

Ask HN: Is there really anything such as 'intelligence'? - skowmunk

Or is it a unified term that we like to use for a concept with lot more factors at work than we care to acknowledge? say like the way we use the word "God" to explain anything that we can't explain, don't know yet or not ready to examine further in depth?<p>Could it be actually the curiosity gene that researchers should look for instead of intelligence gene? or is it the impatience gene?<p>Without curiosity, what would be the chance of one accumulating enough knowledge that one can connect as a complex idea to 'show intelligence'?<p>Or is it the obseessive observation gene? without that tendency to look at things longer and deeper than the average looker, would one be able to observe things beyond the superficial that most people seem satisfied with?<p>It is said that intelligent people get easily bored, could it be the other way round? Could it be that bored people can tend to keep digging deeper or keep digging around more, keep discovering more knowledge/information that way, which they can connect later? And the more connections they make or hold in their brains and present them to the world, the more intelligent they are percieved?<p>Or is it an adventurouse gene? the readiness to break traditions and look at things in a way different than what is considered the 'norm'? the readiness to connect thigns in a way different than the norm and see how the result looks?<p>Any thoughts?<p>(Edit: in a way can't adventurousness be called being curious? the curiousity to see what happens when one tries something that they have never tried, whether in terms of beliefs, trains of thoughts, ideas, food, places, actions or whatever?)
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btilly
Probably not. See <http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html> for
an explanation of why intelligence probably does not exist.

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getonit
<http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/12/iq-test.html>

~~~
skowmunk
That was very funny!

