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Here is an interesting read:http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/skottke.htmlI have always believed that for the span of recorded history the civilizations have consisted of people of roughly the same raw intelligence. In other words, the median IQ would be around 100, possibly a little lower but not more than a couple of points. They had fewer base assumptions taught to them at an early age and many of the ones they were taught were wrong. We could not do nearly as much as we do today if we weren't "standing on the shoulders" of previous generations. By that I mean that most, if not all, discoveries and innovations made are based on knowledge and/or technology that was discovered or developed by an earlier generation and is now an accepted base assumption. Pythagoras had to prove his thereom and we only have to apply it.OTOH, I have seen some pretty strong arguments for fluctuation in intelligence based on diet which often varies by culture. I have also seen some good arguments promoting the idea that critical thinking is a learned behavior and that early education will have an effect on IQ scores.Do you think 5% of the Greeks had an IQ of over 125 (by today's standards)?I do.
If we equate “intelligence” with the ability to reason, then yes, I think it has been constant throughout man's history. I define “man” in the classical sense – as rational animal. Hence, he has the ability to reason. I don't think there are “grades” of reasoning power, either; this is why I don't think the world has races which are inherently “dumber” or more intelligent than others. Either you have the ability to reason, or you do not. If you do not have this ability, you are animal, not man. With that said, I think not all people make the same efforts to exercise their ability to reason. This is why we have schools, good nutrition, etc. - they all help people to tap into their potential to reason. Applying this to history, I think the Greeks probably were more active in tapping into their potential. Philosophical inquiry will do that since it trains one to reason well.
I don't think there are “grades” of reasoning power
Please correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are implying that any healthy human is capable of genius. I believe that all races have some geniuses and some idiots with most of us in between. But I also believe that inherent genius has to be exercised to develop to its potential (I am also fairly sure that inherent idiocy does not :D) and opportunities to develop the mind are more prevalent in some cultures than others.
You're right, I should clarify that. I'm not sure what distinguishes between a real genius (e.g. Einstein) and your average Joe. However, I will say that most people (everyone else?) can develop their reason to a high degree given the right environment. Some people simply don't want to (e.g. they prefer to spend their time enhancing other valuable traits, like creativity), don't have the desire to do so (i.e. they are apathetic to it), don't have the means to do so (e.g. they live in the ghetto rather than Beverly Hills). I bet there are a lot of books written about this.
You're right, I should clarify that. I'm not sure what distinguishes between a real genius (e.g. Einstein) and your average Joe. However, I will say that most people (everyone else?) can develop their reason to a high degree given the right environment. Some people simply don't want to (e.g. they prefer to spend their time enhancing other valuable traits, like creativity), don't have the desire to do so (i.e. they are apathetic to it), don't have the means to do so (e.g. they live in the ghetto rather than Beverly Hills). I bet there are a lot of books written about this.
With all due respect, your clarification is tantamount to a retraction; you are distinguishing between degrees of intelligence. Yes, there are books including the infamous one named for the shape of the graph of intelligence distribution in populations. FWIW, acccording to studies, most of us are convinced we are above average.But my point is that while I feel certain that we are more intelligent than the humans of 100,000 years ago, when we are compared to the ones 6,000 years ago I think there is little or no difference in thinking capabilities.
With all due respect, your clarification is tantamount to a retraction; you are distinguishing between degrees of intelligence. Yes, there are books including the infamous one named for the shape of the graph of intelligence distribution in populations. FWIW, acccording to studies, most of us are convinced we are above average.But my point is that while I feel certain that we are more intelligent than the humans of 100,000 years ago, when we are compared to the ones 6,000 years ago I think there is little or no difference in thinking capabilities.
It very well could be a retraction. I didn't "set the stage" well in my first post, which is why I am now backtracking.I said, "If we equate 'intelligence' with the ability to reason" when I should have equated it "with the ability to reason well". We can of course say that one person is "more intelligent" than another. But what I was also trying to convey was that even a "less intelligent" (stupid) person has the ability to reason; he might simply not be exercising it to full capacity, or his immediate capacity (which is changeable in itself) might not be as great as another person's.I will agree that we are more "intelligent" than humans of 100,000 years ago, so long as we are referring to people who actually did have the ability to reason. I would also not be surprised if the Greeks were just as, or more intelligent than people today. While the Greeks had and we have the ability to reason, they may have fostered it to a higher degree than we foster it today.
An interesting thing about the Greeks in particular…I just watched a HC show about the "Greek monsters". There is a researcher with some pretty strong evidence that their belief in giants (Amazons, Cyclops and some heroes) and griffins was the result of trying to interpret ancient mammal and dinosaur bones. They were all over Greece and the Aegean islands. They were finding femurs shaped like human femurs but 2.5 times as large and postulating that there had been creatures closely related to humans only 2.5 times taller in the area recently. Their paleontology produced many of the monsters of legend. Mastodon skulls were fairly common. Their eyes were on the side and in the front where you might expect the eye sockets on a skull was a single large nasal cavity. They thought it was a single eye socket. If I were able to travel back in time, I could set them straight. No, I would tell them, it's a creature that lived a million years ago and had a nose 6' long which it used to rip trees out of the ground. Wouldn't they feel silly? ::) We are so superior with our knowledge; I bet they didn't know about the triceratops, either...
If I were able to travel back in time, I could set them straight. No, I would tell them, it's a creature that lived a million years ago and had a nose 6' long which it used to rip trees out of the ground. Wouldn't they feel silly? ::)
Perhaps they would, but if you told them that, then we wouldn't have those cool stories.Phid, is wisdom the word you're looking for? One could have little academic knowledge, but still be very wise. I think the question should be are we as a society any more wise now than the Greeks or Romans or other ancient civilizations? The answer to that, IMO, is a resounding NO.
Phid, is wisdom the word you're looking for? One could have little academic knowledge, but still be very wise. I think the question should be are we as a society any more wise now than the Greeks or Romans or other ancient civilizations? The answer to that, IMO, is a resounding NO.
No, I wasn't trying to use that word. I agree with you that the Greeks seem to be much more wise than people nowadays, even though we have very intelligent people living now. I have always thought of wisdom as being the ability to correctly weigh virtues and vices. I would say that the ideal society is one which is both intelligent and wise (think of Thomas More's Utopia). I do think that the two are both rooted in right reason, so they're not unrelated.
An interesting thing about the Greeks in particular...
I agree with ski - if you told them we might not have those cool stories. It's funny, but I didn't know that the Greeks would have stumbled across dinosaur bones.
I am not sure if you caught my sarcasm or maybe you are being more subtly sarcastic in your reply, but I feel sure we would still have those stories. My point was that my story, based on the science that we think is so vastly superior, would probably be rejected as even more ridiculous than their rational explanation.You might not have caught the recent news about the triceratops:[url url=http://'http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20012471-501465.html?tag=mncol;lst;1'%5DScientists: Triceratops May Not Have Existed[/url]We may have more education behind our educated guesses, but guesses they remain.Wisdom and intelligence are definitely interrelated IMO. But you will never hear wisdom described as cold and calculating; there is an implication of compassion in wisdom (again, IMO). When you have a problem, the more intelligent you are the more solutions you are likely to come up with. The wiser you are, the more likely you are to pick the best solution, taking some intangibles into account.
I agree with ski - if you told them we might not have those cool stories. It's funny, but I didn't know that the Greeks would have stumbled across dinosaur bones.
It was on a HC show that I recorded on the DVR the other day. Several writers reported them. One was a travel writer (an interesting side story in itself) from about 150 AD that listed a few places to go see the bones of giants. Archeologists have been throwing bones away for decades, thinking they were unrelated to their digs when they had actually been brought to temples as relics. The researcher was only able to find a couple in existence from digs, though lots of logs had notes about finding them and then disposing of them.My point in that tangent was that a lot of people consider the stories of monsters as the result of primitive thinking, when there may have been some very rational thought behind them. Once they believed they existed, they wrote stories about them, just as there are many modern stories about the triceratops because we believed they existed (and maybe they did; the recent research isn't absolutely conclusive).
I agree with you that the Greeks seem to be much more wise than people nowadays, even though we have very intelligent people living now.
I only agree with that because the Greeks had no previous examples to follow. What's funny, is all the mistakes they made in politics and warfare are still being made today. But they had an excuse because they were usually the first to try it. (although the repeated mistakes they made in the Peloponnesian War kind of blow that theory out of the water)
I have always thought of wisdom as being the ability to correctly weigh virtues and vices. I would say that the ideal society is one which is both intelligent and wise (think of Thomas More's Utopia). I do think that the two are both rooted in right reason, so they're not unrelated.
I'm sure in many cases that intelligence and wisdom are related, but how would you explain someone who has a PhD in rocket science yet is virtually clueless in economics or politics? How could an elder individual, who didn't go beyond 4th grade, have more common sense (wisdom) than one who has a graduate degree? I think wisdom is more related to experience than it is to education.
I'm sure in many cases that intelligence and wisdom are related, but how would you explain someone who has a PhD in rocket science yet is virtually clueless in economics or politics? How could an elder individual, who didn't go beyond 4th grade, have more common sense (wisdom) than one who has a graduate degree? I think wisdom is more related to experience than it is to education.
The rocket scientist example is not that uncommon and I think it is due to expertise honed by single minded pursuit of one subject to the exclusion of others. It's not an absolute exclusion; other subjects are picked up more from conversation than serious study. While that scientist would likely insist on seeing a new formula verified under scrutiny, he might overhear a comment about economics in an elevator and take it as fact. I think wisdom requires humility and equanimity in addition to experience. I am probably too proud to ever be very wise. :-
I only agree with that because the Greeks had no previous examples to follow. What's funny, is all the mistakes they made in politics and warfare are still being made today. But they had an excuse because they were usually the first to try it. (although the repeated mistakes they made in the Peloponnesian War kind of blow that theory out of the water)
I have sometimes wondered who the Greeks looked to for paradigmatic inspiration. I imagine it was someone. The Romans looked to the Greeks, in the Renaissance they looked to Rome, in the 18th-19th century they looked to classical civilizations, etc. But I agree that reading about problems the Greeks dealt with, and seeing them come up today, is one of the best reasons for learning history. While the world around may change, the nature of man stays remarkably the same.
I'm sure in many cases that intelligence and wisdom are related, but how would you explain someone who has a PhD in rocket science yet is virtually clueless in economics or politics? How could an elder individual, who didn't go beyond 4th grade, have more common sense (wisdom) than one who has a graduate degree? I think wisdom is more related to experience than it is to education.
Those are some great questions. I think the answer may be that wisdom deals with the applying reason to behavior and individual choices (i.e. related to morality) whereas intelligence is related simply to knowing. Here's an illustration of sorts - sometimes you'll see news stories with scientists commenting on studies. Sometimes they also recommend controversial courses of action based on those studies. My take is that while the scientist may be a master of the study he did, when he recommends a course of action he steps out of his role of expertise and exceeds his role by turning into a philosopher or moralizer. He may be equipped to comment on study results, but he is not equipped to discuss how society should act because that involves choices where the realm of morality plays out.As for the uneducated person who is "wiser" than the educated person, I think the uneducated person simply uses right reason as applied to his actions, whereas the educated person does not. Example - for the Greeks, there was wisdom in drinking alcohol - doing so in moderation. The man who lacked wisdom gave into his passions rather than his reason and drank to excess. Someone who is really educated in science may simply be ignorant of the realm of the soul and honor his passions when it comes to his personal behavior. I think our modern society simply does not value wisdom as much as intelligence. Christianity has been the vehicle for imputing wisdom for much of Western Civilization, and even into the early 20th century schoolchildren could learn the basics of Christian morality and thereby become "wiser". During the 20th century, the quashing of the teaching of morality has led to the decline in the perceived value of wisdom, the decline in the use of right reason applied to one's actions, and hence the decline in morality.
My point in that tangent was that a lot of people consider the stories of monsters as the result of primitive thinking, when there may have been some very rational thought behind them. Once they believed they existed, they wrote stories about them, just as there are many modern stories about the triceratops because we believed they existed (and maybe they did; the recent research isn't absolutely conclusive).
If the scholars in the program say that dinosaur bones were accessible to the Greeks, then I believe you. It's interesting to me because I don't really hear about people walking around and finding such bones on the ground in modern times. I know the Greeks did some excavation of mines, so perhaps that's where they found some of these bones. One interesting question is how much the Greeks actually believed in the gods told in their mythology, and how much they told those stories as a means of continuing their culture and conveying the universal truths of the world.
Just a guess, but for some things I think the Greeks were more about trial and error instead of looking at a previous civilizations. They had no previous examples of phalanx formations, so did they just know, by using math and physics, that it would be superior or did they just try it out and then said “hey, look. We kicked their butt. Let's keep this, But we need to figure out something to strengthen the flanks” And I do beleive they truly believed in their gods and mythological stories. They became too much a defining part of their culture to not believe it, IMO.
