What is Intelligence? Introduction

Hello. I asked myself this very difficult question and decided to structure my thoughts in the form of articles with the hope of criticism, so now you are reading this article.

The question “What is intelligence?” gives rise to dozens, if not hundreds, of questions, without answers to which it is impossible to answer this question. But the answer to each of them is SUBJECTIVE.

An excellent example of such a “generated” question is: “What activity is intellectual?”

• Some people think that reading books is an intellectual activity, but I don't. (More details in the article “What activity is intellectual?”)

• Some people think that playing chess is an intellectual activity, but I don’t.

• Some people consider {the activity} an intellectual pursuit, while others do not.

It seems like the answer suggests itself: “This is an activity that causes active brain activity.” But there is CRAZY quantity OBJECTIVE questions with SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTION answers for evaluation. For example, here are questions about reading to another person:

• What genre of literature do you read? (Filtering, quite subjective)

• What and for how long do you keep your attention while reading? (A person can lose the main idea, again very subjectively)

• What ideas did you take away from this production? (Great question and lead-in to the next one, very subjective reaction to the answer)

• How will you implement them/will you implement the ideas you receive? (The best question to ask, and your reaction to it is also subjective)

But here's where the harsh reality comes in. Who judges what's right?

An insane number of logical questions with a subjective perception of the answer. Who evaluates the correctness? I, I and only I – a person who is interested in self-development, evaluates the correctness.

Read more about this in the article “How can you evaluate yourself?”

It is important to note that this logic NOT APPLICABLE in the process of independent learning.

One might object that “the person is pathetic and will not criticize himself constructively“, but then what's the point of even asking the question “What is intelligence?” This question is needed for self-development. Period.

And for self-development it is necessary absolute impartiality towards oneself and constructive analysis of one’s actions and mistakes.

What's the bottom line?

This question has no objective answer.

The question is incredibly abstract, so we can try to break it down into more down-to-earth, but still abstract, questions. The first of these would probably be another introductory question: “Why would I ask such a question?”

Roadmap of questions

Here will be collected all the questions that have already been analyzed or that have appeared in the process of creating articles. I will arrange them in the order that I consider logical.

1. Why should I ask the question “What is intelligence”?

2. What activities are intellectual?

3. If there is intellectual activity, then what is there, below?

4. Where is the balance point?

5. How can you evaluate yourself?

6. What should you look at when evaluating yourself?