3 ms·
I’m just amazed that we’re still happy to condense one of the most complex phenomena, if not *the* most complex phenomenon that we were aware of into a single s
by jcims 6y ago
I’m just amazed that we’re still happy to condense one of the most complex phenomena, if not *the* most complex phenomenon that we were aware of into a single scalar performance value.
- HPsquared 6y agoMoney is another scalar value which matters a lot.
- sokoloff 6y agoIt seems a convenient shorthand. Intelligence is surely a multi-dimensional vector, but it’s convenient in a lot of circumstances to talk about its magnitude. “All models are wrong; some models are useful.”
- orthoxerox 6y ago> Intelligence is surely a multi-dimensional vector There's a single component responsible for almost half of the difference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)
- jcims 6y agoThis is just another layer of aggregation, emphasis mine: >It is a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual's performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person's performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks.
- fighterpilot 6y agoIQ tests don't do that. They give you different scores for verbal etc. It's useful to put it into one dimension though because all those different scores are quite correlated. A well functioning brain is usually generally just good at many different things.
- SneakyTornado29 6y agoIt is valid to make this judgement about IQ itself as in the test itself. However, I think that when most people refer to IQ, they just mean the general notion of intelligence.