Psychology: I'm not an expert on the subject, but something's wrong

[Eater of Clowns]

That I agree with completely.  It's even reflected in IQ tests, where there's an increase in a single individual's lifetime.  If people exercise their brains, they get smarter.  Intelligence is fluid.

Where I differ is that I don't think it was exercised more in previous times.  People have always been people, and inclined to exist in the most convenient way possible.  Where things are more convenient now in terms of survival, even something like our increased population has led to higher intelligence.  Because we're regularly in contact with more people on a daily basis than any time in history, we're forced to think to adapt to changing social situations, which is a kind of intelligence.

The fact that we even have a choice to converse like we are now where previously there had been no such opportunity is another sign.  While the majority today choose not to do this, the greater majority previously wouldn't even be able to, whether they wanted to or not.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Where I differ is that I don't think it was exercised more in previous times.  People have always been people, and inclined to exist in the most convenient way possible.

The difference is in how much convenience is possible.

[Roaring Biscuit!]

If it's any help, the IQ test "intelligence" increasing if still cited by my lecturers (I can find a reference tomorrow).  Think it's about 6 points every decade (maybe less).

Re:  defining intelligence, dictionary works just fine I guess.  IQ tests though are specifically related to "academic" intelligence, they were originally developed to test the effectiveness of teaching I believe.  I think its a very vague term personally, I mean, the defining factor in someones intelligence could be something like the speed of synapse firing/ratios of neurotransmitter, which then allows faster cognitive function, and then it comes down to whether you measure intelligence as the thing causing those increased cognitive functions or the functions themselves.

That's not totally out of the blue either, some study on the correlation (positive) between running speed and intelligence, possibly to do with synaptic fire rate (could also be to do with loads of other factors mind), something else for me to dig up tomorrow

xx

edd

p.s.  now stop distracting me from my essay on blindsight

[Golden Applesauce]

I'm iffy on medieval humans not having as much accumulated knowledge.  Certainly a lot less technical accumulated knowledge (as we understand the world "technical") but I don't see any reason to claim that their cultural knowledge base would be more shallow re: the things they come into contact with on a regular or semi-regular basis.  They may not have been able to google whatever knowledge you don't have on hand at the moment, but as long as your environment is reasonably static (life altering inventions averaging much less than once per generation) you can get by with Tradition and whatever those monks have written down in their histories.

You could even argue that the modern environment of rapid requires more individual decision making because we don't yet have the traditions to deal with, say, cell phones.  People are only now starting to get the "don't cell phone while operating cars" meme pounded into the collective cultural consciousness.  I attribute the Greater Internet Fuckwad principle to our lack of tradition and culture about how to communicate and engage in discourse when everyone is pseudo-anonymous.  I'm not a medieval scholar, but I expect that the relatively solid class system and constant communication with your neighbors made it easier to figure out what was appropriate to say and what was the appropriate way to say it.

[Golden Applesauce]

Where I differ is that I don't think it was exercised more in previous times.  People have always been people, and inclined to exist in the most convenient way possible.

The difference is in how much convenience is possible.

We have lots of convenient appliances, convenient libraries, convenient education, etc., but throughout history there have always been people and social structures in place to make it as convenient as possible to not rock the status quo.  I think the average medieval peasant spent the similar or even less time thinking about the relationship between themselves and their religion, their feudal lord, and their community as compared to 21st century humans.

[Bu🤠ns]

I just finished listening to the audiobook version of Man's Search for Meaning by the late neurologist/psychologist,  Viktor Frankel.  Frankel spent some time in a concentration camp and the book describes, first his experiences there and then relates them to his theories. which became"Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy," Logotherapy.  I haven't really had time to sit down and really explore the ideas but they look really interesting on the outset. Definitely third circuit stuff but also more fleshed out than Freud and less crazy than Leary.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That's a neat definition.  We make immediate reactive deicisions on a daily basis, which are based on previous learned experiences in something even as simple as driving.  What do you do when the semi driver doesn't see you in the lane when he changes into it?  How do you act when that SUV didn't check its massive blind spot and is about to take out your front end?  That can be a life or death situation as much as a pillaging army or blight, and one that we practice on a very regular basis.  But I don't think that's a definitive answer to intelligence.

I'm gonna argue based on experience that driving decisions are made by habit, experience, and reflex, not by outright intelligence.

I'm arguing that because we have such a wealth of accumulated knowledge that we need to apply on a regular basis, we have become more intelligent in order to adapt to that.  Whether or not our hardware has changed, the average person needs to draw upon a greater amount of information and for that we've become more intelligent.

Established, accumulated knowledge doesn't necessarily imply intelligence.  I'd argue the other way, stating that you don't need to use your brain as much if the knowledge is handed to you.

As for dropping a westerner in the middle ages, do the same for someone in the middle ages.  They'd probably get hit by a car.

It's more likely that they'd go insane.

However, I definitely agree that it's easier to get by these days than it was back then.  Lack of intelligence is protected to a greater degree than ever.

Sure.  But I wasn't even considering genetic load.  I'm arguing that people are less intelligent for the same reason that they're physically weaker.  They don't need to use their muscles or their brains as much.

No. People are becoming more intelligent (in some ways) as their environments are becoming more complex.

[Telarus]

I think this talk on Vimeo will be very illuminating to the topic (very good thread so far). Doug Rushkoff goes over how our society changed from Feudal to Mercantile to Internet dominated, and some ideas about what changes are coming/what to do about it:

Douglas Rushkoff: Branding Doesn't Work! So Now What?

[Telarus]

 http://bigthink.com/ideas/41973

The Two Systems of Cognitive Processes

In today's excerpt – thanks to the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, we now increasingly view our cognitive processes as being divided into two systems. System 1 produces the fast, intuitive reactions and instantaneous decisions that govern most of our lives. System 2 is the deliberate type of thinking involved in focus, deliberation, reasoning or analysis – such as calculating a complex math problem, exercising self-control, or performing a demanding physical task.

System 2 activities - cognitive, emotional, or physical - draw at least partly on a shared pool of mental energy. Studies consistently show that when the brain is occupied with one type of System 2 thinking, it interferes with any other type of System 2 thinking you need to perform at the same time. And performing one type of System 2 thinking makes us less able to perform a subsequent System 2 activity in the period immediately afterward – even if one is physical and the other is cognitive or emotional. Furthermore, when the mind is actively focused on a System 2 activity, it results in System 1 having greater influence over our behavior:

"It is now a well-established proposition that both self-control and cognitive effort are forms of mental work. Several psychological studies have shown that people who are simultaneously challenged by a demanding cognitive task and by a temptation are more likely to yield to the temptation. Imagine that you are asked to retain a list of seven digits for a minute or two. You are told that remembering the digits is your top priority. While your atten­tion is focused on the digits, you are offered a choice between two desserts: a sinful chocolate cake and a virtuous fruit salad. The evidence suggests that you would be more likely to select the tempting chocolate cake when your mind is loaded with digits. System 1 has more influence on behavior when System 2 is busy, and it has a sweet tooth.

"People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situ­ations. Memorizing and repeating digits loosens the hold of System 2 on behavior, but of course cognitive load is not the only cause of weakened self-control. A few drinks have the same effect, as does a sleepless night. The self-control of morning people is impaired at night; the reverse is true of night people. Too much concern about how well one is doing in a task sometimes disrupts performance by loading short-term memory with pointless anxious thoughts. The conclusion is straightforward: self-control requires attention and effort. Another way of saying this is that controlling thoughts and behaviors is one of the tasks that System 2 performs.

"A series of surprising experiments by the psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues has shown conclusively that all variants of voluntary effort - cognitive, emotional, or physical - draw at least partly on a shared pool of mental energy. Their experiments involve successive rather than simultaneous tasks.

"Baumeister's group has repeatedly found that an effort of will or self-control is tiring; if you have had to force yourself to do something, you are less willing or less able to exert self-control when the next challenge comes around. The phenomenon has been named ego depletion. In a typical dem­onstration, participants who are instructed to stifle their emotional reaction to an emotionally charged film will later perform poorly on a test of phys­ical stamina - how long they can maintain a strong grip on a dynamometer in spite of increasing discomfort. The emotional effort in the first phase of the experiment reduces the ability to withstand the pain of sustained muscle contraction, and ego-depleted people therefore succumb more quickly to the urge to quit. In another experiment, people are first depleted by a task in which they eat virtuous foods such as radishes and celery while resisting the temptation to indulge in chocolate and rich cookies. Later, these people will give up earlier than normal when faced with a difficult cognitive task."

Quotes from ~
Author: Daniel Kahneman Title: Thinking Fast and Slow
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Date: Copyright 2011 by Daniel Kahneman
Pages: 41-42

[Triple Zero]

The average IQ is 100, it's designed that way.  When it's no longer 100, the test is changed to bring the norm back to 100.  And that's done because the score has gone up in most parts of the world since the test came about.

I need a cite on that.

I also need a cite on the claim that intelligence is increasing, since that is a really strong claim and I cannot think of any selective mechanism strong enough with this size of a population to increase in such short a time as a couple centuries.

But isn't that the point? Given the timescale we're looking at, humans aren't significantly evolving, right?

(interesting subquestion for you, given just a slightly larger timescale, in what sense have we been evolving?)

I'm not saying that intelligence is increasing btw, just that selective mechanisms might not be the thing to look at.

Say you get more intelligent by studying. Let's focus on math. 500 years ago there was already quite a bit of math to be knowledgable about, but there was no easily accessible education system to learn all about it. But now there is. A person can become quite the expert on math in just a few years of study.

That's not a selection mechanism, but indeed accumulated knowledge, distilled in such a way so that you can learn all the good parts without having to travel far and read unique manuscripts to get at it.

And that's just math. It also goes for many other areas. Isn't that some sense in which it could be said intelligence is increasing? Or maybe the potential for being well-learned is increasing?

[Placid Dingo]

Telarus, I remember another study with participants forced to sit in a room with biscuits. Those allowed to eat them were able to have a comfortable conversation with a rude individual, whereas those who coulnt eat them got snarky.