₦airaland Forum

Ok. But I'm not sure why you brought in these two quotes from mazaje. I'm curious, though. Can you please enlighten me as to what you have against those words?

toba:
Its nice having this thread and since it was brought up, how many of them have showed up here to condemn their own apart from Ascony and Mudley? Let there be anything about Christianity that looks wrong, u will find them responding to the extent of even making it personal as if we are in a competition. If not for anything, at least for the sake of pun, this is a legitimate thread.

You need to understand what atheism is. It is non-belief in the existence of God. Full stop. It is not a set of moral codes with priests and all. So it does not even begin to make sense for anyone to charge them as atheists with immorality the way we can charge Christians as Christians with immorality. Atheists ought to be disgusted at what Mr Dawkin's friend did just like all of us because they are human beings and it is ethically wrong for one human being to steal from another. An atheist who does not condemn stealing fails as a human being, but not as an atheist because there is no such thing as failing as an atheist the way there is failing as a Christian.

Very very funny.

harakiri:
If your friend knows anything about cooking, then he will know that the wings,neck and especially the back are the juiciest parts in a chicken (if it's divided well).Chicken thighs are just hype.There's not much meat in it compared to other parts.It just looks attractive.Period!

Doesn't matter. I would share the thigh with her, maybe even feed it to her, but she giving it to him in the first place is symbolic. This woman did not give her husband wings and neck because, as you put it, they are sweeter. She did it because she is gluttonous, low-minded, and incapable of proper thinking. Most women I know give their husband the best parts without thinking about it.

harakiri: If your friend can cook, then let him take out weekends to cook in the house and give the wife the parts he doesn't like. . .that will send a message.In between, this is an issue he should iron out with his wife.Coming to NL is a lil over board.

Cheers.

Won't solve the problem. A woman this dumb will simply see that as the husband upping the competition and will dig in in her stupidity even more. What we have here says a lot about the character of the woman in question.

Ebonyeyes:
Oh my God  Kids shouldnt be allowed to get married

Right.

Pastor AIO:
Let me make an attempt to explain my point.  Imagine a guy with in a limited world living a limited life experience.  He meets someone one else.  That person offers him a job, he accepts, the person then gives him a slap and puts him to work.  At the end of the week his manager comes to him with his pay check, gives him a slap, and hands him his wages.  He goes home and his wife welcomes him with a kiss, gives him a slap and they head off to beg together.  The next day they go to visit his parents.  When they arrive him mum, his dad, his brother and his sister each give him a slap as they welcome him with open arms. 

He then goes on a walk and meets a stranger.  Instantly he expects a slap from the stranger.  His tendency to expect a slap from every where he goes does not depend on his ability to make distinctions.  He doesn't need to group the world in to those who slap and those who do not.  Everyone slaps as far as he is concerned.  He has generalized every meeting into a slap reception. 

I hope that conveys my point.

Lol.
Just having a hard time conveying it to real life.

Pastor AIO: I was there.  They said you were stuck in traffic and I waited and waited yet you didn't show up.  Next time I'll charge you per hour for my time.

No problem. As you would say, all you will need to do is have your people send an invoice to my people.

Pastor AIO: Well you can.  As long as you accept that it is arbitrary and the definition you use works to help you make your point or further your argument within the context of a particular issue. 
Just don't expect your definition to be universally accepted within every context by everyone.

That is fine.

Pastor AIO: Oops, I hope say I no vex you.  I also agree that intelligence is not limited to that tested in IQ tests.  So I agree with your point. 
However I think another bone of contention is that of natural inclination.  I believe that the different intelligences result as a matter of inclination.  Not just inclination but natural inclination.  ie I believe people are born with certain inclinations.  Some are drawn to music and their intelligence will be applied to that and will develop in that direction.  Some others are drawn to understanding their fellow human beings and thus become more intelligent at persuasion and at reading a crowd which is a skill many demagogues, and salesmen even, need to develop.  etc etc.

"Intelligence", "inclination", even "skill". There is a line dividing them. How thick exactly I doubt we will ever fully know. I do have my observations which I compare with what the experts say, though. I have read psychologists who say Gardner's eight intelligences are just nothing but skills! Having been actively interested in this matter for close to two decades,  I have enough reasons of my own to strongly disagree with them, but it's their view and they too make good arguments.

Here is Gardner himself:

Some people read text relatively quickly, but struggle with diagrams and
tables. Others find it easy to read tables of numbers and enjoy working with
information organised diagramatically, but get bogged down in long
passages of text. Indeed, it has been argued that that there are seven or
eight different kinds of ‘intelligence’ and that these affect the way we study

And here is something I came across when I took a class on theories of learning. It's written by Andrew Northedge, a learning theory expert:

However, there is a disagreement about how useful it is to make distinctions
between learning styles and about which distinctions are most meaningful
and practical. New classification schemes and new versions of old schemes
continue to emerge. . . .

Whether some of these schemes are more ‘correct’ than others is not
necessarily important. You can simply make use of them to stimulate
thinking about your learning preferences. Try them out and borrow
whatever ideas seem useful.

If you made use of the "Modify" button and write that^^^ in more accessible English, there might be responses. Not saying, but there might be.

I'd really like to hear Joagbaje's answer to the question.

Mr Kumuyi does not owe anyone any apologies for getting married. His wife died, so he married another woman who was single. That is proper, honourable and right.

Joagbaje: Let's leave men of God alone, their matters are high for us to discourse.

[quote author=Tudór link=topic=540641.msg7037249#msg7037249 date=1288340417]I remember a few years ago, I flipped channels and saw fat ugly cow-looking women dressed in white and black bellowing out "melodies", I watched in earnest thinking it was an Advert for Cowbell milk. Imagine my surprise when I see a banner that read 'Deeper Life Women Choir'.[/quote]

^^^ I think the title is fine, too - to the extent it's a pun. The only mistake opening poster made was responding angrily to the atheists who failed to see a religious news report that parallels others around here and spot the pun in the title.

Pastor AIO:
Aaaah Toba, so you identify with Cecilian and Erastus.  They say who the cap fit must wear it.  You've tried the cap, looked  in the mirror, liked what you saw, paid for it and have now left the store with your cap on your head.

I really like that word - whether it's a typo or a deliberate pun (knowing Pastor_AIO, I'm fairly certain which it is). Sicilian! 

The Shrine of Fatima the Pure in Qom is indeed exceptional. In terms of Gothic splendor, this architectural masterpiece reminds you of the Sulemaniye Mosque in Istanbul, the Taj Mahal in India, the Himeji Castle in Japan or the Chartres Cathedral in France. Such architectural wonders evoke in some what watching a sunset evokes in others. It is easy to understand how such a sight can produce in someone such intense feelings as can be interpreted as a "holy experience" and lead to a conversion.

One thing, though, she lost me where she talked about Blair's presumptions which crucially need to be changed. I thought it was Blair always shouting himself hoarse that Islam is a "religion of peace"?

^^^ Just seen your post. Seems I saw little beside Pastor AIO’s thread on intelligence when I looked in last week. Ramacharaka made the statement in that same book. It’s from the part I found most fascinating in the book - the period of Jesus’ youth, that is, the years missing from the Bible accounts of his life. The matter is also extensively treated in “The Life of Saint Isa, Best of the Sons of Men.” Try running a search on the Mystic Christianity book for the curse of India phrase. So the Yogi wasn’t India? I kind of took it for granted he was. Now I understand.

There is no serious exposition on God in Yoga that I have come across. Yoga simply and generally works with the Hindu understanding of God, which is largely pantheistic/panentheistic. Patanjali and the other ancient masters did not deviate from Hindu writs in any matter.

I didn't finish the Cayce article, too, but I read much of it. Sure I will like the quote from the Chinese book you mentioned. Will read it when next I log in here. I believe studies will go well. Just starting out.

A friend did a study of this problem in the neighbouring country of The Gambia a few years back and we worked on his report together. It is sad, but I think this line says it all:

The authorities have to somehow break the link between poverty, faith and exploitation.

@benodic
Thanks for your response. That will be ok for now till I have a little more time to ask you some questions.

@vescucci
Yes, they have since been added to by some learned psychologists. I personally find these eight useful, while not discounting other theories. And yes, there is risk of over-simplications and over-generalisations. For example, when we say logical-mathematical is about aptitude towards abstract reasoning and solving mathematical problems, you will find someone who is a mathematical genius but can’t do much abstract reasoning that is not figure-related. The reverse is quite evident. The intelligences can and often also overlap. Bear in mind the intelligences don’t occur in isolation in people. But all these do not detract from the clear distinctions which can be made in our effort to understand intelligence. I believe the theory is, thus, useful. But like I said, I don’t consider it perfect.

When considering degree of usefulness, you need to bear at the back of your mind, again, that these geniuses don’t usually occur in isolation in people. We often simply excel at one. The case of prodigies and autistic savants helps to make the case for multiple intelligences here. A prodigy excels at one while being just about average in most of the others. An autistic savant excels at one while being far below average at the others, particularly the intrapersonal and interpersonal. Jeremy Bentham was a prodigy and that spanned the verbal-linguistic, the logical-mathematical, and the musical, so he is a well-known genius. Mozart had it for the musical and was just normal in other respects.

Now, I know many will conclude that Henry Louis Gates is more intelligent than Michael Jackson, or that Shakespeare was more intelligent than Pablo Picasso, or that Pliny the Elder was more intelligent than Sundiata Keita, Alexander the Great or Ewuare N’Ogidigan. I don’t share that view. But that’s the point I have been trying to make.

I think emotional intelligence (call it common sense, call it sabi, call it presence of mind, call it finesse, call it flair, call it poise, call self-possession, call it what you will) is probably the important of the intelligences since it concerns, among other things, degree of mastery over the deadly emotions of anger, fear and envy, and may largely determine how successful you become in the ordinary business of life. Having got that out of the way, would I go on to advocate a hierarchy? In a rash moment, I might pick some as being more important than the others if everyone human being were born with a single one to the exclusion of others and one would then have to pick in terms of relevance to survival. But since that is not usually the case, except for the autistic savant, no. Kinesthetic intelligence would be useful to a hunter, so would it to a dancer and choreographer, an athlete and even a running shoes designer. You may want to ask a question or two more, but I’m out of hia. Gotta pay some attention to a matter right here.

I believe I have answered PastorAIO’s query about differences and I can’t think of anything to add to what Deep Sight has written.

Pastor AIO:
There is absolutely no need to determine that canines are a different class from Equidae in order to tell that Dogs and Wolves are both canine, or rather that they have common traits. At least I don't think so.  When we generalize, yes, that general trait that we discover is distinct from other general traits.  But that fact is not necessary to the process of generalizing. 

On the other hand, language and words are used to distinguish things.  We name and term things to set them apart.  This might be what is causing the confusion.

Imagine it is possible to have someone whose IQ is very very close to zero, say, around 0.5 or 1. It is unlikely he would be able to tell a computer from a goat. Everything would just be the same. He would be unable to tell the colours. It would be hard to communicate with him since he would be unable to different sounds and signs even if his eardrums are physiologically intact. When someone sings very badly and don’t seem to realise it, it is usually said that such a person is tone-deaf. That is, he is unable to make distinctions in tones. The less intelligence there is, the more things tend to blur. The more intelligent someone is, the more discriminating one is. The more distinctions he makes. In every act of intelligence, whether it is related to solving puzzles, spotting similarities, putting together the right information, or recalling the right answer when asked who was the first governor-general of Nigeria, what you are doing is making fine distinctions. Or that’s what I think.

Making distinctions is inherent in the very process of making accurate generalisations. I do not see how that fact is not necessary to the process of generalizing since generalizing often simply comes down to grouping, sub-grouping and re-grouping.

Naming comes after distinction, so I don’t think it should cause confusion.

Pastor AIO: Demonstrably?  Please demonstrate.

Lol. Come to my lab at 19.30 GMT.

Pastor AIO: If due to genetics someone's muscles can generate the power to help them jump higher than others is that to be counted for as some form of intelligence?  I can accept that coordination, the ability to aim accurately etc can be considered a form of intelligence.

I have nothing to add to that^^^, since I, too, did not set out to create the impression that bending iron would amount to intelligence!

Pastor AIO: I've read Daniel Goleman's book and while I liked the basic premise of there being multiple intelligences I think after making that great point the book degenerated to waffle.  It does not comprehensively account for intelligences and it does not even provide a succinct definition of Intelligence itself.  It doesn't even do so for Emotion either.

I, too, have many issues with Goleman’s book but it’s nothing to do with his failure to provide definitions. But I guess that’s because I don’t do definitionism much. If I had written the book I would probably also have eschewed definitions as conceived here since they can only cause distractions of their own and are unlikely to serve any use at all. I doubt I’d be able to come up with a definition for every single word I use even though I have an intuitive understanding of what they mean as do my interlocutors. What gives me concern are some of Goleman’s claims. I believe he sometimes went too far in making assertions. A social scientist ought to be more cautious and use more caveats in making claims on a matter in which actual field research is scanty. But the book opens a whole new way of looking at things. I guess the intelligent thing to do would be to proceed from there and make one’s own observations to know what is useful and what is not.

Pastor AIO: The ability to acquire and retain information was my definition.  It wasn't a statement of absolute fact.  Like I said earlier it can be arbitrary but once the definition has been made then you must stick within it's parameters. 
What is the difference between acquiring information and making fine distinctions?  What is information?  Are the distinctions not information?  Orange is sweet.  Agbalumo is sweet.  Orange is sweet in a different way from agbalumo.  Is that not information?  If someone doesn't know there is a difference in the sweetness of agbalumo and orange is that person not uninformed.

Spot on. The point, like I tried to make to nuclearboy, is that you cannot pick a single chip of the whole, and try to use that to define intelligence. (1) Information – or being able to get and use it, (2) vocabulary, (3) arithmetic, (4) puzzles, or (5) memory are just chips of intelligence. That would be narrowing it down too much.

There is a lot of information. To get the right information you need to be able to make fine distinctions. It is my view that that applies to your ability to make good music, solve puzzles, get out of a maze, balance an account book, design a functional MMU, fly an aeroplane, critique a movie, make a good painting, and cook a really great bowl of groundnut soup.

I note you have made the observation that there is some arbitrariness involved in definitions even if one has to stick to one, a view I share. Well, I guess that is why, even though we all have an intuitive understanding of what intelligence is and use it in our conversations everyday, no one has come up with a single universally accepted definition.

Pastor AIO: The two have different life experiences and I might deem one's life experience as more pertinent to getting me through the jungle alive then the other's.

Right. Like I have already acknowledged, that example was grossly inadequate to the point I sought to make. But it’s possible to bring it to the level of intelligence. Among Central African pigmies or traditional Navajos you will find individuals skilled with the flute and those skilled at hunting and others skilled at carving.

Pastor AIO:
In other words, Is intelligence quantifiable?

I suggest you read the post I wrote in response to that post of vesc's that you quoted.

Pastor AIO: I still think a basic definition is required from MyJoe rather than a list accounting all the different types of intelligence.  What makes my ability to fart loudest not a demonstration of my superior intelligence?  Or my ability to pee the highest up a wall?  What we have so far is an account of various abilities that have been branded types of intelligence but we don't know what makes them intelligence while other abilities are not considered intelligence. 

I am aware that he is only presenting the ideas of Howard Gardner and not his own, but I think Howard Gardner should be able to make basic definition of his terms, after all he is even an Harvard professor.  We shouldn't let him get away with such sloppiness.

No, sir. I am not only presenting the idea of Gardner on this thread. Here: I have stated clearly in this thread that the theory of eight intelligences was made up by Gardner. Some social scientists accept them. Others don't. I don't consider either group right or wrong. I accept them based on personal observations I have made. I stated four intelligences in order to make my point. I later stated the other four after vescucci asked for them. What I am presenting here are basically my views of what I find useful and what I don't. I believe that defining intelligence narrowly to include those who can handle big textbooks and maybe do mathematics is not very helpful. That many labelled unintelligent may not actually be unintelligent. That is my point. Thank you.

I began by clearly stating, in highlight, a definition of intelligence in my first post. Post # 1. I have also stated it in this post, and perhaps others. That is my working definition of intelligence which is, needless to say, not perfect. And what makes an act intelligent and another unintelligent is amply contained in my posts. You believe Gardner should have provided a definition? Aight.

Thanks for your response, benodic.

benodic:
the unique thing about ECKANKAR is that we are not asking anybody to believe anything said about truth. you must experience truth in order to know the truth.

Is "experiencing" really for everyone? I mean, do we all NEED it? Don't you think in the quest to experience evil spirits can take advantage of your quest and feed you stuff or that your quest can even create its own alternate reality?

@vescucci

The other four (I am basing this on the theory originally made up by Harvard professor Howard Gardner) are: logical-mathematical – the ability to solve mathematical and abstract problems. Accountants, machine designers, and astronauts, are among those who need this kind of intelligence in real life.

Interpersonal – understanding other people and being able to deploy that understanding to useful ends. In real situations, politicians, public administrators, and advertising copy writers need this kind of intelligence.

Intrapersonal - understanding yourself, now often called “emotional intelligence”. It is now thought by many to be the most important of all the intelligences. I share that view. And it is probably the best explanation for the age long question of why many intelligent people fail at small things. It is also the one sound solution to Aristotle’s admonition that when we get angry we should get angry with the right person, for the right reason, and to the right degree.

The remarkable thing with emotional intelligence is that we are told it can be taught, particularly in childhood. To what extent, though, I won’t stick out my neck on. But schools from USA to China now have “emotional intelligence” sessions on the curriculum.
Naturalist – the ability to make fine distinctions with nature. This would be the kind of intelligence required of a geologist, a ranger or an ornithologist.

Usually when we say someone is “intelligent”, what we have in mind the verbal-linguistic and sometimes the logical-mathematical. The verbal-linguistic is about the only intelligence required of you to do well in primary and secondary school, with the exception of the subject of mathematics and related stuff like physics. Of course, it is also the intelligence required of such professionals as teachers, poets, lawyers and lexicographers.
I believe most people excel at, at least one. Some people excel at several or most. I believe someone like Leonardo da Vinci was a genius at every single one. I believe a chess master would need to be a genius at verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical and intrapersonal, but this is not given. A piano master would also need several of the intelligences, but that would not be given, too. You would be a better lawyer or poet if you are a genius at more than one. A seismic interpreter would be well served by both the naturalist and the logical-mathematical.

Environment affects intelligence. To what extent is what I won’t risk guessing. Whichever way you look at it, one person can be more intelligent than another. Even if we identify all the kids with high kinesthetic intelligence and encourage all of them to practice dancing or sports some will do better than others. What I am saying is that the current methods of testing are not accurate methods of telling us who is more intelligent than another. Let’s say we were to use chess. There are highly “intelligent” people who can’t stand chess. There are people who are not very bright who play chess well. And then you have the autistic savant who is a chess master but can’t do anything else. It is not useful in the real world. What would be more useful is if the school system recognizes the different intelligences and encourage people to excel in their area of genius, or for a start, use it to help them find the learning method that suits them best.

On measuring, I believe a lot of progress has been made if you take a close at the current models which use a progressive system of tests and subtests, but I believe they are still miles away from adequate since they hardly span more than a few of the intelligences. So, no, there is no simple, objective and accurate way of measuring the eight intelligences. My view of modern intelligence testing methods is that they are still too weighted in favour of verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical. That may explain why most of the people awarded scores above 170 in this link  are philosophers, theologians, poets and writers. It is quite telling that up till date, psychologists are yet to device a single method of intelligence testing that attains an average degree of correlation with school performance, to say nothing about successfully predicting real life success and performance! I sometimes feel intelligence is overrated, anyway.

Does intelligence increase? This one has generated a lot of traffic on the streets of speculations, conjectures and debates. There is a thriving business around it, from foods marketed to increase intelligence in your children to drugs said to improve retention. We have long been told that listening to Mozart increases intelligence in children. Trust me, none of this is proven. In fact, I think it’s mostly lies. But I believe that increase in intelligence is possible and can be observed. If there are things you can consciously do to bring this about is what is really contentious. That is, of course, if you remove what I will call obvious factors like, say, a child decreasing in intelligence due to malnourishment and a hitherto harassed and abused child increasing in intelligence on being taken to a loving environment. Kids from poor homes adopted into rich homes have shown an increase in intelligence scores. On the whole, I believe intelligence is in-born, but environment can play a role. It is in your genes, but the way your genes interact with your environment is a key factor.

nuclearboy:
Intelligence - get information and process it to a useful end AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.

I think "processing speed" is what makes the difference.

I believe intelligence helps to get information – that is, being able to get information and process it is merely one of the functions of intelligence. And speed denotes apparent intelligence or academic intelligence. That is, it is likely to help you pass JAMB. But those who pass JAMB aren’t necessarily the most intelligent people now, even in the classroom, much less in the real world.

The snake charmer thing was a rather poor example of the point I was trying to make. (I was merely trying to explain the “genius failure paradox”). Which is that there are intelligences, not simply inclinations. Of course, training and actual intelligence are different - that is given. Look at it this way: Kid A is said to have an IQ of 100, Kid B 120, Kid C 140. Now we raise them in the same house, give them the same mentoring, and then test the three of them at grammar, music, and drawing. Would it happen that Kid A scores 100 points in grammar, music and drawing, while Kid B scores 120 in all, while Kid C scores 140 in all? No. We may have close results. But we may also have staggeringly divergent results, with kid C, the most “intelligent”, manifesting a very poor ability at music and Kid A surprising everyone at drawing. Because there is no such thing as universal intelligence. That is why the chess model is non-starter for me. There are intelligences - not merely chips of it. There is no consensus on this subject and the theory I lay down here (the eight intelligences), is far from perfect. But it is one I find far more useful than the IQ or chess idea.

“Abilities resultant from genes”? I haven’t said anything really contrary, but I’m not discussing genes.

Nope. This is selfishness.

Deep Sight:
Sometimes people deliberately deploy intelligence to achieve a limited, short-term, selfish interest: and this is done with full awareness of the bigger picture.

Deep Sight:
It may not necessarily be unintelligent. I think what you are referring to is more the sort of wisdom and vision which statesmen should have.

People on the other hand, have many very selfish reasons for doing the things that they do: and those selfish reasons are not necessarily unintelligent by reason of being short-sighted only. Sometimes people deliberately deploy intelligence to achieve a limited, short-term, selfish interest: and this is done with full awareness of the bigger picture.

I agree with highlighted, but I think the people making up the French crowd are, like those that carried out similar exercises in Greece not long ago, not seeing the big picture. It is possible, even likely, there are opposition party leaders hoping to score points with the people, but I am here assessing the crowd. In that crowd there are people who just like to oppose the government, no matter what it at issue. Then there are others who oppose once it involves paying some tax, working a minute longer, or foregoing one benefit. Why this is to be done does not matter at all. What is involved here is an inability to tell when to oppose and when not; when a tax rise in necessary for the common good and when not; when working longer is crucial and when not. That is what I see as a lack of intelligence.

Pastor AIO:
What makes one action intelligent while another is considered unintelligent?

I can think of a case right now - the protesters currently shutting down France and intimidating their government. Along with their backers in the Socialist Party, they are, in my opinion, very very unintelligent. What we have here is a deplorable inability to make a distinction. The government wants to extend retirement wage by making workers work two years more, the workers want to retire early, the students want workers to retire early so there will be more vacancies for graduates. Why the government wants to do it – to save the pension system and by extension, the civil service, does not matter to the protesters. They are unable to make a distinction between elitist government policies and those that will be benefit the people in the long run. The government is unpopular, so anything it does must be opposed. They are unable to tell when an unpopular government does something good.

Pastor AIO:
Well done Kay17.  What you described is as the definition of intelligence is just one half of the basic function of thinking.  Which I guess is what intelligence is.  But the distinction between that and what I define as intelligence is quite subtle and I don't think I can quite articulate it in one post but let us continue and hopefully it will make itself clear as we go along.

When I said that the ability to make fine distinctions between is only one half of thinking what I meant obviously is that there is another half.  The ability to make generalizations.  i.e the ability to identify that the domestic dog and the wolf, and the bear all belong to one and the same genus.  These two functions are the polar opposite of each other and our ability to use the two constructively is what makes someone a good thinker.  Ie.  the ability to tell when one applies to a particular problem better than the other.

It is my view that what is involved in making generalizations is often the same process of making distinctions – at almost every stage. So I can tell that a dog and a wolf belong to the same genus. But this is before (or is it after?) I tell they belong to a different family from horses (Equidae) even though they are all mammals. And that is because I know mammals are different from amphibians. So you find while grouping (generalizing) we are actually involved in the process of making distinctions. Generalisations would have no meaning without distinctions. You cannot generalise correctly if you lack the ability to make fine distinctions.

Pastor AIO: There are a vast number of things in the whole universe that intelligence can be applied to.  People have different inclinations to apply it to different things so that could be the reason why there appear to be many different kinds of intelligence.

It is demonstrably more than inclination, Pastor. I think there is some innate natural ability involved. (I am not saying intelligence is wholly innate - that is still a subject of debate and I don't believe it is.) If I practice basketball for nine hours everyday, I doubt I will ever get as good as Michael Jordan. If I let my kid practice, there is no guarantee he will. But there is reason to believe that if Michael Jordan had taken to tennis in his childhood he would have achieved the same fame he achieved in basketball – this is because he is a kinesthetic genius. Going with basket ball, rather than tennis, is where such things as inclination and environment come in, not the primordial ability. Similarly, Fela could have achieved the same fame had he chosen reggae. While they had different inclinations, the same genius was required of him and Bob Marley.

Take the matter of emotional intelligence – the ability to master yourself and , from there, others. With the concept of emotional intelligence, we see why otherwise brilliant people flounder when it comes to such things as self-control, anger management and boldness. It’s called the genius-failure paradox, a concept that helps us explain why intelligent people fail at small things. American psychologist, Daniel Goleman wrote an excellent book on Emotional Intelligence.

And I think the ability to acquire and retain information is what brings about knowledge (information in mind). Being intelligent makes this easier. I will say you can’t be knowledgeable without possessing a fair degree of something called “intellectual curiosity.” But the two still remain different things. I think "belief" is an entirely different matter.

Pastor AIO: Intelligence can be used to solve problems, but it might be irrelevant to solving the problem at hand.

Like, if you are about to walk through a jungle populated by lions you would rather hire a snake charmer with an IQ (verbal-linguistic intelligence) of 50 living near the Congo River as a guide, even if an intelligent guy like Vescucci offers to do it free! Thing is, the two have different intelligences.

vescucci:
The processing speed to me is intelligence but the memory may enhance it.

I see the point here, since the guy who finishes first is apparently more intelligent. But I don’t buy it completely. A slower but sure-footed goer who does excellently well at the end of the day is equally intelligent in real life situations. Even in many moot situations.

Pastor AIO:
Could it be that Autists merely have their entire intelligence focused on a very limited activity?

No, sir. I insist there is no “entire intelligence”. It is this view of intelligence (verbal-linguistic intelligence measured by the popular IQ) that is the major cause of the fact only about 30% of kids do well in school. The rest are then branded unintelligent. But what happens in the long run? The 30% that returned above average score in school exams don’t necessarily outperform the others in the core areas of life. And that is the failure of the education system practiced across the world today, since many of these "unintelligent" kids have their self-esteem destroyed. What has recognizing the fine grammatical distinctions between a gerund and a present participle (verbal-linguistic intelligence) to do with mastering a ukulele (musical intelligence)? What has being able to calculate a row of figures off the top of your head like Warren Buffet (numerical-logical intelligence) to do with making fine distinctions in architecture and coming up with spectacular designs like the Sydney Opera House (spatial intelligence)?

Pastor AIO:
What is Intelligence? Any suggestions?

The definition, in psychology, has changed over time. But here is one I personally find useful: the ability to make finer distinctions. That is, the more distinctions you can make, the more intelligent you are.

Being knowledgeable is quite different from being intelligent, although the one can, and often does, result from the other. I don’t think being intelligent necessarily makes one a better human being than the less intelligent. It also does not necessary determine the extent of success one will attain in life. That is, being intelligent does not mean you will succeed in business and become a millionaire faster than a less endowed person, in politics and become a governor, or in the arts and become, say, a star movie actor.

But being intelligent can be very helpful since it often leads to academic success, and academic success can go a long way in determining who becomes top shot. But bear in mind that this is not given, since many people who do well academically do not go on to become successful. High intelligence is also required for certain tasks - think astronauts, poets and classical composers. The reason many academically successful people are not successful in life is not often talked about, but it is quite simple: the common measure of intelligence, the IQ, is often misleading. It is too slender to be of much use.

That is why it is now widely recognized that there are different intelligences. Multiple intelligences. It has been observed that a man may leave university with a first class honours but find it hard to hold down a job or stay in a marriage: enter the concept of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. A boy may be a computer wiz but can’t hold a tennis bat properly much less do a proper serve. He has numerical intelligence but not kinesthetic intelligence. I think some of the geniuses we know excel at one particular intelligence while others had them all. But I respect them all, whether it's a Mozart, an Einstein, a Fela or Tiger Woods.

This is a very interesting subject, but got to go now.

tensor777: I really don't know why you are telling all this. You think it makes any difference to my opinion about not sending my own children to live in the village??  
Because people filter water or because a lot of villagers have natural immunity to water-borne diseases??
What we should be talking about is that African villages are indeed lacking in basic infrastructure and the ways and means of ameliorating that and certainly  not all this "how to manage" talk.

I wonder what you are on about now, particularly what made you think I ever made a post in this thread to advise you on where to keep your kids!

Someone made a post implying that Nigerian villages are crawling with diseases and I made a post to point out the error in that, while making it clear the man in op in misguided in his desire to separate kids from their parents so they can go learn some culture. So how is it, sir, that what we should be talking about on this thread is infrastructure? Why not open a thread to address that since that's the topic after your heart, and since you think the problem of infrastructure is the property of "African villages", climes you clearly know nothing about, judging from your belief that a child stepping there is likely to get malaria from his first breath, typhoid from his first cup of water, and cholera from his first ball of fufu? And if you really don't know that learing "how to manage", making the best of unfavourable conditions and thriving in the midst of chaos is the greatest testimonial to the indomitableness of the human spirit . . .

Peace!

Hi benodic

I find Eckanker, with its emphasis on evident demonstration, interesting and I find your posts here thought-provoking. But I would like to know your view on this op?
The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance

You can comment here.

Beautiful poems, DS. Beautiful. The "sober" ones certainly come through better than the "high" ones, particularly Origin and A Serene Naught.

tensor777:
There is a lot of disease, poverty, deprivation and lack of infrastructure in the rural areas. High infant mortality is mainly caused by lack of health care infrastructure and lack of potable water. There is no getting away from that however much Nigerians like to sweep unpleasant things under the carpet.

I was expecting you to say that I highlighted since people always come up with something like that whenever they try to paint Nigeria as a state of nature constantly burning and you try to point out it's not. By the way, I am not one to sweep things under the carpet and am very much distressed by the state of things Nigeria generally. You will find that if you read the few posts I have made in the politics section.

tensor777: [Talking about boreholes and what have you doesn't quite cut it in my opinion. What happens in case of breakdown or power outage?]

The post wasn't all about borehole. I only mentioned bore hole as one of the common sources of water in villages. I am not aware of power outages causing any problem for any bore holes in any villages. What some of you Afro-Saxons don't realise is that people adapt to their environment. Why would anyone build a borehole in a Nigerian village and wait for NEPA to run it such that people go without water whenever there is an outage?

I know of villages where they don't even have boreholes yet there is no cholera or typhoid because they drink good water. Your assertion that there is a lot of diseases in Nigerian villages is only true to the extent you imagine it to be so. If you bother to find out things for yourself you will be surprised by what you will actually find on the ground. You talked about school. Growing up in the village didn't stop some of us from accessing good schools. There are parents who send their wards to boarding schools, even from villages. IGNORANCE and POVERTY, sir, are the only real problems. What if someone lives in a London slum and sends his kids to some of these schools with very bad reputations? There is poverty in Nigeria but that is not a function of where you live. If you send your kids to the village from England I would assume you would not be too poor to send them to good schools. The problem of infrastructure in Nigeria is a topic for another day.

Kay 17:
If the Egyptians were black, ancient historians would have laid strong emphasis on it.

Only if it was an issue. You see, it may not have been in those days at all.

Personally, I am not convinced they were black but I am not convinced they weren't, either. Cheik Antar Diop, Ayi Kwei Armah and a few others who carried out a lot of research on the subject believe they were black.

What do you think of the comments in this thread?

tensor777:
Yes I missed your views on this topical issue

May I take the liberty, then, to assume you read only the portion you quoted in your first response to my post? Try reading everything.

tensor777: and yes there is a high level of death and disease in those villages due to lack of potable water and basic health care facilities.
There is an ever present risk of contracting various water borne diseases like typhoid, malaria and cholera which is a real killer of children in rural Africa.
We are not even talking about the lack of good schools.

No, sir. Highlighted is an egregiously wrong information. But if you choose to make assertions without any shred of evidence, there is little I can do to change your mind. Nigerian villages are not crawling with diseases. I grew up in one. My observation is that where a relatively high mortality rate is observable, it is due to the higher levels of poverty and illiteracy. Note that that problem applies to slum areas of cities like Lagos. I can tell you that the standard of living - in terms of toilet and water - in villages is far higher in many cases than what obtains in city slums. Yet those slums are not necessarily magnets of diseases and death because it comes down to YOUR MOTHER. By that, I mean as long as the families in these slums and villages know how to survive under those conditions they are fine. And health care facilities are accessible to most Nigerian villages. Sometimes affordable government facilities are a bit far away and you have to make a considerable journey, but there are city dwellers who face this problem. Besides, many state and local governments have reduced this problem by providing primary health care centres.

Now, let's look at the three diseases you mention. From personal experience I can tell you typhoid is not endemic in Nigerian villages any more than it is at cities. Gone are the days when people drank water from the pond. Where boreholes are not available there may be freshwater springs or streams or people buy water from hawkers who come from the town.

I don't see how you can argue that malaria is worse at villages than cities. The conditions leading to the breeding of mosquitoes are not particularly contingent on the nature of a human settlement. Cholera outbreaks are not a feature of rural settlements, either. Cholera epidemics tend to break out for certain reasons in different countries throughout the third world. And they experience epidemics in the first world, too.

On the whole, I think what you fail to realise is that it is the lack of awareness, and sometimes money, that kills. Ignorance kills faster than anything in this world. Village people are largely now aware of things and no one drinks mud water nowadays! Whereas if you live in Manhattan and fail to master basic rules of hygiene you'd be steak.

tensor777:
Yes but are they living in the villages.??   I mean the real villages of rural Nigeria.

You mean the villages are not inhabited by people? Or that those people risk being wiped out by diseases?

tensor777: However you should be bold enough to stae your own views on the topic at hand.

You missed it?

mukina2:
check this : https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-294521.0.html#msg4835506

Many thanks.

pslm23: @ Chaircover, actually, when I was brought into this drama, i suggested to the husband that maybe the kids should only spend holidays with their grandparents, but only when they are a little bit bigger; @ 5 they are still babies! and are susceptible to diseases and all what not! Those kids have lived their lives with electricty, proper healthcare, dental care, etc. They will not survive malaria or any other childhood disease we that were born and bred in Naija suffered from!

Sorry, but that ^^^ hardly makes any more sense than the idea of sending kids to the village to "learn respect". Nigeria, or Nigerian villages, are not all about diseases. True, there are people who die of curable diseases, but that is usually because they are poor and illiterate. Many people grow up healthy in villages. Most have health centres and generals hospitals are often not too far away. They will survive malaria - quit saying that sort of thing. There are Caucasian kids living in different parts of Nigeria, including the extreme-weather North, some born in Nigeria, some born outside. Like everyone else, they cope with the electricity problem. I guess anyone who is not poor can provide their own light. They have proper healthcare and dental care in Nigeria, too. Of course, it will be a different story if these kids have specific health problems that Nigerian hospitals, which are inferior compared to what they have in the US, cannot manage. If that is not the case, your post is utterly misleading.

And I am not expressing any support for the fellow who is plotting to separate kids for their mother just to go learn respect and national pride, whatever those are.

mukina2:
check the link below, its self explanatory. 
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-294521.0.html#msg4167301

Thanks for responding, but that link appears only shows how to start a new topic, not how to add a thread.