What discussion of the mind would be complete without a discussion of intelligence? In doing research about intelligence, I noticed that the few books I discovered were published around 1975. They also seemed to address the controversy about what exactly is intelligence and whether it is inherited or is acquired. This later debate seems pointless to me because a “natural” conclusion would be that both “nature” and “nurture” are involved in producing intelligence. As with much of life, we inherit some and we create some.
Continuing the pursuit of something more interesting, I came across a book called “Intelligence Games by Franco Agostini and Nicola Alberto Decarlo. It is a delightful book with great pictures and a host of games, puzzles, riddles and enigmas to test your intelligence. Basically these types of problems can help a psychologist measure intelligence. A few questions from a sample intelligence test in the book were:
1. What is the missing number? 5 7 * !5 23 36
2. What is the missing letter ? V * Q M H
3. The letters of these five words have been jumbled up. Concealed in four of them are names of rivers. Which is the odd one out?
SPIMISIPSI, LEIN, LAGOV, RHACI, ZONAMA
4. GP is to ER as JM is to ….
Intelligence can be broken into various functions such as verbal comprehension, verbal fluency, spatial ability, perceptual ability, and logical thinking, but a broader view of intelligence is that it is an overall capacity to deal with any problem in life. Being smart is being smart with living life. Boccacio says intelligence is the ability to get the best of any situation.
The word “intelligence” comes from the Latin “intel” or “inter” meaning “among or between” and the term “legere” means “to choose, to gather, to read”. Thus intelligence means “to choose or gather between” or “to read into”. What makes someone intelligent is to approach a problem and be able to pick out what is pertinent to solve the problem. What is pertinent is often related to what beliefs you might have about the problem. For example, in problem 1 above, you might first try to figure out what the relationship is between the sequence of numbers. You could guess that they are all 2 numbers apart because the first 2 numbers are 5 and 7. That’s wrong and you go back and test another theory. 23 and 36 are 13 apart. 15 and 23 are 8 apart. I see no pattern yet. The answer is 10. The differences in numbers are 2 (7 minus 5), 3 (10 minus 7), 5 (15 minus 10), 8 (23 minus 150, and 13 (36 minus 23). The sequence “2,3,5,8,13” results from adding the two previous numbers in the sequence: 5 equals 2 plus 3, 8 equals 3 plus 5, 13 equals 5 plus 8.
That one was tough. When the solution is given, you actually gain experience in how to arrive at similar problems. You could figure it out on your own, but you would have to uncover the underlying premise for creating the sequence.
Some people say that intelligence is wisdom, “Callum” stands for “callus”, hardened. “Calladitas” is possessed by wise men and stands for a cured intelligence acquired by experience. If you approach a problem intelligently and for an adequate period of time, you will figure it out.
Problem 2 is similar to Problem 1. The patterned sequence to help figure the answer is the alphabet, going backwards and starting out 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 letters in between again a tough problem.
Problem 3 is a word descrambler. I would start by trying out a first letter and seeing if a name of a river could be created with the other letters. It is unlikely that the words, as they are, would start with the actual first letter of the unscrambled name because otherwise it would be too easy.
Problem 4 is again looking at the relationships in sequences. The answer is determined by 2 letters before and 2 letters after. The correct answers are given at the end.
From a look at the problems above them, intelligence appears to be based on certain premises or assumptions from which yuo able to deduce the answer. In the above cases, you had to actually test your premises and see if they would work. I think this is a skill that can be acquired. You might need these skills one day when you are having a drink with your friends and they present you with a party puzzler!
Answers to intelligence test: 1. 10 2. T 3. The second: CHAIR (the others are MISSISSIPPI, NILE, VOLGA, AMAZON, 4. HO