Sinergy -> RE: Why do we need definitions? (10/25/2006 5:05:44 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Dnomyar Does haveing a 200 means that someone is smarter than you. What if yours is only 50 and know something he dosent. Are you smarter than him . To clarify for you, Dnomyar... Ignorance, which would be not knowing something, can be cured. Pick up a book and read it. Take a class. Talk to people. Whatever. Stupidity, which would be a lack of capacity in one's mind to take in or process information due to lack of, for want of a better term, processor capability, cannot be cured. The problem that I have with IQ in general is that it attempts to define in black and white an abstract concept that varies from person to person. Intelligence develops at an extremely young age and, from what I read studying early childhood education, is not so much the number of neurons in the brain, but the number of connections which form. This is why an infant who is presented with much stimuli, played with, etc., tends to end up smarter than one who is ignored and forgotten. Identical twin studies (separated at birth) have determined that nurture plays a critical role in the development of intelligence. What is considered intelligence is a hotly debated topic. Is it being able to perform integrations in your head without a calculator? Is it being able to write Hamlet? Is it being able to remember your friend's phone number when he was 5? Is it being able to perform above the mean for performance at your job? Is it being able to pick up a Mandolin and be fully capable of playing it in a band 3 days later? Yes. And no. It is some of these things. It is all of these things. It is none of these things. As I stated, IQ tests and the whole concept of IQ is an attempt to take a varied and rather abstract concept that varies from person to person and apply a black and white litmus test to prove that person A is more "intelligent" than person B. It fails for that very reason; person A is different than person B, and I dont personally believe that there will ever exist one particular definition as to their differences which will ever satisfy everybody. For example, Monkeyboy has an IQ that was measured in the 70s, making him a low grade cretin, since an intelligent dog has an IQ of around 68. He was passed through Harvard with an MBA, catapulted over hundreds of people to land a coveted position in the Texas National Guard so he didnt have to go to Vietnam. Got elected Governor, and then President. Is he smarter than you or I? Good question. Depends on how you define intelligence. I would point out that he was intelligent enough to pick the right parents, but that might be obstructively cynical on my part. I tend to see attempts to label D/s or BDSM concepts with definitions in the same light; there are too many variables for the definition to have much meaning in the real world. The reasons most people give as to why we need them, lead me to consider their need for them to be a sign of intellectual laziness on their part. But that is just me, and I could be wrong, but there you go. Sinergy
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