IQ level does not matter contrary to popular belief

This is an example of simple reason. You can reach this conclusion through a simple exercise of logic... and I can tell you each step. I wouldn't call this "common sense", because generally with common sense people can't tell you the logic they arrive at their conclusion.

Common sense that reaches conclusions that are not reached through simple logic is no different than prejudice. A lot of this is a function of cultural beliefs. Common sense is very different from culture to culture.

Max, common sense can often be simple reason. Why you personally wouldn't call the example I gave common sense, is beyond me. It is a common conclusion. It is sense. And I daresay:
- if you asked 100 people from a random sampling of the general population if it was common sense, 95-99% of people would say 'of course'; and
- 99.9% from any size sampling, from any country in the world, would say the person lacked common sense if the person from my example actually fell off the edge of the cliff.

The term when used for social interactions becomes much more subjective, (and usually much more difficult to explain on the spot). And of course, some things alleged to be 'common sense' aren't necessarily common, and some alleged to be, aren't either common, or sense.

It would be more accurate to say it differs from culture to culture, but retains many similarities.

That said, it seems to me, that in order to reach your viewpoint, you must have a very narrow concept of what 'common sense' entails.

It isn't interesting to me to argue over the definition of a word. If you have an example of "common sense" that follows a simple chain of logic from objective facts, then I have no problem with that.

The "common sense" that bothers me is also called "intuition". It is things that people believe without question even though there is no facts or reason, or sometimes even in contradiction of facts.

There are lots of things that people commonly believe that are not based on facts or logic. Very intelligent people (people with high IQs) often have trouble with these things, they are part of our social mechanism even though they aren't based on logic or fact.

That bothers me too.

Fair enough, but don't expect to come to a public forum and say 'common sense = prejudice', then expect to not have your thoughts challenged.

It seems to me that an irony exists between the two quotes.

I do expect to have my thoughts challenged. That's kind of the point of posting them here.

It is common sense to come in out of the rain.

We've all agreed on this, as a general statement.


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1. All? I don't agree.
2. I'm sorry I mentioned common sense. It's gotten the thread off on a tangent.

Correction: I cut off the quote in the wrong place in my last post. The following is where it should have begun and ended.

Sorry.



1. All? I don't agree.
2. I'm sorry I mentioned common sense. It's gotten the thread off on a tangent.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lXX3dJUAGY

I feel like people have a tendency to miss the actual meaning of the idea of the IQ in modern psychology. It doesn't help that the name "intelligence quotient" is also super misleading. By current standards, your IQ is -mostly- genetic; this is why they can test someone at about age 7 and determine their overall IQ and it probably won't change more than a few points during their lifetime if they were to be tested again, no matter how much you "train" them. Every psychology professor I've had has labeled IQ not as someone's overall intelligence, but as their POTENTIAL for intelligence. What I mean by that is this:

Imagine that our brains are buckets of all different shapes and sizes; this is a result of mostly genetics and maybe a little bit of our environment during the first few years of life. Some buckets are very large and have a very wide top, so it's very easy to fill them and they can hold a lot of stuff. Some buckets are small and have a weird lid in the way that makes it difficult to fill them and they don't have much room for a lot of stuff. This is basically what the idea of the IQ is intended to represent from a psychological standpoint - the size and shape of our buckets, or our buckets' potentials to obtain and store stuff.

So, with this perspective, think of it like this: Sarah can have a huge and wide-mouthed bucket, while her friend, John, has a smaller, more difficult bucket to use. Sarah learned and retained information really easily, so she realized early on that she didn't have to work quite as hard as John to fill her bucket. Maybe Sarah even went about her life doing nothing but boasting about her bucket rather than actually working to fill it, but John actually worked to fill his, eventually filling his bucket more than Sarah's and learning valuable work ethics and hitting key points of maturity along the way. So, though Sarah started off with the advantage, who is actually better: Sarah, or John?

That being said, the IQ is really hard to record as concrete data because we can't fully agree on what exactly goes into it; this is why there are many different kinds of IQ tests. It's weird for us to put a literal number on something that is so difficult to measure. The major easily tested and recorded trait is someone's ability to think logically because this can be tested with brain teasers and weird math. However, there are many other aspects of one's intelligence that aren't easily tracked. Some examples are creativity, ability to communicate well and actually teach whatever info you retain, and some would even include good work ethics as a trait of intelligence.

So yes, IQ tests help us determine who would be a good engineer because they really only focus on our logical abilities and not much else.

If intelligence is an ability to understand then possibly achieving the "greatest understanding" might very well indicate the attainment of the highest intelligence. I think the problem lay in comprehending what man's greatest understanding might be and even if there is such a thing.