Apart from taking tests and scoring a certain grade, how else would one measure intelligence? For example: How does one know they are intelligent without being told they are?
This is actually a good question: myself, I can be very deprecating (but that comes with being a Manic Depressive) and I always judge myself, often maybe too harshly. However, I've taken IQ tests and always seemed to get a mark in the 125 to 135 area. So I'm not a stupid person, I guess.
Intelligence is, as Pea suggested, about self awareness. It's also about how easily you can learn things, how quick you pick up skills, and many, many more aspects which I won't list. You don't need people to tell you you're intelligent, you can work that out through comparison to other people, or other organisms if we want to be broader. Without the ability to compare, there is no intelligent and no unintelligent.
I am not aware of what that means. How do you know you are a Manic Depressive? why made you take the test? I have never taken one.
It means judge myself, my abilities, and my prowess very harshly. Basically it means a lot of the time I am my own worst enemy. Because my family has a history of Bipolar disorder I was given a test to see if I had the same illness, and also because as a child I had severe mood-swings. You don't need to take one unless you show symptoms of Bipolar disorder.
Measuring a persons intelligence by tests, by puzzle solving is extremely stupid. Those who have done those particular tests before or those who have practiced them beforehand will get better results. Not to mention that for some persons solving complicated issues is far easier than solving the easy ones. I know one person like that. Also sleepiness, exhaustion, how tired your mind is, diseases, and all else affects how well you perform. I took some kind of an intelligence test myself when I was in school. The whole event was so stupid. Many had previously solved similar issues, and so they scored better than those who hadn't. Some have very high science skills while unlike some others they lack all social skills, and some have both. People differ and so differs how they perceive the world around them, and measuring it by just a simple pointless number is so very stupid.
Like Allan said, there's many types of intelligence also and measuring people against just one system can't be done. Some people are academic while others are far better working with their hands and doing skilled carpentry, or are good at teamwork to organise the building of a house. Others do better alone and working inside their own heads, bouncing theories off eachother or working with animals. Everyone has their strengths and a niche in life where they can do very well (assuming you don't have severe disabilities, but even then I'd argue you could still be useful). If we measure people against only one test like the IQ test we'd miss out on a lot and convince a lot of intelligent people that they're stupid just because they can't rotate a square or spell correctly. Lots of variables.
They are not two categories in the real world, there is one huge scale and people find their place along it in terms of their intelligence.
would you say self criticising is bordering on guilt? You judge yourself agains who? and how do you know you have failed or not after you have judged yourself? . Ok. My partner suffers from the same and he had taken a test to as a result of Bipolar disorder. He has never mentioned Manic Depressive. The question I am not clear on is why the test because you suffer Bipolar? I am not getting the link between being Bipolar and having to take the test.
No, they're completely different as far as I'm concerned. Guilt is feeling bad about something you have done, being self deprecating is about appraising your abilities and deciding you're useless, bluntly.
Everyone and everything. Because Bipolar disorder is a mental illness, and can be serious business, you need to be assessed to see if you actually have it.
I totally agree with that hence me asking how does one measure it? we should be able to establish that we are all intelligent in our own different ways without having to be told. If we are then able to measure it then we should be able to increase or decrease it and because we can't then my assumption that it can onbly keep growing if you see what I am getting at. By measuringit then one can say it is teachable. so the question is this: is it teachable?
You can tell who's more intelligent and who's less so, to a reasonable degree of certainty, in school. You see some kids in high school working their butts off and barely getting C grades, and others who are able to get straight As with hardly any effort at all. Sure, some of the low achievers are hampered by problems such as dyslexia, and are much brighter than their grades indicate, but those are a relatively small minority. I think I'm fairly intelligent. I breezed through high school with no effort, always at or near the top of the class. I never wanted my IQ tested (because I'm kind of terrified of competition - not very manly of me, but there it is), but a friend talked me into taking an IQ test once when I was mostly drunk, and I scored 142. (My friend had been bragging about his 130 for days, but after seeing my score, he's never mentioned it again!) But I know I'm far from being brilliant. I have a friend from university (I introduced him to my sister, and he's now my brother in law and the father of my niece and nephew) who is so much brighter than I am he makes my head spin. Every time I talk with him I can tell his mind is flying rings around mine. I have no idea what his IQ is - I don't think he does, either - but it's very, very high. When we were in university together, I remember reading a couple of books about a subject he'd never heard of, and I started a conversation with him about it. "This is really cool stuff!" I said. "You should read some about it." Well, he asked me a couple of questions about it, and in about ten minutes of discussion, he was far more knowledgeable about it than I was. He was asking questions about it that I couldn't answer, and I'd spent a month thinking about it. But then, just by talking and thinking right in front of me, he started answering his own questions. "So that means ... and therefore ... and holy crap! This other thing would have to be true, too! And then ..." And on and on ... mastering a subject he'd never considered before and completely losing me in the process. I think he's a genius. I've never been brain-proud since I met him.
Before I do anything I ask myself, "Would an idiot do that? And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.
I tend to view intelligence as what you know, and how you assess it. It's to an extent and what is right and wrong in terms of question and answers, buts it also about your ideas, and how you come up with them. In that respect imagination and intelligence go hand in hand.
simply by noticing the difference between their own reasoning and learning abilities and others'... if you are the only one or one of the few who get straight A's in school, it would be obvious, wouldn't it? if you don't go to school but find that you can learn all kinds of things much more easily than those around you, it would be, too... the only way you wouldn't know is if you're totally isolated with no other humans around, or only with others of your same level of intelligence...
assessment is good but the question is what causes it because I know it is very common. What I am not getting is why the IQ test to do with Bipolar.
Ah, but then you miss out on the wonderful things life offers to idiots. For example, intelligent people don't usually buy lottery tickets, because they know the odds against winning are huge. So only idiots win lotteries. Many other things in life can happen that way. And you find yourself meeting someone who is living a fantastic life, and you ask "How come you get to live such a fantastic life, when I'm miserable?" And they answer "Because I'm an idiot!"
I've done few test at school early on... I also have done pretty well. Too well in the eyes of an instructor, who was flabbergasted with my results after hearing that I am not even close to the top of the class. I then did some research on the case and found out that there are certainly many types of intelligence, and the one we are talking about, the one that relates to IQ coefficients is responsible for ones ability to learn. A person with higher IQ will have an advantage while learning (not necessarily going to happen) against the person with lower IQ. That does not mean that people with lower IQ cannot be the best in class, or the best in whatever they might be doing. It is all relative to some extent.
Personally I think there are many kinds of intelligence, I also think that one cannot simply be "intelligent" because that would involve being proficient in all aspects of learning, which I disagree with. Also, considering yourself intelligent because you've done well in a few tests seems a tad suspect to me, especially because there are more "intelligent," more successful people than anyone here who have dropped out of school or never had a formal education.
For me an intelligent person is always interested in knowing more than they do, understanding what they don't and learning what they can from whom or what they can. Intelligence and knowledge are not necessarily dependent on each other but I think the two are important together. Knowledge is never ending and intelligence is insatiable. You can always learn more and understand better. That said I think IQ and EQ are both important. Your logic abilities should be in harmony with your emotions. I've met self proclaimed intelligent people that are 100% closed minded and dogmatic in their conclusions. No leeway for discussion or interest in anything outside of their own immediate knowledge. That's not intelligence for me, intelligence I've always thought is a desire to understand.
I always think about that, how Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both college dropouts. To assume the ability to retain information and put it down on a piece of paper when asked is intelligence would be shortsighted. I definitely think there is more to intelligence than just the ability to memorize. I would assume it is more how you use the information and how you understand it. There are people that memorize information without understanding it.
