don't see one in your post

IQ is pseudoscience nonsense and IQ tests are really just behavioral conformity tests, the only thing they determine is how much a human being will endure performing repetitive meaningless arbitrary busywork just for a feeling of external validation from an outside authority figure who cannot read their thoughts or see inside their brains in any capacity.

>>99329 You could argue, then, that no test provides any information whatsoever about the knowledge or intelligence if the test-taker. Math tests only measure how willing you are to sit down and take the test. Except this is not so: OBVIOUSLY the math test is also measuring your knowledge of math.

>>99332 i think there's a reasonable argument that testing for specific knowledge is not the same as testing to quantify a person in general. ie with a math test we're for the most part just finding if the brain stored certain information and how reinforced the neural pathways that carry out calculations are. With an IQ test we're just drawing a generalization out of more abstract qualities because Intelligence itself isn't well defined. It would be closer to testing someone for their Moral Quotient than a math test.

>>99333 Well, IQ tests seem to define intelligence mostly in terms of identifying and remembering patterns. There seems to be no reason to think the IQ test is not measuring it.

>>99334 >identifying and remembering patterns yeah like "every time a bell rings i get food" only highly intelligent creatures can identify and remember patterns

>>99335 Well, if your dog couldn't figure that out, you'd probably think they were a dumb dog.

>"Just a second," said Noonan. "That's totally different. We're talking about the psychology of intelligent beings." >"True. And that would be just fine, if we knew what intelligence was." >"And we don't?" asked Noonan in surprise. >"Believe it or not, we don't. We usually proceed from a trivial definition: intelligence is the attribute of man that separates his activity from that of the animals. It's a kind of attempt to distinguish the master from his dog, who seems to understand everything but can't speak. However, this trivial definition does lead to wittier ones. They are based on depressing observations of the aforementioned human activity. For example: intelligence is the ability of a living creature to perform pointless or unnatural acts." >"Yes, that's us," agreed Noonan. >"Unfortunately. Or here's a definition-hypothesis. Intelligence is a complex instinct which hasn't yet fully matured. The idea is that instinctive activity is always natural and useful. A million years will pass, the instinct will mature, and we will cease making the mistakes which are probably an integral part of intelligence. And then, if anything in the universe changes, we will happily become extinct - again, precisely because we've lost the art of making mistakes, that is, trying various things not prescribed by a rigid code." >"Somehow this all sounds so... demeaning." >"All right, then here's another definition - a very lofty and noble one. Intelligence is the ability to harness the powers of the surrounding world without destroying the said world." >Noonan grimaced and shook his head. "No," he said. "That's a bit much... That's not us. Well, how about the idea that humans, unlike animals, have an overpowering need for knowledge? I've read that somewhere." >"So have I," said Valentine. "But the issue is that man, at least the average man, can easily overcome this need. In my opinion, the need doesn't exist at all. There's a need to understand, but that doesn't require knowledge. The God hypothesis, for example, allows you to have an unparalleled understanding of absolutely everything while knowing absolutely nothing... Give a man a highly simplified model of the world and interpret every event on the basis of this simple model. This approach requires no knowledge. A few rote formulas, plus some so-called intuition, some so-called practical acumen, and some so-called common sense." >"Wait," said Noonan. He finished his beer and banged the empty stein down on the table. "Don’t get off track. Let's put it this way. A man meets an alien. How does each figure out that the other is intelligent?" >"No idea," Valentine said merrily. "All I've read on the subject reduces to a vicious circle. If they are capable of contact, then they are intelligent. And conversely, if they are intelligent. Then they are capable of contact. And in general: if an alien creature has the honour of being psychologically human, then it's intelligent. That's how it is, Richard. Read Vonnegut?" >"Damn it," said Noonan. And here I thought you'd sorted everything out." >"Even a monkey can sort things," observed Valentine.

>>99335 That's kinda the issue. If you are measuring for pattern recognition and memory then you have a pattern recognition and memory quotient test. But if you just say that then the average person intuitively gets that sometimes intelligent people have poor memories or can miss patterns and doesn't extrapolate the results of that test to the overall capabilities of someone's mind. IMO the focus on IQ has very little to do with science. I think it's basically just a replacement for piety as a measure of a person's value in the secular world. All the virtues that used to be associated with the soul are now projected onto the mind and IQ is a neat little number that says "I have a mind of value" and more importantly "The people I don't like do not"

>>99343 My chief problem is most of what is tested by these sorts of tests isn't functional. You need to test processing, not just recognition, recall, and spacial awareness. Intelligence goes so much deeper, and lacks all uniformity in the general populous. This also makes it easier to trick idiots who see ai as similar to them without measuring novelty in origination from a functional standpoint. Even an average moron can articulate a novel transformation over some data, except they usually specify it as "building an object" or something similae (ie. artisans).

>>97945 >Whenever I meet someone who presents themselves as intelligent they pale in comparison to this person. But this person dropped out of college because he couldn't hack it socially, couldn't get along in a group, and is now jobless and lives with their mother. Amazing how much potential intelligence and progress is lost just because social ease and conformity is expected before anything. I knew kids who were very intelligent but couldn't conform to the social conditioning and conformity society expected and therefore they live with their parents. I knew total dumbasses who got drunk, cheated throughout life, played the social game, got a free ride and now are living a high quality life despite contributing virtually nothing to society.

>>99356 >Amazing how much potential intelligence and progress is lost just because social ease and conformity is expected before anything. was anything really lost though? even if this person had managed to graduate college and make it through that filter, they would have just been filtered out somewhere further up the ladder, they never would have made it all the way through and become an influential political leader or business magnate or a writer for the mainstream press or anything like that, they would never have been allowed to rise to any position of actual influence within the system anyway. best case scenario, they could have become the next AOC, someone who is just the right blend of radical and conventional that they are allowed into the club as token members for the sake of appearances, but they don't get to sit at the big table when the actual decisions are being made, they have to go stand over in the sidelines with the other weirdos. as to whether or not their ability is being squandered, i think that remains to be seen and it's open to interpretation. when we speak in terms of "value" and "potential" and "wasted talent" and pass these kinds of pre-emptive judgments, we are just internalizing the arrogant deterministic thinking of the elitist and conformist system. who knows what an intelligent person who is jobless living with their mother could accomplish with all their free time that isn't being squandered on some dumb sleazy job where they get paid to help some rich guy get even richer. they could write some influential work of dissident literature or subversive art, they could develop some new disruptive technology that undermines global markets or a new scientific theory that disproves existing theories, develop some radical new philosophy that starts a countercultural movement, the sky is the limit when a clever weirdo is operating outside of the system without any social restraints. one could argue that the most significant and revolutionary developments in society tend to come from weirdos who are operating outside of the system and doing what they are not supposed to do. of course, if they do achieve any of these things, they probably won't get any credit or recognition or get to reap any of the material benefits, some other more charismatic and more conformist steve jobs type person will steal their ideas and claim all of the credit. but does that really matter in the end, who gets credit for changing the world? is life about trying to do something cool without caring about any outside rewards, or is life about trying to get rich and leave behind a legacy and bolster your own ego? how can we talk about the value of intelligence when we can't even agree on what intelligence is or what intelligence ought to be used for?

I think we might be saying same or similar things but I have a big problem with IQ 'rationally', I have much more moral and ethical and personal strong feelings against it but as ive gotten older I keep those to myself. My problem is that I dont know how anyone could see it as anything beyond cultural legend or mythos. There is no material reason for why one persons IQ is high and another is low, and there is also no clear idea or hypothesis of what someone with a high IQ should supposedly be able to do that someone with a lower one could not, except at extreme ends. An IQ test can tell effectively who might have an intellectual disability on the lower ends, but what its testing for at that lower end is if they can even comprehend what you are saying at all. Even then there is quirks of the brain and sociality that can cause someone quite a bit more capable to score on the level of what we used to call "retarded". None the less at a certain low threshhold the IQ test effectively shows some kind of disability or neurodivergence , but so could many series of questions. Other then that, is a scientist supposed to have a high IQ? Not all do, even theoretical ones. Is a CEO supposed to or the rich of the world? Some of them likely score lower than average. Is a high IQ person supposed to be creative? Would they inherently be good at math? Would the person with the highest IQ have the best idea of how to run the country? Why does ocasionally someone with a high IQ have absolutely retarded beliefs, ive seen someone with a high IQ get sucked down flat earther rabbit holes. Why does sometimes someone with a low IQ end up being a great leader capable of effectively and efficiently managing an entire country? Just circularly saying its about critical thinking and problem solving or whatever doesnt answer any of this because occasionally a high IQ person doesnt know how to tie their shoes, a very simple problem. Or cant differentiate fake info from real info, or cant read subtext in conversations. Often in these instances people default to well they just are so smart and quirky and intelligence works in mysterious ways they are really good at math, oh they dont tie their shoes because they are so smart they dont see a point in it they can just wear slides. This is all myth. Its cultural myth because what things are tested for and what vague correlation they do have to real material things ( ie mathmaticians, computer scientists, physicists, chess masters, etc. usually scoring high) were culturally and socially valued at the time. We wanted more of that sort of person, and im not saying these things arent valuable or dont take brains. But even today say pattern recognition factoring into your IQ (which it is tested for), thats increasingly something that if you cant turn off can actually make you come off very stupid and make it difficult for you to say or contribute anything of value. Increasingly the person who is not hyper pattern aware is the one able to come up with ingenius solutions forward via their ability to point out things and focus on what the pattern recognizer has grouped and missed, I say this as someone who is a big pattern noticer. Its why I think the gifted/ high iq child prodigy into adult failure is such a thing, its not the myth that they are too smart for the world. Its that say even in math the kind of thinking thr IQ test is testing for might make it clear and correlate with a child blasting through math classes with almost no effort. However once they pass calculus suddenly very different and unorthodox thinking can be required, a lot of how they thought about math suddenly needs to be broken down and seen as just a model for whats really happening. Im supposed to be a natural, this soykaf doesnt make sense, I quit this is stupid. Whereas those lower on the IQ totem pole who never saw it all as simple and obvious just see it as another lesson and proceed. Im also spinning a bit of a myth here but its because I can, there isnt any actual conclusion to draw with IQ. You can say 70% of this currently valued fields students score genius level, the premise is already fuarrrked but even if I take it as a sign of something why is there even 30% that didnt. If even one person at 90-100 iq range can do the same soykaf someone with 130 can to me the whole thing falls apart. And there is usually much more than one person in any field touted as evidence for IQs validity. If someone is so socially savvy they can read a room quick as lightning talk to anyone get people to do whatever they want get any information out of anyone be the one organizing meetings with scientists and thought leaders and whoever what would this persons IQ be? Im sort of talking out of my ass but I believe at least its been demonstrably proven this type of intelligence does not on average score as high on the IQ test as the average guy doing theoretical physics. So why is it sometimes the latter cant do the first? Wouldnt the even autistic hyper intelligent person see how important that skill is to their life and try to create some system to learn and do it, some perfect mask? If understanding others is "too hard" then arent they choosing the less complicated task for themselves in deciding to just ignore that aspect of life and fixate on their work in whichever smart boy field. The reason the above kind of thinking was not a priority of the IQ test is not because for some magical reason what it tested for required more genius than the above, its that you dont want or need your future scientist underlings you are using to try and beat the soviets or whoever to have the above skills. Most primary of all what on a meta level an IQ test is testing is that the person wants to prove themselves in the first place.

>>97935 >can't refrain from using an acronym in the first sentence. Filtered >>97946 >>he built >they must What a cancer.

I don't entirely agree with the IQ skepticism, but if anyone can make collective intelligence work more power to them. Have you heard of the PolyMath projects? https://gowers.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/is-massively-collaborative-mathematics-possible/ artofproblemsolving.com/polymath (cloudflare warning)