One thing that we all have in common is that we all think we are right.

Is it a sign of a greater mind to believe that you are right, but question your motives and decisions, or is that simply a lack of confidence?

Are you lacking in intelligence to follow someone, only because of one arbitrary thing that they have that you like?

Are there some things that the people around you may never understand because their IQ is average? Is IQ the reason for this? Unchangeable?

Throw these around with me.

1) Well, both. Not only is it an intelligent thing to do, it also shows a lack of confidence. Those things not always work together very well.
I, personally, trust my own judgment. I believe in my own motives and decisions with all my heart, but only if I do not feel the need to question them. If I feel I'm doing it wrong, I go back and recheck them.
If you can't trust your own judgment, whose can you trust?

2) Follow, but do not submit.
If you truly like that arbitrary thing, you will strive to get it for yourself. Following someone who has that is a great form of learning. If you, however, are not able to try and get that thing and just keep following who has it for all eternity, you are wasting your life away.
So, I say, see first if you truly like the thing you want. If you do, go learn how to get it. If you don't, go spend your time somewhere else.
Again, I say, trust your own judgment.

3) I've heard scientifics saying IQ is unchangeable, but you can learn how to use the IQ you have to the max.
I've also heard that IQ merely quantifies one form of intelligence (the mathematical one, I think), and there are multiple forms of intelligence that are not quantifiable.
That's what I heard; what I believe is basically "screw IQ".
Because, really, anything is achievable.
You only have to find the right path. And sometimes it's pretty hidden.

My views, thrown around kind of in a hurry. =]

I do not consider myself to think that I AM right but rather that it seems (sometimes) like I'm right (this is not necessarily even frequently) or it seems like my position is the best one for me to maintain but I DEFINITELY can be wrong and probably am at least some of the time if not much of the time. I would also say that I believe their are many people like me who don't consider ourselves to think that we are right because we believe in the existence of skepticism and/or fallibilism or fallibility. Although we don't think we are right, we would disagree with you.

I consider myself to function as though this is the best belief that I have and it seems worth following. I consider questioning my motives and decisions (intellectually) to be conducive to growth but over questioning them I consider to be stunting to growth.

In other words I give self feedback about my decisions while simultaneously accepting the decisions that I make. I consider it of worth to admit mistakes but it is also of worth to understand what you can and cannot reasonably take back and work with that realistically.

I don't know what you mean by follow someone regarding one arbitrary thing. I need you to be more specific for me to understand what you mean so I guess to answer your question about needing to be lacking in intelligence, the best that I understand it is "no, not necessarily." Then I would follow with, "why would you need to be lacking in intelligence for that".

IQ from the point of Intelligence Quotient score I don't really trust but especially I could care less about. If however you are asking if someone will never be able to understand you based on their intelligence I would say that many people fail to understand others (apparently) for any number of reasons including intelligence, language, bias, belief, cultural and/or gender communication differences, etc. Even if EVERYTHING is in complete harmony, I see no universal evidence that one mind MUST necessarily be able to understand another mind.

It doesn't seem to mean that they necessarily will never understand you nor that they simply aren't intelligent enough, just that there are obstacles to a meeting of the minds.

The last thing I would say, and one that I do not know to be true but believe and would appeal to you to see if you believe is this idea. There really is not a universal standard by which people 'should' be. It is all what we WANT ourselves and others to be. SHOW ME THE STANDARD.

My point is that when you are asking us these questions, from my point of view, you will only get social or ethical opinions (and possibly useful ones at that) but we are all just people like you and we don't KNOW the answers to be necessarily true. We only believe them. A lot goes into belief, not just intelligence.

In other words, the only answers you will get are our opinions, or our knowledge of the opinions of others, or something to think about when forming your own opinion, but other than that, there is no single correct and universal answer (apparently to me).

It is the sign of a WEAKER mind to believe in ones own rightism. If one is unaccepting of ones inherent ineptitude, then one can not seek greater knowledge. To assume that one is always correct leaves no room for scientific thought, and is the breeding place of superstition. Instead it is the man who knows and understands his own ineptitude, and acts constantly to reverse that state that is the greater. So to answer your question, any one who questions himself regardless of his own confidence is in fact the possessor of a greater mind. Pretty straight forward actually.



This is a touchy issue, but it's more telling to tell the reverse of that; "Would you follow someone who has many traits you don't like?"
The simple answer is "no." I 'm betting you wouldn't. The problem is that there is always something one can find objectionable about another, so then the question becomes; "Do the positive traits outweigh the negative one in both number and/or severity?"
To answer your question, I'd have to say "yes", because the leader is (by the very nature of the question) an objectionable individual. If we take my proofs from the previous question then we can further surmise that one who fails to see the inherent flaws in the one they follow, and does not seek to improve them or ignores them all together, is lacking in intelligence.



This is a little trio; we'll break it down.
A1) Probably. But only if they are truly ignorant. If they are open to new ideas, then I don't see a problem with others (eventually) understanding a concept I do.

A2)IQ is a funny thing. It is not a solid static number. What it really measures is your brain's processing power as a function of age. What this means is that your IQ naturally gets progressively LOWER as you grow older, while you may not actually BE any less informed or lacking in mental skills. It's assumes mastery in the fundamentals, and thus averages those out of the equation as one grows older.

A3) One way to stave off the effects of this process is to always continue learning new things therefore the net loss of the things you have mastered is always in balance with new incoming skills. If one endeavors to learn more than one can master then one will find peace, and possibly a purpose in life. The practical upshot of all this is that if one is always seeking out new experiences then ones IQ will probably go up as a result, (the new information is in greater supply then the old mastered information, thus a net gain.)
So to answer this question(s) : Yes, but it's either their fault for not trying to understand it, or they have a developmental disorder. IQ is only a measure, not a reason for or cause of ignorance. (so that'd be a "no" for that part). And finally, IQ is certainly changeable, and one should endeavor to change it in a positive way, or at the very least maintain it so that it does not wither away.

I hope that answers your questions.

I thought the title said nightmares so I entered, interested, Than I find all this and I left.

@Staffy
Very good post.

@Ixzion (in view of Staffy's post)
One thing that I would like to emphasize, from my point of view, is that the word "intelligent" may be overrated.

For example, if someone is unaware of their shortcomings, it may be accurate to say that they are lacking in intelligence, since they do not possess the useful information (i.e. the intelligence) regarding their shortcomings specifically.

Too often, however, someone who lacks intelligence is maintained as synonymous with stupid, ignorant, or foolish, and in my opinion, this is not an intelligent position, in that someone who has greater intelligence about the way the mind works in general may understand that:

a) someone who is very smart (i.e, they are not stupid) may simply not have learned about this particular item even if they have learned about a great deal of other particular items,

b) someone who does not intentionally ignore their environment (i.e. they are not ignorant) may have a cognitive bias which prevents them from seeing something from another's perspective, and

c) someone who is relatively wise (i.e. they are not foolish) may be able to see connections to ideas and provide them with usefulness based on a low but sufficient level of intelligence.

Therefore I invite you to examine your specific interest in intelligence alone as a limiting factor in effective communication.

So are you saying that there is only ignorant and willfully ignorant, which thus determines their intelligence?

If I understand what you are asking I am saying that intelligence, while related, is an independent variable from ignorance.

While someone might be both lacking intelligence and ignorant, they also might be only one or the other (regarding a given topic of interest).

If your main concern is that someone may not understand you, it might be in fact because they are ignorant, but they still may be very intelligent. An example is someone who knows a great deal about how things work but conciously chooses or subconciously is effected to ignore some of it to maintain a partisan bias. If you have an opposing partisan bias you might not ever be able to communicate successfully about a given view with this relatively intelligent person.

Furthermore, it might be tempting to say the one who is subconciously effected to be partisan is not as bad as one who conciously chooses to be partisan (i.e. one who seems to be willfully ignorant) but this would be ignoring or lacking in intelligence as to why they ultimately would choose to be partisan. Their underlying motivations to conciously choose to be partisan (and in this example, ignorant) may be due to many subconcious motivating factors which effectively makes them in an ultimate sense, just like the 'unwillfully' ignorant.

I have some input, but no time to contribute, so I'm gonna reserve this spot. (It'll only be a few hours, I have to go to work and I can't write a long winded diatribe right now.

But a couple of quick thoughts:

First, Let me invoke Tso Tzu (Sp?) here and say that when one is not understood, then it is that persons fault for not being clear. If when properly and clearly explained, a concept is STILL not understood, then it is the fault of the listener for not understanding it. Whether this is because of a mental defect, or a conscious decision on the part of the listener remains to be seen. I would think that a person who is mentally handicapped would and should be forgiven for not grasping a concept.
Interestingly, Tso Tzu demonstrated this concept by arranging battle drills to be performed by 100 of the emperor of China's concubines. He divided them in to 2 groups of 50, and then explained the drills to them. Then he asked them all to perform the drills. Not surprisingly, they milled around an chatted instead. He then explained the drills once more and only had half do the drills; again they performed less than acceptably. So he had these concubines beheaded. Then he turned to the other group and explained the drill to them once more and not surprisingly, they fell into lockstep rather quickly.

@Bo (edit) BTW, this was all written BEFORE I read Fay's post.
The story is actually documented in Tso Tzu's book on the art of war. War at its essence is a conflict. Conflicts can be many things -and not necessarily physical or violent.
Why I mention it is that when you try to inform an ignorant person you are entering into a kind of conflict. First they must be open to the new information, and if they are, the conflict is mostly resolved almost before it begins. One only negotiate the terms, (most new ideas require questions, and these are necessary, as most people will try to find flaws in reasoning.) and then there is resolution. If a person is unresponsive to new ideas then they will usually attack your logic with rhetoric or simply be dismissive of the idea (they choose to be ignorant).
However, sometimes all one needs to do to get a responsive person from a dismissive one, is offer a little motivation. And as psychology teaches us, where there is motivation, there is training.
After all, isn't the act of teaching LITERALLY a type of training? So then, we can say that passing on information(new ideas BEING information) is a kind of behavior modification. If you provide the proper incentive, people will be more receptive. In the case of our good friend Tso Tzu, I think the methods were a bit extreme, but I also think it was that colorful to illustrate a point: Clarity and the ability to inspire Motivation are the key aspects of any one wishing to pass on new information. Or lead in any aspect.

On to the other thing I wish to mention.

One must be careful throwing around the word "ignorant." I think a better description for what we are talking about is "uninformed," which isn't necessarily the exact same thing. While being "uninformed" can certainly mean one is "ignorant," it does not need to follow that this same person is also "stupid" (lacking an any intellegence what-so-ever.) It's easy to fall into that mindset that "ignorant" means "stupid," but those two things are VERY different animals. Just wanted to put that out there, so every one can know.

@Staffy,

First you are telling a ficticious parable. It need not reflect reality.

Second, even if it does reflect reality, not everyone can fall into lockstep on every topic, and especially not instantly. Sometimes it takes days, months, years, a lifetime, or never to understand a particular concept.

Third, if the first person is doing their best to be clear and the second person is doing their best to understand and still they cannot communicate, it might be that it isn't possible in at least a particular instance as neither the first person nor the second person created the potential of minds, the potential of language or the potential of the real world.

Most people however choose to reject this as they are terrified of the idea of having no one to blame.

Is it a sign of a greater mind to believe that you are right, but question your motives and decisions, or is that simply a lack of confidence?

It's intelligent in my opinion. I don't believe anyone can ever be 100% correct. It isn't a choice to doubt ourselves, it will happen irregardless of the will for it to occur or not. It's just going to be a matter of how much we show other people.

Are you lacking in intelligence to follow someone, only because of one arbitrary thing that they have that you like?

I don't believe so. I follow people when they do have respectable traits. I am the type to want to absorb those traits eventually, and learn from them. But I think it's also important to be your own person, and love yourself.

Are there some things that the people around you may never understand because their IQ is average? Is IQ the reason for this? Unchangeable?

Yes, but it is not from IQ. IQ is something we've applied to humans that we're now finding is not necessarily the end-all-be-all. The reason I think people don't understand is definitely motivation, and cognition. You could be brilliant, but if you don't feel like thinking, well, damn. On the other hand, a less talented person could have those two attributes and be highly successful. It's not unchangeable, but it is quite hard to alter motivation.

I'm sorry. I had to stop right there...

"irreguardless" isn't a word...

Yeah.

The little pin scratched across the record that is the soundtrack of my mind when I read that.

I am right, you are wrong. End of discussion.

The only thing more annoying than seeing someone use a word that isn't a word or seeing someone use a word that is a word incorrectly, is seeing someone correct someone guilty of the above when regardless they knew what the first person meant.

I know. i was just giving her a hard time.

Chill dudes. Call off the dogs.

_IS_ a word.

I'm right. You're wrong.

iunoaboutrightorwrongi...sortofthinkthatitsallsortofyouknow,kinda

outthereyouknow?realobjectiverightandwrongandstuff.
butwhetherwecanaccessthosefacts?iuno.

So are you saying that there is only ignorant and willfully ignorant, which thus determines their intelligence?


intelligentpeoplecanbewrongallthetimetho,imwrongoftenenoughright?

iunnothoughwhatdowemeanbyignorantherereally?isn'titlike...sortoflike

alackofexposuretofactswhichultimatelyhasNOthingtodowithiq?iunorly.

/justsaying.

I really don't know if you're a spammer or not, but post with spaces between words, please. It's hard to read your posts.