[The following is a guest post by Ganzir and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pumpkin Person]
Let us make the following assumptions to simplify an illustrative example, although they are unnecessary for such an effect to arise.
- Intelligence is normally distributed.
- Our model intelligence test item has an item characteristic curve, i.e., graph with intelligence on the x-axis and probability of solving the item on the y-axis, with a break-even point, i.e., the IQ at which 50% of people solve it, of 130.
- This item’s characteristic curve is symmetrical in that going X IQ points above 130 will increase your probability of solving the item by the same amount that going X IQ points below 130 will decrease your probability of solving the item. For example, a person with an IQ of 120 has a 35% chance of solving this item, which means that a person with an IQ of 140 has a 65% chance of solving it.
- Although people above IQ 130 might miss this item and people below 130 might solve it, the only determinant of whether or not a person solves the item is the probability on the item characteristic curve corresponding to their IQ.
If I am told that a randomly selected person solved this item, what is my best estimate of their IQ?
130?
Wrong!
If you said that, you committed the base-rate fallacy because you forgot that there are more people below 130 than above 130.
To calculate the answer, apply Bayes’ Theorem. Look that up if you do not know what it is (that is a good habit to learn; look something up yourself before asking someone else). In this problem, it will tell you that our general formula is to calculate A = B * C / D for IQ X, where
A = The probability that someone has an IQ of X (in this case, X = 130), given that they solved the item
B = The probability that someone will solve the item, given that their IQ is X
C = The proportion of people who have an IQ of X
D = The total proportion of people who solved the item
D is the sum of, for each IQ, the proportion of people who will solve that item at that IQ multiplied by the proportion of all people with that IQ. In other words, D is the sum of B * C calculated for every possible value of X. Technically this would be an integral, but we could treat it as a sum by doing the calculation for each IQ point, or each 5-point IQ range, or whatever division of the intelligence spectrum.
In a sentence, the formula A = B * C / D means that the probability that someone who solves the item has an IQ of X is equal to the proportion of people with an IQ of X who solved the item divided by the total proportion of people who solved the item. If that does not make sense, please contemplate it until it does. Venn diagrams might help.
Once you have calculated B * C / D, find the maximum value of A. That is your best guess of the person’s IQ.
Why is this important? Because if you have an item for which the break-even point is far from the average and for which the item characteristic curve is (informally speaking) not close to flat around the break-even point, then the maximum value of A will be closer to the center of the IQ distribution than the break-even point is. If that sentence was a bit much to digest, someone who scores really high on a test, or solves a really hard item, probably has a lower IQ than almost everyone would think!
Allow me to demonstrate on our example item, with the help of <a href=”https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx“>this chart</a>. A very, very rough estimate of D is the sum of the following:
- Proportion of people with an IQ of 120 * Proportion of people with IQ 120 who solve the item
- Proportion of people with an IQ of 130 * Proportion of people with IQ 130 who solve the item
- Proportion of people with an IQ of 140 * Proportion of people with IQ 140 who solve the item
I calculated the proportion of people at each IQ level by, with numbers from the table linked above, subtracting the proportion of people at IQ X from the proportion at IQ X+1. Now we plug in:
- 0.0105 * 0.35 = 0.003675
- 0.0034 * 0.50 = 0.0017
- 0.0008 * 0.65 = 0.00052
(Please do not bitch to me about significant figures. There is no need to bother with them here, and to how many decimal points I calculated the proportion of people at each IQ is arbitrary and irrelevant.)
What do we learn from this? If everybody with an IQ of 120, 130, or 140 attempted this item, and one of them were randomly selected, the probability that they have an IQ of 120 is 0.003675/(0.003675+0.0017+0.00052), which is about 62%. Even though the item “nominally” discriminates at 130, the majority of people who pass it have an IQ of 120!
This is a contrived example calculated with very generous assumptions, but my point, which stands even in the real world of non-spherical cows, is that a person who does one thing that seems to indicate exceptional smartness is probably not so exceptionally smart. The “Ganzir Effect” applies to reality as well as intelligence tests, which should be understood in the context that an intelligence test is only worthwhile insofar as it predicts real-life performance.
A concrete example of the Ganzir effect
I can give you a concrete example of this effect from the Mega Test norms:
The fourth column gives the percentage of testees in each six-point range who solved problem 36 (three interpenetrating cubes), the hardest problem on the Mega Test. Only the range 43-48, where 8 out of 13 candidates solved this item, exceeds its break-even point. However, from the third column, we find that 87 people solved it. Even though candidates in the ranges 37-42 and 31-36 were much less likely to solve the problem, 25 people in 37-42 did and 23 people in 31-36 did. If all I know is that someone solved the three cubes problem, it is almost three times as likely that they scored in the 31-36 range, i.e., high Triple Nine to low Prometheus, than in the 43-48 range.
Pumpkin Person 
Interesting post. Thanks for the clear explanation. How would one determine the optimal amount of nominally-discriminating questions to actually discriminate (i.e., reduce standard error to lowest amount, practically) 50% at the 130 level? And I’m not sure if you can speak to it, but how well does, say, the WAIS IV discriminate above 130, 145, etc. given the “Ganzir Effect”?
How would one determine the optimal amount of nominally-discriminating questions to actually discriminate (i.e., reduce standard error to lowest amount, practically) 50% at the 130 level?
I know this is probably not the answer you were hoping for: in practice, I am not sure.
I can say that any such method would only work if you knew the item characteristic curves.
Thanks for your response. My hope was only to see if someone who clearly knows a good deal about the phenomenon could easily provide a tactic or decision procedure to answer the question. In this case, your answer fit the bill.
I don’t know enough about item response theory to judge the accuracy of a given answer. But it gives me some idea about the landscape of the problem.
Mode and median aren’t the same in an asymmetrical distribution. That’s Bayesian probability 101.
I don’t think I understand how you’re getting an asymmetrical distribution from the stated assumptions. Can you please elaborate? Ganzir posited a normal distribution to intelligence, and assumed a linear relationship between IQ score and percent correct for the item question. Are you saying that because the base of <130 is larger than >130?
Those that solved the item at there respective IQ level,
is not distributed such,
that you can equate a probability with the median and mode of that distribution.
The item solved is asymmetric in distribution with IQ levels.
more higher end people solve the item fore mode and less for the median
Mode and median aren’t the same in an asymmetrical distribution. That’s Bayesian probability 101.
You are right, or, at least, if you are wrong, I am not sure what a counterexample would be. However, I never explicitly claimed that the mode and median are the same in any asymmetric distribution, and I do not believe that I implicitly claimed that, so I do not know why you pointed it out.
I don’t think I understand how you’re getting an asymmetrical distribution from the stated assumptions. Can you please elaborate?
The normal distribution is symmetrical around its center, but my post was in the context of the right tail of the bell curve, where the curve is not symmetrical around any given point.
The probability that a person with a given IQ will solve an item is given by its item characteristic curve, which is usually symmetrical in practice because it is expressed by some variant of 1/(1 + e^-x) which is symmetrical around x = 0, although that does not imply that the “real” item characteristic curve, i.e., the one not conveniently approximated by a function, is symmetrical. (Cows are not spherical)
Jeremy Wilson: I would say that you are wrong, but that would imply that what you wrote was intelligible enough for me to be sure what you said.
“that would imply that what you wrote was intelligible enough for me to be sure what you said.”
Seems like I’m not the only one with that opinion.
And the normal distribution for IQ is due to item selection and analysis.
i am intelligible most times
rr is a politically motivated troll
I would ask why the rest of us cannot intellige what you say, but many people here cannot intellige what I say either, for different reasons.
I am not sure what you mean by that, but I can add this. The distribution for IQ is, presumably, not quite normal. The reason why it approximates normality is due to well-understood statistical effects that apply whenever the value of a trait is determined by independently and identically distributed random events, e.g., “coin flips”. Look up “Galton board” for an illustration. A huge number of gene variants affect intelligence, and each person gets a mix of them, which is why intelligence, like so many other traits, is approximately normally distributed, not just in humans but also in people who comment on this blog.
imo Russia taking part Ukraine is like blacks in BLM marches lighting buildings on fire or just (the small percentage #notall) that steal for a living and go wilin’.
If you support blacks right to their property and land against da system, support Russia’s!
Russia saw the destabilization of Ukraine (CIA?) as their opportunity.
It was better than Ukraine joining NATO
Since trump pulled from NATO partially this is good for them.
Maybe if Ukraine had remained neutral 😐 no invasion?
What?
Ha. Russians are some of the biggest racists outside Asia.
That was worth reading, thank you. I’m inclined to rewrite it for brevity, but the first conclusion is good: “a person who does one thing that seems to indicate exceptional smartness is probably not so exceptionally smart.” The second conclusion is incorrect, but I’m inclined to overlook flaws to get to the meat of the idea, which is quite good.
Heyo, you remember me?? I remember you! You permanently banned me from your blog, and were therefore apparently the only person who passed the test of noticing what my profile picture was back then!
I remember that. Not a flattering test to pass.
It’s a test of environmental awareness, isn’t it? Some say that black people cannot hear smoke alarms. PP, there is something interesting for you to look up.
I suspect the stronger effect is noticing but not caring enough to do something; their default setting is “not my problem”, even though it often is. In contrast, I have a bit of a hero complex with the opposite default. So if there’s a piece of gum in the water fountain, I’ll go grab a paper towel and throw it in the trash.
I do things like that too, but because I cannot stand the gum, not because I have a hero complex. Conversely, I usually leave shopping carts in the parking lot unless they would be blocking people or traffic, and leave my trays on the table for someone to pick up. I know how controversial that is and how angry people can get over that, but I was taught that you should leave them there because otherwise you could be taking someone’s job, and I cannot spot a fault in that logic.
the logic is sound, but the premise that those jobs are meaningful, either intrinsically or conditionally, is debatable.
…And, a society in which not returning a tray, etc. is controversial, the act of doing so may have a net positive pro-social effect.
If by ‘the second conclusion’ you mean that the expected IQ of someone who solves that item is 120, you are probably right, but only because I commented this article without realizing that PP was going to publish it as-is, so I did not go to the trouble of mathematically defining the item’s characteristic curve or of writing a script to calculate the point of maximum likelihood.
Actually I must have misread it, after looking back at the sentence I was thinking of I have no objections.
I can give you a concrete example of this effect. A few years ago, I solved one of the hardest items on one of Cooijmans’ hardest tests. The rules prohibit me from saying more, but I did get the sense, possibly wrong, that I was the only person who had ever solved it. Does that mean I am the smartest person who has ever taken one of his tests? Hell no! I was not sure that I had solved it until I found that a much easier item had an answer better than the one I had given.
To put it concisely, “Mediocre minds are responsible for most incredible achievements because there are far more of them.”
Right. Same reason why many of the greatest basketball players in history are not extremely tall. Being 7 foot is a sizable advantage in basketball, but there are a lot more people who are 6’6″.
In other words, the Ganzir effect is just regression to the mean
No, I don’t think it is just regression to the mean.
Maybe I should put that differently. It is regression to the mean in effect, but not in cause. The Ganzir effect does cause top basketball players to be shorter on average than you might expect, but the reason is not what you usually mean by regression to the mean. Imagine that heights were evenly distributed, e.g., there were as many 6′ as 6’6″ people as 7′ people. The top players would still tend to be not quite the tallest players, but only because height and basketball skill are imperfectly correlated. The Ganzir effect just makes this difference bigger.
If I am told that a randomly selected person solved this item, what is my best estimate of their IQ?
108.
If the item is solved by 35%, 50% and 65% of IQs 120, 130, and140 respectively, then for every 0.66 SD increase in IQ (10 points) performance on the item improves by 0.33 SD (the difference between the 50th percentile and both the 35th and 65th).
Since 0.33 SD is half of 0.66 SD, this suggests a 0.5 correlation between IQ and performance on this one item. If people with an IQ + 2 SD have a 50% chance of solving a problem that correlates 0.5 with IQ, then it’s a 0.5(2 SD) = 1 SD level problem (top 15% level), which means the average person who can solve it is 0.5(1 SD) = 0.5 SD = IQ 108
What an cool way to answer the question!
Thanks.
So regardless of a persons individual IQ the g load of the item at (0.5) will result in 70 percent of the population getting the item correct?
(0.7 is the square root of 0.5)
I wonder? Is the mega test not multiple choice? It is not timed.
Without multiple choice then this creates a dilemma.
You would need to solve each problem by hand.
Back when it was created calculators were expensive.
There were slide rulers.
Did bill gates use one on the SAT?
I see now why he was math smart.
I did it “my way” to see if our answers matched.
We will assume that both intelligence and the probability of solving the item are normally distributed. I never claimed in my post that the probability of solving our item was normally distributed, or, more accurately, the integral of a normal distribution, but, to make things easier here, I will.
For any given IQ, the corresponding probability of solving the problem is, by our assumption, the cumulative distribution function of the normal distribution, which is a mass of algebra that I am not sure how to put in the comment box.
If we know that a person solved an item, then the probability that their IQ is X equals the prior probability (i.e., the probability if we did not know that they had solved the item) that their IQ is X, multiplied by the probability that they solved the item given that their IQ is X.
I will express parameters of normal distributions in terms of μ (mean) and σ (standard deviation) for convenience. The probability that a person has an IQ of X is given by the probability density function of a normal distribution with μ = 0 and σ = 1. What of the probability distribution of solving the item given that your IQ is X? On a normal distribution, about 85% of the population will score below 1 standard deviation above the mean. If an increase of 10 IQ points corresponds to an increase of 15% in solving the item, then a ~23-point increase in IQ will correspond to the desired 35% increase in probability of solving the item. Since the break-even point of the item is IQ 130, to find the probability of solving the item, you: take the person’s IQ; subtract 130; divide that by 23; and find the corresponding value of the normal distribution’s cumulative distribution function. In other words, the cumulative distribution function with μ = X – 2 and σ = 23/15 for any given X.
After a bunch of screwing around trying and failing to do volume integrals and whatnot with WolframAlpha, Desmos, and Symbolab, I abandoned my hopes of feeling like a super-cool mathematician and decided to approximate the answer in Excel like a pathetic trained monkey.
In column B: =NORM.DIST(-0.1+(0.1*ROW()),0,1,FALSE)
In column C: =NORM.DIST(-0.1+(0.1*ROW()),2,23/15,TRUE)
In column D, the result of multiplying the values of the cells in Column B and C in that row
I found that the maximum occured somewhere between 0.8 and 0.9, i.e., IQ 112 to 113.5. However, that is close enough to 108 that I wonder if the difference could be due to me rounding something where I should not have.
I found that the maximum occured somewhere between 0.8 and 0.9, i.e., IQ 112 to 113.5. However, that is close enough to 108 that I wonder if the difference could be due to me rounding something where I should not have.
The error might be on my end because I used linear regression while a formally educated statistician would have used logistics regression. I never bothered to learn logistics regression because I always assumed categorical variables could just be treated as points on some imaginary continuum while an expert would say passing an item is clearly a binary distinction and thus categorical.
Not to claim I am especially well-informed about this, but passing an item is always binary in both theory and practice, whereas the probability of passing an item is continuous, being given by its item characteristic curve.
The difference between theory and practice is that theory and practice are the same in theory but different in practice.
While doing there calculations, I realized something interesting.
Imagine the normal distribution.
Now imagine it in three-dimensional space, on the x- and y- axes. The x-axis is IQ, and the y-axis is the proportion of people with the corresponding IQ, as usual.
Stretch it along the z-axis to a length of one. We now have a three-dimensional structure. Think of it as blue. It looks something like… I was going to say the Taco Bell chihuahua’s hat, but it does not look like how I remembered. So tell me if you think of a clever name for it.
The volume of this structure is also one because the area under the normal distribution is one. It has to be because the sum of probabilities for all possible events is always one.
Now imagine a tiny slice of the normal distribution on the x- and y- axes. Its height is the proportion of the population with an IQ in that slice.
Then slice that on the z-axis and color, say, in red, in a proportion of the 3D structure equal to the probability that someone with an IQ in that slice will solve the item, i.e., cumulative distribution function of the item characteristic curve.
Do this for every slice and sum them up. That’s a volume integral. This works because a probability density function has units of length (height) and a cumulative distribution function has units of area. The proportion of this structure that is colored red is the proportion of people who solve the item. The most likely IQ of a person who solved the item corresponds to the slice on the yz plane with the largest red-colored area.
I tried to set this up in WolframAlpha, but could not get it to work. Whatever, it’s still an interesting way of visualizing the concept.
All my talk of slightly advanced math concepts notwithstanding, PP, I find your method inscrutable, and I am not sure whether the fault is on my end or yours.
Ganzir – PP is close with 108, and we can find this using your method.
I think it would be good to first explain what you are doing somewhat more rigorously. I hope you can read LaTex – but you can plug it into quicklatexdotcom if not.
First, suppose we have some random variable $X$ which has a distribution $f(x|theta)$. Next, suppose $theta$ is itself a random variable which has a distribution $pi(theta)$. The distribution of $theta$ conditional on observing $X$, or the posterior distribution of $theta$, is then
$$pi(theta|x) = frac{pi(theta)f(x|theta)}{int_{Theta}f(x|theta)dF^{theta}}.$$
The question of what is the best point estimate of $theta$ is not easy to answer. An obvious estimate would be the posterior mean. The posterior median and mode are also possibilities. Another approach, and the one I think most sound, would be to choose the estimate which minimises a loss function appropriate for whatever specific problem you are dealing with. For certain standard loss functions, these correspond to the traditional estimates of central tendency.
What you suggest in the article is to use the posterior mode. To find the posterior mode, we need not actually find the posterior distribution, instead, we can consider maximising the unnormalised posterior
$$h(theta|x) = pi(theta)f(x|theta),$$
which avoids us having to solve any difficult integrals.
For your specific problem, $theta$ is normally distributed with mean $0$ and variance $1$ and $X$ is a Bernoulli random variable with parameter $Phi(theta)$, where $Phi$ denotes the CDF of a standard normal random variable. The function to be maximised is then
$$h(theta|x)=varphi(theta)(xPhi(theta) + (1-x)Phi(theta)),$$
where $varphi$ denotes the pdf of a standard normal random variable.
If you desperately wanted to, you could presumably solve this by setting the derivative of $h(theta|x)$ to $0$ and solving for $theta$. A numerical approximation of the posterior mode gives us 0.50605 when $x = 1$ and -0.50605 when $x = 0$, which gives an IQ of about 107.6 when the test is passed, and an IQ of about 92.4 when it is not.
As a bit of an addendum, I should add that the posterior mean and median are different from the mode in this case. A numerical approximation gives a posterior mean of 0.56419 and a posterior median of 0.54495 for $x=1$, which would give us estimated IQs of about 108.5 and 108.2 respectively, given that the test is passed.
PP – Unfortunately, WordPress seems to have stripped all of the backslashes out of my comment, so the LaTeX will not render correctly. I think they need to be escaped with another backslash.
My apologies Ganzir, I realise that I missed that the probability of solving the item was given by a cumulative normal centred 2SD above the mean with a standard deviation of 23/15, and not by a standard normal. The posterior mode, mean and median are actually of 0.8625, 0.8739 and 0.8700 respectively, giving us IQs of 112.9, 113.1 and 113.05, which is about what you had.
And sorry PP, please disregard my previous correction.
For once, a comment good enough that does not make me wonder why I waste my time engaging with people in this shit pit. I will unfortunately have to be the dumb one for once and admit that I do not understand all of your comment for two reasons. Firstly, I am not familiar with Latex, and, as you said, the Latex did not render correctly, so whatever showed up when I plugged it into quicklatex. Secondly, I do not know much about probability theory, and if anything I have written gave you the impression that I am familiar with its basic terms and principles, this is because I intuited some idea and then searched for the right term to use. (Mathematical Buffy-speak.)
I would appreciate it if you could take the time to explain what all you wrote to me, perhaps on another platform. If Discord is fine, my friend tag is ganzir (imagine that).
All that said, I would like clarification about this in particular:
Earlier, if I understand correctly, you said that x is the random variable we observed, i.e, whether or not the person passed the item, and that theta is the distribution of x. Doesn’t that mean that estimating (theta|x) is guessing what the item characteristic curve is, even though I defined it or, at least, gave three points which could be used to calculate it? I apologize if this question is nonsensical, but I cannot currently parse your comment well enough to put it in context.
Not that the difference in methods matters, since we got the same answer. I would just like to understand your comment because I do not like it when I do not understand something.
I miss the point. If a 108 iq person happened to get one difficult item by chance they would likely miss other difficult items. An aptitude test consists of many items which build a statistical strength predicting the individuals iq. Does the author mean that if a person has one particular skill set, such as for example applying bayes theorem or prob and stat, that he is likely not that much above average? I disagree with that. Prob and stat requires a lot of deep conceptual work.
ok ok I get you now. But I doubt this premise. Are you sure this is not merely an artifact of outlier type people. Some of these people may have more brain volume recruited to visuospacial iq, which would be more negatively correlated with the type of intelligence tested on iq tests. In general more difficult items should have greater complexity and a simple probabilistic curve cannot be attached to them.
That IS the point!
If I were sure that I could put HTML in the comment box and have it come out as intended, I would put the above sentence in giant red text.
No. How is it possible to read my post and think I was even addressing something so utterly unrelated to what I was writing about?
PP, when you said that could make a great guest article, I thought you meant it could make a great guest article after I revised my post to prepare it for being a guest article. Not that I am asking you to take this down. Just saying.
I would, however, appreciate it if you made my comment about how the three cubes problem on the Mega Test is an example of this effect an addendum to the post.
done
I thought you meant it could make a great guest article after I revised my post to prepare it for being a guest article.
I figured your post itself was ready for prime time and can’t really see much more you could have done to improve it, other than the Mega Test anecdote which I’ve now added
I would have, at least, gotten a more precise answer for the expected IQ of someone who solves that item by calculating an integral or, what I actually ended up doing, numerically approximating it in Excel. I also probably would have defined the item’s characteristic curve more precisely and conveniently, and maybe added more explanation of Bayes’ theorem under the assumption that not everyone here is familiar with basic probability.
Can we have a seperate blog for autism posts like Ganzir and Anime and so on.
Next post: Why license plates don’t tell the truth!
Dude, you’re just jealous because your math IQ is below 80 and all this flies 30,000 feet above your head.
I understand it. And he basically spent 700 words and some math asking why license plates dont tell the truth.
Well it’s interesting to a lot of people that someone could solve a high IQ problem without having a high IQ so he was just explaining the math of it. Perhaps the article could have been more succinct but he was just writing a message to me not knowing I would publish it as an article before he had time to perfect it.
And no you did not understand it.
Hes asking why a measurement instrument was mismarketed to autistic people and you find that interesting. great.
sigh
Nirvana – The Man Who Sold The World (MTV Unplugged)
This song is about a man with autism. You should listen to it. Its very poignant and sad:
We passed upon the stair
We spoke of was and when
Although I wasn’t there
He said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise
I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone
A long, long time ago
Oh no, not me
I never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world
I laughed and shook his hand
And made my way back home
I searched foreign land
For years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazely stare
We marked a million hills i must have died alone
A long, long time ago
Who Knows?
Not Me
I never lost control
nothing to do with autism but great song nonetheless
pill doesn’t even understand the music he’s a fan of. autism.
Now Elon’s dad is spreading lies about Michelle Obama’s gender:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/02/17/michelle-obama-trans-false-claim/?cb_rec=djRfMl8xXzFfMTgwXzBfMF8wXw
Well Joan Rivers is an expert on celeb gossip and someone I look up to and when she said Michelle was a man, she was executed 2 weeks later so there you go.
she died 2 months later, not 2 weeks
You never talk about the topic at hand anyway, so why do you care?
I came up with a really sick burn for that, but PP would probably redact it.
Oh now that’s just rich.
Anemone – Brian Jonestown Massacre
This song basically describes the way I feel about Puppy. And you know its fucking hypnotic.
I
I think i know how i feel
Cause i
I only play it for-real
You should be picking me up
Instead you’re dragging me down
You’re flying over my head
You’re landing all over town
You
You know that i try
Try to tell you the truth
Oh baby don’t make me cry
You should be picking me up
Instead you’re dragging me down
Now i’m missing you more
Cause baby you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
I
I want to know how it feels
Cause i
I only play it for-real
You should be picking me up
Instead you’re dragging me down
I could be giving you love
But you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Glad that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
Now that you’re not around
(Now that you’re not around
^^^
My thoughts on puppy in music.
Theyre going to replace him with Kamala. Kamala will declare herself as a republican.
Prediction: Kamala Harris will be the ‘president’ in 3 months.
Or Nikki Haley. Theyre prepping her right now at the Hoover Institute. Maybe even literally a decleration of war on Iran already drafted and signed by her already
(587) Pearl Jam – Dissident (Official Visualizer) – YouTube
Always the women let the people down. Always.
I never thought i would say it. But today trump showed he is actually a dissident. Not the president.
In the Western world, there are historical examples of people who have been considered and have considered themselves dissidents, such as the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza.[3] In totalitarian countries, dissidents are often incarcerated or executed without explicit political accusations, or due to infringements of the very same laws they are opposing, or because they are supporting civil liberties such as freedom of speech.
Lol PP I did not expect you to approve that one but you have to admit that it is apropos
Trump and Spinoza in the same category. Wild.
this is dumb
half the people support trump
spinoza was saying God was natural not supernatural
spinoza was exiled for supposed “atheism”
trumps base believe in religion viemitly
Plus America is a thousand times bigger than dutchland.
larping as an American is hard for pill
In puppet government countries, dissidents are often incarcerated or executed or banned from talking in public without explicit political accusations, or due to infringements of the very same laws they are opposing, or because they are supporting civil liberties, nationalism or rights such as freedom of speech.
I was 100% correct.
pill thinks introversion is autism
because they don’t let loose
have sex with every object possible
or have hang overs and drug overdose
–
all the extraverted people I know are emotionally immature
pill is no exception
he is angry all the time
he thinks maturity means watching rape films and gore and dezeises.
nasty stuff
–
i have seen all that stuff when very little and I have had enough of it.
pill because of his abuse cannot get over it because he enjoys it.
makes him feel in control over the abuse he suffered by pushing it into others through media like this
that ain’t right for a human being
but it is not autism to be the opposite way pill,
just stop rejecting yourself
have empathy
“pill thinks introversion is autism”
He seems to assume that since some people with autism are introverted, that all introverts are autistic.
TP can’t reason.
if you look at video games, the people who make the best games have high math and social IQ
When will pill realize those two things are not opposed to each other?
Well the stories in video games aren’t always great. Actually until about 5 years ago they were written at the standard of a 10 year old. Then they hired writers.
change your username if you want to comment
5 years ago?
George Lucas always has had great writing in his best games.
When he left Lucas arts those writers had to report to the consumer survey team to gage what the public wanted.
The 2017 and 2019 films had no continuity with themselves or the 2015 film.
Afterwards the Disney board said people don’t want Star Wars stuff because people hated them.
Bad writing and consumer surveys ruined the franchise.
It is the reason JJ Abrams should have directed all the films because he would have made them a real trilogy.
Rey needed a real heros journey plotline where she overcame her trauma and we go indepth with all the lore. Instead we got a hollow story that made me feel empty inside.
Star Wars knights of the old Republic one and two were the best in the franchise (2003 and 2006)
So maybe you need to play more real psychological video games to see what you are missing.
Lol I hate this country. Trump’s about to release the Epstein files and it’s going to be cleansed of anything incriminating him, but low IQ morons that scream “pizza gate” all day are going to eat this slop up like the illiterate pigs they are.
nom nom
That link I sent you Pumpkin had a dark triad test. I scored slightly above average on Machiavellianism and narcissism but very, very low on psychopathy.
ill check it out
Those tests are useless. Anyone who has metacognition and understands those traits is going to score whatever way they want to.
the assumption is most people answer honestly since there’s little incentive to cheat
It’s not about cheating, it’s about the fact that if you are presented with a situation cut-and-dry as in these tests, you would presumably answer in the least dark triadic way. In real life, the examples aren’t so obvious.
Otherwise, you are either really stupid and don’t understand the connection between the questions and the traits (unless they are really well made), or you are trying to answer in a way that you think represents you because you are “modest” and admit to your dark triadic traits, which is also weird. At that point it’s just “what trait do you think you have?” Like the Myers Briggs’.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m an honest person who also does not like to act as a stereotype (individualistic). I don’t find personality tests useful especially when they’re so relative to the surrounding population or some fictional measure in your head.
It’s like having a favorite color, it’s not something for adults. Ideally, you should change your level of emotional attachment based the most utile solution. It won’t happen in practice, but that’s the goal at least.
It’s not that deep dude chill out
That’s true, what you do in general has little value and should not be taken seriously.
Hahaha Canda beat the US. Pumpkin must be proud. I never thought I’d be rooting for Canada over the Us but here we are.
And did you see the badass shit Trudeau said right after?
“You wont take our country and you won’t take our game”
I wish we had an actual leader like him or Zelensky.
I’ve never seen Canada so united. Everyone’s wearing red and white and flags are everywhere. Even liberals and conservatives are hugging.
Midwits are the people who don’t understand there is a method to “low IQ trumpism”. Most liberals are midwits (or low IQ brown/blacks aren’t liberal in the same way).
Just like overly extroverted people, despite how stupid and NPC-like they often seem, have their uses, so does Trump.
“We will not be divided” – they say as they divide.
Speaking of real leaders Macron and France are doing awesome right now fighting this low-IQ scourge of Trumpism.
Macron is a working class hero.
White men have saved the world once again. I’m so glad I’m a White male, like Trump, Luigi Mangione, Musk, etc.
Irreplaceable.
1 of these is not like the other.
But they’re all White. Just like Jews, according to you.
melos reaction is as bad as some of the conservatives I interacted with online when Biden won in 2020
shows how politics is all just professional wrestling as mugs said
Bro shut up.
You literally don’t know anything about politics and use “bOtH SidEs bAd!!” as a way to cope with your intellectual laziness.
Actually, Jeremy is a lot better than you are. You just watch Youtube, read Reddit, and then randomly look up articles and studies and don’t know how to evaluate them. Lmao.
Apparently MAGA stole the election
I can believe it.
Doesn’t matter, though. Dems don’t have to balls to fight back.
Well, sounds like the score is 1-1 on stolen elections.
Why didn’t they steal it this time, retard?
I do not see how rr can say spatial Intelligence is just a knowledge test.
That is like saying people can draw in photo realism if the read more Shakespeare.
knowledge is memorization
it is not the capability to perceive multiple patterns at the same time
people that can perceive multiple patterns solve the tests not because they memorized those patterns (kids don’t have time to learn high level patterns at age 12) it is because perception is wider.
a wider perception makes it possible for some kids to do mechanical stuff so much faster than other kids
i cannot add or subtract more than three digit numbers fast
some can do 8 digit numbers
same for mechanical stuff
same for photorealism drawing
and same for 3D stuff
It just so that in these specific kids they have a wide perception that takes in multiple things at once and that is why they get high scores on these spatial intelligence tests.
(I still say that if I could do paperwork fast copy paste I would not be poor)
You mean tests like the Raven?
Spatial intelligence is not a test of knowledge, but like anything else it’s something you can practice and get better at.
This is my favorite quote from Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius. If I were writing a book, I could not give a better illustration of what he said than this comment section, albeit only because it would be hard to print a video of me attempting to tutor algebra to students at a local college that I will not name for privacy reasons. Bolding mine.
A good indication of what a person can do usually begins with the problems they are familiar with.
It might have been aeoli who said 130 was the threshold for understanding bayes theorem. So maybe if a 112 person had a problem for their job they would discover a novel solution but not fully recognize the implications.
In other words the broader sense of what can be done is unknown to them. A person using the abstract device of bayes theorem would know everything you can do with it. Just like in calculus you can do more than just circles and oblongs.
I have not been to a math class for seven years and the one I was in was for fractions because I make mistakes easily. I can do higher maths but they expect you to do basic math first for years and years until you get it right which I cannot do. All I can do is geometry and some math vocabulary but I need a calculator. They never gave me books to read.
because people are memorizers and I am not other people got way ahead of me in the classes. I understand things by doing them. So I passed the tests they gave me but not the classes. They gave me worksheets with problems I had to work out by hand.
if I could use a computer that be different. Since now those tools can do a petaflop of computation a second for pennies. I wonder what people might have done to read my blog with a.i. – Iceland said they did but it was on there page for the weshslers nonverbal scale of ability.
Where did he say that? Depressingly, I could not confidently say that is wrong.
I think this is the fundamental difference between myself and people nowhere near the right tail of the bell curve. For me, mathematical concepts are integrated into my whole thought process. I understand them, manipulate them, see flaws in incorrect descriptions of them, think of new things to do with them, and discover their properties within myself, by the zetetic method. For them, math is, at best, a set of cookie cutters they use like trained monkeys. They ask the teacher questions like, “How do I do this one?”, or, “What are the steps to solve this kind of problem?”, which shows that they are only thinking in terms of individual problems and categories of problems. Once true understanding is achieved, learning how to solve problems in that way is redundant. If I forget how to solve one, I can figure out the solution again on-the-fly.
“ It often occurs to persons familiar with some scientific subject to hear men and women of mediocre gifts relate to one another what they have picked up about it from some lecture—say at the Royal Institution, where they have sat for an hour listening with delighted attention to an admirably lucid account, illustrated by experiments of the most perfect and beautiful character, in all of which they expressed themselves intensely gratified and highly instructed. “
PP would say they were “high-class” with their 105 IQs because they went to a Royal Institution lecture, wore suits and dresses, and drank wine afterwards. People in tech or Trump with higher IQs are “low-class” because they drink diet coke, wear t-shirts, and often think that males attempting to have anal birth is disgusting. (Having a high response to disgust and a larger amygdala makes you low-brow except when the disgust is being aimed at plebs and other things not in your preferred social circle)
This is a tangent, but do the words high-brow and low-brow originate from phrenology?
I like your post and thought it led to an interesting discussion, but I don’t think it’s as clear as you think, and it seems to have a polemic edge that distracts from the concept.
https://x.com/6ixbuzztv/status/1893058825332158755
“I respect the office. So heroic! Everyone hugged.”
Introverts are the worst fucking people.
“Oh nooo I have to talk to people sooooo scawy 😦 “
Literally not fit to reproduce.
Extroverts are pretty stupid.
“No one is paying attention to me I need constant stimulation wahhh”
Trump is a good one though!
Bruh doesn’t know what extraversion is
I discuss the effects, not the cause.
The moaning about Trump’s tariffs from the liberals in other countries and the “patriotic” conservatives is some of the least intelligent discussion I’ve ever seen. How corny can you be? “Costs are increasing because of Orange Man! It’s not like our society was already being completely rewritten and inflation was sky high! Everything is because of evil conservative Americans… but you know we’re strong so it doesn’t matter! We never depended on you! But also, fuck you because you’re trying to make our lives harder!”
And Bill Clinton dropped thousands of federal workers and balanced the budget.
But anyway, the point is: the federal government is bloated. Let’s wait and see what Trump/Musk do after the destruction. Then we can start getting angry.
Good to see that Ganzir is still active in the community.
I am always active, just not always in the community, whatever that is.
The community is the comment section.
This might not settle well with people here but the normal curve doesn’t allow for the curve mean to be at 100
The mean of a normal curve utilizing eulers number e (2.718..) is 93
Instead you need to vary e to a different value given the population to keep the mean at 100
for 8.2 billion people that value is 2.355
look up Diracs curve, the total area of a curve never exceeds 100% but the mean can only be 1.0 and the height of the curve can be greater than 2.718% or less than 2.718%
The mean of a normal curve is 100 by definition, or, more accurately, the mean is 0 by definition and is represented as 100 if you multiply it by 15 and add 100 to convert it to the most common format for expressing IQs. I have no idea what you mean by a normal curve utilizing e, or why it would be 93. I presume that by “Diracs curve” you mean the Dirac delta function, but I do not see the relationship to anything I have been talking about in this post or its comment section.
The only way you can have a curve with a mean of 100 is if you have a population over 100 trillion utilizing eulers number as eulers number is used to create the standard curve to begin with.
This is the curve with e and as you can see it doesn’t work for a population the size of earth.
only with a mean of 94 can the curve fit the population.
*100 billion not trillion
One time I was approached (accosted) by an anti-abortion protestor who asked me, “Do babies deserve to die for the sins of their fathers?” I looked at her, said, “Yes, they do”, and kept walking. There is some small but non-zero chance that PP would white-knight me on the basis that I have low social IQ and did not know how offensive I was being. Nah, I was being offensive on purpose. I was sick of them.
on a normal distribution
With 50% of people above 130 solving the item.
Then 113 is the most likely IQ
I call it the Ganzir Curve
i love the Galton quote that I feel deeply. But on this one I side with the dumb Irish traveler. The alleged Ganzir effect is just a trivial Bayesian property.
But the example is very cool. And it’s amusing to see that PP simple correlation method allows him to find a very good answer. I just asked ChatGPT to do the non discrete real calculation and it’s 110.
well done PP !
Chat gpt;
Based on a model where IQ is assumed to be normally distributed (with mean 100 and a standard deviation of 15) and the probability of solving the problem is given by a smooth function (for example, a logistic function that yields about 35% at IQ 120, 50% at IQ 130, and 65% at IQ 140), one can weight the normal‐density at each IQ by the success probability. In other words, ifWeight(IQ)=NormalPDF(IQ;100,15)×S(IQ),Weight(IQ)=NormalPDF(IQ;100,15)×S(IQ),
then the average IQ among solvers isAvg IQ=∫−∞∞IQ NormalPDF(IQ;100,15) S(IQ) dIQ∫−∞∞NormalPDF(IQ;100,15) S(IQ) dIQ .Avg IQ=∫−∞∞NormalPDF(IQ;100,15)S(IQ)dIQ∫−∞∞IQNormalPDF(IQ;100,15)S(IQ)dIQ.
Using a logistic function of the formS(IQ)=11+exp[−k (IQ−130)]S(IQ)=1+exp[−k(IQ−130)]1
with k≈0.062k≈0.062 (which fits the points S(120)≈0.35, S(130)=0.5, S(140)≈0.65S(120)≈0.35,S(130)=0.5,S(140)≈0.65), one finds that the weighted integration gives an average IQ for solvers of roughly 110.
This result may seem surprisingly low given that 50% of people with 130 IQ solve it, but it reflects the fact that the overall IQ distribution is centered at 100 and that there are far more people around 100–110 than there are at 130 or higher (in fact, about 25 times more people have IQs above 120 than above 140). Thus, even though individuals with higher IQs have a higher probability of solving the problem, the vast majority of solvers come from the lower-IQ end of the range where the population is much larger.
So, under this model, the computed average IQ among people solving the problem comes out to be approximately 110.
very cool
I almost asked ChatGPT for its “thoughts” on anything I could add about my post in the comments section, but I refuse to ask a large language model for math help.
another example that we have discussed extensively is that if Harvard selects its students by SAT, a 1500 guarantees a far lower IQ, than if a group selected by other means, say GPA, would get 1500.
and it’s a case of regression to the mean that some readers – who scored a high SAT scores – have been struggling to understand:.
maybe this new example may help 😊
But my point is that an iq (aptitude test)test consists of MANY items, which each have their characteristic curve. If a more average person lucks up and gets a challenging question, he will not get the other questions on the test, as you Bruno would. Also dumber people will be more likely to miss easier problems along the way, so the entire test has much higher validity than a single item.
Also, Harvard students are not selected solely by sat. Gpa, so tests and other standardized tests play a role, so there is probably a much higher level of validity in college admissions. What you guys say might be true of a high iq society, like Prometheus or mensa.
there is another 2 considerations that are very interesting for HBD crowd.
If our successful group has a modest average IQ of 110, it’s bewildering to notice that nobody in this group has less than 96 IQ.
Because at that point, nobody is able to get the 130 IQ item solved. So the bottom half of IQ distribution is out, and only people above Prometheus level are sure to be all in.
So the third consideration would be that is someone is always very insightful, he/she is probably well above the level of problems you throw at him/her ….
When I adjusted the Ganzir Curve from 130 to 150 things got strange.
125 is what should be the most likely to solve a problem if half of people below 150 can solve it but zero people below 117
So instead I concluded that.
117 has 1% chance of solving it
125 has 13%
133 has 25%
150 has 50%
166 has 75%
183 has 100%
–
This is better than just saying more people = more likely to solve the problem.
and because such high IQ people see what to do right away they do it faster. What would take months for the 117 person would take minutes for the 166 person.
Thus putting a percentage to a problem is difficult to gauge.
The mega test had no time limit.
In 2016 when my friend gave me a puzzles to solve she was impressed when I did, she said “Jeremy, that was a advanced level puzzle!”. She told me her IQ was 135
I am impressed that people can make these puzzles in the first place. How do they do that?
If the hanayama rating system is equivalent to chess elo rating, then their “grand master” puzzle level is set for people with IQ of 152 (one in 4,000)
–
Reading books about a.i. when 12 – I still remember my ideas, tho primitive, as how intelligence worked. One of the books latter on from 2003 I still have and the windows 98 jpegs I made.
I think I posted this quote from The g factor on here before, but I might as well do it again because it’s such a perfect description of large language models.
If I was president I would introduce affirmative action on day one. For gentiles. After decades of discrimination against gentiles in the Deep State, media, finance and law I would do an ultra aggressive AA policy for whites.
If you proposed affirmative action for whites the media would politely debate the issue, but if you proposed it for white gentiles, the MSM would pretend they didn’t hear you while attacking you for other issues.
I DO BELIEVE IN AA BASED ON HOW DEEP ONE’S ROOTS ARE IN WHATEVER THEIR COUNTRY.
WHEN FRESH OFF THE BOAT IMMIGRANTS ARE OVER-REPRESENTED IN SILICON VALLEY AND HARVARD AND SO ON THIS IS OBVIOUSLY IMMORAL. IT’S GLOBAL ELITE VS NATION STATE.
AND IT’S NOT JUST THE US. IT’S THE CASE IN BRITAIN TOO. THE RULING CLASS IN BOTH THESE COUNTRIES HATES HATES HATES ITS MAJORITY POPULATION.
#1 PREFERENCE IN THE US IS FOR AMERICAN INDIANS.
#LAST PREFERENCE IN THE US IS FOR H1Bs INDIANS.
SAD!
^^^WHEN GERMANS WEREN’T GAY AND RETARDED!^^^
THIS WOULD ASSURE THE FOLLOWING: IMMIGRATION IS ONLY ALLOWED WHEN IT BENEFITS THE PEOPLE ALREADY IN THE COUNTRY.
NOT JUST ITS ELITE. NOT JUST THE IMMIGRANT.
HAVE YOU NOTICED?
INTERESTING QUESTION!
IMAGINE MEETING AN INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED PERSON IRL.
THINK ABOUT HOW YOU WOULD FEEL. HOW YOU WOULD DEAL WITH SUCH A PERSON.
SUPPOSE YOU HAVE A 140+ IQ.
WOULD YOU TREAT AN AVERAGE PERSON IN THE SAME WAY AS AN AVERAGE PERSON WOULD TREAT AN INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED PERSON?
ANSWER: NO. IN GENERAL YOU WOULD NOT. TREATING AVERAGE PIPO AS IF THEY ARE DISABLED ISN’T JUST AGAINST CONVENTION IT ALSO SEEMS MEAN AND HAUGHTY AND RIDICULOUS.
BUT PERHAPS VERY HIGH IQ PIPO WOULD BE LESS FRUSTRATED IF THEY DID JUST THAT.
BUT (SADLY!) HIGH IQ PIPO UNDERESTIMATE THEIR THEMSELVES THE MOST.
THIS IS CALLED THE DOWNING EFFECT.
i posted the edited version of this.
please replace this with that.
thank you.
I prefer the first draft. thank you.
THIS GETS AT THE FAMILIAL VS ORGANIC DISTINCTION IN RETARDS PEEPEE HAS PIMPED.
AVERAGE PIPO AREN’T RETARDED IN THE SAME WAY RETARDS ARE RETARDED.
OR MAYBE THEY ARE…(but in much less obvious ways.)
BUT IQists LIKE PEEPEE THINK THEY ARE. EVEN IF THEY CLAIM THEY DON’T.
BINET WAS ONLY TRYING TO IDENTIFY RETARDS. AND WAY TOO MUCH HAS BEEN MADE OF HIS BELL CURVE.
OR HAS IT?
There’s also the distinction between primary and secondary retardation. Primary retardates (organic or familial) are dumb at everything while secondary retardates are dumb only at g loaded things. Familial secondary retardation is often mistaken for culture bias by people like RR but even Jensen made this mistake at first. There are no organic gifted people but there are primary and secondary gifted people. Do you know why there are no organic gifted people?
don’t you mean “dumb only at NON g-loaded things”?
what does it even mean to be “dumb only at g-loaded things”?
this sounds like black shit.
POST ALL MY COMMENTS NEGRESS!
It means they only seem subnormal in school but outside of school they seem perfectly normal or even impressive. Back in the 1970s these were known as six-hour retardates, because they only seemed retarded during school hours.
organic is phenotype
as with what a genius is for people with people
but you need high g to both be people and problems solving smart
if we don’t allow a phenotype to be determined by genotype
we may say that on occasion a person has learned to both be people smart and g smart
but against g we can say that is a reverse cause
high g improves people smarts but people smarts don’t cause high g
so the g as phenotype is required first for giftedness
but then you can have high g and be autistic.
so the cause of both is debatable as they have no relationship
i know why in the case of both, their phenotype, arise
–
Mary is a girl in the movie gifted neither dumb or autistic. Just 6 years old.
No one truly understands what intelligence is at 171 normal distribution.
Can you explain? How can someone only be retarded at g-loaded things? Are there specific medical conditions which tend to cause this secondary retardation?
More the ABSENCE of medical conditions. Suppose one is perfectly normal and healthy but has a g level of -2.1 SD. On an excellent IQ test like the Wechsler that has a g loading of 0.95, they’d likely have an IQ around 0.95(-2.2 SD) = -2.09 SD or IQ 69 and thus qualify as what we used to call EMR (Educable mental retardation). But everyday tasks like socializing and playing sports that have g loadings of say only 0.2, they’d likely be less than half an SD below the average kid and fit right in. Only in classes like reading and math would their disability become evident.
Educable mental retardation, you say? The ‘educable’ part makes them smarter than half the commenters here.
Seriously, though, I get the sense that I have met at least a couple people like that.
We use the temporal partial junction to pay attention to people.
We use the medial partial to do g (spatial/verbal working memory)
both people and g-loaded intelligence require good hippocampal functioning
What’s the argument that g isn’t a myth/ isn’t reified? Where’s the error in my reasoning?
(P1) If g is a real, biologically-grounded entity, then it should be directly observable or measurable independently of statistical correlations in test performance.
(P2) g is not directly observable or measurable as a distinct entity in the brain or elsewhere; it is only inferred from factor analysis of test scores.
(C) Thus, g is not a real biologically-grounded entity – it is a reification, an abstraction mistaken for a concrete reality.
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2023/03/01/the-myth-of-general-intelligence/
All of biology is abstraction. What are you talking about? If it wasn’t you wouldn’t be able to get away with your Developmental Systems Theory blank slatist analytical philosophy.
We have to use somewhat first principle reasoning to agree that g or intelligence differences exist, maybe for the reasons you gave. But we would have to do so for the opposite conclusion as well… and the logical arguments and empirical evidence for g is a lot better.
RaceRealist is an abstraction mistaken for a concrete reality.
if you don’t like the term “g” for “general intelligence” because you need tests to say it exists and tests don’t ground intelligence in biology.
Then what would ground intelligence biology?
any phenotype of intelligence has to show up as a difference from another phenotype of greater or lesser intelligence.
so first you must admit people can be more or less intelligent.
second you need to ground it or else it is just an abstraction.
development as policy wonk says needs grounding also or it is a rerification as well.
so if you cannot ground development it doesn’t exist. It just an abstraction.
rr cannot ground intelligence in anything but you can empirically ground intelligence in what people can do by showing the differences biologically in scans that make up the high and low functional performance.
if you scan a person you can predict how much intelligence they have as to the level of difficulty of what problems they will be able to solve or not solve.
So that it is by the prediction from the biology grounding of intelligence has occurred*
*is not an abstraction
You might as well ask an electrical engineer what the argument is that voltage is not a myth.
Yes.
It is, effectively. For a while, forget everything you know about psychometric or biological theory and just watch people. You can see that some people are smarter than others. g theory only puts that intuitive observation on a footing other than intuition, in the same way that people knew that one plus one equaled two before the Peano axioms.
If I factor-analyzed a bunch of body measurements and found a general factor, would you reply that height is a reification only inferred from factor analysis of test scores? More fundamentally, if something does not exist, then how could it show up in factor analysis in a way that results in people inferring it? A shadow implies that something is casting it.
You keep telling yourself that budro.
RR, the existence of subatomic particles, like quarks, is inferred from high-energy physics experiments, even though they cannot be directly observed. So you can have real entities not observable but with proven effects.
Then other entities like conscience and emotions are widely considered as real without being measurable in a scientific way. In that regard, intelligence isn’t different from conscience or fear.
I have check with chat gpt for quarks as I am no physicist but it seems to confirm the point :
Quarks, the fundamental constituents of matter, are not directly observable due to their confinement within larger particles such as protons and neutrons. This confinement arises because the strong nuclear force, which binds quarks together, becomes increasingly potent as quarks attempt to separate, effectively preventing their isolation and direct detection.
Despite this, scientists have developed methods to study quarks indirectly by observing their effects and interactions:
Through such indirect measurements and observations, researchers can infer the properties and behaviors of quarks, enhancing our understanding of these fundamental particles.
RR, your reasoning may be a valid Modus tollens syllogism, but its soundness is questionable. I also think some of the terms in your premises need more defining and unpacking. Nevertheless, even given a charitable interpretation, I think P2 is open to serious challenge. As others have noted, an entity (phenomenon?) that is intrinsically unmeasurable / unobservable is different than one that is unmeasurable / unobservable because of technological limitations in our ability to measure it.
Further, suppose you replaced “g” in your argument with quale (i.e. subjective phenomenal experience). Would you affirm the conclusion that quale are not biologically grounded, or are not real?
What ankhorknot said is correct
pure logic does not demonstrate reality is what it is
rr thinks anything he writes in a formal way is true just because he wants it to be.
but no
arguments don’t have correspondence with reality always.
opinions written as arguments are still just opinions
you need more than a logical opinion to show what reality is
–
moving past logic is hard for some people
people like rr have latched onto logical formalism because they think it gives them an advantage in reasoning academically but no it just makes them robotic
robots don’t reason
the spout things
lurker,
“We have to use somewhat first principle reasoning to agree that g or intelligence differences exist, maybe for the reasons you gave. But we would have to do so for the opposite conclusion as well… and the logical arguments and empirical evidence for g is a lot better.”
Whats the logical and empirical evidence for g?
AK, saying “how much” someone has of something already assumes that X is quantifiable.
Ganzir,
“You might as well ask an electrical engineer what the argument is that voltage is not a myth.”
What’s the argument that g isn’t a myth/ isn’t reified?
“It is, effectively. For a while, forget everything you know about psychometric or biological theory and just watch people. You can see that some people are smarter than others. g theory only puts that intuitive observation on a footing other than intuition, in the same way that people knew that one plus one equaled two before the Peano axioms.”
This doesn’t address P1 at all.
“If I factor-analyzed a bunch of body measurements and found a general factor, would you reply that height is a reification only inferred from factor analysis of test scores?”
But, necessarily, a so-called “general factor” will emerge when the variables are positively correlated (which psychometricians then claim is g).
Bruno, the argument I gave refers to the Jensenist g.
Ankhorknot, which terms would you like me to define and unpack? The argument I gave is about the Jensen-Spearman g (eg in his 1999 article on his 1998 book). Jensen’s g is an unfalsifiable tautology. I wouldn’t affirm that conclusion—it’d be illogical to do so.
Intelligence is information processing, or generation.
Information can be qualified and quantified (just find the similarities and add them up).
This is an apriori assumption basically everyone has.
Empirically, intelligence differences are partially testable and experiencable (for yourself and externally observable in others).
On a materialist and natural selective evolutionary assumption, a large vulnerable brain with no intelligence benefit would be instantly pruned out of existence.
On a completely nonmaterialist assumption, or one that assumes no connection between natural selection and physical or mental traits, there is no reason to believe anything is important in the first place if we are just going to assume there are no physical/abstract laws in the form of common external determinants and facts about the world that can be adhered to and learned. So arguing and doing anything is basically useless.
RR, thanks for your response. I have not read Jensen’s article or book, so forgive me if I misunderstand the implications. Perhaps, as you say, Jensen’s argument for g is a tautology. But this alone is not evidence against a general factor of intelligence.
As for the terms (and phrases): in P1 you state, “If g is a real, biologically-grounded entity…”. Do you mean that the term “real” (as you are using it) contains the attribute “biologically-grounded”? That is, given that we are talking of humans, are you implying that “real” and “biologically-grounded” are, in effect, the same? I’m inclined to think that is what you meant. It’s not trivial: the distinction prohibits substance dualism.
Additionally, what do you mean by “directly observable”? You did define this by partitioning it out from things that are “statistical correlations in test performance”. But this, to me, makes it more difficult to understand. Most psychological phenomena are observed and measured using such metrics. A psychiatrist or neurologist may evaluate a patient through performance on cognitive and / or mood assessments that rely on correlations, and prescribe a regimen based on the performance. The regimen may be pharmacological or something else. But, surely you are aware, changes in the patient’s performance are monitored to assess the efficacy of the treatment. If you eliminate this as a possibility (which is what your statement seems to imply), then “directly observable” seems limited to something like subjective perceptual awareness (I am ignoring the fact that the possibility of solipsism remains regardless of one’s stance on the admissibility of “statistical correlations in test performance”). If so, then we are left with something like “(P1) If g is a real, biologically-grounded entity, then it should be apparent to the observer based on the observer’s consideration and evaluation of their perceptual faculties”. I want to emphasize that I am not saying that statistical measures are the only kind of measurements. I am saying, however, that many psychiatric and normal psychological measurements are statistical in nature. And that eliminating these as possibilities, in this context, seems to leave only one’s subjective phenomenal experience as a candidate.
There are still two additional points I want to make: One directly related to the point above, the other only tangentially related. First, I advised in the previous post to replace “g” with quale, and to evaluate the conclusion. This was, as you probably understood, a reductio argument: quale meet the criteria to be included in both of your premises, thus the conclusion noted in your syllogism follows. However, denying qualia is a controversial move at best, and it contradicts our most deeply-held and, some would say, incorrigible aspects of our experience.
Second, why single out statistical analysis? If you are familiar with Wittgestein’s notion of language games, you may recall that measurement is, itself, a language game; it is contrived for application in certain “social” situations. In the social context of psychological science, these methods are accepted and admissible. It seems that to say this is not appropriate, and that other, perhaps different, methods of “direct observation” must be used, is to confuse the language games we employ.
rr is obfuscating
More implies that people can solve problems involving more complex variables patterns and relationships.
to say all problems are equivalent as to complexity is in rr case meant to dismiss intelligence entirely.
obviously from what I have said elsewhere on this blogs comment section, that a wider perception of pattern matching is required for more intelligence. If not then we cannot define intelligence.
defining intelligence as non existent is not helpful so what needs to be done is to look for what causes some people to be able to perceive more patterns than other people.
To dumb it down for rr
pattern matching in perception is quantifiable
he will object and say people are all the same in this ability which is obviously false
lurker,
“This is an apriori assumption basically everyone has.”
I fail to see how that addressed the specific challenge.
“On a materialist and natural selective evolutionary assumption”
I see no reason to hold this assumption.
“there is no reason to believe anything is important in the first place”
I don’t see how this follows. There are important (read: necessary) components for the ontogeny of traits.
Ankhorknot,
“Perhaps, as you say, Jensen’s argument for g is a tautology. But this alone is not evidence against a general factor of intelligence.”
It is evidence against the Spearman-Jensen g.
Regarding P1, I can see how you would have that confusion. But again, P1 rests on Jensen’s specific definition of g that he developed throughout his career. Eg Jensen (1999):
“g…[is] a biological [property], a property of the brain
The ultimate arbiter among various “theories of intelligence” must be the physical properties of the brain itself. The current frontier of g research is the investigation of the anatomical and physiological features of the brain that cause g.
…psychometric g has many physical correlates…[and it] is a biological phenomenon.”
“the distinction prohibits substance dualism.”
How?
As for P2, “directly observable” cashes out on Jensen’s specific claims about the nature of g. I think qualia are real and there is no way to deny this. On the other hand, it’s only logical to deny the existence of g, not withstanding irreducibility arguments (which I won’t and don’t need to bring up here to refute the hereditarian g concept). The point about statistical analysis is that it’s inferred that g exists due to the intercorrelations between tests/tasks, but since psychometricians choose subtests that correlate, g is—in effect—built into the test (which is why the “statistical analysis” part of the premise is important).
“Subtests within a battery of intelligence tests are included n the basis of them showing a substantial correlation with the test as a whole, and tests which do not show such correlations are excluded.” (Tyson, Jones, and Elcock, 2011: 67)
AK, do you not remember my definition of intelligence? Intelligence is a “socially embedded cognitive capacity—characterized by intentionality—that encompasses diverse abilities and is continually shaped by an individual’s cultural and social interactions.”
I’m not “obfuscating” anything—the argument I formalized is Gould’s from Mismeasure, and it’s clearly valid and I hold it to be sound.
“Causal reasons lie behind the positive correlations of most mental tests. But what reasons? We cannot infer the reasons from a strong first principal component any more than we can induce the cause of a single correlation coefficient from its magnitude. We cannot reify g as a “thing” unless we have convincing, independent information beyond the fact of correlation itself.” (Gould, 1981: 252)
It’s almost like you’re unaware of the devastating critiques of the concept. “Independent information beyond the fact of correlation itself” means two things—(1) it grounds P1 and P2, which then leads to the conclusion and (2) we know WHY the intercorrelations exists, and it’s due to test construction as the quote from Tyson, Jones, and Elcock shows.
your definition rr doesn’t eliminate people having different levels of pattern matching ability.
and IQ is not intelligence nor g as you need it to be for your stawman to work.
If anime has ever been a hereditarian then rr is a full blown racist and never changed his mind on that.
anime never said anything that can be shown he was a racist hereditarian as can be with rr
all anime believes is that
Intelligence exists
Genomes are for something or would not exist
cats are not dogs
differences exist
–
you called me names first rr
Because of your prejudices and prejudgements and most of all twisting words to mean what they don’t.
RR,
“It is evidence against the Spearman-Jensen g.”
If the “argument” for g set forth by Spearman and Jensen is tautological, then it is a bad argument. This is not the same as evidence against it.
Thanks for including the quotation.
“How?” (in reference to the preclusion of substance dualism)
In the way you probably suspect. If by “real” you meant something that was not necessarily “biologically grounded”, then it leaves the substance dualism position open (I should have said specifically for g). I asked for clarification on the point prior to you including the quote from Jensen (1999), which made clear your position. I wanted to preclude the option of substance dualism to set up the reductio ad absurdum argument for quale:
(P1) If [quale are] real, biologically-grounded [phenomena], then [they] should be directly observable (in others) or measurable independently of [subjective experience].
(P2) [quale are] not directly observable (in others) or measurable as a distinct entity in the brain or elsewhere; it is only inferred from [subjective experience and attribution of other minds].
(C) Thus, [quale are] not a real biologically-grounded entity – it is a reification, an abstraction mistaken for a concrete reality.
I certainly welcome your thoughts on the above.
Assume for a moment that neuroscience research identified certain functional and anatomical features of the brain (e.g., myelin thickness, efficiency of LTP, nodes of Ranvier spacing, etc.) that could be functionally replicated in a computer. And further assume that changes to these properties produced changes in performance on g-loaded tasks that correlated highly with actual human-matched subjects’ performance on g-loaded tasks. Would this, in your view, be evidence for g?
In any case, I think I understand your position more clearly – thank you.
AK,
“Genomes are for something or would not exist”
Right—necessary, passive causes in the developmental system that have no primacy over other developmental resources.
Ankhorknot,
“If the “argument” for g set forth by Spearman and Jensen is tautological, then it is a bad argument. This is not the same as evidence against it.”
I mean, if they can’t even get their concepts right, why should we believe their grand claims? If they can’t even get their logic right and stay consistent between 10 pages of each other why should we believe Jensen?
I’ll just make it clear, then: If someone is claiming that X is measurable, then X is physical. Furthermore, the first premise is written in such a way that takes into account the definition of g which is most-used by hereditarians (eg, Jensen, Spearman and even Geary). Jensen, like the good physicalist reductionist he is, stated that g is a brain property. That’s, of course, reifying the concept. But wait—in 1969 he warned that g is a hypothetical construct then 10 pages later says it’s not a product of social conventions. Hmmm
Regarding your (what I take to be) parody argument, the psychometricians claim that g is a biologically-grounded entity. That is, there can be some kind of third-personal empirics done on it. 120 years later, and these claims have been shot down to hell and back. Qualia are subjective, first-personal experiences. So there’s no identity between your P1* and my P1. The lack of independent evidence for g is the flaw, since the psychometrician claims that it is a physically objective thing that can be measured. So if qualia were conceptualized as concrete, third-personal entities like hemoglobin or other blood measures, then your argument would have some weight.
Isn’t what you’re saying assuming that there are tasks that are g-loaded before we actually find out if there is ACTUALLY a g?
So what do you think my position is? I hope I’ve spelled it out in a more clear and comprehensive manner. The formalized argument was just a spitball to think about how to strengthen the argument and show that Gould was right about the reification of g (since you can see that the Gould quote I provided jives with the argument I formalized).
Good fdiscussion.
RR,
Thanks for your response.
“I mean, if they can’t even get their concepts right, why should we believe their grand claims?”
I did not mean to imply we should, only that if their argument is tautological then we should not take a position based solely on their argument. Of course, we do take a position on their claim because we hold other beliefs and dispositions toward belief. In the case of g, many people are inclined to believe it because it accords with our intuitions about minds, and specifically, our notions of the “self” (e.g., stability and continuity of experience vis-a-vis “cognitive effort”; assumption of internalized traits and ability, etc.).
“I’ll just make it clear, then: If someone is claiming that X is measurable, then X is physical. “
Agreed. My questions were meant to confirm that by “real” (in context) you meant “physical” / “measurable”, etc. If your position is that real is necessarily measurable, and what is measurable is necessarily physical, then I think you run into trouble with qualia. Here are your relevant replies and my comments beneath:
“…psychometricians claim that g is a biologically-grounded entity. That is, there can be some kind of third-personal empirics done on it.”
Ok, check – “biologically-grounded” = “some kind of third-personal empirics done on it”
“Qualia are subjective, first-personal experiences”
Ok, I take from this that your position is qualia’s subjective nature precludes it from being “biologically-grounded” or having “some kind of third-personal empirics done on it”.
“So if qualia were conceptualized as concrete, third-personal entities like hemoglobin or other blood measures, then your argument would have some weight.”
Ok, this further confirms my understanding of your position on this particular topic.
Here are my comments on this:
How I think this links to g:
My positions rest heavily on the shared attributes noted in 1 & 2. I think these are reasonable, but also open to challenge.
“Isn’t what you’re saying assuming that there are tasks that are g-loaded before we actually find out if there is ACTUALLY a g?”
I assume this is in response to my neuro thought experiment. In this case, yes. I said it to see under what plausible physical / measurable conditions you might concede that g exists. Your initial argument (and, btw, I grant that it was a ‘spitball’ argument. I try to give a lot of breadth and goodwill in discussion. I think good thinking is iterative, and I hope others give me the same grace) contested the reality of g on the grounds that it was not measurable in a way other than by statistical methods.
Ok, suppose instead that advanced neuroscientists knew nothing of g. They just wanted to know what changes in brain structure and function led to what kind of outcomes in “performance”. Assume they exhausted all possible scenarios of brain changes, and tested practically all possible test scenarios – not just scenarios one might think are g-loaded (I admit there are potential problems here, but this is why I alluded to Wittgenstein’s language games). If they identified a cluster of tasks that correlated similarly with brain changes, and that cluster was deemed to have as its main goal something like “achieving success in complex cognitive tasks”, would you consider this evidence for g?
“So what do you think my position is?”
I think your position is something like: If you assume a construct exists and then select for conditions that allegedly support its existence, you have not shown the construct exists. Further, if you state the construct is physically measurable, you have committed the fallacy of reification.
I appreciate the back and forth. I’m a novice when it comes to theories of intelligence, and I don’t truly have a firm position either way. My goal is clarity – mostly for my own thinking!
There’s a difference in “real-world/non-academic intelligence” between 60-IQ Whites and 60-IQ Blacks for the same reason that there’s a difference in basketball talent between 4’6” Whites and 4’6” Pygmies.
Very often, for a white person to score that low, there is something “wrong” (e.g. having an extra chromosome) with them that affects processes of the brain not necessarily strongly tied to g. For a black person to score that low, it’s more often the case that they are just born with a low “amount” of g without any underlying, pervasive pathology that manifests itself in deficits in emotional regulation, motor skills, and executive function that make people “traditionally retarded.
For a white male to be 4’6”, it’s very often a pathological case that affects not only stature per se, but proportions, joint mobility, and flexibility. On the other hand, a 4’6” Pygmy is in his group’s normal range and thus not as likely to have as many issues that characterize dwarfism in other populations.
To an extent, I can agree with anti-IQists that retarded Whites seeming way more, well…retarded than retarded Blacks is a red flag, but of course, many IQists appreciate that there’s a lot more to being smart or dumb than the distance between your temples. Just as there’s a lot more to being good at basketball than the distance between your scalp and the hoop.
^^correct
IF ANYONE WERE DUMB ONLY AT G-LOADED THINGS THIS WOULD DISPROVE G.
PEEPEE: HAHAHA WHAT A RETARD!
MUGABE: EXACTLY!
g is NEVER capitalized. Not even when using cap locks.
so the upshot of the minor correction to marx that capitalists are also laborers is…
basically the stockholm school.
capitalism but with very very very progressive taxes.
for pipo who can’t speak english “progressive taxes” means poor pipo pay negative taxes. rich pipo pay high taxes. very rich pipo pay very high taxes.
BUT! WITH CAP-EX BEING 100% DEDUCTIBLE IN THE SAME YEAR.
NO DEPRECIATION EXPENSE OVER 5-10-30-40 YEARS.
UP-FRONT! 100%!
PEEPEE: DASS CRAYCRAY N SHIT.
MUGABE: RICK SANTORUM SUGGESTED THE SAME BUT ONLY FOR MANUFACTURING COS IN HIS BID FOR PREZ IN 2016.
IT COULD ALSO BE CALLED “100% ACCELERATED DEPRECIATION”.
THEN MAX WEBER’S GAY WET DREAM WOULD BE ENFORCED.
TAKE IVESTOR AB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor_AB
ITS CEO HAS INHERITED HIS POSITION. HE’S A WALLENBERG.
HE MAKES $600K PER YEAR.
NOT MUCH AT ALL COMPARED TO AN AMERICAN CEO OF A CO THE SAME SIZE.
BUT SOME WOULD STILL BITCH THAT HE’S INHERITED HIS POSITION.
YES!
BUT!
FABIANISM! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society
BECAUSE!
REVOLUTIONS, SUDDEN/ABRUPT CHANGES, HAVE A BAJILLION UNINTENDED AND UNFORSEEABLE CONSEQUENCES.
REVOLUTIONS ALWAYS FAIL.
UNLESS 1776.
Wheres all the other comments?
fix your name or none of your comments will appear
THIS IS BASICALLY WHAT (no less than) THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAD FROM 1938 TO 1971.
CONTRA (what dobular calls) THE CHUDS, AMERICA USED TO BE SWEDEN!
LEGIT OBJECTION TO THIS IDEAL IS THAT CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH = CORRUPTION = GOVT BY AND FOR THE RICH (and there’s no way to avoid this.)
BUT AT THE SAME TIME…
CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA AND CHINA HAVE A YUGE CAPITALIST CLASS…
WITH NO POWER!
SO THE US SHOULD LOOK TO RUSSIA AND CHINA. NOT THE REVERSE.
ALMOST ALL FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS IS DESTROYED BY ONE FACT!
EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION (including C-suite executives) IS ONLY 59% OF NATIONAL INCOME IN THE US.
AND IT’S NEARLY THE SAME OVER TIME AND COUNTRY.
AND THAT COULD BE FINE IF THE WAGES OF CAPITAL WERE RE-IVESTED IN MORE CAPITAL.
BUT THEY AREN’T!
THUS THE 100% ACCELERATED DEPRECIATION.