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Depression and intelligence (pg. 7)
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Actually, your entire line of reasoning in this thread revolves around willfully using different definitions of words to everyone else in the thread in order to start a discussion about a book you have read. |
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| tachobg |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
As I said earlier in the thread, I personally subscribe to a definition of intelligence in the original latin sense of the word 'intelligere', which means 'to understand'. So I use the two words 'understanding' and 'intelligence' more or less interchangeably. That said, I was not defining the word but rather making an argument about what understanding really means in a practical sense.
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Learning to write down and manipulate the equations of say, general relativity, doesn't amount to understanding. This is what I understand as "technique."
Actually understanding, or trying to understand what these equations mean, and being in complete awe of the connection between nature and mathematics, and where you fit into all of that, at least amounts to a quest for understanding.
Understanding seems to come from conceptualizing your lived experiences in order to better understand yourself. Although we are physical beings, these conceptualizations need not have anything to do with physics.
But different people can come up with different conceptualizations and their own unique understanding of "self" (unless you are arguing that this should be something unique), and it is entirely legitimate, in my view, to come to understand yourself at least partially through understanding theoretical physics, or complexity theory, or how DNA works, or many other "academic" disciplines.
Academic education, beyond just being another life experience, can help bring about an understanding of the self.
Adam, you deny that academic education leads to understanding, and seem to dismiss it as merely a learning of "technique." But there is something worthwhile in understanding that gravity has something to do with the geometry of spacetime, or understanding the mind-boggling complexity of the human organism, or that there's something about certain problems that makes them really hard to compute (complexity theory), or that there is some deep underlying theory about what stability and instability are, or about what information really is and how it relates to order and disorder.
All of the basics of these things can be learned in "academic" classes. The academic classes will (for the most part) NOT try to teach you about philosophy. But they can be a springboard for diving into these fields and truly trying to understand them and how they explain certain fundamental aspects of the world (such as stability/instability, order/disorder, etc).
In saying the above, I do concede that it is not the class or professor that taught you to "understand" -- it is inherently a process of self-driven discovery.
Ultimately, I am arguing that "academic"-sounding things are not merely about facts, formulas and techniques, but can be something very deep that leads one down the path to (at least some kind of) understanding. |
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| wing |
A confession at: http://mangans.blogspot.com/2006/01...depression.html
| quote: | So I read every comment here, which took a while, but I found them all incredibly interesting. I relate to most of the posts, except how everyone claims a high IQ. My IQ is completely average, but then I look at the questions asked and wonder how a person's intelligence is judged on such topics which don't hold any relevance except to provide a number, which you try to get as high as you can to prove to other people how you relate on a standardized test.
I have the ability to fly with wings in social situations if I feel the desire to, but most of the time I am tired of spending energy looking for people, that are worth having a conversation with, that I am able to predict.
I suppose I started out very intelligent as a child since I wasn't allowed in preschool, although I needed it, socially. By third grade, I realized that there was an option of not turning in homework, which led to bad grades and not caring about the subjects they taught. I concerned myself with concepts and philosophical thoughts, which examined the world as a large picture. The older I get, the more I realize that the picture keeps growing, and the facts that concern most, simply seem insignificant. I'm just in my early twenties, and although most of the time I wish I was never born or would just fall over and die, I realize that this world needs people that think this way.
For some reason, we are cursed but have the potential to use our perspective to benefit our society, that we have a programmed attachment toward. You can sit in a corner and debate for a lengthy period of time, but dedicate time toward exploring, learning, and documenting progress made. Your ability to live with depressing thoughts of the world is a skill which brings a unique perspective. You may fail, but at least you tried to create something different. The people that aren't innovative, simply waste time. Of course, one must wonder what the large perspective purpose is of innovating, but all I will say is that we have an innate feeling of benefiting the human race and our planet, which has to serve some sort of purpose that leads to an answer.
all an opinion of course, but I'd love to read more thoughts and even arguments against what I've said |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by tachobg
Adam, you deny that academic education leads to understanding, and seem to dismiss it as merely a learning of "technique." But there is something worthwhile in understanding that gravity has something to do with the geometry of spacetime, or understanding the mind-boggling complexity of the human organism, or that there's something about certain problems that makes them really hard to compute (complexity theory), or that there is some deep underlying theory about what stability and instability are, or about what information really is and how it relates to order and disorder.
All of the basics of these things can be learned in "academic" classes. The academic classes will (for the most part) NOT try to teach you about philosophy. But they can be a springboard for diving into these fields and truly trying to understand them and how they explain certain fundamental aspects of the world (such as stability/instability, order/disorder, etc).
In saying the above, I do concede that it is not the class or professor that taught you to "understand" -- it is inherently a process of self-driven discovery.
Ultimately, I am arguing that "academic"-sounding things are not merely about facts, formulas and techniques, but can be something very deep that leads one down the path to (at least some kind of) understanding. |
No no no! You're mis-characterizing my position. I believe that academic education is very important and has definitely been incredibly important in my life. The reason, though, that I cited was not about the techniques learned but the life lessons learned in the process and developing/catalyzing the faculty to ask the important questions about life that lead to understanding.
Certainly I agree with you (and woscar who said this earlier) that everyone can reach this understanding their own way, and some people are inclined to reach this understanding through science and knowledge learned through an academic setting. More power to those people.
The only thing I am really saying is that it's important to recognize that it is not the knowledge itself that leads to understanding, and that one way of reaching said understanding is not necessarily better or more true than the other. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Actually, your entire line of reasoning in this thread revolves around willfully using different definitions of words to everyone else in the thread in order to start a discussion about a book you have read. |
Paranoid much? Since Krishnamurti's collected works have shaped a lot of my understanding, I thought it would be useful to share his actual words in terms of how I have come to use them as a result, and maybe interesting to others in the thread given that the book, along with most of his work, is directly related to the content of this thread. Is that some how a crime in the court of SYSTEM-J?
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I read this:
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yeah? that's hilarious, because you quoted this when you tried to 'school' me with dictionary.com
'understanding is total acceptance of the present moment.' |
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| tachobg |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
No no no! You're mis-characterizing my position. I believe that academic education is very important and has definitely been incredibly important in my life. The reason, though, that I cited was not about the techniques learned but the life lessons learned in the process and developing/catalyzing the faculty to ask the important questions about life that lead to understanding. |
Ah - apologies. I absolutely agree with you then.
What I was arguing is that the academic things you learn serve as raw material for building deeper understanding. You will have different raw materials depending on what your experiences have been. I believe that certain academic things serve as particularly good raw material, contrary to a lot of people's idea of academics as something dry and often useless.
Part of my knee-jerk-reaction to your posts was to try to dispel some of those some of those misconceptions (though I realize I was quick to misinterpret your view). Academic things are commonly considered either too abstract (some sub-sub-sub-field of pure math) or too practical (how to fix a broken pipe) to have any apparent bearing on spiritual matters. But they are good raw material if you train yourself to be a good builder. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by wing
Depression is misunderstood like LSD/Psychedelics, it's as if someone took a magnifying glass and hovered over the negative aspects, leaving everything else out of the lens. It can yield positive results if applied to the right mind. Take Jesus, Martin Luther King, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gandhi, Eyedea,Isaac Newton, Lira?(Lol JP I know nothing about the guy) for example.| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
i have to agree with the snail on this one. depression as a medicine? that cures you of selfishness? hahaha. depressed people are the most selfish ever! |
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I don't think of myself as being selfish and, since my name is in that list provided by Wingers, I'd like to share my two cents because I do agree that depression begets solidarity.
On-topic: Intelligence and Depression
First of all, no, I don't think depression and intelligence are linked in any way, specially because I don't think intelligence is a unified concept that can come in handy for us here - there are so many different intelligences that we'd need to say what exactly we mean by that. Being an umbrella term, the scope of possible outcomes is so wide that it makes no sense to even try to make such correlation.
Though, if by that you mean that intelligence is "The ability to deal with cognitive complexity", as Linda Gottfredson puts it, I've never seen anything linking the two variables, and I see no reason why that should be the case.
As a matter of fact, I think this discussion is painfully wrongheaded: it's not smart people that are depressed, it's simple minded individuals that think life is good.
No, it sucks quite a lot, and there's nothing wrong with it.
Off-topic: Depression and Solidarity
Now I'm talking by experience here: until very recently, I didn't know what it meant to wake up and not loathe the air you breathe in the morning for more than a week. The last couple of years was the first period in my life in which I can confidently say that I experienced happiness for a long period of time, and the worse I felt, the more I'd take pity on those around me, because they too had to go through life.
In that sense, yes, it's a lot easier to be solidary when you're depressed because you see how fragile we are. You don't expect people to be almighty warriors going through life with a stiff upper lip, you know that it is perfectly okay to faulter, and that people come up with the wackiest ideas not to come with grips with it.
Nietzsche, albeit my dislike for his ideas, collapsed when he saw a horse being flogged for that exact reason: he was a kind man, and couldn't tolerate to see a "higher being" inflicting pain on an animal. That's perfectly comprehensible. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
Krishnamurti's collected works |
What did you like about his ideas? I remember I saw a debate of him with a physicist and it was just painful to watch :conf: |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
yeah, actually that's exactly the case. if you think your life has a point, you're delusional. doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. |
No, life might not have a point, but you an definitely make one if you try. You think people like Hitler and Mao and Lenin just sorta fluttered along till they became some of the most influential people of the last century?
Nefardec, you should continue to teach this point of view and spread it around as much as you can. It makes it easier for people like me to control them. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
No, life might not have a point, but you an definitely make one if you try. You think people like Hitler and Mao and Lenin just sorta fluttered along till they became some of the most influential people of the last century?
Nefardec, you should continue to teach this point of view and spread it around as much as you can. It makes it easier for people like me to control them. |
Actually it is the idea that life has to have a point that makes people easy to control. It's what makes people believe in religion, it's what makes people feel the need to go to college, get a 'real job', have a perfect family, buy a fancy lawnmower etc etc etc.
People who have chipped away at their egos and idealistic expectations of what they should 'get out' of life don't have any reason to put stock into dictators, political systems, religions, corporations, etc.
Nor would such a person have a reason to rise to power in a political party and massacre their financial and political menaces. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
Actually it is the idea that life has to have a point that makes people easy to control. It's what makes people believe in religion, it's what makes people feel the need to go to college, get a 'real job', have a perfect family, buy a fancy lawnmower etc etc etc.
People who have chipped away at their egos and idealistic expectations of what they should 'get out' of life don't have any reason to put stock into dictators, political systems, religions, corporations, etc.
Nor would such a person have a reason to rise to power in a political party and massacre their financial and political menaces. |
I think thats total bull though to be honest. You let people become aimless and drift around, not caring about their own futures and sooner or later they get fed up. People are driven to do things. It might be nice if they don't ever have that feeling, but its not the case. Obviously history (yes omg, not the present) can show you that. Its our nature.
When you let a restless, aimless, one might say, dejected class get too large they will begin to form mob or group mentalities. Look at the international depression during the 20s and 30s and the German population. You had a dejected, aimless group and National Socialism was easily able to take hold.
A Bohemian utopian ideal can not survive because human nature requires at least a good chunk of people to go out and become more powerful, either through chance or action.
So thats why I say preach your philosophy, because a drifting, aimless youth will grow up and look for a leader. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
I think thats total bull though to be honest. You let people become aimless and drift around, not caring about their own futures and sooner or later they get fed up. |
The idea isn't to not drift around aimlessly, it's to take things one moment, or at least one day at a time.
It's to believe in a future but to be proactive about it by doing everything in your power in this present moment to reach that future, rather than simply believing in it or putting it on a pedestal. |
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