by BlisteredWhippet » Sat 14 Oct 2006, 16:19:40
I think people on PO.com are smart. I think it attracts intelligent people because of the subject matter. So I don't think its unusual that the reported IQs are in the high scale. Since IQ is mostly a test of abstract logical reasoning, and the premises of Peak Oil theory is basically a synthesis of abstract concepts organized into a logical argument, why shouldn't these IQ scores be high? I would think the strange case to be the opposite- low or average IQs.
Complex problems attract thinkers capable, interested, and challenged by such complexity. There is also the element of the abstract the fact that the model includes so many disparate aspects, and involves futurist-type imaginative modeling. PO.com is nothing but an intellectual sandbox. Reality frustrates my instinct to assemble real-world models for testing, for example, the Police department.
I think the mind is like a high-gain antenna. Intelligence is all about receptivity and sensitivity. PO.com is a frequency spectrum, wide open with lots of chatter and crosstalk. Intelligence is the ability to skim masses of information and extract only what is relevant to what is sought... or the ability to discover new information... or the ability to revise models based on new information, test new theories using the mental resources of the board. Understanding logic is of course key, but the kind of skill required for this information synthesis and gathering to me is more like a kind of sensitivity.
If, say, linguistics or mathematical ability is a specific intelligence, then you have one high-gain antenna. For emotional intelligence you need some sort of seismograph. Microwave dish for verbal intelligence. Just like AI robots, the more sensory apparatuses in action, the more info the brain has to play with. Its my opinion that the most capable intelligences are those with the most sensory apparati. The Brain is adaptable enough to allow more and more perspective, or specialized enough to focus like a laser beam.
But for a problem like PO, which is essentially a problem of existence and survival, more sensitivities mean more comprehension. So I wouldn't say the masses of people are dumb, I would say they are insenstive. I wouldn't say they are uncurious, I would say they are unaware. Psychology documents clearly that awareness is a gateway to streamlining thought and experience.
"Common sense" used to mean "using the senses in common". For us as primates, a good theory holds it evolved for complex tasks like determining if an animal crossed a specific area, how big was it, where was it heading, etc. All these things require different sensitivites. The feel of something, the perception of subtle visual clues, smells, and then taking all this and processing the abstraction: what the animal was doing, how many days travel to catch up with it, when it will likely be sleeping, etc. All this stuff honed the evolving human mind.
Its clear to me that if you took that same skilled hunter, put him in an airconditioned box, fed him processed food and had him watch TV all day, inducing artificial brainwave states, that the extra sensitvity might get blunted. The capability is still there, like for most of you reading, the capability of training your body to perform backflips in possible. But if you have no practice moving through space, or using these physical systems, they fall into a state of atrophy.
Its brought up again and again in studies of old people where the more new stuff you try, the more you push back against that period of morbidity at the end of your life. Stay interested, try new things, participate.
The best thing you can do is not hold onto any mental model too tight. Flexibility is key. Physicality is also a huge part of the equation, as far as I'm concerned. The mind is the body. Control your body, and your mind will become sharper. Physical health leads to mental health and emotional health.
I think alot of people have a huge blind spot that extends from their necks down to their toes, basically a huge barrier to the transmission of information to the mental antennas. This is the enormous amount of sensory information that people are losing in an ege of epidemic obesity and malnutrition. The brain forgets what it does not use. Some old brains are streamlined like greyhounds on a particular area of expertise, yet unaware by design of what is missing in the larger picture. Floating heads. Socially these specialists are praised for their value, but I am concerned that this overspecialization leads to a mind increasingly stranded from natural awareness... the alarm signals from the body and environment ignored as irrelevant, their songs incomprehensible to neural networks long abandoned, having been raided for spare parts in the quest to sublimate individual personality into a larger corporate structure.
