4 ms·

I dont think abstract games like luminosity work, but I think its fatalistic to assume that your intelligence is fixed at a certain point. You can no doubt expa

I dont think abstract games like luminosity work, but I think its fatalistic to assume that your intelligence is fixed at a certain point. You can no doubt expand your intelligence (not just knowledge) by expanding your horizons, but learning is a difficult process.

Bartweiss 9y ago
This... feels more like optimism than evidence. You can improve your performance on almost any single task, which is great news. Certain forms of learning (e.g. language) help defer dementia, exercise and meditation improve focus, memory tricks improve recall, learning diverse topics improves synthesis. But in terms of 'intelligence' in the clinical sense? Despite many people's efforts, I've never seen a single convincing success for healthy adults increasing their IQ. You can practice a specific test until it's inapplicable, but if you take one test, try to raise your IQ, and take another test, you won't see gains. Dual N-back is still the best thing known, and it doesn't work appreciably. Fortunately, the practical stuff - memory, focus, breadth of knowledge - is awfully helpful in real life. But I've never seen any evidence at all that intelligence in the IQ sense can be raised in adults.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  As you hint at in the last paragraph, IQ isn't the most important factor. What one can actually accomplish is what matters most. If one is able to improve the layer above raw IQ, the fundamental mental models that provide the base for interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing everything that happens to them, that would provide immense benefits. It seems to me that is possible, to an extent. This is something I strive for, and I think I have made a bit of encouraging progress. Of course, evaluating this is... uh... not quite straight-forward, to say the least :)
- overgard 9y ago
  Admittedly I have no evidence, but anecdotally when I started taking my health and diet seriously I feel like I gained about 10 IQ points just from fueling things better. Similarly, learning various mnemonics's and learning strategies has really helped my ability to learn more rapidly. You could argue that I'm simply capitalizing on my innate ability better -- and that would be true -- but the same argument would apply to gaining strength by training muscles. Nobody sees a muscular person thats ripped and thinks they just are lucky to be that way -- we recognize that there is both biology and effort in play, but for some reason people seem to think intelligence is pure biology. I cant prove my case, but im skeptical of that proposition. No doubt people have different ceilings for their potential, but I feel like most people who are viewed as smart arent just leaning on natural talent, rather they've cultivated skills that get the most out of what they have
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I did dance around the lifestyle point a bit, for this reason. I've never seen a study on "we took otherwise-healthy people with bad habits and got them to eat, sleep, and exercise better", but I'd have higher hopes for that boosting healthy-adult IQ than literally anything else. And I agree on the ambiguity around 'innate ability'. One could argue that general health is 'subtractive', that bad sleep/diet/exercise are drawing down potential that would exist otherwise. But that's far less clear-cut than something like "only works in dementia patients" or "only helps with Korsakoff Syndrome". I think there's something to it - lifting heavier weights and sleeping more are not unbounded sources of improvement - but I think it's also kind of a copout. If those things operate on a continuum, and people we consider "healthy adults" can still see benefits from them, that's what we wanted to find.

Bartweiss 9y ago

This... feels more like optimism than evidence. You can improve your performance on almost any single task, which is great news. Certain forms of learning (e.g. language) help defer dementia, exercise and meditation improve focus, memory tricks improve recall, learning diverse topics improves synthesis. But in terms of 'intelligence' in the clinical sense? Despite many people's efforts, I've never seen a single convincing success for healthy adults increasing their IQ. You can practice a specific test until it's inapplicable, but if you take one test, try to raise your IQ, and take another test, you won't see gains. Dual N-back is still the best thing known, and it doesn't work appreciably. Fortunately, the practical stuff - memory, focus, breadth of knowledge - is awfully helpful in real life. But I've never seen any evidence at all that intelligence in the IQ sense can be raised in adults.

dwaltrip 9y ago
As you hint at in the last paragraph, IQ isn't the most important factor. What one can actually accomplish is what matters most. If one is able to improve the layer above raw IQ, the fundamental mental models that provide the base for interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing everything that happens to them, that would provide immense benefits. It seems to me that is possible, to an extent. This is something I strive for, and I think I have made a bit of encouraging progress. Of course, evaluating this is... uh... not quite straight-forward, to say the least :)
overgard 9y ago
Admittedly I have no evidence, but anecdotally when I started taking my health and diet seriously I feel like I gained about 10 IQ points just from fueling things better. Similarly, learning various mnemonics's and learning strategies has really helped my ability to learn more rapidly. You could argue that I'm simply capitalizing on my innate ability better -- and that would be true -- but the same argument would apply to gaining strength by training muscles. Nobody sees a muscular person thats ripped and thinks they just are lucky to be that way -- we recognize that there is both biology and effort in play, but for some reason people seem to think intelligence is pure biology. I cant prove my case, but im skeptical of that proposition. No doubt people have different ceilings for their potential, but I feel like most people who are viewed as smart arent just leaning on natural talent, rather they've cultivated skills that get the most out of what they have
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I did dance around the lifestyle point a bit, for this reason. I've never seen a study on "we took otherwise-healthy people with bad habits and got them to eat, sleep, and exercise better", but I'd have higher hopes for that boosting healthy-adult IQ than literally anything else. And I agree on the ambiguity around 'innate ability'. One could argue that general health is 'subtractive', that bad sleep/diet/exercise are drawing down potential that would exist otherwise. But that's far less clear-cut than something like "only works in dementia patients" or "only helps with Korsakoff Syndrome". I think there's something to it - lifting heavier weights and sleeping more are not unbounded sources of improvement - but I think it's also kind of a copout. If those things operate on a continuum, and people we consider "healthy adults" can still see benefits from them, that's what we wanted to find.