Are you insecure about your intelligence?

[justaguy]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

to what extent do you guys (reach n rubix) feel like you've conditioned yourselves to be incredibly efficient at dissecting/processing information, logic puzzles, etc? and to what degree has your confidence in deez matters perpetuated your talent?

srs question i'd kind of like to know ya input

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

to what extent do you guys (reach n rubix) feel like you've conditioned yourselves to be incredibly efficient at dissecting/processing information, logic puzzles, etc? and to what degree has your confidence in deez matters perpetuated your talent?

srs question i'd kind of like to know ya input

I'm not really sure what you're asking -- I mean it's not like I "condition" myself... I'd say it's just that I really enjoy problemsolving and always have, and so I've always exposed myself to hobbies/activities that allowed me to keep mentally active (otherwise I found myself incredibly bored).

I mean I'm not the smartest person in the world or anything but I've always been pretty good at figuring stuff out even from an early age. I could read when I was less than two years old -- used to waste a lot of time reading license plates, looking at newspaper articles, writing words with an Etch-A-Sketch, drawing art, playing with toy puzzles, writing stupid little books (I wanted to be a novelist for a long time), etc. Another big step was the fact that I've been using computers since I was like four or five, so I've been a pretty big nerd for as long as I can remember.

Confidence has always played a big role in the sense that I've never been afraid to take on a new challenge. I know that if I do well, then great -- and if I don't, then I have something new to learn more from. You really can't go wrong when it comes to stuff like that.

[Cavernio]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

"You can't really measure motivation and concentration. At least not directly. As much as they're obviously and intuitively important with respect to testing, at some point, you have to let them go and deal with the data..."

You can't really measure intelligence, at least not directly. As much as it's obviously and intuitively important with respect to testing, at some point, you have to let it go.

I love how justaguy calls the people he disagrees with the most intelligent people in the thread, as if his own opinion is clearly stupid but he doesn't want to change it.

As to Barbara Arrowsmith Young, the woman I was talking about, I read it in "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge, MD. There is also talk of Lyova Zazetsky, who had been shot in the head and who damaged his brain who had very similar problems that the woman had. The only reason barbara wasn't labelled mentally retarded was because her auditory and visual memory were amazing. Can probably find out more about them on the internet.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

You keep dodging the central question -- how do you, then, define intelligence? You seem to keep saying that intelligence is this sort of nebulous concept that you can't measure, and yet here we have metrics that are very good at predicting your ability to learn/process/apply complex information. If you disagree with that, then okay -- but that's how we're defining it.

Even if you "agree" with that definition, you say "We can't measure it because it doesn't account for things like motivation and concentration" without acknowledging the facts that have been brought up against you in this thread regarding both those things, which you seem to be ignoring.

I mean, what's to stop you from saying that about ANY relationship? I quote Reach's question again from earlier in this thread:

You could also say, for example, that until we correct for things like motivation and concentration for measurements of running speed, I simply can't say that a sprinting event on a track measures running speed.

It doesn't make any sense. Of course we accept that some major correlate of running speed, i.e. a sprinting event, measures how fast you can run. We also accept that some people run faster than others. We don't even need to think about it. We also intuitively know that your speed in a sprinting event is highly correlated with your speed in other events, and your 'general' fitness, or 'g'Fit (which in turn, is a wide reaching predictor of your running speed in any event!).

What then, is the big deal with it comes to IQ tests? It's the exact same thing...

So, given this, you're implying that g is a faulty predicting variable of cognitive ability as we've been defining it because the variance attributable to motivation and concentration are not negligible and account for a significant portion of the variance. You're trying to say that people who do well on hard problems aren't somehow any smarter than people who score lower -- it's just that they're more focused and motivated. Again, if this were true, then why do we see such a low correlation between time spent on tough problems and the chance that they'll get the answer right? And again, if this were true, then why do we see such low variance thresholds across multiple testings? Granted, like Reach said, the SAT has been losing its value as a correlated item to IQ, but even with multiple retakes, you only get so much variance. It's not like you see too many kids scoring 660 on each section suddenly start clocking well past their previous standard deviations by coming to the test focused. There will be SOME improvement, but not a lot. So the notion that these factors play a huge role in intelligence as you imply -- just doesn't appear to hold water when the data says otherwise.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

Also: I mean hell, if anything, lack of motivation is a *result* of inability, not necessarily a cause. It doesn't matter if I go into a test fully-pumped and ready to rock -- if the questions are hard, it's going to own me. I only lose motivation if the questions are really tough, but this doesn't in turn diminish my ability to answer something correctly when that ability was not there to begin with. Confidence just influences my willingness to do things without necessarily needing to double-check everything -- it doesn't make me any smarter. The only thing lack of motivation might do is make me want to answer shit by just guessing and hope I get something right, but on tests with so many options per question (iqtest.dk, TRI52, etc), the chance that you get stuff right by pure guessing is still pretty low. Again, it's one of those things where you either know the answer, or you don't.

Focus is a stronger claim to defend. We can argue that lack of focus means we're less able to make the observations necessary to process the information and perform to the best of our ability, resulting in a lower score. But if this were true, then we'd expect that scores should jump up by some significant margin if they *do* take the test focused, or if you give them more than enough time to be able to relax and really think out their logic for each question. This just isn't what we see in the data.

[Cavernio]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

Yes, I am specifically avoiding how to define intelligence. It IS a nebulous concept, and to put a number to something that measures it as well as various other things is wrong. I BEGAN by saying I didn't like psychometrics.

I have not ignored any FACTS brought up in this thread. You keep saying that I have a no argument, yet the ONLY thing you have against what I've said is that there is a weak correlation in" time spent on tough problems and the chance that they'll get the answer right"...which as you've pointed out has a correlation of .2, which, as stated in the article Reach linked much earlier on, is as strong as g was found to correlate to some measures mentioned in that article. Besides which, you're assuming that concentration is best measured by time it takes to do a question, which clearly has its own problems.

And all your talk about focus and motivation is, AGAIN, ignoring that one person's motivation is not going to be same as another's, and you're assuming that motivation and focus within a person is going to vary greater than motivation and focus between individuals. The vast majority of testing is taken under similar circumstances, where one would expect similar outcomes for both focus and even moreso, motivation, from one test try to another. But even if this weren't the case, you're doing nothing but supposing. Show me a test, give me some sort of empirical evidence, and I will agree with you. If you think that intelligence can be measured properly, then let concentration and motivation also be measured properly, and properly analyzed as variables for g. If you don't think either of those two things can be measured properly, then as far as I can tell, (since you've give me no reason why intelligence would be any easier to measure than those 2 things), you're deluding yourself into thinking intelligence can be measured properly.

Your hard data is test-retest data, and time it takes to do hard questions, and you expect me to say those 2 things clearly show that motivation and concentration aren't strongly related to g at all. That's just not good enough, especially when I completely agree that someone who can concentrate well may not be able to answer a question because they don't have the know-how to do it.

I also don't think SATs are good measures of intelligence; we just have a ton of data for them.

And as to what Reach said...type in IQ and fitness into google. Oh look! They're related! The smarter I am, the more fit I am. Well, clearly that means something, clearly physical fitness plays a role in my intelligence...because to look at numbers, and using your line of reasoning, that's what it must mean.
Besides which, I already addressed what Reach said there: running speed and how fast you are are clearly, intuitively related. To separate them would be dumb. To question how a wide variety of tests that some developer said measured intelligence in some way actually measure intelligence, is logical.

"IQ has a lot of utility. IQ is how fast your brain processes and deals with complex information. How fast you learn, how fast you think, how accurate your reasoning and recall is. It is many things, much of which I think can be considered intelligence..."

No. And sentences like these are why I still debate this. If IQ were all that, then all the relationships between IQ and any other specific measures of those variables would be totally predictive of those, no r's (or whatever other measure for non-linear functions you would use), that aren't close 100% predictive.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

I don't even know if that post warrants a response -- it's beyond clear you don't understand statistics. A statistical relationship doesn't have to have an r^2 near 100% in order for it to be a reasonably predictive relationship. And it doesn't matter if focus/motivation differs from person to person because they are separate data points analyzed in aggregate -- which means that if we assume it differs from person to person, then the effects will average out.

An r of .2 means there's an r^2 of .04, which means that 4% of the variance is attributable to time taken to answer the question. In other words, for hard questions, the amount of time you take has little impact on whether or not you get the answer right. If focus/motivation played as big of a role as you say, then we'd expect that spending more time on the question will ultimately lead you to getting the right answer. If a question plagues you, go back to it later with a clearer head or a fiery desire -- you will probably still have a hard time getting it right. r^2=.04, which, in the realm of statistics, is pretty much near zero.

If you're purposely going to define intelligence as something we can't understand, and then ask us to measure things which themselves are nebulous, you're putting yourself in a position where no answer will satisfy you, especially if you're demanding near-100% predictability. You're asking for a definition of something you won't even yourself define. Saying "intelligence is undefinable" is a worthless claim with no testable value. This is naive, especially when we have a pretty good model of what represents general cognitive ability. If you're saying intelligence is a worthless concept to even debate about, then you're going to tell me everyone is equally intelligent? Where's the proof in that? Is everyone equally fast, too -- just held back by focus and motivation? Are everyone's physical faculties identical despite the variegated structures and capacities of their functions?

Also, we stated earlier that statistics doesn't aim for 100% prediction rate, which you said you understood. G is taken from the largest weight out of a factor analysis resultant from a variety of cognitive tasks which we define as indicative of various forms of intelligence. In other words, you're not going to get a better predictive factor than g out of that factor analysis since it is, by definition, the weight that explains the most variance.

And yet, despite all this "I understand, I understand" garbage, you keep rattling off stuff that shows you don't understand.

[justaguy]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

I love how justaguy calls the people he disagrees with the most intelligent people in the thread, as if his own opinion is clearly stupid but he doesn't want to change it.

I'm not really sure what you're asking -- I mean it's not like I "condition" myself... I'd say it's just that I really enjoy problemsolving and always have, and so I've always exposed myself to hobbies/activities that allowed me to keep mentally active (otherwise I found myself incredibly bored).

right, and how has your enjoyment played a part in that? point being if you didn't enjoy problem solving, do you feel it would impact how you perceive your own intelligence?

[Cavernio]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

'Reasonably predictive' to who or what? Not physics, that's for sure. Oh wait, that's right, I think that psychometrics is doomed from the get go, one of the reasons being things like poor predictability that never reaches anything close to 100%.

I understand what r is, what r of .2 is, and you have not read what I said about concentration in relation to intelligence. I never said or meant to imply that intelligence or their tests are mediated by purely focus and motivation. Which is the message that you got, since you keep harping on it.
I never said I think everyone is equally intelligent. I never said that g was worthless. I am well aware that it correlates to a great many things. I keep saying and saying it, but you just don't get it, I just don't think that g or IQ or reaction time or physical fitness or anything else that correlates in one huge mess represents what intelligence is.

I am saying that if you don't think we can accurately measure focus or motivation, why would you expect us to measure intelligence any better?

Again, as I said in, like, my second post, if the prediction accuracy is not 100%, then whatever is left over is NOT determined by whatever measure you're using.

"This is naive, especially when we have a pretty good model of what represents general cognitive ability."

No, we have a model that poorly predicts things, but nevertheless predicts them, and then we say they're all measures of intelligence. We do not have a good model for representing general cognitive ability. The model includes intelligence and motivation and cultural bias and concentration and visual ability and any other number of factors.

"G is taken from the largest weight out of a factor analysis resultant from a variety of cognitive tasks which we define as indicative of various forms of intelligence. "

Not 'we', 'you' and other short-sighted people who define them as indicative of various forms of intelligence and nothing more.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/What%20intelligence%20tests%20test.pdf

The best I could find given that I can't access the majority of psychological journal articles.
I haven't looked up anything regarding concentration. From synopses of the thing that are peppered all over the internet, it supports exactly what I was saying in regards to motivation.

Damn, page 5 is exactly what I was talking about! (Except replace concentration with motivation.)

[Artic_counter]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

Well I ended up with 134. Some of those questions just stopped me in my tracks. Specifically the > ones.

Would really like to know how they are done eventually.

Tried the test just for the sake of seeing what you meant. Indeed they are though. Most of times, I didn't even knew where the logic was.

I ended up with 130 which surprised me since I've run onto a lot of these questions xD

Is it normal that I get 130 on the TRI52 test and only 118 on the RAVEN one ?

[A2P]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

I feel like I'm a waste of intelligence sometimes, yes.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

That article you linked isn't saying anything that Reach and I haven't already agreed with. We know things like motivation/focus/happiness/whatever plays some role in performance. But, as that article shows, it's not massively huge or anything (did you even look at the data/results?). It's no secret that incentivizing performance typically results in better performance.

Furthermore, that's not even the point. The point is that regardless of whether or not you want to label it as intelligence, g is defined in such a way that it allows us to predict performance with a certain confidence interval on a variety of other tasks/areas of relevance. That's it. Whether you want to call it something else is entirely up to you, but we call it "cognitive ability/general intelligence" because g is derived from a factor analysis of many variegated cognitive tasks that involve many aspects of learning/applying complex information.

It doesn't mean there aren't other metrics that can be effective at predicting performance in other cognitive realms, either. But those other metrics won't have the average ability to explain a wide variety of tasks like g can (by definition). G is a useful cognitive-performance prediction tool for this reason. So the fact that you want to "not call it intelligence" is just belaboring the point, and the fact that you bring up stuff like motivation/focus doesn't hugely detract from g's already-predictive power.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

right, and how has your enjoyment played a part in that? point being if you didn't enjoy problem solving, do you feel it would impact how you perceive your own intelligence?

It wouldn't affect my intelligence TOO much -- I've always been able to make the logical inferences with the same sort of ability. I would just be a lot less knowledgeable.

[A2P]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

How would I increase my intellect

[MarioNintendo]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

How would I increase my intellect

By following this guide.