I doubt that's the case, and here's why: granted, I don't know more than a few words of German, but from what I'm reading in English, I am extrapolating that you're able to be erudite and thoughtful in two languages (at least, assuming you don't know more that I don't know about :)). That alone takes a lot of intelligence, and I can say that no matter how long it takes you to come up with the things you do, for what it's worth, I've always thought that you express yourself very well.
Is it really so much that it takes you a very long time to put things into the words you mean to say, or is it that you get distracted by other things? Because I always assume it's the latter, probably since I myself am that way. XD And sometimes I'm just lazy, too. That can play a role. XD
Well, I put 'intelligent' and 'stupid' in quotation marks...hmpfJune 29 2007, 17:44:24 UTC
for a reason - because obviously I am intelligent according to most definitions. And I'm certainly not stupid, not even according to *some* definitions. I was just trying to express the feeling that there may be degrees to what we call 'intelligence' that perhaps aren't part of the commonsense definition of it. And that perhaps a larger part of it than we commonly think is due to training, and not something you're born with. (And of course there are different *kinds* of intelligence, too - but that's a widely accepted fact already, so I probably don't need to go into that
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Re: Well, I put 'intelligent' and 'stupid' in quotation marks...diotimahJanuary 20 2011, 15:56:41 UTC
Found this via your 'intelligence' tag and am fascinated because I've always had similar self-doubts and contradictory views about my own 'intelligence'. Even to the point of thinking it's just something I have just 'imagined', that it's nothing more than just having grown up in an 'educated' household, learned to appreciate books etc.
I can hold my own well enough in everyday conversation and even academic discussion, but a lot of that is just repetition of and extrapolation from knowledge you have. I'm reasonably good at absorbing, storing, and to some degree using knowledge - in some areas, such as remembering vocabulary and using language, I'm well above average - but I'm markedly less good at synthesizing, and actual original thought I can only produce slowly and with difficulty. I can do it, but it takes me inordinately long. But that, to me, is the area of thought that is the most indicative of 'real' intelligence, if you will;Same here. Indeed that's the main reason why I've often feared there's a difference between me and *
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Kind of jumping in here where I may not belong but...
No one can fake intelligence. You either have it or you don't. You have it. But there are differences in *how* people think and even in how one person thinks at different times and in different moods.
Person A may be highly focused, high energy, etc. and so may think "fast on their feet". Person B may be more laid back, more given to introspection, so thinking and writing comes slower by comparison. Yet if they both take the same IQ test, they register the same marks. Brilliance isn't always flashy or easy. Some people are "deep" thinkers. That's just how their brain is set up. And you also have to add in the type of people who are absolute geniuses but don't have the sense to come in out of the rain
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Well, what on earth do you define intelligence as? I certainly wouldn't be able to give a hard and fast definition, and I wouldn't want to, but if I was going to quickly assess intelligence by anything then I'd assess it by looking at products. Quickness of thought and work is certainly one of the attributes that come under the umbrella of "intelligence", but it's in no way the defining one, in the same way that you wouldn't attempt to define someone's intelligence soley by their linguistic ability, or their mathematical one, or their ability to come up with witty topical puns. Is a painter who takes three years to complete a picture a "better painter" than one who dashes them out every week? (my general ignorance of art doesn't allow me to flashily use named examples here, but I'm sure there are plenty) You'd be hard-pressed to find a critic who'd agree. "And she/he is an extraordinarily fast worker, prodigiously produtive, capable of producing x number of amazing y in a week," is the sort of appellation that's added on approvingly
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Well, that's why I put 'intelligent' in quotation markshmpfJune 28 2007, 16:14:37 UTC
Yeah, it's nearly impossible to define. But speed of mental operations *has* to enter the picture somewhere. Otherwise you'd have to say that someone who solves, say, a complicated logical puzzle in a day and someone who solves it in a year have the same intelligence (at least in the area of logical puzzle solving).
I guess what I'm wondering about here is how much of what we perceive as intelligence is innate, and how much of it is simply the result of practice. (And I think the 'innate' part may be relatively low in my case, and the 'practice' part may account for a lot of what is perceived by other people as my 'intelligence'.)
To be a little less vague, I've had many real-time conversations with you about "deep" and "meta" type stuff and I've never found you to be slow
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Is it really so much that it takes you a very long time to put things into the words you mean to say, or is it that you get distracted by other things? Because I always assume it's the latter, probably since I myself am that way. XD And sometimes I'm just lazy, too. That can play a role. XD
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I can hold my own well enough in everyday conversation and even academic discussion, but a lot of that is just repetition of and extrapolation from knowledge you have. I'm reasonably good at absorbing, storing, and to some degree using knowledge - in some areas, such as remembering vocabulary and using language, I'm well above average - but I'm markedly less good at synthesizing, and actual original thought I can only produce slowly and with difficulty. I can do it, but it takes me inordinately long. But that, to me, is the area of thought that is the most indicative of 'real' intelligence, if you will;Same here. Indeed that's the main reason why I've often feared there's a difference between me and * ( ... )
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No one can fake intelligence. You either have it or you don't. You have it. But there are differences in *how* people think and even in how one person thinks at different times and in different moods.
Person A may be highly focused, high energy, etc. and so may think "fast on their feet". Person B may be more laid back, more given to introspection, so thinking and writing comes slower by comparison. Yet if they both take the same IQ test, they register the same marks. Brilliance isn't always flashy or easy. Some people are "deep" thinkers. That's just how their brain is set up. And you also have to add in the type of people who are absolute geniuses but don't have the sense to come in out of the rain ( ... )
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I guess what I'm wondering about here is how much of what we perceive as intelligence is innate, and how much of it is simply the result of practice. (And I think the 'innate' part may be relatively low in my case, and the 'practice' part may account for a lot of what is perceived by other people as my 'intelligence'.)
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Also, I should call you!
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