What is the limit of human intelligence if any?

[Tom McCurdy]

Do you feel that humans will ever reach a point where they just won't be able to understand something? Will we ever peak in our intelligence and if so how far into the future.

 

[Ludo_Z]

Hi guys, this is ludo_z from the Old World, pleased to join this forum.

I believe that the way us humans understand the world is through the use of models and through language in general. By model I mean a theoretical system of some sort which structures the world according to its rules. The laws of physics give us a model of the world. We usually think of the world through the laws of physics we know, so when we do things like looking at the stars or seeing things fall we conceive them through the categories of modern physics (or sometimes not-so-modern depending on the subject). That is we don't think of the stars as fixed points, or as falling objects as containing a "live force" that let's them move. We also think of economy and the social sciences through models. Understanding phaenomena described by a model means to fully understand the model.

There are some situations which are so complex which cannot be grasped by a "simple" model. For example I do not have a model for life, human behaviour which is accurate enough to make me feel I really completely understand it. In these cases I am still able to give meanings to phaenomena but not to undertand it. For example I know what "violence" is, but I do know always know why there is violence.

Models operate through language, where by language I mean some sort of symbolic representation. Also mathematics, music and gestures are languages in this sense. Langauge operates through representation. So I think that to answer to the initial question it is necessary to understand what the limits of representation are.

Another point is that we can never be sure that our models are correct. We may be pleased my sufficiently accurate models, for example of the economy, which make us think for a while fat we actually understand what is going on. Then one day there might be an unexpected crisis which invalidates the model we use. This happened for example when relativity arose. In other words I don't think that we will be ever capable of knowing if we are at the peak in our intellingce or just at the beginng of the road.

 

[jammieg]

What would the perceived limitations of it's own intelligence seem like to a monkey, and how might it percieve human intelligence?

My guess is that to a monkey humans would seem really boring and painstakingly overly attentive to every slight detail, not to mention that they spend ridiculous amounts of time building things that will never last when all that's really important is the moment- it might take a monkey a year to learn how to drive nails with a hammer if at all, they may not have the complex neural tissue and drives necessary to learn this task in a timely manner and probably couldn't see the benefits of it at all beyond a few extra peanuts, and in a way these same limitations are in humans in a relative context so that for a human to learn how to "drive nails with a hammer" or some other highly complex mental feat would seem like a pointless undertaking with very little return for the absurd energy expenditure and have virtually no perception of the long term benefits likely until long after the effort given, like cigarettes are mostly addictive because the chemical reward is within a second but some behaviors are more rewarding but the effects are within 10 days and are hardly ever noticed.

 

[pocebokli]

Well let me think...i see this in a pretty simple way...we have brain, which is enclosed in skull.

so, physically, it is limited. So, unless the mind is really above matter, our intelligence is limited.

Perhaps more appropriate question would be, wether can the enclosed mind in our skull grasp and understand everything that is outside of our mind.

well that depends on wether universe is infinite. our brain is physically limited, and we use it to shape and understand the physical world around us.

so if the physical universe is infinite, it is probably unlikely that a physically limited brain or some other physical form would be able to grasp it.

 

[pocebokli]

on the contrary, the physical universe could be smaller that our brain capacity and capabilites to understand it, thus, we would have the *feeling* that our intelligence is unlimited.

 

[Tom McCurdy]

with your first post poce do you feel we could know everything about the universe before requiring a brain that that would equal its size

 

[Kerrie]

the only limit is the one we place on ourselves...

 

[Nicomachus]

Well let me think...i see this in a pretty simple way...we have brain, which is enclosed in skull.

so, physically, it is limited. So, unless the mind is really above matter, our intelligence is limited.

Well that doesn't really follow. Intelligence does not exactly have extension, in a sort of disparate sort of way yes, but on the whole it does not have extension therefore cannot necessarily be limited by those kinds of means. A person's brain may be enclosed in a skull in Tucson, Arizona but it has no problem making an intelligent decision about a problem in Sydney, Australia. As well, if someone cannot understand a math problem it is not because the barrier, or skull, in that person's head is too strong. Maybe you can clarify this but as it stands now I do not think it follows.
*Nico

 

[Chrono]

Well let me think...i see this in a pretty simple way...we have brain, which is enclosed in skull.

so, physically, it is limited. So, unless the mind is really above matter, our intelligence is limited.

But don't psychologists say that we have an unlimited long term memory capacity?

 

[Tom McCurdy]

Well it is true that the word "unlimited" would in fact have boundaries. Nothing is really unlimited that is physical. However it is just unlimited compared to what we use.

 

[loseyourname]

the only limit is the one we place on ourselves...

We're never going to know exactly how a bat (or any other creature that uses echolocation to "see") experiences the world, which is a limit placed on us by evolution, not one we placed on ourselves. It is one of many.

 

[Kerrie]

We're never going to know exactly how a bat (or any other creature that uses echolocation to "see") experiences the world, which is a limit placed on us by evolution, not one we placed on ourselves. It is one of many.

evolution or biology? echolocation has to do with the senses, not intelligence. for all the senses we have, using them to the best of our will shows intelligence. biology has not granted the ability to see in ultraviolet light, however we understand it exists. same with echolocation, we understand it is there, although our biololgy does not allow us to have the ability to use it.

 

[olde drunk]

as a poker player i like the proposition that if i believe that my intelligence is unlimited, i increase the odds of being more intelligent. If i believe that i am limited in anyway, i increase the odds that my abilities will be limited.

i prefer to accept the probability that the universe is infinite and so are my options (including ultimate knowledge).

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[Nicomachus]

evolution or biology? echolocation has to do with the senses, not intelligence. for all the senses we have, using them to the best of our will shows intelligence. biology has not granted the ability to see in ultraviolet light, however we understand it exists. same with echolocation, we understand it is there, although our biololgy does not allow us to have the ability to use it.

Well as for this particular example loseyourname has given, I would have to say you are correct Kerrie. This echolocation, I think, pertains to sense perception, which is axiomatic, therefore it would be category mistake to compare it with something that maybe cognized about to a point of deriving a conclusion, which is what understanding is. However, if we were discussing knowledge and not understanding this would in fact be a "limit," if you want to refer to it as such.
*Nico

 

[loseyourname]

You guys are missing my point. It is beyond our intellectual capacity to envision the experience. While it is also beyond our sensory capacity to echolocate, that isn't what I was saying. That would indeed be a category mistake. The author of the thread asked "Do you feel that humans will ever reach a point where they just won't be able to understand something?" My answer is yes, and one example is that we won't ever understand what it's like to be a bat.

 

[Nicomachus]

loseyourname, I agree with your conclusion, of course. I simply also agreed with Kerrie's criticism of your example. =) Although to continue with the bat example which you clarified, I am still not convinced that that is an epistemic limitation, although it may be yes. Obviously we cannot have the experience of an identity that is not our's, but I am not sure if that is a limit of understanding. By extention, I cannot know what it is like to be you nor Kerrie nor anyone else, though the precision with which I can ascertain what it may be like to be you is much greater, I suppose, than that of the bat, I still am limited in that I cannot actually know what it is like to be you. This may or may not be an epistemic limitation, but I feel it may be a trivial one if it is. Although, let me say again I completely agree that we are limited, of course.
*Nico

 

[Kerrie]

You guys are missing my point. It is beyond our intellectual capacity to envision the experience. While it is also beyond our sensory capacity to echolocate, that isn't what I was saying. That would indeed be a category mistake. The author of the thread asked "Do you feel that humans will ever reach a point where they just won't be able to understand something?" My answer is yes, and one example is that we won't ever understand what it's like to be a bat.

intelligence is the ability to utilize what one already has. to compare our abilities to a bat is to compare car to a bicycle. each are modes of transportation, but is one better then the other? only in specific instances. a car is much better at long distance travel, however a bike is much better at not polluting our environment and lower maintenance.

 

[jradoff]

This is an easy one.

1. The human brain consists of a finite number of particles and energy states.
2. This matrix of particles and energy states is less than what exists in the cosmos.

Ergo: The human brain has insufficient capacity to contain a matrix containing the total map of all the particles and energy states that exist in the cosmos.

Ergo: A human's knowledge is limited.

Further:

All of the humans that exist, or will ever exist, will always comprise a subset of the cosmos; Ergo, the collective knowledge of humanity is also limited.

 

[Nicomachus]

This is an easy one.

1. The human brain consists of a finite number of particles and energy states.
2. This matrix of particles and energy states is less than what exists in the cosmos.

Ergo: The human brain has insufficient capacity to contain a matrix containing the total map of all the particles and energy states that exist in the cosmos.

Ergo: A human's knowledge is limited.

That isn't convincing. All you have shown is there is not a one to one ratio of particles in a human brain and the sum of the universe. This isn't an indication of epistemic limitation. Although, I agree we have epistemic limitations.

Further:

All of the humans that exist, or will ever exist, will always comprise a subset of the cosmos; Ergo, the collective knowledge of humanity is also limited.

Circulus in Demonstrando. You are assuming your conclusions. You are hinting, but not so obviously, at the assertion that existence implies epistemic limitation.
*Nico

 

[olde drunk]

This is an easy one.

1. The human brain consists of a finite number of particles and energy states.
2. This matrix of particles and energy states is less than what exists in the cosmos.

Ergo: The human brain has insufficient capacity to contain a matrix containing the total map of all the particles and energy states that exist in the cosmos.

Ergo: A human's knowledge is limited.

Further:

All of the humans that exist, or will ever exist, will always comprise a subset of the cosmos; Ergo, the collective knowledge of humanity is also limited.

is my mind my brain??

i submit that my brain is what is necessary for my physical activity. my mind goes beyond the limits of my brain. needless to say, there is no way to prove this point, however, we have seen savants with limited brain power do unbelieveable mental feats that your rank and file geniuses could not.

i prefer to believe that my mind is limitless.

love&peace,
olde drunk

ps: with an expanding universe, i will never know all.

 

[jradoff]

Nicomachus:

I agree that my previous argument does not hold unless one concedes that a fundamental particle is the minimum unit of information storage (assuming we could 'read' such a particle); that such particles represent the upper bound for information storage in a given system; and that the information on all of the particles in the cosmos (variously estimated between 10^72 and 10^87, perhaps higher) might be compressed into a storage space consisting of the average 1350g human brain.

Rather than delve into information theory, here is a separate argument:

Assuming the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is correct, one cannot "know" the momentum and position of a fundamental particle. If we cannot "know" this information, then this indicates an epistemic limit. Ergo, human knowledge is limited.

Let's say a magic device is invented that defies Heisenberg (I don't know of any such evidence that such a device could exist). The speed of light presents us with another limit on knowledge, assuming one agrees that particles in a gas behave in a non-deterministic way.

Here is a thought experiment: a jar contains particles of a gas. You have an instrument that is capable of taking a snapshot of the positions of all of those particles. Place this jar and the instrument on a spaceship and get it out to a far-away location--let's say, Proxima Centauri, for fun. The spaceship will beam you the information on the position of all those particles. However, a person on the Earth wants to "know" the position of those particles at the present time (not the 4.22 year-old data). This is not possible because we can't get the data fast enough, and we can't predict the motion of chaotic particles. Thus, a human being's limitation on the speed of data acquisition presents an epistemic limit.

There is no evidence that the human mind can collect data faster than the speed of light, or compress cosmos-scale volumes of data into a finite space, nor even do something as "simple" as design an instrument capable of measuring the momentum and position of a fundamental particle. All of this points to a limit on human knowledge. One could say that these limits are incredibly high, or even that they are irrelevant, but they are limits nonetheless. There appear to be many ways to demonstrate that knowledge is limited--but much harder to define exactly what that limit is.

Olde Drunk:

Everything we know about the brain suggests that the functions of memory, intelligence, reasoning and whatnot are conducted by the neurochemical and electrical states that exist within the cells of the nervous system.

The fact that some people with brain damage or deficiencies can perform some of the same functions as a normal person (or in rare cases, functions of a genius person) can be explained biologically, and doesn't tell us anything about the mind having some special power that transcends the gray matter itself.

I'm skeptical of any claims that the mind is embodied by any type of unmeasurable quantity outside the domain of our biology, but I'd be interested in hearing evidence or arguments to the contrary.

 

[Nicomachus]

Jradoff, assuming all those examples are true then I would concede those indicate epistemic limitations.
*Nico

 

[olde drunk]

Olde Drunk:

Everything we know about the brain suggests that the functions of memory, intelligence, reasoning and whatnot are conducted by the neurochemical and electrical states that exist within the cells of the nervous system.

The fact that some people with brain damage or deficiencies can perform some of the same functions as a normal person (or in rare cases, functions of a genius person) can be explained biologically, and doesn't tell us anything about the mind having some special power that transcends the gray matter itself.

I'm skeptical of any claims that the mind is embodied by any type of unmeasurable quantity outside the domain of our biology, but I'd be interested in hearing evidence or arguments to the contrary.

very well done. how do you explain the cases where people have been declared 'dead', no brain waves. later, they awaken in the morgue and give very interesting reports of what they experienced. these are not physical experiences, they are 'dreams?', 'halucinations?', whatever. BUT, they are something that the mind witnessed.

how, if the brain was dead? zero brain waves. what makes my brain active and that lump in a solution of formaldehyde a mass of inert tissue?

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[jradoff]

\how do you explain the cases where people have been declared 'dead', no brain waves. later, they awaken in the morgue and give very interesting reports of what they experienced. these are not physical experiences, they are 'dreams?', 'halucinations?', whatever. BUT, they are something that the mind witnessed.

I don't follow your logic. How do reports of near-death experiences pertain to limits on intelligence? Are you suggesting that these reports are proof that intelligence exists outside the body, and is therefore unlimited?

I agree that the mind is known to experience things that are separate from our sense receptors. That's the basis of dreams, imagination, psychotic episodes and other ordinary phenomena that don't require supernatural explanations. People who suffer from schizophrenia report many strange experiences, yet in the modern day we understand this to be a neurochemical illness (before the onset of modern psychiatry, many people believed that these people were posessed by demonic spirits).

As for reports of near-death experiences, the simplest is that these people experience a dream-state or hallucination in the period of time before brain death occurred, or perhaps during the process of resuscitation.

 

[pocebokli]

well as for the brain being enclosed in a skull...

lemme put it another way so there won't be any more misunderstandings (somehow i think there'll be even more heh)...NO i am not proposing the brain has to be equal size of the universe in order to understand it. gee.

it must be capable, at least as COMPLEX as what it tries to understand. we can, at least partly, understand some ecosystems, some human systems (economy) and other stuff, and our brains are not as large as an ecosystem or economy, they're just capable of understanding them. But they can't understand some rare occurences in them, because the factors behind these hard to predict occurences come from either outside the system, from a greater system, or there are simply too many indicators to compute in order to predict the occurence (?probability mathemathics?, computers).

but cosmosystem is much larger, and if it is physically infinite, we would need a physicall tool (brain), that is able to follow the infinite universe's unimaginable dynamics...but remember that it is not just the OUTER universe to consider. We always find new particles inside old particles, and within those, we find yet smaller particles. it it as possible that the universe is infinite in the opposite side, too. So perhaps our brain is so delicate and complex that is indeed capable of development into it's own infinity.

but if our brain has less dynamics and is less complex than the system it attemtps to understand, there is a limit for humankind in being able to understand the universe. and as intelligence is kind of a tool that helps us understand the world, we would not have the feeling it is "unlimited".

 

[Ian]

If you want to know the upper limit of human intelligence you first have to look at the lower limit - here it is as defined by a descended ape,

"With civilised nations, the reduced size of the jaws from lessened use, the habitual play of different muscles serving to express different emotions, and the increased size of the brain from greater intellectual activity, have together produced a considerable effect on their general appearance in comparison with savages".

Charles Darwin 1871. (page 197)

 

[jammieg]

One of my own deeply rooted limitation and advantage seems to be that most everything I do is done by observation and then immitation because my accent is the same as where and when I grew up and likely many more things I haven't seen, and I don't think this is really a helpful way to true understanding, by that I mean I don't understand how to make fire and I never did and I never had to go through the process of induction and deduction to come to an understanding of making fire, I never had to debunk the Fire Gods that the rest of my clan believed in and were the givers of fire occasionally sent down by thunder and light to give myself hope that I might do it on my own and if I had been born thousands of years ago I most likely never would have figured it out because that's what heavy clothing is for anyway. There is an errie sense that humans today are far superior to ancient humans, it's possible this is almost completely a matter of immitation but I don't think immitation is the way that leads to new understandings but rather it is an extremely efficient way to mostly knowing and slightly understanding and the difference between getting along feeling crippled by having to understand or easily by immitation and a false or incomplete sense of true understanding in a highly complex world.

 

[loseyourname]

intelligence is the ability to utilize what one already has. to compare our abilities to a bat is to compare car to a bicycle. each are modes of transportation, but is one better then the other? only in specific instances. a car is much better at long distance travel, however a bike is much better at not polluting our environment and lower maintenance.

And? Again, the man's question was about the limits of our understanding. The problem here seems to be that you are answering the question posed in the title of thread, which is ambiguous, because you can define intelligence in any number of ways. I'm answering the question he actually asked in the post, which was about the limits of our understanding. Certainly you cannot think that there exist no such limits. You seem to have completely glossed over the fact that I just explained that I am not comparing the abilities of a bat to the abilities of a human:

While it is also beyond our sensory capacity to echolocate, that isn't what I was saying. That would indeed be a category mistake.

I think Nicomachus made a bit of a mistake in interpreting me as well, when he said that he could never envision what it's like to be me. My point was that we can't understand what it is like to see with echolocation. I use exactly the same visual sensory apparatus as he does, so he can certainly understand what it is like to see what I see, because he sees exactly the same thing. He cannot, however, imagine what it would be like to see that which a bat sees, because a bat uses sound waves rather than light waves, something that our brains are incapable of comprehending. For that matter, we can never understand how a shark senses the electrical impulses given off by the muscle contractions of other animals using its Organ of Lorenzini.

Regarding the Heisenberg Uncertainty, it seems to me that it places a limit on our knowledge, but not necessarily on our understanding. I do, however, suspect that is is beyond the capabilities of our brains to even understand quantum mechanics in the first place. We can write out the equations, and they might work extremely well, but ask any physicist if he truly understands what is happening at the quantum level and every one will tell you that they do not. Our brains evolved to understand objects and interactions at the macroscopic level that we are capable of sensing with only our own biological senses. Nor can we truly envision higher-dimensional space. The best we can do is design membrane models or Calabi-Yau spaces that reduce our familiar three dimensions to either two or one. We know, however, that these representations are nothing like the reality of the matter.

 

[loseyourname]

intelligence is the ability to utilize what one already has. to compare our abilities to a bat is to compare car to a bicycle. each are modes of transportation, but is one better then the other? only in specific instances. a car is much better at long distance travel, however a bike is much better at not polluting our environment and lower maintenance.

Just for fun, I looked into this matter a bit. I ran some calculations and figured out that if I used a mountain bike on flat terrain, I would burn about 98 calories (actually, kcal, but calories is the commons designation) per mile riding at 15 mph. So I imagined a 60 mile trip on flat even terrain, taken three times a week for one year. I could either ride the bike or take a car. My car gets about 30 mpg, so it would use up 2 gallons of gasoline on such a trip.

If I took the bike, I would burn a total of 5882 calories on one trip. If I took the car, it would burn 62,000 calories (the amount of calories in 2 gallons of gasoline). So certainly the bike is more fuel efficient. Let's look at the cost, however.

If I take the trip 3 times a year for one year (or if you want, if I commute a total of 180 miles per week) then I will have used up 312 gallons of gasoline by taking the car. At $2.25 per gallon, which is the low price you can find in the LA area, I will have spent $702 on fuel.

If I take the bike, I will require 5882 calories every time I take the trip. Let's assume I am a healthy vegetarian and I eat only wheat bran to prepare for my trips. Wheat bran gives an average of 70.31 calories per ounce, so I will require 84 ounces each trip. By taking the 3 times a week for one year (or 156 times), I will require a total of 13,104 ounces of wheat bran for the year. If I buy pure wheat barn from www.pricegrabber.com I can get it for $0.99 per 12 oz. This way, my total fuel costs for the year will $1,092 dollars. So I can save $390 each year by taking the car rather than the bike.

Now let's look at the time it takes. Given open highway on flat terrain, I can move at about 60 mph in the car, so the trip will take exactly one hour each time. Taking the trip 3 times a week for one year, I end up spending 156 hours in the car each year, or 6.5 days. I calculated the calorie expense on the bike at 15 mph, and at that pace, the trip will take me 4 hours. Multiplied out, I will spend a total of 624 hours on the bike each year, or 26 days. This is an additional 468 hours each year, or 19.5 days.

So in conclusion, although the bike is more fuel efficient, it is grossly less cost-efficient. Assuming you make $25,000 per year, which is an average starting salary out of college, your time is worth $12 an hour. So not only do you lose $390 directly by taking the bike, but you also lose $5616 of your time, for a grand deficit of $6006.

In case anyone is curious, you would also eat up about 1 bushel of wheat each year in order to get that much grain. An average acre of farmland in the state of Georgia yields about 40 bushels of wheat each year, so you would use up 1/40 of an acre. I don't know what the ecological impact of this is versus the impact of producing 312 gallons of gasoline. One barrel of crude oil produces about 19.5 gallons of gasoline, so you would use up 16 barrels by taking the car each year. In terms of pollution, 1 gallon of gasoline produces about 18.5 lbs of carbon dioxide, so taking the car would release 5780 lbs of carbon dioxide into the air over the course of the year. About 130 lbs of fertilizer is used per acre of farmland and 2.2 lbs of pesticide, so by consuming 1/40 of an acre, you would be contributing 0.055 lbs of pesticide and 3.25 lbs of fertilizer to groundwater pollution, which contributes to the eutrophication and destruction of streams, estuaries, and lakes. Producing that much fertilizer also releases a total of 1.66 lbs of gaseous pollutants into the air, which is pretty negligible.

So although the monetary cost of taking the bike is much greater than the cost of taking the car, the ecological cost of taking the car is much greater than taking the bike.

 

[Nicomachus]

Wow, you have a lot of time on your hands.
*Nico

 

[Kerrie]

i agree nico, that and a strong will to be proven right.

loseyourname, you only have proven what i stated earlier:

to compare our abilities to a bat is to compare car to a bicycle. each are modes of transportation, but is one better then the other? only in specific instances. a car is much better at long distance travel, however a bike is much better at not polluting our environment and lower maintenance.

if you had read my words more carefully, you would have seen the admission that a car is much better for long distance travels. i am unsure why your need to have posted such a lengthy debate over a point i already made.

here is a link to an excellent theory of different intelligences:
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm

i don't believe we can measure intelligence in one lump sum, but rather take different aspects such as this theory suggests.

also, is the (slow) process of a society evolving necessarily proof of higher intelligence then other societies on earth? when i state evolving, i am referring to how humans have evolved from not knowing what fire is, to the formation of knowledge that has allowed us to harness energy (electricy, etc) and understand just how our world works.

 

[loseyourname]

if you had read my words more carefully, you would have seen the admission that a car is much better for long distance travels. i am unsure why your need to have posted such a lengthy debate over a point i already made.

Ha! I wasn't trying to argue with what you said. I was just curious about exactly what the impact was, so I looked up some chemical equations, conversion factors, and did some calculations. Call me a nerd, but I actually find it fun to figure these things out. It makes it very hard to fool me with propaganda.

here is a link to an excellent theory of different intelligences:
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm

I've taken this test before, and though I won't comment on the theory itself, I will say that the test is bunk. It tests your preferences, not your aptitudes. I scored near the max on every intelligence other than interpersonal and intrapersonal.

i don't believe we can measure intelligence in one lump sum, but rather take different aspects such as this theory suggests.

Jeez, Kerrie, did you read the post I made before the one about the car? I'm pretty sure I cleared this up. You're answering the question in the title of the thread, which is about intelligence. There are a million different ways of defining intelligence, so I don't even see how you begin to answer that one. I'm answering the question asked in the post, which pertained to understanding, which I think is very obviously limited. I included several additional examples. Heck, most humans barely understand basic algebra.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I've taken this test before, and though I won't comment on the theory itself, I will say that the test is bunk. It tests your preferences, not your aptitudes. I scored near the max on every intelligence other than interpersonal and intrapersonal.

So the fact that you scored high is evidence the test is bunk? :)

 

[Kerrie]

So the fact that you scored high is evidence the test is bunk? :)

you beat me to it

 

[Kerrie]

I've taken this test before, and though I won't comment on the theory itself, I will say that the test is bunk. It tests your preferences, not your aptitudes.

There are a million different ways of defining intelligence, so I don't even see how you begin to answer that one. I'm answering the question asked in the post, which pertained to understanding, which I think is very obviously limited. I included several additional examples. Heck, most humans barely understand basic algebra.

you call the Multiple Intelligence Theory bunk, but then you claim there are a million different ways of defining intelligence...did you not read the link?? The theory is stating the that there are different forms of human intelligence. In the beginning of this thread you claimed:

We're never going to know exactly how a bat (or any other creature that uses echolocation to "see") experiences the world, which is a limit placed on us by evolution,

now you are claiming intelligence is about understanding. So what is your definition of intelligence??The ability to experience the world or understand it to the best of your abilities?

It's clearly evident you need to loseyourwilltoargue and gainsomerealperspective.

 

[loseyourname]

You call the Multiple Intelligence Theory bunk

though I won't comment on the theory itself

Funny how you missed that little caveat, which I specifically put in so that you wouldn't think I was calling the theory bunk.

now you are claiming intelligence is about understanding.

You're answering the question in the title of the thread, which is about intelligence. I'm answering the question asked in the post, which pertained to understanding . . .

Notice how I make a distinction there between understanding and intelligence. I'm not claiming intelligence is about understanding. I'm claiming that I'm answering the question "Is there a limit to human understanding?" Rather than the question "Is there a limit to human intelligence?"

It's clearly evident you need to loseyourwilltoargue and gainsomerealperspective.

Please don't make fun of me. It's very unbecoming, especially of a moderator.

 

[loseyourname]

So the fact that you scored high is evidence the test is bunk? :)

I will say that the test is bunk. It tests your preferences, not your aptitudes.

The fact that the test asked how you prefer to go about solving problems, rather than actually giving any problems to solve, is evidence that it is bunk. Again, it tests preferences, not aptitudes.

Just so that, hopefully, there is no further misunderstanding (though I get the distinct feeling there will be anyway), I will say one more time that I am not commenting on the theory itself. It may or may not be bunk. I have no idea. The way it was explained to me when I took the test, the theory seemed perfectly consistent and it makes sense, although I have no idea what kind of evidential backing it has. I am only saying that the test does not in any way measure a person's intelligence.

 

[Kerrie]

Funny how you missed that little caveat, which I specifically put in so that you wouldn't think I was calling the theory bunk.

i wasn't aware there was a link for a test on this page. i only provided a link to the this theory. why are you then commenting on a test?? and like SA commented, if you scored so well on the test, yet think the theory is bunk, it's not a wonder why you feel so misunderstood. your train of thought is extremely inconsistent and downright confusing.

Notice how I make a distinction there between understanding and intelligence. I'm not claiming intelligence is about understanding. I'm claiming that I'm answering the question "Is there a limit to human understanding?" Rather than the question "Is there a limit to human intelligence?"

if this is the case, you are then off topic. i think here you are trying to twist the words for whatever reason that is not worth arguing. if you are choosing to participate in this thread, then address the question being presented.

Please don't make fun of me. It's very unbecoming, especially of a moderator.

not poking fun, but rather making a point. stop being so sensitive and argumentative.

 

[loseyourname]

i wasn't aware there was a link for a test on this page. i only provided a link to the this theory.

You also didn't read my post very carefully, because I stated pretty clearly that I was not criticizing the theory. I stated that so that hopefully such a misunderstanding as this would not occur.

if this is the case, you are then off topic. i think here you are trying to twist the words for whatever reason that is not worth arguing.

Nope. I'm just answering the question that the author of the thread asked. I'll post it here for you to read once more:

Do you feel that humans will ever reach a point where they just won't be able to understand something?

Notice the word "understand." I am inclined to say that my posting about the limits of human understanding were not off-topic. But I suppose it's your call. This is your forum.

and like SA commented, if you scored so well on the test, yet think the theory is bunk, it's not a wonder why you feel so misunderstood.

All right. Let me state one last time, as unambiguously as I possibly can: I do not think that the theory is bunk. I do not even know the specifics of this theory. I have no idea what kind of evidential backing it has. For this reason, I am not commenting on the theory in any way, positive or negative. Is that clear enough for you, or should I repeat it a fifth time?

 

[Nicomachus]

What's the deal here? I thought we were discussing epistemology? As far as this theory ... What so it basically says "Some people are good at math and some people are not but are good with language" or whatever ... big deal. Nothing revolutionary there. Oh well.
*Nico

 

[Kerrie]

i agree nico. i believe there is a certain amount of biological influence coupled with a will that drives intelligence, whether it be expressed artistically, intellectually, athletically or emotionally. certainly there can be something said for artists and their abilities (music, classical, etc) that the average human is unable to achieve. as i stated before, the only limit is what we place on ourselves. to elaborate more on that point, we are in direct control of how far we can take ourselves within the boundaries of our biology. if more were convinced of this fact, humanity as a whole could achieve so much more then we already have.