So who here has the highest IQ score? I will make sure to kick your ass when you least expect it and claim my rightful place as prison.... GMG master. >:D
But seriously, seems that finally I'm getting a true estimation, which is 127-129. Anyone that has a score that is super high and doesn't mind sharing that info?
I'm curious because I have some questions to ask: the biggest one being how you feel about doing tasks or jobs that are mundane and way below your skill level? Do you have a quick temper or not? Do you see the downsides to just about everything? Trying to figure out some list of tendencies that may come along with this...
I had this Yahoo ID:
My_Binary_IQ_is_101
Reminds me of the old joke, "There are 11 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't." :P
Quote from: greg on April 22, 2019, 08:24:36 PM
Reminds me of the old joke, "There are 11 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't." :P
I'd think that'd be 10 kinds of people...
Quote from: springrite on April 22, 2019, 08:35:26 PM
I'd think that'd be 10 kinds of people...
So much for IQ 129!
:laugh:
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 22, 2019, 09:29:14 PM
So much for IQ 129!
:laugh:
My vote for wittiest post of the week.
IQ scores are such a mess. An IQ score tells how well you did in a certain IQ test compared to others. What kind of intelligence the test evaluates is one thing. The better tests try at least to be culturally neutral. Then there are the different scales using different deviations: 15, 16 and 24. So comparing different test using different deviations make little sense.
I did some IQ tests some 10-15 years ago and the results indicated that 2 % of people are more intelligent than me so I am just on Mensa level (not genius level thou which is something like the smartest 0.25 % of population I think). It was a relief to know that my difficulties in life (especially social problems) are not because of low intelligence, but something else. Later I discovered that this something else seems to be asperger.
I believe everyone has their own profile of intelligence and are good at some things and bad at some else. I have noticed that some logical problems come to me intantly as "self-evident" while some other make me really confused. Asperger, perhaps?
Intelligence doesn't protect from stupid opinions. A great example of this is James Wood, who is supposed to have an insane high IQ, but the man has quite moronic political views similar to some MAGA-people with one third of his IQ score. Stupidity comes from ignorance rather than intelligence, but intelligence can help being intellectually curious so that one becomes less ignorant of things.
Intelligence can be a curse too. The smartest person ever, James William Sidis struggled a lot in life for being so much smarter than others around. Imagine interacting with other people when even Albert Einstein appears dumb to you! ;D
I met a community college teacher who had an IQ of 86. A small press had published a book of her poetry. She seemed quite normal.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 04:24:08 AM
I met a community college teacher who had an IQ of 86. A small press had published a book of her poetry. She seemed quite normal.
IQ can be pretty variable between different tests for the same person. I had a student whose scores I saw. 106 on one test, 130 on another. That is 1.5 standard deviations, which is a lot.
IQ can be a useful measure in large aggregates where you have a lot of samples and the law of large numbers kicks in. But I am a skeptic when it comes to individual scores.
Quote from: Ken B on April 23, 2019, 07:38:11 AM
IQ can be pretty variable between different tests for the same person. I had a student whose scores I saw. 106 on one test, 130 on another. That is 1.5 standard deviations, which is a lot.
IQ can be a useful measure in large aggregates where you have a lot of samples and the law of large numbers kicks in. But I am a skeptic when it comes to individual scores.
That 106 is an anomaly, of what kind I don't know, but anyone capable of scoring in the 130 range should never score 106.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 07:45:16 AM
That 106 is an anomaly, of what kind I don't know, but anyone capable of scoring in the 130 range should never score 106.
Or vice versa 😉
Which is sorta my point.
Quote from: Ken B on April 23, 2019, 07:49:46 AM
Or vice versa 😉
Which is sorta my point.
I think it's asymmetrical. When the scores differ by that much the higher one is real. There are no real life Krell brain boosts that could allow a 106 scorer to occasionally score that much higher, even on different tests.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 04:24:08 AM
I met a community college teacher who had an IQ of 86. A small press had published a book of her poetry. She seemed quite normal.
Theoretically for everybody with an IQ of 114 there is someone with 86. Assuming the deviation of that IQ score is 16, about 20 % of population has a lower IQ score than that. So if your IQ score is 86 with a devitation of 16, every fifth person you meet in life would statistically do worse in that IQ test. Poetry maybe requires other kind of intelligance (emotional?) than what the tests are about. My sister writes difficult intellectually demanding poetry for living, but I don't now how she would do in IQ tests.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 07:56:34 AM
I think it's asymmetrical. When the scores differ by that much the higher one is real. There are no real life Krell brain boosts that could allow a 106 scorer to occasionally score that much higher, even on different tests.
There is random error in every test or measure. It is usually Gaussian or nearly so.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 07:56:34 AM
I think it's asymmetrical. When the scores differ by that much the higher one is real. There are no real life Krell brain boosts that could allow a 106 scorer to occasionally score that much higher, even on different tests.
The issue may be that different tests place more or less emphasis on different types of puzzles. It also seems to me that people exhibit different levels of real-world intelligence on different time scales. There are people who will look at a problem and get a lot of insight in a short time but don't tend to go deeper, and others who don't get the point at first but who will develop deeper insights upon reflection.
IQ is almost entirely meaningless. As far as I know the primary reason it was created was to measure "grade level" in school age children, so that ie a child in third grade whose IQ was two standard deviations above mean has a "fifth grade level" of ability and should be placed in advanced classes, or two standard deviations below mean a "first grade level" and therefore needs extra support, etc. There's not much in the way of research substantiating it as a measure of anything & indeed a good deal of research that has found it to be not a good predictor of basically anything.
That said I like Isaac Asimov's (apocryphal) response: he once took an IQ test and got a result of 135, but since he had completed the test in half the allotted time, he concluded that his actual IQ was 270, because that number flattered his ego much more.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 07:45:16 AM
That 106 is an anomaly, of what kind I don't know, but anyone capable of scoring in the 130 range should never score 106.
I agree. The results I got from various different tests where very consistent. The online test of Danish Mensa had 40 graphic problems which started with the easiest ones and got gradually more difficult. The first 10 problems where in my opionion extremely easy, but you need these to tell apart people of very low intelligence. I started to have difficulties at problem #34 and the last few problems where simply too challenging for me to solve within reasonable amount of time. Those problems are for the smartest people.
Quote from: Ken B on April 23, 2019, 08:00:55 AM
There is random error in every test or measure. It is usually Gaussian or nearly so.
I would choose to reverse engineer the problem from the consistency of results for individuals. If results are consistent enough so that you don't need to reapply for Mensa membership every year, and that any of a number of tests can qualify you, which is the case, than the bell is tall and narrow, which means that a wide difference of results is abnormal and has to be traced to a cause of the low result. Having once scored high, by Mensa rules you're a high scorer, as they are aware that no one accidentally or anomalously scores way above their capacity. You can score below your capacity. It's rare but it can happen. That is not the case for very high scores.
I will bet any amount of worthless fiat currency that a third test, or 300 tests, would show that the high score is the score within the usual range of variation.
Quote from: amw on April 23, 2019, 08:13:24 AM
IQ is almost entirely meaningless.
Taking an IQ test may help in knowing yourself better just like doing Cooper's test tell's you in how good condition you are physically. I had a phase in life in early 2000's when I feld I am an idiot for being so clumsy socially and learning some things slower than others, but IQ tests told me the reason is elsewhere (and later it turned out to be asperger). I know myself better, my strenghts and weaknesses. I don't feel bad anymore in social situations, because I know WHY I am clumsy and why I learn some things slowly*. Just as someone doesn't have a math head, I have asperger. I understand why "normal" people without asperger are bad/good at different things than I am.
* I really struggled with English language in school. I was almost hopeless, but then in university English suddenly opened to me in my 20's. Also, music theory has always been almost imcomprehensible for me, but now finally this year I suddenly understood a lot of it thanks to Jake Lizzio of Signal Music Studio Youtube channel. Finally I understand what chord progressions are about! Nobody was ever been able to make me understand these things, but Jake Lizzio did it. ;D The new understanding of music theory opened so many doors in my music making. It took decades, but I did it. That's slow learning for you. A lot of people seem to struggle with music theory and it seems people make bad questions and get even worse answers. When only major and minor scales are talked about a lot of things may remain confusing, but when you talk about all the modes from Ionian to Locrian things become clearer, at least for me. Jake Lizzio does just that.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 08:22:45 AM
I would choose to reverse engineer the problem from the consistency of results for individuals. If results are consistent enough so that you don't need to reapply for Mensa membership every year, and that any of a number of tests can qualify you, which is the case, than the bell is tall and narrow, which means that a wide difference of results is abnormal and has to be traced to a cause of the low result. Having once scored high, by Mensa rules you're a high scorer, as they are aware that no one accidentally or anomalously scores way above their capacity. You can score below your capacity. It's rare but it can happen. That is not the case for very high scores.
I will bet any amount of worthless fiat currency that a third test, or 300 tests, would show that the high score is the score within the usual range of variation.
FWIW I thought John, the student in question, one of the brightest in the class. Of course, these were Americans, so faint praise disclaimers ... ;D
Of course "IQ" tests measure something reproducible, and they are fine as long as it is understood that there are important aspects of human potential that are not measured. They are more appropriate for discovering unrecognized talent than for imposing limits on people.
Some people with high IQs are unsociable in way people think is stuck up. I don't think it's that, it's like in order to make themselves understood they have to explain things in a way that causes people to shut down. So instead they don't talk to most people about what interests them, and having no "small talk" to fall back on, they stay quiet.
"So Ernie, what've you been up to?"
"Oh, you know......."
Don't worry, I won't tell you. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/cheesy.gif)
Measured at 160+ as a 12 year old and subsequent tests over a few decades have basically backed this up.
Does this make me a genius - no way. With a score like this my high school principal was expecting me to go into medicine. However, it takes more than an IQ to make it and by the end of my penultimate year I simply lost interest in a program that catered for the masses, even though I was in the top classes.
It also takes perseverance which was a trait I didn't have in those days so I simply coasted. The perseverance and other important character traits came much later in life and I realise that your inner make up is far more important than intellectual capacity.
This brings me to the "gifted and talented" labels given, quite mistakenly, to children based solely on their intellectual acumen. What about the child who is physically gifted, or one whose musical abilities are other worldly. Why is there no standardised test for them?
There are lots of somewhat standardized and useful tests for physical abilities, e.g. a 30m or 50m dash with a running start, a 6 or 12 min run (to cover the longest possible distance) certain jumps (e.g. a "reach jump" measuring the difference between your reach while standing and jumping upwards), benchpress, deadlift, # of clean pullups etc.
And while not standardized, I am pretty sure there are also reliable tests for musicality.
Quote from: Holden on April 23, 2019, 10:46:11 AM
Measured at 160+ as a 12 year old and subsequent tests over a few decades have basically backed this up.
Does this make me a genius - no way. With a score like this my high school principal was expecting me to go into medicine. However, it takes more than an IQ to make it and by the end of my penultimate year I simply lost interest in a program that catered for the masses, even though I was in the top classes.
It also takes perseverance which was a trait I didn't have in those days so I simply coasted. The perseverance and other important character traits came much later in life and I realise that your inner make up is far more important than intellectual capacity.
This brings me to the "gifted and talented" labels given, quite mistakenly, to children based solely on their intellectual acumen. What about the child who is physically gifted, or one whose musical abilities are other worldly. Why is there no standardised test for them?
Yeah, well, a big part of the puzzle is just being consistent, the consciousness trait, work ethic, or whatever you want to call it. And probably the biggest is just sheer interest in whatever subject it is.
Quote from: Jo498 on April 23, 2019, 10:59:18 AM
And while not standardized, I am pretty sure there are also reliable tests for musicality.
Maybe, but no one really cares because there is big money involved in athletics (the NFL needs players, after all, to sell tickets), but not so much in music. For genres where the money is big, like pop or rap, even then most of the money goes to some performer, rather than some big corporation (there are record labels, sure, but nothing compares to the scope of a pro sports league). High school and college athletics are sort of like the tests for athletics, and pretty sure if all of those programs vanished tomorrow something as big as pro sports leagues could have enough lobbying power to get the government to enforce inclusion of sports programs in schools. But that probably wouldn't even be needed, though, because they pay for themselves, anyways.
Quote from: drogulus on April 23, 2019, 07:56:34 AM
I think it's asymmetrical. When the scores differ by that much the higher one is real. There are no real life Krell brain boosts that could allow a 106 scorer to occasionally score that much higher, even on different tests.
Seems accurate- no way someone could just luckily get a way higher score than whatever their "true" score is, but could easily do much worse. I think the number is supposed to be one's highest score.
It's similar to the number memorization site works (did i share this already?). It's a site where you have to type in a number you just saw... i could get up to 12 digits, but at that level it's pretty insane and at 13 digits it's just not possible for me. It's all about one's limits...
Quote from: Holden on April 23, 2019, 10:46:11 AM
Measured at 160+ as a 12 year old and subsequent tests over a few decades have basically backed this up.
Ok, I'm actually curious how well you could do at this, then. This is supposed to correlate a lot with IQ. Maybe you can do 14 digits. ???
https://www.humanbenchmark.com/dashboard/number-memory
I wonder why you are so fixated on mental tests. If they have any use it would be in planning for the education of a child based on a preliminary estimate of aptitude. Once you are grown life itself is the test, no?
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 23, 2019, 03:18:44 PM
I wonder why you are so fixated on mental tests. If they have any use it would be in planning for the education of a child based on a preliminary estimate of aptitude. Once you are grown life itself is the test, no?
Exactly. I understand its (limited) value but personally, I have refused to take the test.
Quote from: springrite on April 23, 2019, 05:10:02 PM
Exactly. I understand its (limited) value but personally, I have refused to take the test.
Smart. ;)
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 23, 2019, 03:18:44 PM
I wonder why you are so fixated on mental tests. If they have any use it would be in planning for the education of a child based on a preliminary estimate of aptitude. Once you are grown life itself is the test, no?
More like a f#$%ed up game with constantly changing rules, rather than a test.
Yeah, I was tested as a kid and was enrolled to the gifted program for a few years, then lost interest in school stuff and didn't do so well throughout high school- so that is true, it can be useful for planning a kid's education, but as always mentioned when it comes to IQ tests, as well as earlier in the thread, just doing the work itself is more important.
Not sure why I'm fascinated. If I had to guess, if you know your strengths, you have to focus on that stuff. And probably just having an overly competitive nature, which is not always a good thing. Just too much aggressive energy, dude... must be a survival mechanism, since the only thing that has helped me accomplish stuff is channeling that energy, rather than chilling out (that's a good way get nowhere real fast). I see IQ tests and think, "Only if my score were 200, then I could figure out how to rule the world and never have to do stuff I don't feel like doing ever again." :P
I am of average intelligence yet also cerebral. It's a curse. I am always feeling like Peter Schaffer's Salieri in everything I attempt.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 23, 2019, 03:18:44 PM
I wonder why you are so fixated on mental tests. If they have any use it would be in planning for the education of a child based on a preliminary estimate of aptitude. Once you are grown life itself is the test, no?
The United States higher education system uses mental tests to sort people into different tiers of schools, with the fruit of attending elite schools being gaining membership in the professional elite. I know I can get an elite score in the LSATs but only with the advantage of extra time. Brighter people can do it within the time constraints and even far quicker because their brains work faster. Higher IQ = faster brain = more likely to achieve respectable economic status in the West.
Quote from: lisa needs braces on April 24, 2019, 04:18:59 PM
The United States higher education system uses mental tests to sort people into different tiers of schools, with the fruit of attending elite schools being gaining membership in the professional elite. I know I can get an elite score in the LSATs but only with the advantage of extra time. Brighter people can do it within the time constraints and even far quicker because their brains work faster. Higher IQ = faster brain = more likely to achieve respectable economic status in the West.
And that is probably the biggest reason why I underestimated my score. I'm pretty slow... not only do I talk slow, but I'm usually the last one to get a joke and can't keep up with group conversations fast enough to say anything. And also concentration is an issue.
There is actually one IQ test online that I did, which seems like the most legitimate non-official IQ test that I've ever seen. It gives an average by country (which is almost the same as the official IQ averages), but the big twist with the test is that there's no time limit. But also, the questions are MUCH harder than the Mensa practice test I did. I got the same score on that one (128).
See, I'm not 100% sure that time is the only factor, even though I've heard that argument before. There was one question on that test that I sat there for a half an hour and simply could not see the pattern at all and just gave up. I doubt I could have ever figured it out. So you could be right, could be wrong, not really sure...
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 23, 2019, 03:18:44 PM
I wonder why you are so fixated on mental tests. If they have any use it would be in planning for the education of a child based on a preliminary estimate of aptitude. Once you are grown life itself is the test, no?
So I thought about this question more... and will probably keep on thinking about it. Very great question. ;D
I think the fundamental subconscious drive here at play is just wanting to learn (stemming from an extremely high openness to experience (big 5 factor)). It feels like learning about personality and psychology/etc. is more of a learning experience than something like theoretical physics because I don't have to set aside time apart from daily activities- research time for this stuff is minimal and I can apply it a lot in every day life. I've spent a ton of time thinking what categories my friends and family fit into in regards to MBTI or the Objective Personality system. I absolutely need constant new interesting information to think about, or I suffer from temporary anhedonia (maybe not exactly, but my best way of describing it) if I don't get enough interesting stuff to think about. And if you are in the routine of doing things every day, stuff gets really dull- so every time I have interactions with others, it gives me more information on how to categorize them. So it's good in the sense that it's just reworking information that I already know. And as for doing self-tests, it's always best to start with yourself in order to understand the systems.
Quote from: 71 dB on April 23, 2019, 03:35:59 AM
IQ scores are such a mess. An IQ score tells how well you did in a certain IQ test compared to others. What kind of intelligence the test evaluates is one thing. The better tests try at least to be culturally neutral. Then there are the different scales using different deviations: 15, 16 and 24. So comparing different test using different deviations make little sense.
I did some IQ tests some 10-15 years ago and the results indicated that 2 % of people are more intelligent than me so I am just on Mensa level (not genius level thou which is something like the smartest 0.25 % of population I think). It was a relief to know that my difficulties in life (especially social problems) are not because of low intelligence, but something else. Later I discovered that this something else seems to be asperger.
I believe everyone has their own profile of intelligence and are good at some things and bad at some else. I have noticed that some logical problems come to me intantly as "self-evident" while some other make me really confused. Asperger, perhaps?
Intelligence doesn't protect from stupid opinions. A great example of this is James Wood, who is supposed to have an insane high IQ, but the man has quite moronic political views similar to some MAGA-people with one third of his IQ score. Stupidity comes from ignorance rather than intelligence, but intelligence can help being intellectually curious so that one becomes less ignorant of things.
Intelligence can be a curse too. The smartest person ever, James William Sidis struggled a lot in life for being so much smarter than others around. Imagine interacting with other people when even Albert Einstein appears dumb to you! ;D
I had a lot of thoughts about your post...
First of all, I did look up top IQ people before, so I've heard of that guy. What a strange existence it must have been. The curse is high expectations. There is a kid in Singapore with an IQ well over 200, and I can't imagine what sort of expectations he must have. It can cause a narcissism disorder- Sam Vaknin, who has one of the highest IQ scores in the world, has personally experienced this and is an expert on the topic.
So, in Jungian terms, especially based on what I've read from your posts before, you are almost definitely lead Ti (Introverted Thinking). People that have this often are socially awkward because of the inferior Fe (Extroverted Feeling). It is basically "My Reasons" versus "Your Values." They are basically opposites, and if you heavily identify/feel responsible for one, then the other is supposed to be the struggle. An example of lead Ti is Elon Musk, as his attempts to be likable are very awkward, but sometimes they just work. Other examples include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Jordan Peterson, Bill Nye... they sort of have to figure out this stuff, whereas for others it's natural (Fe users include Oprah, Tom Cruise, Katie Couric, Benedict Cumberbatch, etc.) You can sort of notice the difference, even disregarding profession. Intellect vs. Charisma.
For Aspergers, one possible explanation is high IQ, but low "EQ" (emotional IQ). I believe this is the same as the body language tests... basically Aspergers people are supposedly not great at comprehending social cues (I knew one guy that was literally this lol). It would be interesting to see what their scores would be when taking the body language tests. I did one once, and scored average (yawn). I never felt "socially awkward" much more than the average person (feeling this way is a pretty common complaint) but definitely a strong feeling of disinterest/alienation/avoidance, for sure, when not around people I genuinely click with (and this can last for quite a while at a time, until I meet the right people).
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 23, 2019, 03:18:44 PM
... Once you are grown life itself is the test, no?
As often, Scarps cuts to the heart of the matter. Life really is the only test, and I find it disturbing to face that truth. When I was 15, I supposed that one day I'd get to the bottom of it all. I never did, and I've tried enough different approaches during the succeeding 50-odd years to suppose I never shall. IQ doesn't seem to help with this. I seem to be intelligent enough to recognise the Problems (I'm talking about Big Life Problems, not about how to clear the drains), but not usually the Solutions. I often find myself reluctantly tending to side with Wittgenstein, and suppose that the Big Questions we ask about Life are really nonsense questions, arising from a misunderstanding of what language can do. But the moment I write that down, I rebel and think, no - that's just an evasion, too.
The best practical solution that my 'intelligence' can come up with is to play the game and just be in it for the ride, but that is hardly a recommendation for intelligence. I do feel quite often that it would be nice to just think that a door is just a door, and a table just a table, never having questioned what they really are.
QuoteLife really is the only test, and I find it disturbing to face that truth.
Whatever life really only is, it's not an intelligence test.
Quote from: lisa needs braces on April 24, 2019, 04:18:59 PM
Higher IQ = faster brain
That's correct. This shows up not only in faster problem solving in a test, but faster general information processing in life means more processing gets done before fatigue, boredom and frustration sets in.
Quote from: drogulus on April 25, 2019, 04:49:25 AM
Whatever life really only is, it's not an intelligence test.
It's a survival test. For what point? Perhaps if he have interdimensional aliens who created the simulation, they'd no the point. But then what is the point of their survival? Or is death the point of life?
Thanks for the flattery. :)
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 25, 2019, 12:35:22 AMThe best practical solution that my 'intelligence' can come up with is to play the game and just be in it for the ride, but that is hardly a recommendation for intelligence. I do feel quite often that it would be nice to just think that a door is just a door, and a table just a table, never having questioned what they really are.
My view is that the best measure of "intelligence" is the ability to make the "ride" rewarding. There's an aspect of intelligence which involves solving puzzles, and another in judging which puzzles are worth solving. Like many, I find the first of these less complicated than the second.
Quote from: drogulus on April 25, 2019, 04:49:25 AMThat's correct. This shows up not only in faster problem solving in a test, but faster general information processing in life means more processing gets done before fatigue, boredom and frustration sets in.
As I expressed somewhere above, speed is part of it, not all of it. I think some people have slower thought processes but can eventually understand in more depth. It is not simply a matter of more patience, as you seem to imply.
Speed is the part that is easy to measure.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 25, 2019, 09:26:01 AM
As I expressed somewhere above, speed is part of it, not all of it. I think some people have slower thought processes but can eventually understand in more depth. It is not simply a matter of more patience, as you seem to imply.
Speed is the part that is easy to measure.
It's not simply patience, it's that patience is rewarded. If you have high intelligence you will have different experiences about what kind of problems can be solved before you give up. Speed doesn't have to feel like speed to you, or to an observer, it's how the speed changes your behavior. To me it feels like comprehending something with ease, not speed. But then that's what speed would feel like.
Quote from: greg on April 25, 2019, 09:12:36 AM
It's a survival test. For what point? Perhaps if he have interdimensional aliens who created the simulation, they'd no the point. But then what is the point of their survival? Or is death the point of life?
Points don't come from outside the system. They are endogenous, like money.
(http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/tongue.gif)
Quote from: drogulus on April 25, 2019, 10:00:12 AM
Points don't come from outside the system. They are endogenous, like money. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/tongue.gif)
This sort of thinking tends to lead to the whole Buddhist "the point is the present," since when you develop your own goals in life, you realize that eventually even though you worked hard at something, it's either accomplished or you die, so what's the point?
But to me that is sort of a cop out. I think you could make it a point to accomplish one's goals as a middle finger to reality, since you were born, with desires, despite having no choice in the matter, so the only fate of life is to struggle. But no one can take away achievements, they exist forever, and nothing can change that. Even if no one is aware of it. Only reality itself is aware of it. So all of your achievements, and the point of your life, can just be a middle finger to reality, which might be the best way of looking at an existential question like that. Better than nihilism, I guess.
Quote from: greg on April 25, 2019, 11:58:25 AM
This sort of thinking tends to lead to the whole Buddhist "the point is the present," since when you develop your own goals in life, you realize that eventually even though you worked hard at something, it's either accomplished or you die, so what's the point?
You want
your point to be
the point in a kind of "view from nowhere" way.
How do you
not develop your own goals in life? You can make it a goal to discover the Meaning Of Life, if you're so inclined which, I'm sorry to say, you are. But it's still you choosing it.
(http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/smiley.gif)
Yeah, but when it's temporary and completed, you can still ask "what's the point?" I think what I'm looking to for "points" is really permanence. Which seems to me a bit of a different question of you what you are saying, which is about who decides what the point is, rather than what the point is.
To put more simply: yeah, I can decide what the point is, but is there permanence to it?
Anyways, that sort of led me into thinking that maybe the ultimate god is either reality itself, or the entirety possibilities. If some god could rewind time and change history, it still doesn't mean that stuff didn't happen. It's like deleting stuff from a hard drive. It's not there now, but it was before. There may be a separate universe which holds information about everything that ever happened somewhere out there...
But that is an entirely different discussion. :D
Quote from: greg on April 25, 2019, 01:18:35 PM
But that is an entirely different discussion. :D
This one is different enough, don't you think?
(http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/huh.gif)
Q: Why don't you worry about the point of life?
A: I'm busy.
Quote from: drogulus on April 25, 2019, 03:09:54 PM
This one is different enough, don't you think? (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/huh.gif)
Q: Why don't you worry about the point of life?
A: I'm busy.
Yeah, except when you are able to juggle too many different thoughts at once, not many things will keep you busy enough to not worry about such topics (or other topics).
Especially when it's such simple tasks like mowing the lawn- I used to get into these types of thoughts a lot, but at the end, it's really... who cares? :P The thoughts themselves were just useful as a fun way to cope with the incredibly boring and unpleasant task of pushing a lawn mover for an hour in sweltering heat.
Something that is not your thinking is interfering with your thinking. The answer won't be found by thinking the right thoughts but by dealing with the interference.
Quote from: greg on April 25, 2019, 11:58:25 AM
This sort of thinking tends to lead to the whole Buddhist "the point is the present," since when you develop your own goals in life, you realize that eventually even though you worked hard at something, it's either accomplished or you die, so what's the point?
But to me that is sort of a cop out. I think you could make it a point to accomplish one's goals as a middle finger to reality, since you were born, with desires, despite having no choice in the matter, so the only fate of life is to struggle. But no one can take away achievements, they exist forever, and nothing can change that. Even if no one is aware of it. Only reality itself is aware of it. So all of your achievements, and the point of your life, can just be a middle finger to reality, which might be the best way of looking at an existential question like that. Better than nihilism, I guess.
Why pine away over the fact that nothing is permanent, when nothing is, in fact, permanent. Does getting upset the things are not permanent make things any more permanent? No.
The process is what we have, so if there is enjoyment to be had, it is in the process, despite the fact that it is not permanent. Becoming attached to impermanent things is a recipe for dissatisfaction.
One should take advantage of the sources of satisfaction that evolution and biology has given us. Social interaction, the internal reward of helping others, the satisfaction of doing things well, the satisfaction of being in the presence of beauty, the satisfaction of creating something, whether it is permanent or not.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 25, 2019, 03:49:03 PM
Becoming attached to impermanent things is a recipe for dissatisfaction.
Yeah, but this leads ultimately to nihilism.
Quote from: greg on April 25, 2019, 03:52:07 PM
Yeah, but this leads ultimately to nihilism.
In my case, it doesn't. Not that I am not in some sense attached to things, but I accept that at some point they will be gone and I will have to find something else to occupy myself with. I don't feel that it is pointless to create something because it won't last forever.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 25, 2019, 03:59:58 PM
In my case, it doesn't. Not that I am not in some sense attached to things, but I accept that at some point they will be gone and I will have to find something else to occupy myself with. I don't feel that it is pointless to create something because it won't last forever.
I would qualify it as an attachment, though. Basically any goal that, once accomplished, causes positive emotions once achieved, necessarily brings attachment to it. Because if not achieved, negative emotions will be felt, even if shrugged off. If that isn't attachment, I don't know what is. Probably being
overly attached is more in line to what you mean.
It's at this stage of such a discussion that I ask myself 'What would Wittgenstein have said?' (Not, I hasten to add, that I would necessarily understand what he said!) But he would (I suppose) ask us to question what we mean by the words we are using - especially in this case, words like 'point', 'pointless' and so on - and then I think he would suggest we were asking nonsense questions.
Suppose I ask my wise friend Scarpia, 'what is the point of hitting this nail with that hammer?' He might reply, 'to drive the nail into the wood'; or 'to make a bird table' - or some such response. Our intelligence is capable of seeing, understanding, and expressing a 'point' of that limited sort. We get used to asking such questions, expecting such answers, and we expect that a question like, 'What is the point of my life?' also has an answer. It looks like an inoccuous question, grammatically speaking, but presumably Wittgenstein would include it among questions like, 'why is a mouse if it spins?', or 'how far is it to yesterday?'
The trouble with the Wittgenstein approach (even assuming I understand it properly, which is not a given), is that the moment I accept it, another, intuitive, voice pops up saying 'hang on, hang on - still, it feels, in my bones, like a proper question'.
Like the washing up, the thing never stays done.
Quote from: greg on April 24, 2019, 07:13:16 PM
I had a lot of thoughts about your post...
First of all, I did look up top IQ people before, so I've heard of that guy. What a strange existence it must have been. The curse is high expectations. There is a kid in Singapore with an IQ well over 200, and I can't imagine what sort of expectations he must have. It can cause a narcissism disorder- Sam Vaknin, who has one of the highest IQ scores in the world, has personally experienced this and is an expert on the topic.
Of living people matematician Terence Tao is said to have the highest IQ in the World, around 230.
Quote from: greg on April 24, 2019, 07:13:16 PMSo, in Jungian terms, especially based on what I've read from your posts before, you are almost definitely lead Ti (Introverted Thinking). People that have this often are socially awkward because of the inferior Fe (Extroverted Feeling). It is basically "My Reasons" versus "Your Values." They are basically opposites, and if you heavily identify/feel responsible for one, then the other is supposed to be the struggle. An example of lead Ti is Elon Musk, as his attempts to be likable are very awkward, but sometimes they just work. Other examples include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Jordan Peterson, Bill Nye... they sort of have to figure out this stuff, whereas for others it's natural (Fe users include Oprah, Tom Cruise, Katie Couric, Benedict Cumberbatch, etc.) You can sort of notice the difference, even disregarding profession. Intellect vs. Charisma.
Yes, I am introvert and subject oriented. Introvert people aren't anti-social, but social differently than extrovert people. I believe extrovert people are superior socially in larger groups of people.
Quote from: greg on April 24, 2019, 07:13:16 PMFor Aspergers, one possible explanation is high IQ, but low "EQ" (emotional IQ). I believe this is the same as the body language tests... basically Aspergers people are supposedly not great at comprehending social cues (I knew one guy that was literally this lol). It would be interesting to see what their scores would be when taking the body language tests. I did one once, and scored average (yawn). I never felt "socially awkward" much more than the average person (feeling this way is a pretty common complaint) but definitely a strong feeling of disinterest/alienation/avoidance, for sure, when not around people I genuinely click with (and this can last for quite a while at a time, until I meet the right people).
Asperger is a milder form of autism and my aspenger seems to be of milder type. If I had severe aspenger it would have been diagnosed in my childhood I think. My sister though I have asperger after reading about it and told me. I had never even heard the term, but I looked it up online. Some symptoms of asperger I recognized strongly in myself (that's me! -reaction), but not all and it's clear I don't have some symptoms and my sister agrees (such as not recognizing facial expressions). Anyway, it helps to know why some things are difficult for me and also why some things are easy for me. What is a bit depressing is that this World is optimised for normal people because normal people are the majority.
- social situations with
many (more than 3-4) people seem chaotic and exhausting for me and I am in trouble. After learning about asperger I have practised "surviving" these circumstances. I can't control the situations any better, but they are less chaotic and exhausting when I give myself the license to relax and not controlling anything. In a group of 10 people I simple "ignore" most of them and concentrate on a few of them. Many that's what normal people do "naturally", but to me it's ignoring most people, pretending as if they wheren't there. One problem of larger groups of people is that the topics discussed circle around what interests most people, but I am excentric and what interests me is quite different from average people. So, the only way to participate is to make "stupid questions" about things I know less about (sports, alcohol drinks etc.) than others. Not my idea of having a good time...
- I learn certain type of things very slowly.
- I am punctual. I am almost always on time (and when late it's not
my fault - the damn bus driver f**ked up!). To me it's insane to be late. That's why we have clocks! Clocks are meaningless without punctuality. If I am 15 minutes late I rob someones 15 minutes when he/she has to wait for me. Being on time is relatively easy: Leave early enough!
- random detail are important to me. To me the hinge screws of a door can be of wrong shape or color while most people don't care at all how the screws of a hinge look like. Autistic people are like that too I believe, but I don't
panic over wrong hinge screws. I just say myself the screws could have better shape and color. I think I am good at spotting things that could be improved, things that "normal" people don't see because they don't pay attention to random detail.
- to me all people are equal. Titles mean nothing. Hobos on streets and presidents are the same to me. People. Hierarchy is about people pretending some people are above other people. I want an equal fair World, one reason why am politically left. In Finnish sauna people are equal. Naked and equal. Titles are left to the dressing room.
- I keep what I promise and I don't promise what I feel can't perhaps keep. To me promising something you don't keep is insane. When you promise something it means other people
rely on you keeping the promise and not keeping the promise has consequences from nonexisting to massive problems. In my opinion saying "I promise to do X" means "Doing X is easy enough/not too hard for me to do."
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 25, 2019, 03:49:03 PM
Becoming attached to impermanent things is a recipe for dissatisfaction.
Yoda says that a lot. ;)
Quote from: greg on April 25, 2019, 05:46:04 PM
I would qualify it as an attachment, though. Basically any goal that, once accomplished, causes positive emotions once achieved, necessarily brings attachment to it. Because if not achieved, negative emotions will be felt, even if shrugged off. If that isn't attachment, I don't know what is. Probably being overly attached is more in line to what you mean.
You have framed the problem in a way it will never be solved. The problem is you feel bad, not that you have the wrong thoughts or the wrong point or no point. People who feel good, or good enough, can have any goal or point or think about anything. People who feel bad think there's no point. The arrow of causation goes from the feelings to the thoughts.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 25, 2019, 11:52:59 PM
It's at this stage of such a discussion that I ask myself 'What would Wittgenstein have said?' (Not, I hasten to add, that I would necessarily understand what he said!) But he would (I suppose) ask us to question what we mean by the words we are using - especially in this case, words like 'point', 'pointless' and so on - and then I think he would suggest we were asking nonsense questions.
Suppose I ask my wise friend Scarpia, 'what is the point of hitting this nail with that hammer?' He might reply, 'to drive the nail into the wood'; or 'to make a bird table' - or some such response. Our intelligence is capable of seeing, understanding, and expressing a 'point' of that limited sort. We get used to asking such questions, expecting such answers, and we expect that a question like, 'What is the point of my life?' also has an answer. It looks like an inoccuous question, grammatically speaking, but presumably Wittgenstein would include it among questions like, 'why is a mouse if it spins?', or 'how far is it to yesterday?'
The trouble with the Wittgenstein approach (even assuming I understand it properly, which is not a given), is that the moment I accept it, another, intuitive, voice pops up saying 'hang on, hang on - still, it feels, in my bones, like a proper question'.
Like the washing up, the thing never stays done.
It is at this point in the discussion that I think, who is this Wittgenstein? :)
It seems like I would generally agree with him. For a while I was interested in the writings of Bertrand Russell, who once remarked on Descartes famous statement "I think therefore I am," that never have so many errors been encapsulated in so few words. (I'm paraphrasing). Russell was also one of the people to note that often when early philosophers were drawing conclusions about the nature of existence they were really drawing conclusions about the grammar of their native language. Imagine then what it means to read philosophy in translation. :)
As to the question, "what is the meaning of life," I don't find it an invalid question, I find it an unimportant question. At one point I was working as a physicist in biology and the most difficult thing was finding out what is important. At one point I made a slide showing a cartoon with a group of mechanics studying a car to see why it won't run, and there was the physicist exclaiming, "the resistance of the cigarette lighter coil is 17 ohms!" I didn't want to be that guy.
What is the meaning of life? There is none. Soon we will be dead. The sun will swell and engulf the earth. Long before that the human race will be extinct, maybe sooner than we think. There is no ultimate meaning. Next question.
It doesn't mean that we can't find satisfaction in the life that has been given us.
Quote from: drogulus on April 26, 2019, 05:36:46 AM
You have framed the problem in a way it will never be solved. The problem is you feel bad, not that you have the wrong thoughts or the wrong point or no point. People who feel good, or good enough, can have any goal or point or think about anything. People who feel bad think there's no point. The arrow of causation goes from the feelings to the thoughts.
This isn't about me, just to clarify... I'm still getting on with projects and such, since why not. Gotta satisfy the drive to do cool stuff and have happy chemicals, even if what it produces isn't permanent. I guess that would be the point.
Just trying to describe some people who will feel this sort of nihilistic way of thinking- they do have logic to back up their negativity. If they place so much value on permanence, then yeah, everything will be meaningless and pointless.
And to derail the thread even further, because it's MY THREAD and I can derail as MUCH AS I WANT (HAHAHAHA >:D ), the conversation about attachment yesterday made me realize that psychopaths and Buddhists are actually incredibly similar. I think the Buddhist non-attachment is simply psychopathy taken to its final destination. Psychopaths aren't attached to anything, and barely attached to themselves, as proven by their fearlessness and recklessness. But I'd argue they do have a little bit of attachment to themselves- but mostly just their base fundamental drives- mainly money and sex. Buddhists, on the other hand, when you remove the attachment to the selfish fundamental drives, it changes everything, making the ability to put others ahead of themselves, while simultaneously not becoming attached to them, possible. So they just end up being great people instead.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 26, 2019, 08:21:27 AM
As to the question, "what is the meaning of life," I don't find it an invalid question, I find it an unimportant question.
I get that (see next paragraph). Wittgenstein, though, would insist that it isn't a proper question at all, so it is neither important nor unimportant because it isn't a 'thing'.
There is something to be said for the idea that when we are living life at its fullest, and richest, we don't ask the question at all. So perceived 'meaning' (if we can call it that) is a kind of existential state - experienced rather than understood. That seems to be the Scarpia philosophy? I think it has a lot going for it!
But always, always, I have to remind myself of David Hume: 'Reason is the slave of the passions'. Generally speaking, in these kind of abstract thought processes we will tend to use our 'reason' to reach the conclusion we want. Not perhaps because the reasoning, as such, is invalid, but because we choose premises (perhaps subconsciously) appropriate to a conclusion we prefer.
Intelligence, then, doesn't seem to be all that valuable in this kind of discussion. Great for measuring the resistance of a car's cigarette lighter though.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 26, 2019, 01:08:50 PM
I get that (see next paragraph). Wittgenstein, though, would insist that it isn't a proper question at all, so it is neither important nor unimportant because it isn't a 'thing'.
It would make sense as a question in the context of religion, since that meaning will be given by a god.
Quote from: greg on April 26, 2019, 05:08:11 PM
It would make sense as a question in the context of religion, since that meaning will be given by a god.
Wittgenstein wouldn't accept that though. He would unpick the statement about 'meaning being given by a god' and show that it, too, was the result of a linguistic confusion.
I'm not speaking here as an
advocate of Wittgenstein's philosophy (though some would regard him as the foremost philosopher of the 20th century). I'm just the (inadequate) messenger.
I recommend Thomas Nagel's short book "The last word" (from the late 1990s or so) for a brief critique (among other things) why language analysis does not make metaphysics go away. The 20th century philosophers had many good points where they showed that their predecessors had been misled by "surface grammar". But they erred even more in the opposite direction and it is simply impossible to make all contentful questions (be they ethical or metaphysical) go away by language analysis. We can also develop languages if we encounter new fields in thought or nature that don't "fit well" with natural language. The very criticism of errors because of "surface grammar" show that our thoughts are not bound by any particular (natural or formal) language.
There are also some things that have to be recognized and accepted because otherwise we could not say anything meaningful. Wittgenstein would then say things like: I have hit rock bottom and the spade bounces back, so I can only say, that simply is the way I think. (quoted and translated from memory).
This sound like a relativization of the particular rock bottom structure to "my language game". But this is obviously not the only (or the most plausible way) to think about the "rock bottom". Far more convincing is that a rock bottom thing like the validity of modus ponens or some other basic rule of logic is simply valid and I could not argue at all if I did not recognize it as valid. It's part of any reasonable "language game" (or the "master games" or whatever) Cf. Carroll's funny text with the Tortoise and Achilles trying to found modus ponens in something else.
It's obviously more difficult to argue along similar lines for fields like metaphysics, ethics etc. that are not as indispensable as basic logics although they are still very general and presupposed by many other fields of thought. But it can be done, has been done (it was common core of most thinkers until fairly recently) and I don't think the skeptics or language relativists have refuted it. Finally, in practice there is no other way then to pretend. Scientists will usually pretend to find out objective facts about a world "out there", not to engage in a particularly difficult language game and similarly for fields like law.
Quote from: Jo498 on April 26, 2019, 11:54:46 PM
Finally, in practice there is no other way then to pretend. Scientists will usually pretend to find out objective facts about a world "out there", not to engage in a particularly difficult language game and similarly for fields like law.
This is certainly what we do, though most of us would not be conscious of the act of pretending. I pretend I understand what a table is, and the pretence works in the practical sense that when I put my coffee on it, it doesn't fall onto my lap (and science is a kind of extension of this).
My point is, though (did I actually have a point?) that I'm not sure whether 'intelligence' helps us, beyond the merely practical. For me, it doesn't really matter whether Wittgensteinian analysis is refuted or not; it never helped me in any substantial form anyway. As always (this is where I came in), it helped me to see a problem, but not a solution. It seems that the whole process of applying intelligence, beyond the needs of the merely practical, tends to result in a multiplication of problems without solutions.
Quote from: greg on April 26, 2019, 09:17:58 AM
This isn't about me, just to clarify... I'm still getting on with projects and such, since why not. Gotta satisfy the drive to do cool stuff and have happy chemicals, even if what it produces isn't permanent. I guess that would be the point.
Just trying to describe some people who will feel this sort of nihilistic way of thinking- they do have logic to back up their negativity. If they place so much value on permanence, then yeah, everything will be meaningless and pointless.
If I felt that life had no point but wanted to communicate that to other people, I would have no choice but to produce a stream of logic leading from an initial assumption to a necessary conclusion. If the conclusion is suspect it's the assumption and not the logic that is most often the source of difficulty.
Also, why do no-pointers want to communicate their ideas? What's the
point?
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 26, 2019, 05:51:55 PM
Wittgenstein wouldn't accept that though. He would unpick the statement about 'meaning being given by a god' and show that it, too, was the result of a linguistic confusion.
I'm not speaking here as an advocate of Wittgenstein's philosophy (though some would regard him as the foremost philosopher of the 20th century). I'm just the (inadequate) messenger.
I'm not sure how.... :-X
I mean, it should be pretty clear. In a religion, a god determines the meaning of your existence. There's really nothing to pick apart there.
Quote from: drogulus on April 27, 2019, 07:07:25 AM
If I felt that life had no point but wanted to communicate that to other people, I would have no choice but to produce a stream of logic leading from an initial assumption to a necessary conclusion. If the conclusion is suspect it's the assumption and not the logic that is most often the source of difficulty.
Also, why do no-pointers want to communicate their ideas? What's the point?
I don't think there's that many people who are adamant about communicating nihilism to others.
Quote from: greg on April 27, 2019, 08:11:07 AM
I'm not sure how.... :-X
I mean, it should be pretty clear. In a religion, a god determines the meaning of your existence. There's really nothing to pick apart there.
I don't think there's that many people who are adamant about communicating nihilism to others.
There aren't that many nihilists and all of them want to communicate the idea.
(http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/cheesy.gif)
Quote from: greg on April 27, 2019, 08:11:07 AM
I'm not sure how....
I'm not a Wittgenstein expert, so neither am I. I suspect (someone correct me if I'm wrong, for I am out of my depth) he might say that a sentence like 'a god provides me with a meaning for life' is a tautology. The sentence says nothing about the god, or about the meaning, beyond the mere definition of what we define a god to be.
I'm uncomfortable with the religious twist here though, and would much rather be talking about what a table is.
Quote from: drogulus on April 27, 2019, 10:39:10 AM
There aren't that many nihilists and all of them want to communicate the idea. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/cheesy.gif)
Really? :D
Idk, that wasn't my impression, maybe you are just more familiar with the nihilist community than I.
Quote from: drogulus on April 27, 2019, 07:07:25 AM
If the conclusion is suspect it's the assumption and not the logic that is most often the source of difficulty.
Yes. And yes again.
A little bit disappointed no one with a higher or same IQ than mine has mentioned what sort of challenges they faced with doing mundane jobs and such, unless I missed it.
It's like driving a Ferrari but being stuck in a 20 mph zone all day long. For years. Just still wanting clarification on what was actually going on for 8 years of my life.
Quote from: greg on April 29, 2019, 10:48:29 AM
A little bit disappointed no one with a higher or same IQ than mine has mentioned what sort of challenges they faced with doing mundane jobs and such, unless I missed it.
It's like driving a Ferrari but being stuck in a 20 mph zone all day long. For years. Just still wanting clarification on what was actually going on for 8 years of my life.
There are a lot of mundane jobs that very intelligent people do. In fact, any job can become mundane if it's something that no longer interests you. Best thing to do is have an escape route or when you come home escape into your own world. This is something I do every time I come home from work. My job isn't something I hate, but I don't love it either. In fact, I don't think I'd ever be happy with any job even if it was an actual career, because there's still a tendency for me to become bored with it.
Quote from: greg on April 29, 2019, 10:48:29 AM
A little bit disappointed no one with a higher or same IQ than mine has mentioned what sort of challenges they faced with doing mundane jobs and such, unless I missed it.
It's like driving a Ferrari but being stuck in a 20 mph zone all day long. For years. Just still wanting clarification on what was actually going on for 8 years of my life.
Isn't life full of mundane things? I suspect it's not the mundaneness that's the problem, but our attitude to them. I'm not sure that increased intelligence necessarily implies that there will be fewer mundane things. I can tell you from lengthy experience, for instance, that marking examination scripts is one of the most mind-numbing activities I know, for all the intelligence it calls for in order to do it properly.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 29, 2019, 11:18:32 AM
Isn't life full of mundane things?
Yeah, and that's why it's important to do exciting things.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 29, 2019, 11:18:32 AM
I suspect it's not the mundaneness that's the problem, but our attitude to them.
Maybe for others. But it is 100% biological for me, not just a conscious change in attitude.
The closest answer I've been able to get is through Jungian psychology, but that isn't enough for me, either. Also I've read quite a bit about personality disorders, and don't seem to have one (though I can relate in some ways to several) except for maybe "ADHD" (which is arguably not even a real thing).
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 29, 2019, 11:18:32 AM
I'm not sure that increased intelligence necessarily implies that there will be fewer mundane things.
Well... what I'm trying to say here is the opposite. Smarter people will find more things boring because their mind works fast. This seems to be the case based on my research on Quora, but the high IQ people who seem to never be bored are also working in some intellectual fields they enjoy.
For me, often even communicating can be annoying itself because I've already thought of the conversation beforehand, what questions will be asked, what I would respond, etc. and I hate repeating myself. So it's like the same frustration when doing any simple repetitive task... even in cases where it involves many steps, sometimes. I used to do a process at work about 4-5 times a week that would take ~20 minutes and involve ~20 steps from memory, and even that was just tedious. ::)
Anyways, it may even have nothing to do with IQ, just an unlucky combination of combination of personality characteristics that means an extreme aversion to mundane/tedious/repetitive things... which has no name, has no definition from no one. Great. ::)
Quote from: greg on April 29, 2019, 09:02:22 PM
Yeah, and that's why it's important to do exciting things.
Well, mostly I live for kicks, so of course I agree completely. I'm just saying that quite a lot of mundaneness can't be avoided. My teeth don't stay brushed. The pots don't stay washed.
QuoteMaybe for others. But it is 100% biological for me, not just a conscious change in attitude.
Obviously I can't know just how bad it makes you feel, but I've done my fair share of gritting my teeth to grind through big swathes of boring stuff. Sometimes I managed to find a different approach; sometimes I couldn't, and just did it, eye fixed only on its ending.
If it's physical labour, I've found the mind can definitely play a part, though it can involve some will power and exercise of the imagination. I remember one occasion a very long time ago when I was doing a labouring job, I used the time to learn all the words to Bob Dylan's
Mr Tambourine Man, and then, once I had it all fixed in my head, I went though it line by line, trying to figure out all the imagery. The whole project saw me through days of shovelling, and at the end I really had something worth having. I've used the technique ever since - composing letters, or lyrics to songs, or articles I was writing. Of course this is no use at all for activities like marking exam scripts, because the mind isn't free to roam. I never found a solution to that, except for total focus in order to get the thing done as soon as possible. And the promise of a large single malt when the thing
was done
QuoteWell... what I'm trying to say here is the opposite. Smarter people will find more things boring because their mind works fast. This seems to be the case based on my research on Quora, but the high IQ people who seem to never be bored are also working in some intellectual fields they enjoy.
I would take some convincing about this. I'd be surprised if it were just a matter of smartness. Surely it's also about will power, and partly about the use of the imagination. And also we all have our own neuroses that are hard to combat and rarely the same as each other - so what works for one person won't necessarily work for another, regardless of IQ.
QuoteAnyways, it may even have nothing to do with IQ, just an unlucky combination of combination of personality characteristics that means an extreme aversion to mundane/tedious/repetitive things... which has no name, has no definition from no one.
I think this may have some truth in it. Temperament affects so much of how we approach things.
Quote from: greg on April 29, 2019, 09:02:22 PM
Smarter people will find more things boring because their mind works fast. This seems to be the case based on my research on Quora, but the high IQ people who seem to never be bored are also working in some intellectual fields they enjoy.
To me it's like there are always non-boring things to think about while I'm doing stuff that doesn't require much thinking. I like going to grocery stores. I do really good thinking riding on the bus to the Star Market.
Quote from: greg on April 27, 2019, 04:52:15 PM
Really? :D
Idk, that wasn't my impression, maybe you are just more familiar with the nihilist community than I.
Familiarity with the community is not relevant to analyzing the concepts. I've read a little and get the ideas. They are typical of the kind of self refutation I associate with extreme philosophical skepticism, like "nothing means anything, including 'nothing means anything' ".
Quote from: greg on April 29, 2019, 10:48:29 AM
A little bit disappointed no one with a higher or same IQ than mine has mentioned what sort of challenges they faced with doing mundane jobs and such, unless I missed it.
It's like driving a Ferrari but being stuck in a 20 mph zone all day long. For years. Just still wanting clarification on what was actually going on for 8 years of my life.
I don't think your "challenges" with doing mundane jobs have anything to do with your "high IQ." Doing quantum field theory involves a lot of tedious calculation. Finding the structure of the Ribosome required painstaking experimentation and analysis. George Seurat had to paint millions of little dots to complete "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." Classical pianists practice for hours every day and composers may spend years perfecting a score. It seems to me if you were Mahler writing his 9th symphony you'd still be whining about how boring it all is. :)
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on April 29, 2019, 11:17:44 PM
Of course this is no use at all for activities like marking exam scripts, because the mind isn't free to roam. I never found a solution to that, except for total focus in order to get the thing done as soon as possible. And the promise of a large single malt when the thing was done
That was the exact problem. I worked as a cashier, there is very little room for the mind to roam because you are talking to people and at the same time you can't just "get it done as soon as possible." I mean, I was always quick, and this is my general approach to tedious things, but it just doesn't work that way.
So it appears you can picture what I mean, then.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 30, 2019, 08:39:48 AM
It seems to me if you were Mahler writing his 9th symphony you'd still be whining about how boring it all is. :)
Not really. Since I have enough composing experience to see there is an extreme difference in enjoyment between that and working at a department store.
I will say that, yes, the act of writing down each note into Sibelius is sometimes enough to completely kill my creative flow- and that's the main point here. As someone who is a creative person, working in a strict, orderly, follow the rules type of environment is absolutely suffocating.
Also, for the most part, composing is something I can't labor at but can only do when the mood strikes, otherwise I probably wouldn't enjoy it and at the same time start to not have any good ideas.
Man... you should check out my piano album sometime. It's awesome. ;D
Motivation is often the key, I find. If I badly want a particular outcome, I'll do the most tedious things that might be necessary in order to achieve it - and not mind at all. If I don't have any investment in the outcome, then it becomes work.
Quote from: 71 dB on April 26, 2019, 02:42:16 AM
Asperger is a milder form of autism and my aspenger seems to be of milder type. If I had severe aspenger it would have been diagnosed in my childhood I think. My sister though I have asperger after reading about it and told me. I had never even heard the term, but I looked it up online. Some symptoms of asperger I recognized strongly in myself (that's me! -reaction), but not all and it's clear I don't have some symptoms and my sister agrees (such as not recognizing facial expressions). Anyway, it helps to know why some things are difficult for me and also why some things are easy for me. What is a bit depressing is that this World is optimised for normal people because normal people are the majority.
I wasn't diagnosed with AS until adulthood (& even now my therapy team has mixed opinions on the validity of the diagnosis)—part of it is because for a long time it tended to be under-diagnosed in women/girls, but this is not so much for sex-related reasons as that it's much more acceptable/less noticeable for a girl to be quiet, not very social, etc. But AS probably goes under-diagnosed in boys as well if you live somewhere that it's considered normal for boys to be quiet and withdrawn. Difficulty reading social cues and the tendency to notice too much is definitely a big part of it though, although as far as I know, the largest signifiers are heightened or unusual sensory sensitivities to e.g. sound, light, touch, etc, and difficulty with "theory of mind" which is essentially the ability to understand one's own and other people's intentions, beliefs, thoughts and desires (without asking them). So I find it very difficult e.g. to why I did something in the past even if it was something that made sense to me at the time, or to "read between the lines" and understand how people feel about things, unless they make it obvious by speaking in an angry or sad tone of voice etc.
Social skills and theory of mind are things that can be learned though—and other things, like noticing lots of random details (for example I'm sensitive enough to sound to notice the sounds made by central air systems, computer screens, power units etc which is why I play music at night to drown all the other sounds out & help me get to sleep) are not really "bad". Same with being more honest than is socially acceptable, or having "unusual or stereotyped interests". That seems to be why a lot of AS people reject the idea of it being a disability or an illness, instead (correctly I think) asserting the problem is simply that society isn't set up in a way that is friendly to AS people.
Quote from: greg on April 29, 2019, 10:48:29 AM
A little bit disappointed no one with a higher or same IQ than mine has mentioned what sort of challenges they faced with doing mundane jobs and such, unless I missed it.
Honestly I just do most ~mundane jobs on autopilot to the extent possible, letting my mind focus on other things. Sure the job may be boring but my rent isn't going to pay itself. Working in e.g. a library where all you do is reshelve books, check patrons out/in and catalogue new items/decatalogue withdrawn ones is obviously less physically taxing than being a supermarket cashier, since you don't have to spend the whole time standing in place (and libraries are much quieter), but it's about the same in terms of ability to turn your mind off and focus on other thoughts. I think if one struggles with doing that something like mindfulness practice could be helpful.
Mundane tasks are part of everyday life—cooking, cleaning, doing laundry etc—and I don't think are something one should focus on too much.
I quite like repetitive tasks, to a degree anyway.
If gives my brain space to do other interesting things, like listen to music.
The need for variety/stimulation is, in my opinion, more a function of personality than of IQ. Perhaps being smart does contribute to the fact that I live inside my own head and analyse things to death (in that maybe that behaviour wouldn't be as enjoyable if I was less smart), but it's certainly not a direct correlation. There are very smart people with personalities and behaviours that are completely different... including ones that would be driven mad by mundane tasks.
Quote from: amw on May 01, 2019, 02:00:37 AM
I wasn't diagnosed with AS until adulthood (& even now my therapy team has mixed opinions on the validity of the diagnosis)—part of it is because for a long time it tended to be under-diagnosed in women/girls, but this is not so much for sex-related reasons as that it's much more acceptable/less noticeable for a girl to be quiet, not very social, etc. But AS probably goes under-diagnosed in boys as well if you live somewhere that it's considered normal for boys to be quiet and withdrawn. Difficulty reading social cues and the tendency to notice too much is definitely a big part of it though, although as far as I know, the largest signifiers are heightened or unusual sensory sensitivities to e.g. sound, light, touch, etc, and difficulty with "theory of mind" which is essentially the ability to understand one's own and other people's intentions, beliefs, thoughts and desires (without asking them). So I find it very difficult e.g. to why I did something in the past even if it was something that made sense to me at the time, or to "read between the lines" and understand how people feel about things, unless they make it obvious by speaking in an angry or sad tone of voice etc.
Social skills and theory of mind are things that can be learned though—and other things, like noticing lots of random details (for example I'm sensitive enough to sound to notice the sounds made by central air systems, computer screens, power units etc which is why I play music at night to drown all the other sounds out & help me get to sleep) are not really "bad". Same with being more honest than is socially acceptable, or having "unusual or stereotyped interests". That seems to be why a lot of AS people reject the idea of it being a disability or an illness, instead (correctly I think) asserting the problem is simply that society isn't set up in a way that is friendly to AS people.
I find the whole theory of autism spectrum disorder both interesting and also flawed. It's the spectrum part that is the issue. How far along the spectrum do you have to be to be diagnosed? Even more interesting, what symptoms constitute a diagnosis.
As a teacher who taught a child who was well past the so called 'aspergers' stage I was sent to a course that dealt with working with children who were well along the spectrum line. I learnt that Symptomatic indicators included physiological, psychological and socio-emotional markers and if you displayed six or more of those markers from any or all of the sets then you were 'ascertained' as being further along the spectrum than was the norm. It's the norm part that I have trouble with. If you look at the indicators (and there are a lot) you quickly realise that virtually everyone is some way along the spectrum and that finding a person who has no indicators at all is rare.
What I suppose I am saying is that we are all ASD to some extent and that ASD is not an aberration but a built in part of the psyche. The sad thing, which you mentioned above, is that it is looked upon as a disability when it should really be classed as an ability. Just think of the famous ASD composers, musicians, inventors, researchers, Mathematicians, etc who could have been classed as disabled who were, in fact, 'enabled'.
Quote from: amw on May 01, 2019, 02:00:37 AM
I wasn't diagnosed with AS until adulthood (& even now my therapy team has mixed opinions on the validity of the diagnosis)—part of it is because for a long time it tended to be under-diagnosed in women/girls, but this is not so much for sex-related reasons as that it's much more acceptable/less noticeable for a girl to be quiet, not very social, etc. But AS probably goes under-diagnosed in boys as well if you live somewhere that it's considered normal for boys to be quiet and withdrawn. Difficulty reading social cues and the tendency to notice too much is definitely a big part of it though, although as far as I know, the largest signifiers are heightened or unusual sensory sensitivities to e.g. sound, light, touch, etc, and difficulty with "theory of mind" which is essentially the ability to understand one's own and other people's intentions, beliefs, thoughts and desires (without asking them). So I find it very difficult e.g. to why I did something in the past even if it was something that made sense to me at the time, or to "read between the lines" and understand how people feel about things, unless they make it obvious by speaking in an angry or sad tone of voice etc.
Social skills and theory of mind are things that can be learned though—and other things, like noticing lots of random details (for example I'm sensitive enough to sound to notice the sounds made by central air systems, computer screens, power units etc which is why I play music at night to drown all the other sounds out & help me get to sleep) are not really "bad". Same with being more honest than is socially acceptable, or having "unusual or stereotyped interests". That seems to be why a lot of AS people reject the idea of it being a disability or an illness, instead (correctly I think) asserting the problem is simply that society isn't set up in a way that is friendly to AS people.
I was over 30 before I even heard about aspergers syndrome from my sister. I don't have a diagnose and I don't really need one because the point is I know now asperger exists and I seem to have some of those symptoms explaining some mysteries about why some things are so much easier or harder for "normal" people than they are to me.
The sensory sensitivity thing is something I don't recognize in myself. I do pay attention to environmental sounds most people ignore, but I have always thought that's because I have "trained" analytic ears and an interest to sounds as an acoustic engineer. I don't have a superhuman hearing, I just listen to the sounds around me analytically (I am aware of the sounds). If I am over-sensitive to something it's maybe cold water. I find colder showers horrible and I would never jump from sauna to frozen lake even if Finns tend to do that! Cold water on skin. That's horror to me!
Quote from: Holden on May 01, 2019, 10:05:53 PM
What I suppose I am saying is that we are all ASD to some extent and that ASD is not an aberration but a built in part of the psyche. The sad thing, which you mentioned above, is that it is looked upon as a disability when it should really be classed as an ability. Just think of the famous ASD composers, musicians, inventors, researchers, Mathematicians, etc who could have been classed as disabled who were, in fact, 'enabled'.
It's a difference in degree that is pragmatically and somewhat arbitrarily treated as a difference in kind. The question is when an ability becomes "dis" even while it still is "able". I don't think it's a flaw in the concept of spectrum.
Quote from: amw on May 01, 2019, 02:19:03 AM
Honestly I just do most ~mundane jobs on autopilot to the extent possible, letting my mind focus on other things. Sure the job may be boring but my rent isn't going to pay itself. Working in e.g. a library where all you do is reshelve books, check patrons out/in and catalogue new items/decatalogue withdrawn ones is obviously less physically taxing than being a supermarket cashier, since you don't have to spend the whole time standing in place (and libraries are much quieter), but it's about the same in terms of ability to turn your mind off and focus on other thoughts. I think if one struggles with doing that something like mindfulness practice could be helpful.
Mundane tasks are part of everyday life—cooking, cleaning, doing laundry etc—and I don't think are something one should focus on too much.
I was a library shelver for a few months before being a cashier, and I didn't really find it to be that bad.
I was a cashier at Lowe's, and since you mentioned noise... the Christmas season was always terrible. Very busy, chainsaws cutting trees, and Christmas music at full volume while you have to shout to customers, all day.
The best part of that job were the moments you could talk to coworkers or, as the thing I did alot that really helped, was work in the evening where the last 2-3 hours were very slow, and I'd spend at least half my time alone, pacing back and forth.
The thing that set off the most red flags was when everyone I worked with said business being slow was "boring," but I always told them that when it was busy it was the most boring, and someone said that I was working in the wrong industry. Well, yeah. :P
Quote from: Madiel on May 01, 2019, 03:38:22 AM
I quite like repetitive tasks, to a degree anyway.
If gives my brain space to do other interesting things, like listen to music.
I hear ya. My first job was putting papers in a box. You can't get more mundane and repetitive than that.
You know why I liked it? I was able to listen to my own music.
Why I hated working as a cashier: literally not a single thing interesting going on.
Quote from: Madiel on May 01, 2019, 03:38:22 AM
The need for variety/stimulation is, in my opinion, more a function of personality than of IQ. Perhaps being smart does contribute to the fact that I live inside my own head and analyse things to death (in that maybe that behaviour wouldn't be as enjoyable if I was less smart), but it's certainly not a direct correlation. There are very smart people with personalities and behaviours that are completely different... including ones that would be driven mad by mundane tasks.
I think they actually are correlated, though.
The big 5 trait "openness to experience" is often strongly correlated to IQ. But I don't know how strongly. It would be something interesting to look up.
Quote from: Jo498 on April 26, 2019, 11:54:46 PM
I recommend Thomas Nagel's short book "The last word" (from the late 1990s or so) for a brief critique (among other things) why language analysis does not make metaphysics go away.
Metaphysics is a broad term. It's correctly viewed as suspicious when speculations it contains are treated as foundational. The concept that entities have both properties and "is-ness" has been destroyed outside the minds of dualists who hold on for dear life. Oddly, Nagel wants to refute subjectivism by upholdling a material independent realm where no explanations or links to this world are possible in principle. He is my enemy,
I will destroyyyyyyyyyy him!! (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/tongue.gif)
Quote from: Jo498 on April 26, 2019, 11:54:46 PM
Scientists will usually pretend to find out objective facts about a world "out there", not to engage in a particularly difficult language game and similarly for fields like law.
We interact with the world and build models of it out of sense data organized by tools of formal reasoning. Scientists have become aware of the distinction between the map and the terrain. I guess that's a kind of pretending, while what we call "naive realism" isn't pretending.
Though I can't be certain, I'm not convinced it's
like something to be a bat. They don't make analogies.
Quote from: drogulus on May 05, 2019, 07:47:02 AM
Scientists have become aware of the distinction between the map and the terrain. I guess that's a kind of pretending, while what we call "naive realism" isn't pretending.
I'm sure some scientists are aware of the difference between the map and the terrain, but I seem to have met an awful lot who aren't.
But this business of 'pretence' is interesting. I'm not sure how to define it. Most of it seems to be to do with anticipating a predicted result. When I put my coffee mug on a table, I expect my coffee mug won't fall through onto the floor. In a sense, I 'pretend' that I understand what my coffee mug is, and what a table is. Science is like that, isn't it - but just on a more sophisticated level? We talk as if we understand the Schrodinger wave equation, but it's a predictive mental map just the same, and what looks like understanding is really just familiarity with the map. (I'm not disagreeing with you - just trying to explore what we mean.)
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on May 06, 2019, 12:22:29 AM
When I put my coffee mug on a table, I expect my coffee mug won't fall through onto the floor. In a sense, I 'pretend' that I understand what my coffee mug is, and what a table is.
I don't about you, but I have decades of experience of coffee cups and tables and how these object behave physically so it's no wonder my mind has learned a precise physical model of what is likely to happen when I put my coffee mug on a table. That model is pretty everything I need to know and understand about coffee mugs and tables, pretending or not.
Similarly in science if someone comes up with a model explaining empirical observations and also has predictive power, that's it. It works! If the model explains empirical observations only partly or inaccurately and the predictive power is limited clearly the model isn't perfect and there's work to do.
Part of intelligence is working out what is important. In most contexts, questioning the validity of your coffee cup or your table is a waste of time.
Quote from: drogulus on May 05, 2019, 07:47:02 AM
Metaphysics is a broad term. It's correctly viewed as suspicious when speculations it contains are treated as foundational. The concept that entities have both properties and "is-ness" has been destroyed outside the minds of dualists who hold on for dear life. Oddly, Nagel wants to refute subjectivism by upholdling a material independent realm where no explanations or links to this world are possible in principle. He is my enemy, I will destroyyyyyyyyyy him!! (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/tongue.gif)
We interact with the world and build models of it out of sense data organized by tools of formal reasoning.
Sorry, but you apparently don't get the problems of metaphysics and objectivity in the first place otherwise you would not believe that this last sentence would be a "solution" to anything.
Quite to the contrary it pre-supposes all the very things that are called into question by skeptics and subjectivist!"We" (who that?)
"interact with the world": so it is something "out there" and it is presupposed as independent to some extent and real and so are we, so we can interact with it (and at least to some extent isolate what is our contribution in such an interaction and what is "out there")
"and build models of it": so there is another intentional relationship between mind and world, in addition to the more strictly causal relationship in the phrase before (and I guess the models are also testable, another kind of reliable interaction).
"of sense data" (I am skipping this because this was a very shortlived concept in epistemology that was virtually dead in the middle of the 20th century already. Only one remark: Experimental data are not sense data, they are something one gets out of complex apparatuses.)
"tools of formal reasoning": They are also tools but they cannot be any old "tools". They must be objective and truth-conducive. (E.g. if they were just historically completely contingent tools (established by some phallologocentric ideology) there would not be any reason to trust them any more than the method of looking into sheep's guts for divining the future.)
Don't get me wrong. I basically agree with that last sentence I quoted. But it cannot replace philosophy, epistemology or metaphysics. It simply takes most of the things called into question or looked at in philosophy already for granted, at least for the purpose and compass of science, namely independence (of the "world"), interaction/causality betwen "us" and "world", intentionality (the models are
about the world and map important structures isomorphically) and objectivity of formal reasoning.
Quote from: Jo498 on May 06, 2019, 05:06:06 AM
Sorry, but you apparently don't get the problems of metaphysics and objectivity in the first place otherwise you would not believe that this last sentence would be a "solution" to anything. Quite to the contrary it pre-supposes all the very things that are called into question by skeptics and subjectivist!
I think you are interpreting me as a skeptic about objectivity. If I am skeptical at all it's about
subjectivity, the "user illusion". That's why I'm at war with Nagal, he presupposes subjectivity as a fundamental force of nature, and I think that is a preposterous claim.
Quote from: Madiel on May 06, 2019, 04:09:41 AM
Part of intelligence is working out what is important. In most contexts, questioning the validity of your coffee cup or your table is a waste of time.
On a pragmatic level, and in most contexts (eg the first ten minutes of stumbling downstairs in the morning after sleep), it is indeed a waste of time. But taking that as given, then if one thinks there is some sort of reality 'out there', the relationship between it, and our mental map of it, seems to me to be as important a subject as any other area of philosophical/metaphysical enquiry. It's not unintelligent to be interested in both, I think.
Quote from: 71 dB on May 06, 2019, 12:56:26 AM
I don't about you, but I have decades of experience of coffee cups and tables and how these object behave physically so it's no wonder my mind has learned a precise physical model of what is likely to happen when I put my coffee mug on a table. That model is pretty everything I need to know and understand about coffee mugs and tables, pretending or not.
That's a fair enough pragmatic (indeed, Johnsonian) response to the problem. But I am fascinated by the idea that the table on which I put my coffee is not at all, not even slightly (apart from having the requisite stability etc) like the model of a table I have in my head. The thing I call 'solid' (look, I bash the table and I hear the clunk) is not 'solid' at all: 'solid' is part of my mental map. The relation between what, say, quantum mechanics tells us about the table, and what we actually seem to experience, remains utterly baffling.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on May 06, 2019, 01:08:00 PM
On a pragmatic level, and in most contexts (eg the first ten minutes of stumbling downstairs in the morning after sleep), it is indeed a waste of time. But taking that as given, then if one thinks there is some sort of reality 'out there', the relationship between it, and our mental map of it, seems to me to be as important a subject as any other area of philosophical/metaphysical enquiry. It's not unintelligent to be interested in both, I think.
Oh, I'm not saying don't be interested in it. I'm just saying that constantly being interested in it would be a recipe for paralysis.
Quote from: Madiel on May 06, 2019, 06:07:37 PM
Oh, I'm not saying don't be interested in it. I'm just saying that constantly being interested in it would be a recipe for paralysis.
Wouldn't that be true about a constant interest in
any aspect of reality, though? Fact is, I eat my dinner and feel better for it just like anyone else.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on May 06, 2019, 01:23:24 PM
1. I am fascinated by the idea that the table on which I put my coffee is not at all, not even slightly (apart from having the requisite stability etc) like the model of a table I have in my head.
2. The thing I call 'solid' (look, I bash the table and I hear the clunk) is not 'solid' at all: 'solid' is part of my mental map. The relation between what, say, quantum mechanics tells us about the table, and what we actually seem to experience, remains utterly baffling.
1. No, it's not, but the model of a table in your head seems to work very well nevertheless.
2. Yes, but you don't operate on atom scale. You are not interested of individual atoms and molecules. If you were, your model of a table and coffee mugs would be very different. According to quantum physics nothing really happens in the World, so it's great to have these illusions of a lot of happening because otherwise it would be so boring...
Quote from: 71 dB on May 07, 2019, 04:24:39 AM
1. No, it's not, but the model of a table in your head seems to work very well nevertheless.
2. Yes, but you don't operate on atom scale. You are not interested of individual atoms and molecules. If you were, your model of a table and coffee mugs would be very different. According to quantum physics nothing really happens in the World, so it's great to have these illusions of a lot of happening because otherwise it would be so boring...
XLNT!
Q: Why is there something and not everything?
A: Because you don't
pay attention!
(http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/smiley.gif)
Quote from: 71 dB on May 07, 2019, 04:24:39 AM
1. No, it's not, but the model of a table in your head seems to work very well nevertheless.
Of course it does. I drink my coffee, I place my mug on the table. It all works.
Similarly I put an envelope in the postbox, and some days later my friend mysteriously receives it. One could just leave it at that. It works. I do not need to know more. But why should I not have an interest in the mode of operation of the postal service?
Quote
2. Yes, but you don't operate on atom scale. You are not interested of individual atoms and molecules. If you were, your model of a table and coffee mugs would be very different. According to quantum physics nothing really happens in the World, so it's great to have these illusions of a lot of happening because otherwise it would be so boring...
Atoms? Molecules? I would very much like to know more about them, too, but they seem to be elusive, fuzzy creatures. Talk of atoms and molecules, rather than coffee mugs and tables, just kicks the can down the metaphysical road, doesn't it?
You seem to be saying, not that the map and the terrain are the same (which would be a serious philosophical mistake), but that the map is all you want. I can't argue with that preference, but I don't share it.
Sigh. Agreeing to the proposition that 'solid' was questionable was our first mistake.
Because something that is 'solid' does in fact have demonstrably different properties to liquids and gases. And those different properties are derived from differences at the molecular and atomic level.
You can question this if you wish, but it won't convince me of your intelligence. It will actually tend to suggest that you're intelligent enough to see the trees but not intelligent enough to also see the wood the trees are located in or comprising.
Quote from: Madiel on May 07, 2019, 08:23:06 PM
Because something that is 'solid' does in fact have demonstrably different properties to liquids and gases. And those different properties are derived from differences at the molecular and atomic level.
Perhaps it would help if I explain that I'm a physicist, and therefore completely aware of this. I'm not talking about the scientific explanation of the difference between solids and liquids and gases, which are of course well understood (as far as they go), useful, and indeed interesting. Rather, I'm thinking of the Kantian difference between the phenomenal and the noumenal, which has long fascinated me. After all our experiments on the mug of coffee and the table, ranging from merely sitting there and drinking it, to an analysis of the sum of its collapsed wave functions, there yet remains 'the thing in itself', which is unknowable to us. The noumenal is therefore not accessible to intelligence through phenomenal analysis, but that doesn't stop the Imagination toying with it, or intelligence from trying to understand more completely what Kant meant.
Quote
You can question this if you wish, but it won't convince me of your intelligence. It will actually tend to suggest that you're intelligent enough to see the trees but not intelligent enough to also see the wood the trees are located in or comprising.
It seems to me that when a discussion degenerates into personal insult (I don't accept you as a judge of my intelligence, partly because I don't think you understand what I'm saying), any hope of useful exchange is gone. Enough of this.
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on May 07, 2019, 10:48:09 AM
Of course it does. I drink my coffee, I place my mug on the table. It all works.
Similarly I put an envelope in the postbox, and some days later my friend mysteriously receives it. One could just leave it at that. It works. I do not need to know more. But why should I not have an interest in the mode of operation of the postal service?
Postal service works, but not as fast as it used to. 10 years ago my Amazon orders from UK came in about a week, then it changed to two weeks and now I have to wait for 3 weeks. I wonder how slow it will become in the end. Months?
Quote from: Elgarian Redux on May 07, 2019, 10:48:09 AMAtoms? Molecules? I would very much like to know more about them, too, but they seem to be elusive, fuzzy creatures. Talk of atoms and molecules, rather than coffee mugs and tables, just kicks the can down the metaphysical road, doesn't it?
You seem to be saying, not that the map and the terrain are the same (which would be a serious philosophical mistake), but that the map is all you want. I can't argue with that preference, but I don't share it.
What I want and need are separate things, althou often linked. I
need a map to drive somewhere, but I may
want to understand the molecular structure of asphalt.