X-Message-Number: 11505 Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 14:55:23 +0100 From: (John de Rivaz) Subject: Re: Intelligence tests In article: <> Thomas Donaldson <> writes: > if the people of 100 years ago might have scored as mentally > deficient on our tests, no one can seriously believe they were really > mentally deficient considering what they accomplished in their time. > And so the discoverers of electromagnetism, Gallois, Henry, and Gauss > were mentally deficient? Two points: 1. Intelligence seems to have more to it than a simple ability to do arithmetic or solve clever puzzles. Someone who may be very good at these things may still only spend his time in commonplace leisure activities and work in some repetetive task, even if such repetition is maybe upmarket tasks such as doing people's accounts or participating in law court cases. I conjecture that intelligence may be a vector quantity, z=x+jy, where j= the square root of minus one. The value of y may be some measure of the willingness to think laterally and to consider new ideas. Thus someone like Dr Pegg may have a high value of x to get him through the exams he has passed to get the qualifications he has, but a low value of y that makes him quite incapable of *considering* the arguments surrounding cryonics, and comming up with his infamous and ill conceived hamburger statement. Note carefully that I said "considering" not necessarily "agreeing with". 2. Many respected scientists such as Tesla and Heaviside were also quirky individuals. Dr Clifford Pickover has recently published a book entitled "Strange Brains and Genius" which provides potted biographies of some of major and a few lesser known scientists and also enters into discussion about intelligence. It even has a few pages on cryonics, mentioning Alcor and the Society of Venturism. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0306457849/longevitybooksA/ for more details. -- Sincerely, John de Rivaz Homepage: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR Longevity Report: http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Sauna/3748/lr.htm Fractal Report: http://www.longevb.demon.co.uk/fr.htm PCS - a Singles listing sheet for people in Cornwall http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR/pcs.htm Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11505