Believing that human intelligence cannot be a divine gift, I have come to the conclusion that it is merely a genetic mutation or a freak branch of evolution.

Furthermore, the pleasures are equally offset by the horrors (that we experience and/or inflict unto others) thereby relegating it to something akin to wings on penquins.

I would be interested in hearing any intellingent replies please.

Your question is not totally unanswerable, however, it is involved. A quick and easy answer is that intelligence is not, I repeat, not a genetic mutation.

Example:

Even a cockroach has a limited intelligence (there are those who would use the words "survival instinct" instead of intelligence). I will avoid (after detection), a gecko. Its escape route is not random, normally 180 degrees from the threat.

If you go to higher order animals, the display of intelligence increases with order.

As far as human intelligence.....when I think of the exponentially stupid acts I see humans perform on a daily basis, I am loathe to use the oxymoron....human intelligence.

Nox

Then throw out your computer.

Intelligence is obvioulsy like you say, a mutation.
We are born with Intelligence, the ability to learn, Itelligence is hereditary. Therefore through evolution are brains have mutated further and further, allowing greater memory and processing.
If the popular belief of evolution is right, that we came from apes, then as we were evolving, we came down from the trees, and started eating meat somewhere down the line... through natural selection the smartest who knew how to hunt this animal, knew how to hide and evade this predator, survived. Until lately, where people look after eachother more, and there arent really any great predators, this is why there are alot more stupid people now, and why evolution has seemed 2 stop in brain department in the last few hundred thousand years.

O, just to add, i dont believe that the theory of our evolution as most people believe now is wholly right, i dont think natural selection is wholly right either. I believe in evolution, just not how it is thought to have behaved now.
So, what i have said i dont totally believe, its just what im going on using the current major scientific beliefs and discoveries.

quote:

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Originally posted by THC 4 U and Me:
We are born with Intelligence, Itelligence is hereditary. T

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Inteligence is not hereditary.

There is a generl corralation between inteligent parents and intelegent children but this is due to upbringing and not genes.

Sorry to ruin your argument.

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Originally posted by Nox:
[B]intelligence is not, I repeat, not a genetic mutation./B]

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I agree, but you fail to explain by pointing out survival instinct and it's many levels of capacity found in other animals.

I characterize intelligence (and, if I'm wrong here, let me know) as those thought processes that involve the conceptual and emotional. Love, hate, music, humor, etc. These really don't serve any survival function unless they protect us from dying of boredom.

Good Point.

Fisher, in his book, points out multiple intelligences, one of which is athletic ability. I would never call Michael Jordan an idiot, but I don't think he's intelligent because of athletic prowess.

The intelligence items you mention are what I would call aspects or higher order intelligence abilities. They are common to all levels of humanity, some being more adept than others.

Nox

quote:

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Originally posted by j0662:
Inteligence is [b]not hereditary.

There is a generl corralation between inteligent parents and intelegent children but this is due to upbringing and not genes.

Sorry to ruin your argument. [/B]

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hes not talking about being smart hes talking about natural human intelligence that every(most) human is born with; ie conciousness i suppose-- you couldn't teach a monkey to think about the consequences of its actions but you can teach a human to.

Intelligence - or the ability to develope one, is quite universal. Scientists have build tine machines, with no other programming, than to search light. When there's one of them, it wonders around without direction. When there is, however, a thousand of them, they gather together, and then start searching light in little groups, that go to different directions. When they found light, others will gather to it, too.

I'm just waiting the day my computer tells me to go to hell.

Intelligence, I feel is not due to upbringing or to a great noticable extent external factors. The ability to learn is there with us from the begining. Ive known people I would call smart in school, who would sit and study all the time, the reason they have that knowledge. And I know other people to, who may not do so well but I would call them more intelligent, they have the abillity, they just dont do it and instead fuck about instead of learning. But comparing Test scores and such you would not be able to tell this, because most tests (Exluding IQ, and Cognitive Ability Tests) test knowledge, not intelligence.
I also know people who have.... an intelligence disorder, it dosnt matter how long they study, are taught, how much they are helped they will never be able to keep up with the average of there age, this isnt saying they're stupid, they know dangers, how to talk and so on.... but they cannot truly think.
Therefore my point is, learning and gaining knowledge is a form of intelligence, but the speed in which you learn defines your intelligence, a faster learner, more intelligent. Im not sure, but i dont think you can improve your intelligence, just your knowledge. My definition of human intelligence, is that we can hypothersize, although most humans dont do this until they're teens, but the brain has not yet fully developed. Unilke a monkey who when born can walk and is almost fully developed mentally, this is not the case with human beings, because of the bigger brain size, we need a bigger skull, the bigger the skull the harder it is to give birth to that baby. Thats why our brains develope more outside of the womb than in.

A hundred years ago, when I was young, they called that common sense (horse sense). The school geniuses were dumber than grass when it came to the world..........same stuff, different day.

Nox

The act of learning is an adjunct, or even totally seperate from intelligence. Most animals 'learn' to some degree. Even a human with a learning disability of average incapacitance 'learns' at a greater rate than most animals.

human intelligence(just a personal theroy) is from experiences of life and interaction with things and people. you gain infomation on something through interaction and intelligence is the rat eat wich you can gain this knowladge.So human intelligence came from interaction with other things or people for a certian purpose and as they used this skill more and more they became better at it and progressed farther.untill today now that we can simply press a few keys and get information we have ceased to devlop this skill more. although there is a problem with this theroy witch I can't explain. if this is true then other animals would have also developed more intelligence..so you can take this into consideration...or not you decide

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Originally posted by majik:
and intelligence is the rat eat wich you can gain this knowladge.

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I never new a spacebar could be so wicked on a sentence.

oww...ha...

Language is the platform on which human intelligence was formed and exists on.

I disagree. Language is a tool we developed by using our intelligence.

Here I go again with the semantics bit.

I see that intelligence and learning are beginning to be intertwined. Learning, or education, is something all of us do constantly. As I view intelligence, intelligence is what we do with our learning. I refer back to the "smart" geeks we all knew in school. They could give every answer in the book and yet walk right into a telephone pole.

Nox

Nope.

Intelligence - to varying degrees - is inherent in all of us with normal brain function.

Learning, on the other hand, is a product of our environment. If a fetus where to be conceived, developed and then existed for its entire life in a sensory deprivation tank, its learning would be exponentially less than that of its counterparts. But it has, nonetheless, the inherent capacity to learn due to its intelligence.

And, that's why IQ tests are designed to measure an individuals capacity to learn rather than what has been learned.