Personally I think intelligence is a pretense held by a certain ape variety ...... :-)
However hard to define accurately, or which facet you want to exercise, it is a two edged sword ie. capacity to deceive. Being ever the cynic I'm alert to when my ( alleged ) intelligence is being insulted at least.
Example : I saw a headline last week ( de-identified ) : Bloggs poll shows 42% want Dim Whatsit to leave parliament. They then proceeded to character assassinate Dim and his life record as openly declared praise to that evidently perceptive 42% of poll respondents. But if you then read right down to the bottom and find the link to the full statistical detail* you discover that 53% of respondents want Dim to stay, with 5% undecided or indifferent. That key gem wasn't even mentioned in the primary article, so clearly they relied on viewer laziness ..... but did they overtly lie ? No, not precisely and that will be their defense when caught out ( as they have been ). Their deception was to de-reference their preferred opinion as that preferred by others, giving the impression they were merely reporting the truth as predominantly agreed upon. The impetus is : we don't like him, others don't like him either, and so should you. As there is no law against such opinion ( and you are welcome to it ) then why not just say that plainly ? To realise that then compare with a simpler piece just editorialising against Dim, explicitly claimed/owned by the publisher, but no poll mentioned. Or to realise the editorial aspect is unchanged if the figures were reversed ie. they'd publish that Dim is a twit either way ( regardless of the poll respondents ). For the record I don't like Dim, I would have been in the 42% if asked, but that's not my point .... for me deceptive ability is at least one key indicator of our intelligence. Knowing the history of Dim I can say that the spin about him was just as nonsensical on his ascendant path as it is now on his descendant. Only the flavour/whim has changed. Our deceptions can be quite layered/exquisite.
{ The best lie is almost the truth, with the false bit being that which pivots toward the crucial perception. Thus people may swallow the absolutely true bits, thus accepting the lie because it is in good company. }
Typically the Cosmic Catch 22 applies : you don't know what you don't know, and so withholding information is the trick. For instance most money markets are quite asymmetric in who knows what. In legal theory at least the market agents must only use information commonly deliverable with sufficient effort from equally available sources ie. any agent could find out if they could be bothered. We call it insider trading when you discover - even if only innocently tripped over - the thing the rest of the agents don't know that calls the next trend correctly. Information becomes reward regardless of the actual trend as many instruments exist for betting on any outcome.
Modern discourse is deeply infected with such deceptions, and defensive rationalisations of it, much like the above. Lying in the form of hypocrisy has been socially normalised as a virtue and is frequently stewarded by both sides of an interaction eg. movie stars. The ethologists ( who study animal behaviour ) can give many examples too, but H.Sapiens stands out incredibly for our ability to deceive and especially self-deceive. Or as Richard Feynman put it : "The easiest person to fool is yourself." :-)))
Cheers, Mike.
* To be painful in detail : the sample size and methodology was such that the true population opinion about Dim Whatsit could have differed by as little as 2% and not 53 - 42 .... this brings up another modern issue : the use of statistics to hide both truths & untruths depending on intention/purpose. My guess is that many polls were done about Mr Whatsit and the one most favourable to the editor's preference was chosen for disclosure ie. Catch-22 again.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
I'm alert to when my ( alleged ) intelligence is being insulted at least.
Plenty of practise at it does help, doesn't it, Mike...
I've found that
;)
I'm not too bothered by what intelligence is or even whether it is an is at all. If I have any - it's been too busy having a break for quite some time, and for quite some time I've been too busy to notice. What I know about logic though, is that it sometimes only makes sense when it's explained to me, but when it does and hasn't it tends to have just happened all by itself. Sort of being intuitively correct. Rummaging around for long enough will invariably reveal more insight into just exactly what happened there - but by then I've often moved onto something else. I do like it though. It seems a much crisper and more tidy way of running things between the ears than I'm used to.
It'll probably be easier to explain that all when I'm asleep though.
edit: apostrophised plurality error.
Please wait here. Further instructions could pile up at any time. Thank you.
A chuckly one IMHO is when someone sez it's true 'cos they 'read it on Wikipedia' ! I use such claims as my private bellweather of intelligence. So my DH detector goes off when I hear that. :-)
But Wikipedia isn't all A Bad Idea. It reckon it is a useful sample of the plurality of people's ideas, beliefs and thought processes. Probably historians might too.
So there are urban myths. Here's a funny one from just this week :
Heat Webs : inside your house are cobwebs, from spiders that is, which generate heat and thus change color with time. The follow on from is : why aren't we tapping into this ( free/clean/non-carbon ) energy source ?
Shall I mention that no-one has actually bothered to measure either the temperature or heat flows to/from said webs ? LOL. The real truth is exceptionally banal. We heat our houses and more so in winter. Spiders et al come into our warm caves. They do webs, the fibres or which oxidise and/or collect dust and thus look different from freshly spun. End of story.
Terry Pratchett ( may he rest in peace ) the author of Discworld series etc classified humans as those which make up stories :
"The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee."
So lying is a variant upon story-telling ?
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Not all storytelling is harmless or amusing. I know an entire group of specialist anaesthetists at a 'pain management clinic' who regularly create biological narratives unsupported by evidence - and contradicting demonstrated physical facts - that lead to the recommendation of an intervention. For which they will collect a fee to perform, and from which the agreeable patient ( typically desperate for relief ) may well have a nasty complication. I call them The Forty Thieves even though there's only eleven of them.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
A chuckly one IMHO is when someone sez it's true 'cos they 'read it on Wikipedia' ! I use such claims as my private bellweather of intelligence. So my DH detector goes off when I hear that. :-)
Wikipedia s a useful source of general information in one place, but any intelligent person knows that it is not 100% accurate. In fact most universities and many Colleges ban the use of references from it in essays and dissertations. Did you know that any member of the public can go into any Wikipedia page and alter the content? I have amended many a page over the years when I have seen blatantly incorrect information. In fact many pages actively ask for corroboration.
But Wikipedia isn't all A Bad Idea. It reckon it is a useful sample of the plurality of people's ideas, beliefs and thought processes. Probably historians might too.
Plurality of ideas? Ah yes the sheeple syndrome. If Bert says it is true, then it must be because Sid also heard it down the pub from Fred, and he read it on Fox News.
Heat Webs : inside your house are cobwebs, from spiders that is, which generate heat and thus change color with time. The follow on from is : why aren't we tapping into this ( free/clean/non-carbon ) energy source ?
Oh dear Mike :-))) You've fallen prey to one of the oldest troll traps around!!! Bored person posts absolute rubbish to see who bites for their amusement :-))
Not all storytelling is harmless or amusing. I know an entire group of specialist anaesthetists at a 'pain management clinic' who regularly create biological narratives unsupported by evidence - and contradicting demonstrated physical facts - that lead to the recommendation of an intervention. For which they will collect a fee to perform, and from which the agreeable patient ( typically desperate for relief ) may well have a nasty complication. I call them The Forty Thieves even though there's only eleven of them.
Then as a professional medical person why have you not considered reporting and highlighting them to their Professional Institution or the authorities? Someone could very well lose their life.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I'm not too bothered by what intelligence is or even whether it is an is at all.
It isn't an "is" it is an "ism" actually :-)
It'll probably be easier to explain that all when I'm asleep though.
Yes maybe, but unless you have extrasensory powers that you haven't tapped into yet, we poor bereft mortals will likely never be the beneficiaries of your innate wisdom will we?
Sort of being intuitively correct.
Ah yes a feeling in ones bones? or a feeling in ones waters?*
* Alleged to be when a pregnant women is going into birth.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Hi Carlos, my pleasure. I really must stop doing this, my card is taking quite a bashing in recent times :-)
But can I ask the proprietors of this esteemed establishment whether they stock the Polish Warka beer? I have developed a taste for that stuff over a couple of years. It's a continental lager/beer at 5.5%, so not too strong. My corner shop does some 9% Polish stuff that is lethal. Tried 1/2 a can once and poured the rest down the sink, and probably cleared the pipes out a treat :-) Avoid that if you want to remain sane!!
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Tried 1/2 a can once and poured the rest down the sink, and probably cleared the pipes out a treat :-)
Yes the brewers yeast will clear the pipes, sewer pipes. Had some experience with that a few years ago. Pallets of the stuff had to go down the drain. You wouldn't have wanted to drink it after the fire.
Personally I think
Personally I think intelligence is a pretense held by a certain ape variety ...... :-)
However hard to define accurately, or which facet you want to exercise, it is a two edged sword ie. capacity to deceive. Being ever the cynic I'm alert to when my ( alleged ) intelligence is being insulted at least.
Example : I saw a headline last week ( de-identified ) : Bloggs poll shows 42% want Dim Whatsit to leave parliament. They then proceeded to character assassinate Dim and his life record as openly declared praise to that evidently perceptive 42% of poll respondents. But if you then read right down to the bottom and find the link to the full statistical detail* you discover that 53% of respondents want Dim to stay, with 5% undecided or indifferent. That key gem wasn't even mentioned in the primary article, so clearly they relied on viewer laziness ..... but did they overtly lie ? No, not precisely and that will be their defense when caught out ( as they have been ). Their deception was to de-reference their preferred opinion as that preferred by others, giving the impression they were merely reporting the truth as predominantly agreed upon. The impetus is : we don't like him, others don't like him either, and so should you. As there is no law against such opinion ( and you are welcome to it ) then why not just say that plainly ? To realise that then compare with a simpler piece just editorialising against Dim, explicitly claimed/owned by the publisher, but no poll mentioned. Or to realise the editorial aspect is unchanged if the figures were reversed ie. they'd publish that Dim is a twit either way ( regardless of the poll respondents ). For the record I don't like Dim, I would have been in the 42% if asked, but that's not my point .... for me deceptive ability is at least one key indicator of our intelligence. Knowing the history of Dim I can say that the spin about him was just as nonsensical on his ascendant path as it is now on his descendant. Only the flavour/whim has changed. Our deceptions can be quite layered/exquisite.
{ The best lie is almost the truth, with the false bit being that which pivots toward the crucial perception. Thus people may swallow the absolutely true bits, thus accepting the lie because it is in good company. }
Typically the Cosmic Catch 22 applies : you don't know what you don't know, and so withholding information is the trick. For instance most money markets are quite asymmetric in who knows what. In legal theory at least the market agents must only use information commonly deliverable with sufficient effort from equally available sources ie. any agent could find out if they could be bothered. We call it insider trading when you discover - even if only innocently tripped over - the thing the rest of the agents don't know that calls the next trend correctly. Information becomes reward regardless of the actual trend as many instruments exist for betting on any outcome.
Modern discourse is deeply infected with such deceptions, and defensive rationalisations of it, much like the above. Lying in the form of hypocrisy has been socially normalised as a virtue and is frequently stewarded by both sides of an interaction eg. movie stars. The ethologists ( who study animal behaviour ) can give many examples too, but H.Sapiens stands out incredibly for our ability to deceive and especially self-deceive. Or as Richard Feynman put it : "The easiest person to fool is yourself." :-)))
Cheers, Mike.
* To be painful in detail : the sample size and methodology was such that the true population opinion about Dim Whatsit could have differed by as little as 2% and not 53 - 42 .... this brings up another modern issue : the use of statistics to hide both truths & untruths depending on intention/purpose. My guess is that many polls were done about Mr Whatsit and the one most favourable to the editor's preference was chosen for disclosure ie. Catch-22 again.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
I'm alert to when my (
Plenty of practise at it does help, doesn't it, Mike...
I've found that
;)
I'm not too bothered by what intelligence is or even whether it is an is at all. If I have any - it's been too busy having a break for quite some time, and for quite some time I've been too busy to notice. What I know about logic though, is that it sometimes only makes sense when it's explained to me, but when it does and hasn't it tends to have just happened all by itself. Sort of being intuitively correct. Rummaging around for long enough will invariably reveal more insight into just exactly what happened there - but by then I've often moved onto something else. I do like it though. It seems a much crisper and more tidy way of running things between the ears than I'm used to.
It'll probably be easier to explain that all when I'm asleep though.
edit: apostrophised plurality error.
Please wait here. Further instructions could pile up at any time. Thank you.
A chuckly one IMHO is when
A chuckly one IMHO is when someone sez it's true 'cos they 'read it on Wikipedia' ! I use such claims as my private bellweather of intelligence. So my DH detector goes off when I hear that. :-)
But Wikipedia isn't all A Bad Idea. It reckon it is a useful sample of the plurality of people's ideas, beliefs and thought processes. Probably historians might too.
So there are urban myths. Here's a funny one from just this week :
Heat Webs : inside your house are cobwebs, from spiders that is, which generate heat and thus change color with time. The follow on from is : why aren't we tapping into this ( free/clean/non-carbon ) energy source ?
Shall I mention that no-one has actually bothered to measure either the temperature or heat flows to/from said webs ? LOL. The real truth is exceptionally banal. We heat our houses and more so in winter. Spiders et al come into our warm caves. They do webs, the fibres or which oxidise and/or collect dust and thus look different from freshly spun. End of story.
Terry Pratchett ( may he rest in peace ) the author of Discworld series etc classified humans as those which make up stories :
"The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee."
So lying is a variant upon story-telling ?
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Not all storytelling is harmless or amusing. I know an entire group of specialist anaesthetists at a 'pain management clinic' who regularly create biological narratives unsupported by evidence - and contradicting demonstrated physical facts - that lead to the recommendation of an intervention. For which they will collect a fee to perform, and from which the agreeable patient ( typically desperate for relief ) may well have a nasty complication. I call them The Forty Thieves even though there's only eleven of them.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
A chuckly one IMHO is when
Wikipedia s a useful source of general information in one place, but any intelligent person knows that it is not 100% accurate. In fact most universities and many Colleges ban the use of references from it in essays and dissertations. Did you know that any member of the public can go into any Wikipedia page and alter the content? I have amended many a page over the years when I have seen blatantly incorrect information. In fact many pages actively ask for corroboration.
Plurality of ideas? Ah yes the sheeple syndrome. If Bert says it is true, then it must be because Sid also heard it down the pub from Fred, and he read it on Fox News.
Oh dear Mike :-))) You've fallen prey to one of the oldest troll traps around!!! Bored person posts absolute rubbish to see who bites for their amusement :-))
Then as a professional medical person why have you not considered reporting and highlighting them to their Professional Institution or the authorities? Someone could very well lose their life.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I'm not too bothered by what
It isn't an "is" it is an "ism" actually :-)
Yes maybe, but unless you have extrasensory powers that you haven't tapped into yet, we poor bereft mortals will likely never be the beneficiaries of your innate wisdom will we?
Ah yes a feeling in ones bones? or a feeling in ones waters?*
* Alleged to be when a pregnant women is going into birth.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I have nothing intelligent to
I have nothing intelligent to tell, so I'll just post to win :-)
Oh blimey, looks like it's my
Oh blimey, looks like it's my round again at the bar, Damn :-))
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Seems I arrived just in time.
Seems I arrived just in time. Make mine a double.
Hi Carlos, my pleasure. I
Hi Carlos, my pleasure. I really must stop doing this, my card is taking quite a bashing in recent times :-)
But can I ask the proprietors of this esteemed establishment whether they stock the Polish Warka beer? I have developed a taste for that stuff over a couple of years. It's a continental lager/beer at 5.5%, so not too strong. My corner shop does some 9% Polish stuff that is lethal. Tried 1/2 a can once and poured the rest down the sink, and probably cleared the pipes out a treat :-) Avoid that if you want to remain sane!!
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Chris S_2 wrote:Tried 1/2 a
Yes the brewers yeast will clear the pipes, sewer pipes. Had some experience with that a few years ago. Pallets of the stuff had to go down the drain. You wouldn't have wanted to drink it after the fire.