Comment by blahblah3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blahblah3 | Hacker News Reader

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That's a great example and I don't disagree with you.

The way I think about "intelligence" is not to mull over what it "really means" but to think about lots of common "intellectual" tasks (in which aptitude can be measured) that people are interested in: reading, writing, math, programming, solving puzzles, etc. Or ideally, theoretical "potential" in each of these tasks, since one person may put more or less effort into another field.

What's supported by research and anectodal evidence is that if you did principal components analysis on these measured "aptitudes", there would be a principal component explaining a lot of the variation. A good test can try to measure this principal component.

But when you're talking about the very highest levels of specific tasks like cycling or swimming, it would be reasonable to expect that amongst the population of already "elite athletes" there would be less of a dominant first principal component

Thanks.

There are different definitions of intelligence. One I like (though I don't quite find it comprehensive) is David Krakauer (of Santa Fe Institute), "Intelligence is Search". That is: it's a search across an n-dimensional space for a least-cost function.

There's the question of "function for what?", and I'm thinking here something which allows for useful prediction or outmaneuvering an adversary (as with chess).

This gives a set of related or subroutine functions which are required, including many on your list: information acquisitionprocessing, and output. An interesting concept I ran across in the past year or so is that of the medieval curriculum, comprised of the trivium and the quadrivium. The first is further broken down into grammar, logic, and rhetoric, or if you prefer, input (and framing), processing, and output. This tickles my brain.

Another element I'm familiar with is that there comes a point in any skill at which it's somewhat less the things you get right as what you avoid getting wrong that matters. A champion athlete has strength or stamina, but also optimised physiology (Michael Phelps's long arms and torso, short legs, and huge feet, for example, are swimming gold, QED), and not screwing anything up in the event. Nailing starts, turns, finishes, and technique, not getting in your own way.

Further pondering intelligence also brings into the fold what knowledge, wisdom, correctness, and quality are. Interesting questions.

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