Re: Chunking intelligence functions

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed May 09 2001 - 13:01:56 MDT


> Some of Gardner's intelligences are unproblematic, such as linguistic,
> logical-mathematical, and spatial intelligence, which have long been used
> as parts of IQ tests.

They also likely have somewhat different neural substrates, even if they
of course share some systems too.

> When he gets into musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
> and naturalistic intelligences (the last defined as "the ability to
> understand, relate to, categorize, classify, comprehend, and explain
> the things encountered in the world of nature. People such as farmers,
> ranchers, hunters, gardeners, and animal handlers may exhibit developed
> naturalistic intelligence.") it gets much more questionable IMO.

I think the problem is that there is no good distinction between a skill
and specialised intelligence. A well learned skill allows the skilled
person to generalise to new situations.

As for naturalistic intelligence, I read a fun paper demonstrating that
general knowledge of and language use of terms related to trees has been
in a steadily decline since the industrial revolution. So if one accepts
naturalististic intelligence, then it has likely decreased.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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