GENIUS FORUMS

The most intelligent person may not have an informed opinion.

I have noticed that some people who are smarter than average tend to think that their superior brainpower gives weight to their opinion on any and all subjects they feel like talking about, even if they have never engaged in any real study of them. There have been times when I have done this, too, but I try to avoid it. People probably assume that intelligent people are more likely to be informed, less likely to speak from ignorance, and I think that is probably a good assumption in general. But I also think that some intelligent people take advantage of this popular assumption by putting on airs of knowledge and confidence even in areas where they actually know very little.

Another thing that may happen is that an intelligent person will dismiss a subject simply because he finds it tedious, but use his cachet to give people the impression that the thing is somehow objectively unimportant or trivial, rather than merely uninteresting to him. The smart one has made his pronouncement, and anybody who wants to continue the line of inquiry must be an idiot or shallow.

That is true. Mere brainpower is overrated. As with any tool, it's not enough to have it -- it must be applied constructively.

Given that we sit on top of thousands of years of human thought, it's generally idiotic (with very few exceptions) to assume that a given problem hasn't been tackled before in such a way as to produce something useful to the present inquiry. Which is to say, knowledge -- of what has come before us, of what was thought and discovered by the giants on whose shoulders we stand -- is of paramount importance when it comes to understanding any issue or solving any problem.

This is why i look is such stunned amazement at people who deride drawing upon the accumulated library of human knowledge as 'not thinking for yourself'. You know what i am talking about, you meet all the time the losers who try to make a virtue (of 'independent thinking') out of ignorance, who deride drawing upon extant knowledge as 'not thinking for one's self', and who assume that their ignorant musings somehow trump centuries of careful thought, experiment, and analysis.

QRS for example ignore the entire 20th century of philosophy. This comes to bite them in the ass time and time again, because the 20th century is when the greatest advances in logic and epistemology were made.

What's more, various branches of human knowledge often intertwine, and you can get vast synergy benefits out of being able to pull different areas of knowledge together. To use QRS for demonstrative purposes again, today I have rubbed Dan's face in the falsity of the QRS assumption that something being indubitable entails it being true. Had Dan known about 20th century physics or Enlightenment-era mathematics, he would have himself been able to recognize the fallacy of such an assumption, because the two counter-examples i used (non-Euclidean geometry and quantum superposition) are rather well-known concepts in those fields, and both represent stark examples of apparent indubitability being upended in a most dramatic fashion.

In short, yeah, knowledge is important -- both knowledge of the subject in question, and of the larges corpus of human knowledge.

Victor,

Had Dan known about 20th century physics or Enlightenment-era mathematics, he would have himself been able to recognize the fallacy of such an assumption, because the two counter-examples i used (non-Euclidean geometry and quantum superposition) are rather well-known concepts in those fields, and both represent stark examples of apparent indubitability being upended in a most dramatic fashion.

You have a talent for this knowledge. I certainly hope that Dan isn't overlooking the fact that this makes a good teacher, often in many places where he fails.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:You have a talent for this knowledge.

The 'talent' for this knowledge is nothing more than a good enough memory to retain it, enough brainpower to apprehend and integrate it, and a willingness to actually pursue it. Almost everyone here has the former two attributes. The sticking point is in actually recognizing the value of knowledge, and then in actively pursuing it. There is no special 'talent' to it -- I simply spent many years learning everything I could get my hands on, so i can draw upon the library of human knowledge in areas as disparate as philosophy, economics, physics, history, etc.

It's like athletics. Many people have the raw talent and genetics to make good athletes, but raw talent is not enough. Years of athletic training must be added into the mix, and at the other end of such training comes out an athlete, hopefully a multifaceted one capable of a wide variety of athletic feats.

I am seeing this with my sons right now. My second is the most talented one, in terms of raw ability, of the bunch (he was walking at 8 months and bunny-hopping at a year and two months, which should tell you something if you know a bit about child development). My third son doesn't have quite the same raw talent (he didn't start bunny-hoping until 1 yr and 4 months for example), but he takes interest in athletics. This boy -- a 5-year-old-boy! -- can now do push-ups, pull-ups, and even dips, and he has almost learned to do hand-stands; he can also scale the inside of a doorway by spreading his legs in a wedge, or by using his entire body as a wedge for wider doorways. My second son, for all that he has a greater raw talent, is nowhere near this athletically advanced.

So it's not talent that's the key, but the willingness to actually use the talent constructively, to train it and hone it and apply it.

Vic,

Almost everyone here has the former two attributes.

So why are they unwilling? (I separate myself only because I've tried to learn it. Hit my limit. I know what I'm good at, and I can't be good at everything.)

I am seeing this with my sons right now. My second is the most talented one, in terms of raw ability, of the bunch (he was walking at 8 months and bunny-hopping at a year and two months, which should tell you something if you know a bit about child development). My third son doesn't have quite the same raw talent (he didn't start bunny-hoping until 1 yr and 4 months for example), but he takes interest in athletics. This boy -- a 5-year-old-boy! -- can now do push-ups, pull-ups, and even dips, and he has almost learned to do hand-stands; he can also scale the inside of a doorway by spreading his legs in a wedge, or by using his entire body as a wedge for wider doorways. My second son, for all that he has a greater raw talent, is nowhere near this athletically advanced.

Could you describe your sons a little bit better? Like, I'm trying to think of why one is more willing than the other... for instance, how is the one who is unwilling similar to Dan?

J.S. Bach and John Milton attributed their artistic accomplishments to hard work rather than "innate talent."

Part of that whole Protestant work ethic thing, perhaps.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Could you describe your sons a little bit better? Like, I'm trying to think of why one is more willing than the other... for instance, how is the one who is unwilling similar to Dan?

Well, my #2 is easily frustrated. He enjoys the accomplishments and plaudits well enough, as everyone does, but when he is thwarted, he gets upset and either just drops it or tries to turn it into a joke. Since any attempted athletic feat will almost assuredly entail a few failures along the way, this means that my second son basically only picks the low-hanging fruit. Anything which he cannot get easily, he doesn't really try to get at all.

In contrast, my third son enjoys the very process itself. He runs, climbs, tumbles, does push-ups and pull-ups, etc. When he doesn't get something at first, he simply goes and practices it some more. He doesn't seem to expect to just get everything on the first try, and so he doesn't get frustrated when the first try is a failure.

My third son spent a year doing push-ups before he managed to do dips. It took him a month to learn to climb up the inside of a doorway. However, he simply keeps going. He doesn't see each failure, each inadequacy, as a personal affront to be magicked away with self-deception or pretense.

I am not sure this will help you understand the QRS failure. I think there are many ways to fail to learn, and what I see in my sons is only one of them. On their part, I think they are doing a variant of something I mentioned earlier -- making a virtue out of failure, pretending that all this knowledge is a useless and even harmful thing. They want to feel like sages without really putting any effort into it, so they construct a worldview where to be a sage one basically only needs to agree with them. It's all ego.

Vic,

Well, my #2 is easily frustrated. He enjoys the accomplishments and plaudits well enough, as everyone does, but when he is thwarted, he gets upset and either just drops it or tries to turn it into a joke. Since any attempted athletic feat will almost assuredly entail a few failures along the way, this means that my second son basically only picks the low-hanging fruit. Anything which he cannot get easily, he doesn't really try to get at all.

Okay, let's see if this describes Dan (reworded slightly so it sounds less familiar).

Dan is easily frustrated, enjoys the occasional accomplishment and likes being praised (just like the rest of us), but whenever he is beaten, he gets upset, ignores the problem, or tries to make it humorous. Since any real accomplishments requires dealing with failure, Dan has settled for easy accomplishments. If Dan can't do it right away, he doesn't ever do it.

Fair assessment? (If not, the next questions are still perfectly applicable to your son... =) )

Now, being the obsessed ethicist that I am, is there any use to this behaviour? Or should it be stopped?

Any use? Not much, if any. I try very hard to guide my second son towards perseverance, to seeing occasional failures as a part of growth and improvement.

I am not sure if your assessment of Dan is accurate because i don't know him well enough.

Vic,

I try very hard to guide my second son towards perseverance, to seeing occasional failures as a part of growth and improvement.

Are you efforts successful? And, the more important question: does it matter if your efforts are successful?

Well, I have gotten him to stick with swimming right now, much better than he was previously able to stick with other sports, such as baseball. Does it matter? I think it will be a world of a difference to him eventually -- not the sports themselves (he has an even greater ability for math, that's where i would really like to see him grow), but the mental habit of not restricting himself to the low-hanging fruit.

Victor, your ethical beliefs are flawlessly consistent. By never caring if your efforts are successful, you have managed to form a belief system that causes you to practise total compassion for all living things. My hats off to you: by the definition used in this forum, you are a fully enlightened genius. Presently, the only man here who is your equal is Laird.

The rest of us merely study genius.

hahaha. I very much do care if my efforts are successful, and i am very far from compassion for all living things. I am not even a vegetarian.

Your humility betrays you! Talk to Laird... :)

That is true. I am supremely humble. It's one of my many major virtues. In fact, I believe I epitomize humility.

vicdan wrote:That is true. I am supremely humble. It's one of my many major virtues. In fact, I believe I epitomize humility.

Yes, there should be a monument made to your humility. In fact, I think you ought to build it yourself!

Capital idea! i will get right to writing an extensive treatise on why i should build a monument to my humility (and by building it myself of course I mean convincing someone else to do it for me).

I will dedicate my whole life to this via Internets agitation. Surely it's a worthy cause and a laudable contribution to society, for which society should be willing to support me in modest comfort.

Victor, that's exactly right! It took me years of ponderous reading to figure out what you do in a fit of sarcasm!

Always get others to do the dirty work, and me being little more than clever with words... well! you've revealed everything. Re-read your words and check them for errors.

Starting this thread reminded me of a couple posts. This one by Elizabeth:

I thought the opening post was pretty funny. It was a series of assertions not only without supportive documentation, but it was a guy pontificating about the superiority of males while repeatedly using faulty grammar. Unfortunately, anyone who didn't catch the faulty grammar or know that supportive documentation for things that are not common knowledge also would not have caught the humor, and might even take those words seriously.

An Analysis of the Male and Female Brain Structure

And this old one by Ronald 3 from TPG (the question was "What was it that caused you to desire to leave Mensa?"):

That all the members I met were, to use the medical term, idiots.

At that point in my life I had already outgrown a mistaken confidence in pure "brainpower," for want of a better word. I had learned the hard way that to succeed in academic studies I could no longer rely simply on an ability to figure things out from scratch during exams, but that looking at textbooks beforehand was actually necessary.

I was in my second year of graduate studies and hence already had some semi-professional knowledge of a particular discipline. But the Mensa people I met were not interested in the received wisdom in any field. If I mentioned what I did I simply triggered an impromptu lecture where the speaker would confidently reveal to me all the answers to any open research questions, without the benefit of any familiarity with previous work in the area, and without ever having really thought about the issues involved before, and despite the fact that he was a mailman who had barely graduated from high school. These were people who thought that because they had done well on a standard IQ test their ill-informed opinions on any topic were automatically more interesting and valid than those of other people.

When I wanted to get out of the organization, the chairman of the local chapter called me on the phone several times and tried to talk me out of it. He also babbled at length about his views on how society should be organized. He felt everything should be run as a dictatorship of the "intelligent," meaning him and his IQ-tested friends.

As a teaching assistant I had the dubious privilege of grading some of this guy's exams. I was not surprised to see that he had obviously never opened a textbook. Eventually he dropped out without getting a degree.

Athletes vs. Mental Athletes

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Dan is easily frustrated, enjoys the occasional accomplishment and likes being praised (just like the rest of us), but whenever he is beaten, he gets upset, ignores the problem, or tries to make it humorous.

Though I concede the frustration part, I'd like to know where I've been beaten and responded to it in the way you describe here. Your perception that I've been "beaten" doesn't necessarily correspond with mine, you know.

Dan:

Your perception that I've been "beaten" doesn't necessarily correspond with mine, you know.

I never claimed that this statement was accurate. It was a tentative description, and really just a rewording of Victor's own description of his son. That you relate somewhat to it should give Victor some insight into talking to you. A man can only work from what he knows, and he admitted he doesn't know you very well. But he does know his son.

You are not his son, but this -- at the very least -- should allow him to find common ground.

I think you're a little obsessed with father-son dynamics at the moment, Trevor. It's a little disturbing, to be honest.

Well, Dan. Thanks for pointing out that attachment (just in case nobody else noticed). It's something I'm dealing with right now. I'm trying to get over it, and it's tricky. Unresolved abandonment issues and all.

It is what prevents me from obtaining enlightenment.

Trevor, I think it's in your best interests to deal with whatever it is that you are dealing with in private. In all honesty, I think you should seriously consider taking a break from philosophy. I say this with all due respect.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Well, Dan. Thanks for pointing out that attachment (just in case nobody else noticed). It's something I'm dealing with right now. I'm trying to get over it, and it's tricky. Unresolved abandonment issues and all.

Well, yeah, that's pretty evident. Let me ask you, why do you hold onto the idea that your father should have been something he wasn't? Do you feel that apparent expectation is legitimate? I know these feelings can run rather deep, but they need examination.