Smarts.......

[txdinghysailor]

I believe that in most people there is no such thing as an "intelligent person" or a "smart person". I think instead that it all depends on luck. How do you find out if a person is smart? You ask them questions that you believe that smart people know. However, luck decides if they know the answer to that question or not. If luck says they know the answer, you think that they're smart. If luck says they don't know, then you think they're not smart. It's all about luck.

[ardillacid]

Do you really believe in luck?

[Noel's angel]

No.

[txdinghysailor]

Yes.

[rkwright]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795422' date='Mar 2 2009, 06:50 PM']I believe that in most people there is no such thing as an "intelligent person" or a "smart person". I think instead that it all depends on luck. How do you find out if a person is smart? You ask them questions that you believe that smart people know. However, luck decides if they know the answer to that question or not. If luck says they know the answer, you think that they're smart. If luck says they don't know, then you think they're not smart. It's all about luck.[/quote]

Not necessarily. Knowledge is what decides if they know the answer to that question or not. If you ask some very specialized question the answer might depend more on luck. But if you ask a very a general question and get a dumb response, I don't think its wrong to conclude they are not smart.

I think if you ask a very specialized question and get a good answer and this happens over and over you're dealing with a very smart person.

Another example; have you ever sat through a talk\presentation\demonstration and the person next to you seems to understand it much better than you (or they ask you a question and you say what have you been listening to?) You both had the same 'luck' of sitting through the instructions - one person just gets it and the other doesn't.

Maybe its harder to prove smart people - but the world is full of dumb people and they're not too hard to find.

Edited March 2, 2009 by rkwright

[txdinghysailor]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1795437' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:56 PM']Not necessarily. Knowledge is what decides if they know the answer to that question or not. If you ask some very specialized question the answer might depend more on luck. But if you ask a very a general question and get a dumb response, I don't think its wrong to conclude they are not smart.

I think if you ask a very specialized question and get a good answer and this happens over and over you're dealing with a very smart person.

Another example; have you ever sat through a talk\presentation\demonstration and the person next to you seems to understand it much better than you (or they ask you a question and you say what have you been listening to?) You both had the same 'luck' of sitting through the instructions - one person just gets it and the other doesn't.

Maybe its harder to prove smart people - but the world is full of dumb people and they're not too hard to find.[/quote]

What happens when you ask a specialized person a general question? They may not know the answer, so are they therefore dumb?

At a presentation, how do you know that the person next to you who's "getting it" may have read up on the subject beforehand? Whether they did or not is just chance, or luck...

[CSLF]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795443' date='Mar 2 2009, 08:00 PM']What happens when you ask a specialized person a general question? They may not know the answer, so are they therefore dumb?

At a presentation, how do you know that the person next to you who's "getting it" may have read up on the subject beforehand? Whether they did or not is just chance, or luck...[/quote]

Intelligence isn't knowledge. Even if a person is not very intelligent they can memorize information. Intelligence is about the way you think or process information.

[txdinghysailor]

[quote name='CSLF' post='1795463' date='Mar 2 2009, 08:23 PM']Intelligence isn't knowledge. Even if a person is not very intelligent they can memorize information. Intelligence is about the way you think or process information.[/quote]

But how is that intelligence displayed except by the questions that are asked of people?

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795443' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:00 PM']What happens when you ask a specialized person a general question? They may not know the answer, so are they therefore dumb?[/quote]

Just because one does not know the answer to a general question does not make them "dumb." We cannot know everything, that is simply impossible. Besides, the person may have known the answer at one time but recently forgot.

[txdinghysailor]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1795472' date='Mar 2 2009, 08:34 PM']Just because one does not know the answer to a general question does not make them "dumb." We cannot know everything, that is simply impossible. Besides, the person may have known the answer at one time but recently forgot.[/quote]


Exactly, which is why it is all about luck. If they're lucky, they know the answer, or remember it, or happen to know it at that time and place. Or maybe they see something that triggers their memory.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795475' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:36 PM']Exactly, which is why it is all about luck. If they're lucky, they know the answer, or remember it, or happen to know it at that time and place. Or maybe they see something that triggers their memory.[/quote]

It has nothing to do with luck, it has to do with knowledge. If you have knowledge of the answer, you have knowledge; if you do not have the answer, you do not have the knowledge (I am talking [i]specific[/i] knowledge here, not knowledge in general).

[txdinghysailor]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1795478' date='Mar 2 2009, 08:37 PM']It has nothing to do with luck, it has to do with knowledge. If you have knowledge of the answer, you have knowledge; if you do not have the answer, you do not have the knowledge (I am talking [i]specific[/i] knowledge here, not knowledge in general).[/quote]

How do you have that knowledge? How do you remember that knowledge and not some other knowledge? You said we can't know everything in the world, but how can you know the answer to a random question that someone asks you. I say the answer is luck.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795480' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:39 PM']How do you have that knowledge? How do you remember that knowledge and not some other knowledge? You said we can't know everything in the world, but how can you know the answer to a random question that someone asks you. I say the answer is luck.[/quote]

Well you absorb knowledge from educational institutions; there is also common sense knowledge and knowledge you gain from life experience.

Your reasoning is bizarre. If you do not have the knowledge to answer the question, no amount of "luck" will help you.

[txdinghysailor]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1795485' date='Mar 2 2009, 08:43 PM']Your reasoning is bizarre. If you do not have the knowledge to answer the question, no amount of "luck" will help you.[/quote]

How do you retain that knowledge? I am exposed to so much knowledge every single day, yet I only remember some of it. What decides what I remember and what I forget? What decides what question I'm asked, and if that is something that I randomly remembered?

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795488' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:46 PM']How do you retain that knowledge? I am exposed to so much knowledge every single day, yet I only remember some of it. What decides what I remember and what I forget? What decides what question I'm asked, and if that is something that I randomly remembered?[/quote]

Your brain.

[homeschoolmom]

All right... a show of hands... how many thought this thread would be about these?:

[img]http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/06/images/smart_car.jpg[/img]

[txdinghysailor]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1795492' date='Mar 2 2009, 08:51 PM']Your brain.[/quote]

Well obviously, but your brain can only retain so much information. What decides what it retains and what it flushes down the drain? Luck.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='txdinghysailor' post='1795501' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:55 PM']Well obviously, but your brain can only retain so much information. What decides what it retains and what it flushes down the drain? Luck.[/quote]

So "luck" controls our biology as well as our intelligence?

[b] Area of brain found to play key role in initiating memory storage [/b]

Flee, freeze or fight. A response to a threat is based on experience and memory. Now scientists have discovered that an area of the brain, the amygdala, which was thought to store painful and emotion-related memories, also initiates memory storage in other brain regions.

There has been a growing debate on the function of the amygdala [pronounced uh-MIG duh-luh], an almond-shaped sub-cortical structure in the temporal lobe. It receives electrical signals carrying auditory information through axons traveling one way from the medial geniculate (MG) nucleus in the thalamus.

New research published in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that the amygdala plays a pivotal role in the initial process of storing memory elsewhere in the brain. The amygdala appears to decide which experiences are important enough to store ? a decision based on the emotional significance of the events in a decoding process that affects both learning and memory.

?Our data show that a disabled amygdala leads to a breakdown of learning-related changes in other parts of the brain,? said Michael Gabriel, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. ?Specifically, disabling the amygdala blocks learning-related changes in the sensory pathway, the media geniculate nucleus. These changes are essential for the ability to discriminate between important and unimportant sounds.?

Amy Poremba of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., is the co-author of the study. The National Institutes of Health funded the project through a grant to Gabriel, whose lab uses technology that allows for the simultaneous tracking of firing neurons in several places of the brain. In the study, involving 26 male rabbits, researchers temporarily disabled the amygdala. Rabbits with unaltered brains were able to learn the consequences of two differently sounding tones: one that resulted in nothing and another followed in five seconds by a mild shock to the feet. Rabbits that correctly learned the consequences could avoid the shock by moving the wheel under their feet. Those with blocked amygdalas failed to learn such a response to the shock-predicting tone.

In a follow-up study to appear later in the same journal, the researchers blocked the auditory cortex, through which return signals travel from the amygdala to the medial geniculate. Again, rabbits failed to differentiate the tones.

Instead of just getting input from the medial geniculate, Gabriel said, the amygdala appears to send signals back to the medial geniculate, allowing neurons to decipher the significance of the sounds. ?This work puts the amygdala in the middle of the circuitry, in a very prominent position in terms of relevance toward learning,? Gabriel said. The findings, he added, also are consistent with a theory originally formulated by James L. McGaugh of the University of California at Irvine. The new data, however, show how the theory is implemented in terms of the activity in the brain circuitry.

Source: [url="http://www.neuroskills.com/tbi/pr-amygdala.shtml"]http://www.neuroskills.com/tbi/pr-amygdala.shtml[/url]

[Era Might]

I get a lot of "Jeopardy!" questions correct without really knowing the answer. Sometimes I just know the answer because I've heard it before, somewhere, even though I don't remember where I heard it, and I don't even necessarily know what the answer means. I just know the answer. I think we pick up a lot of knowledge that we don't really use, but it's in the back of our minds, lurking, waiting for Alex Trebek to call it forth.

[rose wrought of iron]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1795494' date='Mar 2 2009, 07:53 PM']All right... a show of hands... how many thought this thread would be about these?:

[img]http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/06/images/smart_car.jpg[/img][/quote]


Geez, DingySailor () you just opened up a can o worms...