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intelligence can be measured as someones profeciency at a certain skill or set of skills relative to their exposure to these skills. for example, someone who is a grand master mason after one years is naturally smarter than someone who is a grand master mason after three years, all things being equal.
discuss.
discuss.
first, i will refute previous points. intelligence has absolutely nothing to do with what you do with it, good, bad, productive. you can be the smartest person in the world if all you do with your life is sit on a dirty couch and pick your nose. if any of you are familiar with I.Q. tests, they work like this. they test inherent, essentially unlearnable perceptive skills e.g. mental computation, three dimensional spatial reasoning, two dimensional reasoning, pattern recognition, the ability to copy letters (i don't remember the rest, i haven't had a real i.q. test since before the 8th grade).
these tests allow for the possibility of a sevant. someone can be incredibly strong in one arena of intelligence, for example, mental computation (we played one in quizbowl, the kid was autistic, and made me feel ridiculously slow at math). or Mrs. Parrish. this woman double majored in math and english, and scored a 1600 on the SATs on her first try in like, the 50s, and we can assume it was harder then. she also scored a zero on her spatial reasoning section of the I.Q. test, probably because she's dislexic. so intelligence is not necessarily one unified quantitative description. often the various kinds will come together in one person, but not always. but intelligence up to a certain point in development cannot be increased or decreased. reading more doesn't make you more intelligent. to me, it makes you smarter, smart being an amalgum of intelligence, good old common sense, and knowledge.
basically, to sum up my points, intelligence is not necessarily the ability to learn, it's an amalgum of a number of different measurements of aptitude in different areas. the kid who can put the jigsaw puzzle together in 4 seconds is intelligent in one way, as is the kid who can pick out the patterns in math books in two seconds, or the kid who can do permutations and combinations in their head without paper. these kids could sit on their butts, or use their inherent abilities to ruin the world, neither would in any way detract from their intelligence. now, Beeber is correct in saying that it does have something to do with parenting, as the early years greatly affect the development of the human brain, but morals are not a part of intelligence. intelligence, to put it simply, is a guage of mental ability, nothing more, nothing less.
to bring it back to the example, the second mason is probably quicker at it due to his ability to memorize information, his inherent coordination due to excellent spatial reasoning, and perhaps just a good practical mind.
discuss.
oh, and i'm coming home the 10th, we should make a Bell run.
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o and you spelt savant wrong. you spelt it 'sevant.' its savant, with two 'a's.
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I think it would have to depend on your definition of the word smart, or intelligent, which is basically what we're arguing over here. How exactly does one define intelligence?
As Justin and I studied in Psychology, this particular question has been argued over for years, and if scholars and professors at some of the top Universities in the world haven't figured it out yet, I highly doubt we will. For example, Howard Gardner (someone we studied), a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, said that intelligence comes in seven forms (his Theory of Multiple Intelligences).
According to Gardner (1999a), intelligence is much more than IQ because a high IQ in the absence of productivity does not equate to intelligence. In his definition, "Intelligence is a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture" (p.34). Consequently, instead of intelligence being a single entity described psychometrically with an IQ score, Gardner's definition views it as many things. He endeavored to define intelligence in a much broader way than psychometricians. To achieve this goal Gardner (1983; 1999a) established several criteria for defining intelligence.
(http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/hotTopics.shtml)
There are certainly many other views on intelligence besides this one, and I think it is apparent that it is impossible (contrary to the desires of Webster and dictionary.com) to really define intelligence and its many facets. Sure, one can describe it on its most basic level, but to truly understand intelligence is a very difficult thing - a problem that has yet to really be solved and continues to be argued over.
And I agree that ethics doesn't really come into play here (even though there is something known as "moral intelligence"), as what one does with their intelligence seems irrelevant if they already are "intelligent." Einstein helped develop nuclear weapons - a particular device that many would argue is inherently bad and unethical, but it surely does not make him any less “intelligent.”
Personally, I agree with a theory like Gardner’s (something I think, after reading your replies, the rest of you would agree with as well). It is very difficult to say that the master mason who earned that status in a shorter amount of time is more “intelligent,” because, perhaps, he is slightly less able in other areas. Like Keith said, this “more intelligent mason” perhaps is only considered that because of an “ability to memorize information, . . . inherent coordination due to excellent spatial reasoning, and . . . just a good practical mind.” He however, may be horrible at aspects of life people like Gardner and much of society would deem necessary for a truly intelligent person.
My conclusion: It would be nearly impossible to judge which mason was more intelligent, as the definition of intelligence is vague, at best.
Oooh, we should post stuff like this more often, it was fun!
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and the Intelligence Quotient isn't perfect, but it is useful. i assure that the majority (maybe not all, which is why it isn't perfect) of people that learn faster do measure as having higher IQs. the smartest (i use the term generally, as you would in common speech) people i know all have incredibly high IQ scores.
and i disagree with the psyche guy that said intelligence has anything to do with effort. if Einstein had just sat on a couch and picked his nose his whole life, he would still have been vastly more intelligent than all of us.
oh, and an overarching comment, we're not arguing about intelligence. we're quabbling over semantics, in other words, we're fighting over the definition of the word "intelligence," not the idea of intelligence, so this is mostly a moot point, but still interesting to discuss.
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