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Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Jimmy
i think that someone who thinks they can define reality is "dumb", to believe that reality is only what our senses can define is a ridiculous notion.
I did not mean it on a philosophical level, sir!

Jimmy
Lets stick to the assumption that intelligence is the ability to comprehend. in which case i believe it is perfectly possible to increase your intelligence, simply by forcing yourself to think and understand complex problems on a regular basis i believe will increase your brains ability to work in this way.

Hmm, alright. I appreciate your opinion.



Thank you

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

You guys remind me of these two girls I sat beside in biology. I usually ditched but not them. These were the brainy girls who went to class each day and took notes.. probably even studied together.

But not me... I am James Kirk. I don't go to class.. I was too busy out trying to get laid or risking my life for fun. People think it's because I don't comprehend danger. People think a lot of stupid **** when they can't grasp a concept.

So when wreckless endangerment sits down in his weed smelling clothing beside the prep girls.. they just knew I was doomed. Especially when you turn your test in over 30 minutes before the next person even finishs.

Even the teacher was trying to take pleasure in failing me. Too bad I got the only A in the class and they all had to curve off my grade.. Needless to say the girls were stupified. This punk that ditches class just showed them all up.


So now I have this person telling me he's going to get smarter by studying more. Same technique they used. I'm sure you will better yourself. Just don't set your expectations too high.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Funny wolfie, i could have written that about my school years. I never studied, never ever did homework, never prepped for tests and skipped 70% of my classes cause i was too busy getting high, drunk or both. Ahh those were the good days.

EDIT: For the record, i've never gotten lower than a B from a test in my life, apart from maths. I failed math because even though every answer was correct, i didn't write down the formula i used. There was no formula, i can solve college level math without a calculator or writng down equations, i solve it strictly in my head. All you need is the ability to focus on a single point without losing the whole, abstract thinking.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Hexi
Funny wolfie, i could have written that about my school years. I never studied, never ever did homework, never prepped for tests and skipped 70% of my classes cause i was too busy getting high, drunk or both. Ahh those were the good days.

EDIT: For the record, i've never gotten lower than a B from a test in my life, apart from maths. I failed math because even though every answer was correct, i didn't write down the formula i used. There was no formula, i can solve college level math without a calculator or writng down equations, i solve it strictly in my head. All you need is the ability to focus on a single point without losing the whole, abstract thinking.


Maybe more emotional minds are simply disrupted by their emotional instabilities?

Why do we think so much alike? There have been several times when you get angry, and vent in a more constructive manner than I would. That's probably because of my more aggresive nature.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Hmm, I find this very interesting. Do you mind if I give you a math problem, I insist! Truly, if you can solve college level math problems without a problem and yet with no experience or help from internet, I salute you!

The following is not really a college level math problem, in fact it is pretty basic, but it's still very interesting if you can solve it without experience in the subject and without looking it up in the internet.


Here goes:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/9885/squeaker2.jpg

A toy squaker has a diameter of 74cm and the crosscut has a diameter of 4cm, how much is the squaker's capacity/content?

tip: the crosscut is a circle




THE REST IS EXTRA (You can solve the question with the information above, but it would be unfair if I did not give you a few extra hints)

picture with crosscut:
http://img190.imageshack.us/f/squeaker4.jpg/


Another picture of the object:
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/669/squaker3.jpg
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8263/squeaker.jpg


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



I didn't want to give the hardest of problems since that would be a bit unfair if you haven't studied mathetmatics that far. I believe you can solve this one without relying on experience, but I would still consider it impressive. Normally they would require you to form a formulae but that would just require more work, and we don't have all day do we?
And I understand if you can't come up with a solution, I won't think any less of you. I am asking this out of curiosity.

Ps. This question is for Hexi, I know many people have studied mathematics and can answer the question, but I would like to know if Hexi can solve it.

Pss. It would be nice if you also mentioned how you came to the solution, but it's not necessary.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Hexi
I'm not sure on the English terms of maths as English is not my native language but i hope i understood the question. You get it by substracting the middle part from the overall size of the thingy. Giving the exact numbers would take effort though and while i could calculate it, it would be silly not to use a calculator.

I believe it would be something like (37x37x3.14) - (33x33x3.14). It's been nearly 10 years since i've done any actual maths though hehe.
Did you mean this:
πrr - πRR

That would work were the object the shape of a puck with a hole in the middle. But because of the roundness, substracting becomes the easiest part of solving the problem. I guess you could say this is nearly college level mathematics.
The object your method would work with: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Hockey_puck.JPG
(no hole in the middle, but you catch my drift)



Ps. from checking your posts I believe you are Finnish, here are a few translations:

Diameter = halkaisija, läpimitta

Capacity/content = sisältö, sisällys, tilavuus

Crosscut = poikkileikkaus

Puck = kiekko

I hope they are right.



the crosscut is a round, and the object is also round. A hard nut.

picture with crosscut:
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/1159/squeaker4.jpg

So, the shape of the object is like doughnut = donitsi, munkkirinkilä, rinkilä



The picture was probably a bit unclear

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Oh, ok. Then it would be something like (2x3.14x37) x (2x2x3.14). Basicly you use the diameter as the height of a cylinder and the crosscut as it's base and calculate the volume as if it were a cylinder.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Actually no, that isn't correct lol. You would need to take into account the differential of the inner and outer diameters but you can still do it kinda like i posted earlier, with slight modifications.

Let's use a and b as the outer and inner diameters. (a+b/2)x(2x2x3,14).

EDIT: If i'm still wrong, i'll give it some more thought. Or just cheat and look it up from the internet lol. I hate geometry, never even tried to calculate such things.,

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Just a slight modification there my friend, and it is correct. It is quite easy if you think what the object would form were it put in a straight line.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

So, did i win a prize for almost getting it right by winging it? I've never actually calculated the volume of such an object. A ruler and a piece of paper would have been a great help as i would have straightened it out on paper and went from there heh.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

But of course! Everyone is a winner. I'm not really one to judge or rate people, I imposed the question merely out of curiosity. Besides, I owe you and everyone else who bothered to reply for contributing to the topic.

Thank you!

Ps. I'd like to scribble up another problem to solve, but I'm afraid I could accidentally turn this forum into a mathematical puzzle corner! I am simply ecstatic when it comes to mathematics and physics.

Pss. How far did you study mathematics? You've at least had some experience in geometrics, I take it?

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Nothing past the 9th grade. After that i went to study to become an eletric engineer but i got very bored of that field very fast. That line of studies didn't include geometrics though. More physics and math related to electricity, like resistance values etc but it's been a long while since i did any math or pshysics/chem problems and i have very little interest in either field. I enjoy history, sociology, philosophy and psychology more. Like i've said, humans are interesting, numbers are not. :)

EDIT: This forum and threads that are contained within are pretty free for all topics. It digusts me when someone comes declaring that a thread is going off-topic. I mean.. have those people ever had a conversation with another human being? Objectively? It's natural for the topic to go to places where it originally wasn't intended to go.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Hmm, I simply must ask this out of curiosity, how would you begin solving this:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7365/wineglass4.jpg

I'm not expecting an answer, since I do not think it can be solved without education in mathematics, but I'm curious how you would begin solving the problem.

Thank you and sorry for going a bit off-topic.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

First i would, somehow, solve the area of the thingy in 2d. Then the area of the top and go from there. I have never even touched integrals so i'm lost. I would need to study the basics of such calculus first to get anywhere. "To run, one must learn how to walk" or something. :P

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

I do not want to brag or anything, but I solved how to use integrals without anyone's help. Although I already had been introduced to derivatives by then. I made a test for function f(x)=2x, which has the derivative function of f'(x)=2, and it was fairly easy to realize that the 2x showed the other function's area from 0->x. After that it's only required to turn the process the other way around and realize that it works in every case. I thought of it as hopping through different dimensions, 1d, 2d, 3d, 4d, etc.
You have to use integrals in almost every college level math problem at some point.

Not a bad guess, anyway.


Thanks for replying Hexi, I appreciate it.

Ps. I'm going on a vacation for one and a half week, so I'll be back replying then.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Name
Greetings, everyone!



As the question above inquires, I would very enjoy hearing your opinion on whether a person can become intelligent or forever remain dumb.

---- Your intelligence qutient is I believe predetermined. That means I will never be able to come up with string theory by myself. If by intelligence you mean, wisdom, understanding and increased knowledge, then I believe with study, you can achieve this and also can probably access latent or a the moment unsused capacities. To me 'Dumb' would mean being ignorant. By becoming more knowledgable you can become less ignorant. And with hard work you can also increase test scores, etc - would that denote and increase in intelligence? Then there is emotional intelligence, common sense etc. Can these be increased through self awareness exercises? I believe so. As for my experience as an example, if you had have known me in High school, i was a poor performer, no interest in studies and achieved low - average grades. No one would have thought me dumb, but also no one would have thought me intellignet. 7 years later I decided to go into further and then higher education and as I was self motivated and interested, I became a much higher achiever and now am considered by peers as intelligent, I even wrote my dissertation in a few weeks in comparison to the months of research and then writing most people take and I got a first for it.

Before we can actually commence the fiery debate, it is required that all of us reach an agreement on what intelligence means.



I believe one requirement to be intelligent is to be able to think for themselves and come up with solutions to problems without solely relying on others. I am not - however - saying that reliance is bad; I believe that when necessary, it is smarter to ask for an advice.

------ Again I believe and this is also through experience, one can learn to be a better problem solver and not rely on others.



The other requirement - in my opinion - is to be able to define reality as it is. If one is living in a delusion of one's own superiority, for example, it will hamper one's capability of making decisions, because the basis, the so-called starting point, for those decisions is a lie. This is one of my more critic opinions - feel free to comment!

------- Well it is well known that a lot of geniuses (musicians, writers, artists) were very bombastic and arrogant, yet still went on to achieve highly., In fact one theory states that anyone with high ammbition needs to have a large ego. They do also however, nned to have good critical facilities and be able to apraise their efforts realistically, this is true.

I am certain I have left out some important details for defining an intelligent person, but I believe those two are the main points. If I have left out something absolutely crucial, then feel free to point those out. I actually have a bit of an odd question, one which I hope does not transform this topic into an argument between empaths and sociopaths; does feeling no emotions make one more intelligent? I have formed a personal opinion for this one, but I would be very happy to hear yours as well!

----- Again a sociopath can be extremely intelligent. Of course in the realm of interactions with others they have perhaos a low emotional intelligence quotia. Again, I don't think there is only one type of intelligence out there, if we see intelligence as a capacity to be competant in all the varied areas of human experience.



But let us move on to the main dish:

Can a person become intelligent by changing their lifestyle, listening to other people, studying or something else entirely? Or is it so much based on genetics and such that it is impossible?

----- Again, we don't need to polarise. Someone who has genetic based mental problems affecting intelligence (social, emotional, problem solving etc) there may be little they can do to improve based upon and dependant upn the severity of their dissorder. Whereas I truly bellieve (as my own example) one can become more intelligent in terms of knowledge base and roblem solving, analitical thinking etc with education. Again emotional and social, self awareness intelligence etc I think can also be learned through coaching / coounselling, but this for me is harder (I've had to have therapy to help me through gambling and other problems...)

My personal opinion is that people can become, if not extremely intelligent, at least more intelligent. Although such is the case, I am still very much considering the chance of genes playing a large part in it. Otherwise a dog could become more intelligent than a human. Say a person was incapable of making decisions himself, and you force responsibility on him, he would at some point make decisions himself and think for himself.



Ps. I am aware of the fact that the definition of intelligence is very relative.



Pss. I'll add some more things tomorrow. I am too tired to form a sensible post at the moment. Feel free to post, anyway!

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Thank you for the terrific reply! It was very supplementary, and perhaps the whole debate has taken a wrong turn because of the wide list of definitions for "intelligent". I truly appreciate that you found the time to reply to the question with such a well-thought and well-written post.

Thank you again!

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

I guess what i've been trying to point out is that you can expand your knowledge and understanding to gain a more enlightened perspective and understanding of the world around you. If you take that as intelligence then yes, you can become more intelligent BUT every person has s limit to their ability to comprehend concepts. Not machinery, situational awereness or inanimate systems but concepts, ideas and, like i mentioned earlier, the whys, ifs and what thens of concepts and ideas. As an example, some people just cannot comprehend how studying history will enable you to predict the future. Some cannot comprehend why events across the world could ever affect them. Most people just don't have the brain capacity to automatically associate cause and effect of 2 seeminly unrelated concepts. You cannot train your mind to make bridges over gaps that you didn't know existed.

EDIT: A perfect example is the madness of global climate change. The whole idea is riduclous to those that know history and understand the chaotic nature of our planet. Instead they simply do not care, and happily bend over to the talking head on TV that tells them how they are doomed unless they give them moeny to "save the planet". Funny, it used to be "give us money to save your community from hell!!". Guess that stuff don't fly so well no more. Every person that believes that we are having a catastrophic influence over our planet is an unintelligent ignorant dimwit.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Hexi
I guess what i've been trying to point out is that you can expand your knowledge and understanding to gain a more enlightened perspective and understanding of the world around you. If you take that as intelligence then yes, you can become more intelligent BUT every person has s limit to their ability to comprehend concepts. Not machinery, situational awereness or inanimate systems but concepts, ideas and, like i mentioned earlier, the whys, ifs and what thens of concepts and ideas. As an example, some people just cannot comprehend how studying history will enable you to predict the future. Some cannot comprehend why events across the world could ever affect them. Most people just don't have the brain capacity to automatically associate cause and effect of 2 seeminly unrelated concepts. You cannot train your mind to make bridges over gaps that you didn't know existed.

EDIT: A perfect example is the madness of global climate change. The whole idea is riduclous to those that know history and understand the chaotic nature of our planet. Instead they simply do not care, and happily bend over to the talking head on TV that tells them how they are doomed unless they give them moeny to "save the planet". Funny, it used to be "give us money to save your community from hell!!". Guess that stuff don't fly so well no more. Every person that believes that we are having a catastrophic influence over our planet is an unintelligent ignorant dimwit.
But the fact that someone questions, say, global warming like in your example, may stem from previous experience or teachings.

If two people, the other one has been robbed and threatened five times in his life, and the other has never had any reason to distrust people and has never come to harm, were given a hoax call, which one would be more likely to get fooled?

Thank you for your post, I appreciate your views very much.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

Name
But the fact that someone questions, say, global warming like in your example, may stem from previous experience or teachings.

If two people, the other one has been robbed and threatened five times in his life, and the other has never had any reason to distrust people and has never come to harm, were given a hoax call, which one would be more likely to get fooled?

Thank you for your post, I appreciate your views very much.


That depends on the hoaxer, how well he knows the one being hoaxed and what is the topic of the hoax. I'm not sure on the English terms of maths as English is not my native language but i hope i understood the question. You get it by substracting the middle part from the overall size of the thingy. Giving the exact numbers would take effort though and while i could calculate it, it would be silly not to use a calculator.

I believe it would be something like (37x37x3.14) - (33x33x3.14). It's been nearly 10 years since i've done any actual maths though hehe.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

I guess what i've been trying to point out is that you can expand your knowledge and understanding to gain a more enlightened perspective and understanding of the world around you. If you take that as intelligence then yes, you can become more intelligent BUT every person has s limit to their ability to comprehend concepts. Not machinery, situational awereness or inanimate systems but concepts, ideas and, like i mentioned earlier, the whys, ifs and what thens of concepts and ideas. As an example, some people just cannot comprehend how studying history will enable you to predict the future. Some cannot comprehend why events across the world could ever affect them. Most people just don't have the brain capacity to automatically associate cause and effect of 2 seeminly unrelated concepts. You cannot train your mind to make bridges over gaps that you didn't know existed.

EDIT: A perfect example is the madness of global climate change. The whole idea is riduclous to those that know history and understand the chaotic nature of our planet. Instead they simply do not care, and happily bend over to the talking head on TV that tells them how they are doomed unless they give them moeny to "save the planet". Funny, it used to be "give us money to save your community from hell!!". Guess that stuff don't fly so well no more. Every person that believes that we are having a catastrophic influence over our planet is an unintelligent ignorant dimwit.

----- I think most people without mental defects are able of comprehending concepts. It;s not that people can't comprehend world history or that climate change has happened before (though I think it is fair to saythat if we can measure the effects ofcarbon monoxide from cars and cfc's etc and draw the conclusion they do damage the ozone etc, then it IS fair to conclude that it may be that climate change is happening and we are helping it along, acerbating it...)

Anyway it's not that the genral public aren't able to comprehend, they are just ignorant, they haven't sat down with all the possible data, findings, research and info and had the time to come up witha conclusion or a better understandign of the concepts as they are too busy with work, familly and other stuff.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

But that's just it. They don't think critically and objectively about the information presented to them. Also, it's not that it damages our atmosphere, but rather that it binds more heat into it and that is the basis of the whole thing, which is a stupid argument to make. It's been hotter and colder on the planet than in our idustrial period and it seems like it's cooling again. There is no factual basis for the argument, no evidence to prove correlation. It's an assumption based on a hypothesis based on a theory. That's not science, that's having an agenda.

Re: Can a person become intelligent?

What i was trying to point out in my earlier post was that most people lack the important phase of new information being processed, the critical evaluation. Being too busy is ******** excuse for being ignorant. We have minds, start using them instead of being "too busy".